(Polydor / Universal)

Warning: this review contains a critical analysis of boy band lyrics. Derrida has a lot to answer for.

Boy bands – that most-reviled category to which Take That squarely belong – are pretty easy to criticise. Doing a hatchet job on this album would be as easy as finding an emo kid in the Queen Street mall – so, instead, I’m going to try to analyse why, exactly, this stuff sells. The inoffensive nature of the music itself must have something to do with it, but I think the key is in the lyrics, which are all appear to be about deep heartache and the complexities of romance without actually offering anything remotely concrete. For instance, when one of the boys sings I don’t want to see you hurting / Just hold on / Just hold on to me, what exactly is the backstory? Is he singing about his girl being crushed after something as jejune as a bad day at work or as serious as going through with an abortion? Who knows? The very blandness of the lyrics and music allows the audience to project their own emotions and situations onto the songs, creating meaning. In a perverse way, these songs are about everything and anything, precisely because they’re about nothing. If this, then, is the criterion by which we should judge boy bands, then Take That succeed admirably. But I hope you’ll understand if I never listen to Beautiful World again.

**½

CHAD PARKHILL

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