Review: Jedward – Victory

Jedward’s second album went straight into the top position on the Irish chart, but is it just their country fellow men who are just as crazy as they are or could this album be well recieved all over Europe? They have a large teenager fanbase, but is it also for us a bit older? Let’s find out. 

I admit that I was not convinced at the Eurovision Song Contest. I was sceptical right from Jedward winning the Irish national final and that never changed. Lipstick shouldn’t have ended up in top 10, if you ask me. Since that I have avoided hearing any of their other songs, until now where I threw myself into deep water with this Victory album. Can it convince me or will I still be stuck feeling I am too old to get this?

The album kicks off with the well known Lipstick and I am already getting anxious. Will the rest of the album be like this? When it continues with Bad Behaviour I am really wondering why I decided to torture myself with this. I am sorry, but this is worse than Lipstick and it simply does not do anything for me.

When EveryDay SuperStar starts, I stop up. Hey, what is this, it actually sounds interesting and fortunately it keeps being interesting. It has a good beat and I can listen to it without wanting to turn it off. It is the same with Miss America. It might not be spectacular, but it is actually quite decent and could have been taken right from a Melodifestivalen album. I am now positively surprised. Two out of four aint that bad.

And now comes Biggest Fan. Now that will never be me when it comes to Jedward, but I do admit that there is more to them than just those annoying ADHD twins we met at the Eurovision Song Contest. This song has a good catchy chorus, which I could imagine singing along to under certain circumstances, but unfortunately the verses can’t match the chorus.

DiStortion starts like a rap song and I am immediately turned off. For the sake of this review I have to continue listening to it, but believe me, it isn’t easy for me not to hit the next button. This is not something they should be doing and I must conclude that this is by far the worst I have heard from them.

PoP Rocket doesn’t make it much better. They have tried to hit that Melodifestivalen sound again, but failed misrable. It takes two minutes into the song before I can sort of hear something in the chorus, but at that time it is too late. After a few really bad songs I need another one to bring me into the right mood and Saturday Night is sort of half that. It is far from convincing me, but it is not as bad as the previous two I just heard so it is going the right way again.

Techno Girl has some really interesting things to it – especially the quiet verse and the bridge between the verse and the chorus catch my attention. Unfortunately the chorus can’t live up to it. WoW Oh WoW brings me right back thinking Jedward do have more than Lipstick to them. Finally I can once again say that here is a song I can listen to. The fast singing chorus actually sounds good, something I was not expecting them to be able to do. I am posively surprised again.

With the song Celebrity we can another one to list of "Melodidifestivalen look a like failure". It doesn’t add anything to the album aside from the wish to turn off and actually look forward to next year’s Swedish selection. 

Hold The World and we are coming to an end of this album. Here we have a song where I am able to hear that it could have been quite good with another singer and a slightly different arrangement. Unfortunately in this version it doesn’t quite get there. The album ends with Bad Behaviour Remix. Now, I really didn’t like that song at all and as I generally don’t like remixes it really is impossible for me to say anything good about this at all.  

Ok, so all in all here we have an album I really would not recommend for myself and others like me. If, however, you thought Lipstick was a fantastic song and that Ireland can be proud having had these Jedward twins representing them at the Eurovision Song Contest then this will probably be a great addition to your record collection. My best guess is that you, in that case, are well below the age of 25 and possibly closer to the 15. 

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