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It seems cheap and frankly, rather predictable to slam an X-Factor winner’s music purely because they are an X-Factor winner; by now we all know that many critics are not huge fans of Simon Cowell’s meat churner for success in the music industry.
But it’s not because of X-Factor that this album loses validity, it’s because it’s dull, predictable and after a few songs becomes truly irritating. There’s only so many poor imitations of 90s era Justin Timberlake “Oohs” and hums that can be heard before it begins to force your face to cringe.
Indeed, cringing is something Cardle evokes out of the listener relentlessly. Taking on writing and production duties (with collaborations), Cardle confines himself to every stereotype in the male solo artist field. Songs are made ‘emotional’ and ‘heartfelt’ by merely playing a piano and adding lyrics about cliché struggles of love over the top, for example ‘Not Over You’.
Any attempt to make the album more passionate or add any kind of spice to it is far too predictable and anesthetised to make any impact. On ‘Mouth to Mouth’ guitars are made far more interesting relative to other tracks on the record, but lyrically when he sighs “I don’t need a doctor, you can give me what I need” it’s near impossible to avoid gagging, which one can assume is not the kind of activity occurring in mouths that Cardle wished to write about.
There are plenty who will no doubt connect with Cardle’s falsetto voice and lyrics. Many will indeed claim that they get goosebumps from listening to it. I imagine though that there will be a few who may have their skin crawl instead...
