From Sex and the City to pop-punk to low-slung jeans and tiny bags, the early-00s revival has been wide-ranging and frantic. It feels easier to list the turn-of-the-millennium culture that hasn’t been post-ironically reappropriated by Gen Z – and Irish crooners Westlife are among the last ones standing (or rather, perched uncomfortably on a tall stool).
Not that the foursome, who specialised in soppy, R&B-dusted pop, have been idly waiting to be rediscovered. After their astonishing 00s success (17 consecutive top-five singles, including 14 No 1s), the group split up in 2012, and re-formed in 2018. Their chart-topping comeback album, Spectrum, drew on the songwriting nous of young(ish) talents Ed Sheeran and James Bay. Wild Dreams reunites the band with Sheeran for the melodically pleasant but lyrically lacklustre My Hero, while Tom Grennan assists on the perfectly functional Starlight.
These more traditional ballads are the album’s highlights: simple, unforced and a showcase for some strong vocal performances. The rest is less pretty. There is much desperate divorced-dad energy here, courtesy of the kind of fiddly, Bieber-esque production that saturated mid-10s charts, as well as some slightly icky lyrics. Alone Together turns a pandemic slogan into a cringey chat-up line; the title track suggests a woman “crawl into my bed” before a chorus that strongly recalls DJ Khaled’s Wild Thoughts.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that Wild Dreams belongs in the past – and not, unfortunately, the band’s now-zeitgeisty Y2K heyday. Their cheesy early hits may be ripe for revival, but Westlife 2.0 are the wrong kind of uncool.
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