In celebration of ten amazing years at the top of the boyband hierarchy, let's take a look back at Westlife's very first album, and see why it catapulted them into superstardom(which included 40 million albums sales, 14 number one singles and massive sold-out arena tours..).Westlife was the first of maybe three or four experimental albums, all the songs had a certain sound to it that differed slightly from their albums. You can clearly hear them going down the ballad mid-tempo route, something they've come to master and repeat over and over again.
Westlife aren't your typical sing wimpy songs and jump around the stage boyband, they can actually sing pretty well. Have you ever heard of another big boyband who can master five-part harmonies like Westlife can? NOPE! Which is why the Westlife formula is heart-wrenching ballads and mushy love songs that show off just how un-wimpy their voices are.
That formula is clearest in two songs, Swear It Again and Flying Without Wings which are two of the biggest Westlife songs. See? That is exactly what I'm talking about, the formula in work. Swear It Again was used as their debut, and the song just exploded. People clearly reacted well to the formula, Simon and Louis saw it.
And the album tracks kept to that formula, I Need You, Can't Loose What You Never Had, Try Again and We Are One all used and supported the Westlife formula that people liked so much. They kept to that formula, while churning out some typical boyband songs like No No and Open Your Heart, that are still to this day, amazing.
It may not have been a number one album, but it dictated where the band would go music-wise, and proved the point that pop is a formula. Formula or not, Westlife is an amazing debut album and it was a huge success something that's extremely hard to do for a boyband or any artist.
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