Westlife takes on the oldies - SOUNDS FAMILIAR by Baby A. Gil

It’s certainly not that these guys need any help with their original materials especially as far as local music buyers are concerned. Truth to tell, these past two years have seen Weslife consistently in the hit charts with their own songs. As of this writing the British boy group’s top sellers are I Lay My Love on You, My Love and its latest single release Uptown Girl.

Now, Uptown Girl is a song composed and popularized by Billy Joel, who, according to pop music lore wrote it for his then wife, the stunning supermodel Christy Brinkley. This single was released initially in support of the charity Comic Relief, that was formed to alleviate poverty and to help promote social justice in the UK, Ireland and Africa. Part of the proceeds from Uptown Girl sales in the UK goes to Comic Relief. I do not know if the Philippines is participating in this project but Malaysia is donating a percentage out of its take from the Westlife Special Edition repackaged album.

This Special Edition release is now also available in the Philippines. This is made up of the Coast to Coast album which contains I Lay My Love on You, My Love and the boys’ duet of Against All Odds with Mariah Carey. There is a strong possibility that you already have a copy of Coast to Coast, so why on earth would you want the Special Edition?

Well, those clever marketing guys behind Westlife have made sure that you would because this particular Coast to Coast comes with a poster and a free CD. This CD is the one that contains Uptown Girl in two different mixes and a few other interesting cuts. There is Jimmy Ruffin’s classic What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, the Jackson Five hit I’ll Be There, the Temptations’ My Girl remixes of I Lay My Love on You and When You’re Looking Like That plus the Westlife Megamix, which is a medley of what else but Westlife hits.

So why all this to do about Westlife when Bryan, Kian, Mark, Nicky and Shane still have to come up with a new studio album? That is because these boys are doing an Asian tour this month and they will be performing at the Araneta Coliseum on Tuesday, May 29. Support acts will be German pop star Christian Wunderlich and the fast-rising Anna Fegi.

M2M’s Shades of Purple

More repackaging is also going on with the sweet-sounding duo from Oslo, Norway, M2M. The girls recently came up with a new copy of the big selling Shades of Purple. This one is a super production of 19 cuts with a bonus VCD sub-titled Exclusive Asian Interview Edition. This means that you will be able to watch Marit and Marion being interviewed, get a sneak preview of what is coming up for M2M and also own a copy of the video of The Day You Went Away.

Like in the case of Coast to Coast, a lot of you out there probably already have a copy of Shades of Purple. So why get this new one? Well, you will find in the CD that there are also newly recorded vocals and two new mixes of Everything You Do, plus a Mandarin version of Pretty Boy. Besides, by this time around you must have already worn out your old album and rather than do without listening to M2M, why don’t you get this one.

Megahit 10 collection

Great news for young music buyers: Nearly all of your top favorites can be found together in the Megahit 10 collection. There are 17 cuts that range from Britney to Kylie Minogue Please Stay to the Spice Girls Holler to the Moffatts Who Do You Love down to the sensational Craig David, Walking Away and the Baha Men of Who Let the Dogs Out fame. And there is also a free VCD that contains videos of Shape of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys, Stronger by Britney Spears and two versions of This I Promise You by N’Sync. As if these were not yet enough, there is also an interview with the BSB about the Black and Blue album.

There is no need anymore to go to those poor quality pirate CDs to get hold of the hit compilation you want. Megahit 10 is the answer to your prayers.