video review: 'chapter one' by ella henderson

First video of tonight, and honestly one of those I should have tackled earlier. Surprisingly good.

Okay, second video is on its way - stay tuned!

album review: 'chapter one' by ella henderson

I've said before that I tend to keep a healthy distance from any pop project backed by Simon Cowell and his label Syco Records. At this point, it's self-preservation, really, and it's not even that Cowell makes 'bad' pop music. If anything, his music projects fall more in the lines of intensely bland pop slurry that are riveted to following major trends instead of leading them, the sort of material guaranteed to sell to a less discerning public. 

And what blows my mind is that people haven't picked upon this yet - I mean, it's not like he hasn't been a major public figure in pop music and the music talent show circuit for years now. If you want to know why so many American Idol and X-Factor winners vanish off the face of the earth after dropping debut albums through Syco, it's because they aren't marketed as unique personalities, but instead just more product in the assembly line of pop stars, their personality boiled down to the broadest essentials for demographic appeal. And sure, it can make for short entertaining flashes, but longer-term careers in pop music are based off of unique personality. And if you want to know why many appear in the spotlight for a brief second before dropping off the face of the earth... well, now you know why.

In other words, I wasn't exactly interested to dig into the newest record from Ella Henderson, a performer who placed sixth on the ninth season of X-Factor, despite being one of the biggest favourites to win that season. Despite that, she was picked up by Syco Records and apparently was given significantly more creative freedom - and indeed, she has writing credits on nearly every song on the album. And that hadn't stopped her from attaining a fair few well-charting hits on the UK Charts - but let's make this clear, just because an act charts in the UK doesn't mean it's anything close to good - thanks to a lack of recurring rules and a smaller population, all sorts of weird crap pops up on the UK charts all the time. But to be fair, Ella Henderson didn't seem to be a flash in the pan - the fact she didn't win X-Factor and still got signed, coupled with solid critical reviews and beating Jessie J's sales in the UK, maybe she was the real deal. So with perpetual lateness, I gave her debut album Chapter One a listen - how is it?