The story of A1’s return to pop is really heartwarming and an inspiration to all pop hasbeens. Their UK following may have diminished but their fanbase remained strong in Christian’s home country of Norway, and they’re now one of the nation’s biggest pop acts. I’m sure they’d all love to regain their UK success, but they’ve just released an album, Waiting For Daylight, they should be very proud of. They get to perform live for appreciative crowds and live the popstar life that they had lost. It’s a pretty good deal compared to the Big Brother appearances and disastrous solo career attempts of the past few years.
The album continues where Make It Good left off, with A1 as an instrument-playing singer-songwriter type boyband, but the songs are just as pop as ever while actually managing incredibly well to move with the times. A1 were doing the Coldplay-pop thing in 2009, before The Wanted even existed! I much prefer A1’s new sound to Take That’s comparatively very dull version of how a grown-up boyband should sound. The album’s hit singles In Love and I Hate It, Take You Home (below) and Don’t Wanna Lose You Again are the best tracks but other standouts include Bad Enough, It Happens Every Day and Nothing In Common.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRxG9wZAWFM&fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca]
One album track, Perfect Disaster, clearly speaks of the band’s experiences of returning to pop in a very different era: “now the world’s moving faster, this could be a disaster, is the change that I’m making worth the risk that I’m taking?” The world certainly has changed since A1’s heyday (see video above!) but they have responded to it in the best way imaginable. By relaunching in Norway they have made the best of what they have rather than wasting time trying to force a UK comeback to succeed, and they’ve given us a collection of songs that stands up against any male pop group around today. It’s not the coolest thing to listen to long-forgotten late 90s boybands but when they make music as good as this it really should be!
Take You Home is a huge surprise – and that performance was spot-on. Looking forward to what the rest sounds like.
I really like the album – i've been meaning to write about it for a couple of weeks but I keep getting lured in by other things. It's an incredibly solid album – perhaps not the most exciting or innovative but definitely one that draws me back in regularly.
I agree with you=)
I´ve been following the solo careers of Chris and Mark, and think this album is really catchy and good, but still surprisingly cheesy at times.
They´re planning on releasing the stuff in the UK over Christmas by the way. You should try go to a concert, I think their live sound is better=) and you can really see that they are enjoying themselves!
I hope they do perform in the UK! They should leave releasing stuff til next year though as it won't even trouble the top 40 at this time of year.
Check this out! Teaser for the Tove Styrke album: http://vimeo.com/16627337
This is apparently the first song that she dared to send to her A&R at Sony. After that they changed the schedule for the album to involve her in the songwriting and production.
Agree with you when you say the other best songs on the album are : Bad Enough, It Happens Every Day and Nothing In Common, those are my favourites, though I can find 7 favourites, songs that I really love, but all of them are so good! On this album the boys put all their best and their talent. They are one of the best in their style. I was disappointed with their sales in Norway, reaching #5 is not bad, but they are huge in Norway, and there it would be easier to get #1 than in the UK 🙁 . And it was so sad seeing people uploading the album to the internet. I know people from Asia, that admitted have downloaded their album, even tho it was only accessible to BUY for people in Europe :(.
Anyway, I hope they do comeback to the UK, and I'll do my best to promote and get them high (fans power is huge!!).
They've said that the UK and the rest of the world are next year.I believe and hope they do GREAT promotion, even though they don't have much support financially for doing so.
Good luck to these talented and nice boys! Can't wait to seeing them live next week in Norway!
The Life That Could Have Been is actually my favorite among all the tracks. I could almost relate with the song story that made me cried a bit. This band is still the best for me. They have different sounds in their different albums.
The album is freaking awesome! Love every track on it! It's really sad that they're almost finished touring Norway. So gonna miss having them around! Wish them all the best though. Me and a friend of mine have already started planning our trip to see the boys in England sometime around next year, haha! Gonna be awesome 🙂
Oh, and if any of you get a chance to see them live, take it! They're even better live in my opinion 🙂
I Love the album. I got a copy of it from a friend in Norway, but still I will buy the Waiting For Daylight Asian version (with bonus track Everytime, Like A Rose, Same Old Brand New New, if i'm not mistaken) that will be release anytime soon here in Asia.
The guys will be in the Philippines for One Week long for charity works in Cebu before their concert at Smart Araneta here in Manila together with Blue and Jeff Timmons of 98 degrees on the 25th of February 2012 =)