Westlife Album: “Love Album [Deluxe Edition]”

Although their singles have spawned 14 #1's on UK charts, Westlife remains relatively unkown to American audiences. While they tried to break out to the US mainstream scene 2000, they did not gain enough success to warrent more appearences in the States; it's a shame, because while all the boy groups of their time (Backstreet Boys, N'Sync) have become defunct and dreary Westlife are still standing (and doing quite well.)

Westlife is currently composed of Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Kian Egan and Nicky Byrne. While Filan's versatile voice and Feehily's soulful tone carry the harmonies, Byrne and Egan have distinctive voices that also add to the melodies. However, Byrne and Egan do not have solos on The Love Album and are rarely distinguishable on the songs at all. "The Rose", "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", "Love Can Build A Bridge", and "The Dance" are songs that showcase Filan and Feehily's voices exceptionally well, but this album is too reliant on them. However, Filan and Fehilly do an admirable job on vocals. The album does have its low points. "You Are So Beautiful (To Me)" is dreadfully slow and "All Out Of Love" is nothing special for a duet. "All Or Nothing" is not that different from the O-Town version. "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" is oddly out of place; it would have sounded better on Westlife's rat pack cover album, Allow Us To Be Frank.

Overall, this is a gratifying collection of love songs. Westlife definitely has a lot of vocal talent and it's a crime they have never been fully appreciated in the States, even during the boyband boom in 2000. As one of the remnants of the boy band age, Westlife have performed admirably. I recommend you pick The Love Album up if you can find it.

Cheaper than the original here in the US and the bonus tracks are good. Love the remix of Total Eclipse of the Heart and Solitaire.

Many fans were disappointed when they heard that "Love Album" will be an album of covers, but I wasn't one of them! I know that this album will be as great as Westlife's previous albums because you can't really go wrong with covers, since Westlife (or their managers) will pick the BEST OF THE BEST SONGS! Well, I was almost right...

Some of the songs I enjoy on this album are "Total Eclipse of the Heart", "Have You Ever Been In Love", "The Dance", and "All Or Nothing". Mark performed really well overall, while Shane did well also, except at some time his voice is really rasp. Nicky and Kian are M.I.A. in most parts of the album, but in "Love Can Build A Bridge", fans can enjoy their beautiful voices.

I didn't really enjoy "You Are So Beautiful (To Me)" or "You Light Up My Life", I think they should've substituted these songs with the B-side's "If" and "Nothing Is Going To Change My Love For You", because 1st, they are REALLY good songs, and 2nd, they feature Kian and Nicky.

Back to the real album, "All Out Of Love" is a better duet than the previous duet from "Face to Face", but it lacks surprises...talking about surprise, the last track "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" is quite a shock (in a good way)...I heard a lot of complaints about this song, but I like it quite a lot (especially when Mark hits the high notes, and I enjoy Shane's low notes also)! Overall, this album is not to be missed! Like all fans, I am waiting for a Westlife album that contains original songs!

I thought it was going to be a lot of their original romantic songs, but it wasn't. But it was still very good.

I found these guys about 3 years ago I was wondering why I never heard of them before they are my fav group and always will be. They are big well known all over the world, they never preformed in the U.S.. At the time we had the Back Street Boys the rest of the world had Westlife. Don't get me wrong some people liked the Back Street Boys but Westlife is so much better. West Life has some original songs but mostly they do covers, normally I don't like people doing covers but Westlife does the covers better then the original performers.