Dirrrty Pop Review: Will Young – Keep On

1. Keep On
An ace upbeat number to begin with, just like Friday’s Child, which of course had Love The One You’re With. Annoyingly, half the lyrics are missed out on the sleeve, but I presume this is everyone’s, not just mine.

2. Switch It On
We all know this one of course, and it sounds great following Keep On.

3. All Time Love
The supposed “new Leave Right Now” is quite slow but it builds up and is as lovely as expected and obviously going to be a huge hit.

4. Ain’t Such A Bad Place To Be
This one is written by the wonderful Karne Poole, and kind of sounds like the male version of Misfit, the fab song she wrote for Amy Studt. Lots of squelchy noises, wouldn’t sound out of place in a musical or as a Tyler James single. The lyrics are clever, although they have a bizarre amount of “!!!”s on the sleeve.

5. Think It Over
This sounds like several Friday’s Child songs – typical Will, and I can totally imagine him playing it live.

6. Who Am I
A really really lovely ballad. Very sweet, but not in the slightly sickly way of Love Is A Matter Of Distance, which I know some people disliked (although I personally love that one). The granny fans will adore this one, but so do I.

7. Happiness
A jaunty tune with a very suitable name. A little bit jazzy but poppy too. Will will definitely be doing his silly salsa to this one. There is an odd section which reminds me of elevator music. The song also includes the line “Happiness is being gay”. Hmm, cryptic!

8. Save Yourself
This song has been around a while as it was sung on Will’s last tour. It’s on the DVD if you’ve got it. It’s about domestic violence, a subject Will did a thesis on at uni and feels strongly about. Obviously it’s a sad song, but hopefully it will help some people.

9. Madness
Robin Thicke wrote this one! He wrote the best song on Will’s last album, Very Kind, so I had high expectations for this one, and it is pretty great. There are some fab violin bits, and the song grows as it goes on, getting really great by the end.

10. All I Want
A bit darker than the other songs, the backing music sounds like something from a spy film. The song is a real grower, though.

11. Think About It
There’s a lot of thinking songs on this album! Well, two, but two more than most albums have. This reminds me of Friday’s Child the song.

12. Home
This is the song written by the very cool producer/artist-in-his-own-right Nitin Sawhney, and it’s very good in a relaxed way. It’s a really lovely song which reminds me a little of Zero 7 (though it could just be the title influencing me), but mostly of Nickel Creek.

Overall, an absolutely fantastic album, but of course I expected nothing less.

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