Look, seriously; it'd be an absolute breeze to rudimentarily slate this album. However, the easiest option is not necessarily the most accurate, so Shayne, if anything, deserves a fair whack. There's always a market for pop, ergo there needs to be someone to sate that market, be you a fan or not. Since being crowned Rex of the X last December, the 20 year-old Mancunian has bagged himself the impervious Christmas number one slot, a Brit nomination and sales of over a million records. For his eponymous debut, the record company bigwigs have called in the cavalry; the hottest names in pop production (Steve Mac, Jorgen Elofsson) are amongst those behind the sound desk and lyric notepad. However, a hotshot team does not a masterpiece make. Sure, Shayne can hold a tune, and yes, he does have a voice that mammies/teenage girls will swoon/salivate over, not to mention the brooding Sex God/Boy-Next-Door popstar looks to boot. Nonetheless, from humdrum opener That's My Goal through to bonus track (a truly vapid version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow taken DEAD from the X Factor), Ward's talent is never faithfully sought. Instead he meanders lifelessly along a dreary highway of saccharine piano ballads (Stand by Me), predictable lyrics (What About Me) and heard-it-all-before pop compositions (the sub-Another Level slushfest of A Better Man).A cover of Brian McKnight's 'Back At One' fares slightly better and is a perceptibly more impressive exhibition of his vocal strengths. Even when the quality does peak, though, it remains mediocre; Something Worth Living For is a half-decent pop tune and Ward rises to its key changes ably; Next to Me is one of the few uptempo Lemar-style displays, and I Cry could be the successor to the Spice Girls' Viva Forever. Admittedly, Ward himself is not to blame for the songwriting shortcomings per se; yet when he sings 'I just want to die in your arms tonight' (No Promises), he's not only incredibly unconvincing, but exceedingly, feebly passionless. The formulaic pop-by-numbers approach (slow start, build to a huge crescendo/key change at last quarter, throw in optional gospel singers) does Shayne Ward a great disservice on his debut album; but when the Men Behinds Desks see a handsome, marketable young lad who can knock out a tune in a somewhat soulfully-grainy voice, they don't get excited about nurturing some uncultivated gift; they see the prospective dollar signs. I doubt he's complaining, though - it would take a bigger person than he, or indeed most of us, to turn down the offer of overnight fame, fortune and adulation; but what most of these X Factorites fail to realise is that you're required to pawn your soul in the interim. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, and in a year or two he'll turn his back on the industry to live in a woodcutter's cottage in the Highlands and write folk songs for a living; but somehow, I doubt it. Oh well. Another one bites the gold-plated dust.

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