AARON’S PARTY

Aaron Carter

My God, he is serious. He really wants to be a star and nothing short of the end of the world is going to stop him (and he'll probably do a song during the Closing Ceremony for that and all). A couple of years ago, when he was just a tiny little muppet with floppy hair and a penchant for covering old songs really badly, you could blame it all on his parents for pushing little micro-Carter (as anyone under the age of 12 knows, his older brother's a Backstreet Boy - stop laughing) into the spotlight, but there's no excuse for this. Kids will go head over heels to get hold of this wretched thing while everyone else will go head over toilet-bowl. He starts off by informing us that we're listening to "a little bit of old skool" while a Funky Guitar TM plays in the background and then the song starts and… he raps. All the way through. Nice. Apparently, it's an amusing tale about how he once had a little party that got a tad out of hand and ended up with so many people invited that it must have broken several Fire and Safety regulations, not to mention the house getting redecorated in lots of fascinating and unconventional ways. This is precisely the sort of thing you'd put out if you had a huge fanbase, it's poppy, bright (but totally soulless) and he's been doing this sort of thing for years. Unfortunately, his fanbase must've been on holiday when the last single came out as that didn't even make the Top 30 and it's hard to see this doing much better. Have hope, one day he's got to put out something decent. The law of averages says so.

SAINTS AND SINNERS

All Saints (album)

I was surprised at just how forgettable this album is. From start to finish the whole thing sounds pretty funky, a little bit edgy and very nice, but there's precious little here that you'll be able to recall once the album's finished. Some of the blame has to be laid at William Orbit's door, after all there's only so many times you can remake Madonna's Ray Of Light (although to be fair he's not involved in all of this), but all in all, considering the wait it's nothing special.