An embarrassment of emotion

It has been nearly seven years since Westlife first appeared in the music scene. Shane, Mark, Bryan, Nicky, and Kian, neat and natty boys freshly picked out of Sligo and Dublin, were known as Westside then. Boyzone, the boy band of the day, had reached its peak, and with rumors of it disbanding, the time seemed right for the entrance of the next big Irish boy band. Since that time, Westlife has sold 35 million records worldwide, put out more than a dozen number-one singles, and received several music awards. The boys have become familiar faces, the object of both admiration and (the price of fame) derision.

When the group released a greatest hits package three years ago, many thought that the end was imminent – this despite the album title Unbreakable. Bryan did break away from the group last year to pursue a solo career (with the album Irish Son). But three weddings, a few kids, and a coming out later, Westlife, now a quartet, is still in good and in some ways, better form.

Face to Face is Westlife’s seventh album, the boys’ second as a quartet. After Allow Us to Be Frank in which they interpreted songs from the Rat Pack era, they return to their specialty. Here are effusive ballads, interspersed with a few upbeat numbers, all on the phases and aspects of romantic love. The sound is still pleasantly pop, with hints of Motown and gospel; the image, by and large still immaculate.

Two tracks are of special interest, both remakes. One is When You Tell Me That You Love Me, a duet with the song’s original interpreter Diana Ross. To the prurient, it might recall Mrs. Robinson, but after Mark’s coming out, the duet with the wig-wearing diva is only to be expected. Additionally, the original recording was not merely dubbed over. Diana Ross’s vocals are new, and her voice has retained its cool, soothing timbre. The other is You Raise Me Up, most recently popularized by Josh Groban. By the composer’s own reckoning, Westlife’s version, with a bagpipe interlude, is the 100th incarnation of the song. It has the additional charm for loyal fans in that it coincidentally glances back at You Raise Me Up, a song from the group’s earliest album.

This is an album sure to make those who like the Westlife package swoon anew, although it is also likely to affirm the prejudices of those who are not sympathetic to the group – a case of "take it or leave it."

The album is also an interesting illustration of the boy band discourse, which in many ways, is a continuation of the tradition of courtly love begun in the Middle Ages. The adoration of the beloved’s beauty, the abjection of the lover-speaker before the beloved, the invitation to love, the lover’s gratitude at love received, the pledge of loyalty, the consolatory effect of love, and so on – these are the stuff of the 11 songs, as they were of the romances and the canzoniere of old. The controlling idea is that of love ennobling, invigorating, and entrammeling.

In expression, the songs derive from the stock of verbal formulas of the romances. Hence, flora, fauna, and celestial bodies are used to describe the love situation and especially the beloved; for example, "You’re the bluebird in my sky" (That’s Where You Find Love). Hyperbole is the figure of choice: "Let the world stop turning / Let the sun stop burning . . . /In this life, I was loved by you" (In This Life). The divide between persona and singer is thin, and the listener is interpellated as the beloved, the "you" of the song.

In one instance at least, the continuities are striking. Where in the Vita Nouva Dante writes, "Joyous Love looked to me while he was holding / My heart within his hands, and in his arms / My lady lay asleep wrapped in a veil. / He woke her then and trembling and obedient / She ate that burning heart out of his hand; / Weeping I saw him then depart from me," in the song She’s Back, Westlife sings (the diction obviously less felicitous), "Like a predator and prey / She’ll tear my heart away / She’ll chew me to the bone / Leave me rotting here alone / Till she’s back again."

In most places, the idiom is contemporary: "Girl, I love to watch you / You’re like candy to my eyes / Like a movie that you’ve seen / But you got to watch just one more time" (A Heart without a Home). The lyrics, as an old Broadway song goes, are "as corny as Kansas in August." The effect, however, can sometimes be (quoting from the same song) "as high as a flag in July" – an embarrassment of emotion.

Most interesting is that almost self-referential quality of the album. Half of the album consists of remakes of songs by other boy bands or boy band graduates, viz., the Backstreet Boys (Colour My World), Nick Carter (Heart without a Home), and Ronan Keating (In This Life). The others are imitations of previous Westlife recordings or other boy bands’ music: thus, Amazing is arranged like I Want It That Way; Hit You with the Real Thing is N’Sync’s Bye, Bye, Bye and Pop in disguise; That’s Where You Find Love is regurgitated On My Shoulder, When a Woman Loves a Man, and many another Westlife tune.

In the end, the album establishes that Westlife is good for another seven years and that the boy band discourse has crystallized. Seven years ago, we were looking through a glass darkly. Now we see face to face; and the sight is still pretty.