video review: 'word of mouth' by the wanted

Well, this turned out better than expected. Certainly better than what I'm going to have to deal with tomorrow...

So yeah, it's ARTPOP tomorrow. You have been warned.

album review: 'word of mouth' by the wanted

Back before I was doing video reviews, back before I had my blog, back in 2011, I reviewed the new albums from two aspiring boy bands, One Direction and The Wanted. Both were rising stars on the American charts with their respective songs, 'Glad You Came' and 'What Makes You Beautiful'. Both hailed from England, and were poised to take North America by storm...

And that didn't happen. Despite the occasional single propelled through the charts for a single week (before crashing and burning), One Direction were the band that made the largest musical impact, seemingly leaving The Wanted to fizzle out on the other side of the pond. For a guy who was expecting a repeat of the TRL boy band wars of the late 90s, I was puzzled by the seeming lack of conflict and why The Wanted didn't seem to build the same audience. Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I think it would come down to two things: one, the marketing power behind One Direction and their highly devoted cult of fans (drawn because One Direction are perversely good at appealing to the deepest insecurities of their fanbase); and two, The Wanted came across as distinctly more mature, a little older and a little slicker, despite the content of their material being roughly analogous to that of their rivals. And in 2012, with silly teen pop music only getting dumber, sillier, and less mature, The Wanted taking themselves as seriously as they did probably wasn't the best move. It also really didn't help matters that Nathan Sykes, one of their better singers, had to take time off because of throat surgery - thankfully he recovered and was able to sing on Ariana Grande's album, but it couldn't have helped The Wanted's momentum going forward.

But now they are back with a new album - and apparently their marketing team continues to hate them because this week they're facing down the twin debuts of Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and Lady Gaga's ARTPOP (which I will get to, give me time). Compared with One Direction, who have their new release later this month and aren't facing, well, any competition, this doesn't look good for The Wanted. And yet, I won't hesitate to make the argument that I actually like The Wanted more than One Direction. Now that's not saying much  - neither Justin Timberlake or The Backstreet Boys have anything to worry about here - but The Wanted are opting for a slightly older audience and seem to be trying to emulate The Backstreet Boys' appeal circa Millennium and Black & Blue. So with that in mind, I picked up their newest album Word Of Mouth, a long-delayed album recorded over the course of two years with singles being released as early as a year and a half ago. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting anything close to good here - was I wrong?