Album Review: Eoghan Quigg - Self Titled

Released April 6

Our house was completely split during the X Factor final, with all of us arguing over whether Eoghan Quigg or JLS were the best - none of us liked the Leona Lewis carbon copy…

But it seems we were all right as both sets of finalists have made themselves a bit of cash since the demise of the show, however, the length of their success will only become clear in time. One thing’s for sure though, Eoghan Quigg’s self-titled debut is going to go down a treat with kiddie teeny-boppers.

The Irish lad, who is quite a little fox for his 16 years, and his debut single, 28,000 Friends (which was written by ex-Busted hottie James Bourne) is destined to propel little Eoghan back into teenage hearts all over again.

It pokes fun at the Facebook / MySpace kids who just add anyone and everyone in order to make their friends lists higher than that of the kid who sits next to them in class, and although he might be poking fun at his potential listeners I’m sure they’ll understand what he’s trying to say… although my social networking is about 27,000 less than Mr Quiggs!

I mean, getting Busted to write one of your songs is far better than covering a certain song that’s been done to death *ahem* so, with that in mind it only seems fitting that Eoghan came third in X Factor really.

Apart from the lead single, the rest of the album is made up of covers of other people’s songs. Now I know that’s the point of X factor, but when you try to cut it in the competitive music industry, it doesn’t make any sense in my mind to bring out an album of covers, as it just doesn’t show you’re individuality - it’s more like recording the karaoke night in your local nightclub.

That said, the covers on here are all pretty good, with a couple of his X Factor favourites, Ben, Does Your Mother Know and Never Forget as well as the incredible cover of All In This Together - which, after just discovering High School Musical (a bit late I know), I just can’t stop singing.

He also attempts to pull off a couple of his other favourites, McFly’s All About You, Robbie Williams’ She’s The One and Westlife’s Home - which is one of my all-time favourite songs - and if you forget the original’s you can really appreciate the talent hiding behind Eoghan’s baby face and you might even believe that they’re his songs.

Although his voice clearly still needs a bit of tweaking - I wonder if it’s even broken yet - I can appreciate the heart behind each track as he’s obviously singing tracks he loves and can pretend to be a pop star for the hour or so whilst belting out hit after hit.

The only question is, can he make these classic hits into his own hits? We will have to wait and see…

Rating: 3/5 - It would be nice to see more originality, but a good crack at the songs he covers.

Skip To: 28,000 Friends - Well, it’s the only original song on there, so probably the most obvious choice.

FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison