This is getting a bit much. Not content with making his fortune on the back of some of the most anodyne music ever to besmirch Irish radios, industry svengali Louis Walsh is now claiming to be the country's leading pop critic - and here's the cash-in compilation to prove it. You could nearly write the tracklisting of this one with your eyes shut: Boyzone, Bellefire, Westife, Samantha Mumba - each one more chirpily empty than the next. The second CD, however, does at least throw up a few surprises, with Joe Dolan and The Swarbriggs rubbing shoulders with a succession of Eurovision winners and, er, the Carter Twins. Sadly, the real heroes of Irish pop (Thin Lizzy, the Undertones, U2) are, predictably enough, conspicuous only by their absence. So while as a compilation this gets some marks for its sheer brazenness, as history it can only be described as a bit of a joke.
