Polydor
Pop, 2002

Gregg Alexander is such a hypocrite. This is a man who sang anti-corporate songs, but when his career as New Radicals tanked, here he is, hawking the songs from his reject bin to Ronan Keating! What I wouldn’t give to have him locked in the same room as the members of Chumbawamba.

Having the most success with Gregg Alexander’s songs, Ronan Keating and his management team have smartly decided to use almost the entire space on this album to showcase Mr Alexander’s rejects. Hence, jaunty songs like I Love It When We Do, Love Won’t Work (If We Don’t Try), Come Be My Baby, et cetera – all forgettable tunes that skirt around the sides of just being passably pleasant. Of course, we can’t forget the painful ballads, hence we also have painful renditions of Garth Brooks’s If Tomorrow Never Comes and other agonizing snooze-bores.

Throughout it all, Mr Keating sounds as if someone has pumped a gallon of clips into his stomach and he is best trying to sing while keeping his innards still stuffed in his stomach. Mastiffs with sore throats in a drunken orchestral duet with asthmatic alley cats sound much better than anything on this album.

Except that really cute Pickin’ Me Up, which is really adorable thanks to that husky-voiced female background singer. She sounds a lot like Lulu and Lisa Lisa’s love child.