I WANT CANDY

Aaron Carter

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the record shop... I thought he'd gone away, taken a long, hard look at his musical career thus far, realised his place in the history of musical events would be somewhere far below Starturn On 45 Pints, spent an afternoon booing his eyes out in despair and then gone off and got a job to which he was better suited (involving a bike, a set of newspapers and a wildly inaccurate throw if American movies are to be believed). Wrong. He's still at it and if this is a taste of things to come, he's still churning out cover versions of songs that really don't deserve this sort of punishment. This time the pop cherub has attacked a Bow Wow Wow song and the results aren't pretty. Everything that emanates from my speakers arrive at my ears with a cheery grin and a permanently sunny disposition - this is most unsettling. See, in the world of Aaron Carter the sun always shines, the grass is always green, nobody's ever ill, there's full employment - need I go on? After all this I'm left wondering if this is all there is he has to offer and right now I fear it is. The most frightening thing about all this is I think he's serious.

SING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING

Robbie Williams (album)

"Ain't no chance of the record company dropping me" sings Robbie during Kids and he knows it. There's a good reason for this - he's gradually getting better at songwriting. Fair do's, Rock DJ was, is and always shall be a musical disaster and Supreme borrows so heavily from I Will Survive that the instrumental break from the original is transported in full over to the new song, but this album shows a slightly more serious side to Mr Williams than we're used to. The jokey lyrics are all but gone and in their place are a procession of songs regarding love and devotion. Unfortunately, the tunes themselves are getting less and less interesting to listen to. In fact, it sounds very, very safe and sounds like just more standard-issue pop / rock that's cluttering the airwaves already. It may be a lot better than the last LP, but it's not the masterpiece he was hoping for.