Echoes Reviews
New Music
Will Young at his finest. The album is so beautifully lush, solid and consistent I could cry (dramatic but true).
Popledge Tumblr
Sitting down and listening to this album as a whole is a total joy.
Glamour
Dreamy pianos and soft drums mixed with Will's sugar-sweet voice make this the perfect chill-out record.
Popjustice Blog
The Will Young album is almost indescribably brilliant.
Basically, the remaining seven songs could be the sound of Will Young swinging a toaster around his head and this would still be one of the albums of the year.
Mail on Sunday
On his fifth album Young picks an assured path through the moody, sophisticated end of dance music. 4 Stars
The Guardian
Will Young Young's fifth album, Echoes, is loaded with sophisticated, soulful dance music.
Snapcacklepop - Source
We feel in love with Will Young when he first won Pop Idol – after his first album, its was Will sophomore album Friday’s Child that made his move from Winner of talent contest to brilliant male artist – shift over 1.8million albums worldwide! From strength to strength and this year released his fifth record Echoes. A master piece from start to finish and filled with beautiful crafted tracks including Jealousy and Come On. Produced by Richard X this is definitely one of the pop albums of the year. Bravo Mr Will.
Will Young at his finest. The album is so beautifully lush, solid and consistent I could cry (dramatic but true).
Popledge Tumblr
Sitting down and listening to this album as a whole is a total joy.
Glamour
Dreamy pianos and soft drums mixed with Will's sugar-sweet voice make this the perfect chill-out record.
Popjustice Blog
The Will Young album is almost indescribably brilliant.
Basically, the remaining seven songs could be the sound of Will Young swinging a toaster around his head and this would still be one of the albums of the year.
Mail on Sunday
On his fifth album Young picks an assured path through the moody, sophisticated end of dance music. 4 Stars
The Guardian
Will Young Young's fifth album, Echoes, is loaded with sophisticated, soulful dance music.
Snapcacklepop - Source
We feel in love with Will Young when he first won Pop Idol – after his first album, its was Will sophomore album Friday’s Child that made his move from Winner of talent contest to brilliant male artist – shift over 1.8million albums worldwide! From strength to strength and this year released his fifth record Echoes. A master piece from start to finish and filled with beautiful crafted tracks including Jealousy and Come On. Produced by Richard X this is definitely one of the pop albums of the year. Bravo Mr Will.
BBC Review - Source
Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Will Young participating in the more innocent, pre-X Factor Pop Idol, the show he won at the start of 2002. It landed him on Planet Pop with a carefully stage-managed precision that has since seen a decade of hopefuls either make it (Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, JLS) or crash and burn before a stint on whatever other reality show will have them.
Young was vastly superior to his nearest rival at the time of his breakthrough, Gareth Gates (who came unstuck approximately 18 months into his music career), and come his second album – 2003’s Friday’s Child, featuring the brilliant single Leave Right Now – he’d grabbed hold of every aspect of his music, taking control so as not to suffer a similar fate. From then he knocked out two more albums, issued a greatest hits compilation in 2009, and recently worked with Groove Armada on the dance duo’s 2010 LP Black Light.
For his fifth album, representing something of a new chapter for Young following his best-of set, he has teamed up with super-producer Richard X – the man behind past hits for Saint Etienne, M.I.A., Kelis and Goldfrapp. But it was actually the X-produced Steve Mason album, 2010’s much-acclaimed Boys Outside, which prompted Young to seek him out in the first place. The results suggest he was exceedingly wise to do so, as Echoes is a triumph.
Throughout these 13 tracks, while never taking a wild leap into gabba territory, X brings subtle elements of dancefloor delights present and future into arrangements complementing Young’s tunes of love, longing and regret, making this a high quality affair all round. The hands-aloft joyousness of lead single Jealousy is just one of the highpoints; other moments of magic come along with Silent Valentine, which sounds like a giant hit you feel you’ve known forever, and I Just Want a Lover is a foxy boo-hoo-beneath-the-mirrorball future classic.
And standouts continue to present themselves. Losing Myself sounds like a mid-80s Climie Fisher keytar-and-crap-hair turbo ballad. He sounds completely at home in the environs of Lie Next to Me, while the chimes and cowbells of Good Things sound like something Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis may have handed out to someone with fierce shoulder pads in 1985 (in other words, it’s amazing).
Echoes is a fantastic, perfectly crafted adult pop album for people who’ve long wondered if such a thing existed anymore. It deserves to be reasonably enormous. Bravo, Will.
Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Will Young participating in the more innocent, pre-X Factor Pop Idol, the show he won at the start of 2002. It landed him on Planet Pop with a carefully stage-managed precision that has since seen a decade of hopefuls either make it (Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, JLS) or crash and burn before a stint on whatever other reality show will have them.
Young was vastly superior to his nearest rival at the time of his breakthrough, Gareth Gates (who came unstuck approximately 18 months into his music career), and come his second album – 2003’s Friday’s Child, featuring the brilliant single Leave Right Now – he’d grabbed hold of every aspect of his music, taking control so as not to suffer a similar fate. From then he knocked out two more albums, issued a greatest hits compilation in 2009, and recently worked with Groove Armada on the dance duo’s 2010 LP Black Light.
For his fifth album, representing something of a new chapter for Young following his best-of set, he has teamed up with super-producer Richard X – the man behind past hits for Saint Etienne, M.I.A., Kelis and Goldfrapp. But it was actually the X-produced Steve Mason album, 2010’s much-acclaimed Boys Outside, which prompted Young to seek him out in the first place. The results suggest he was exceedingly wise to do so, as Echoes is a triumph.
Throughout these 13 tracks, while never taking a wild leap into gabba territory, X brings subtle elements of dancefloor delights present and future into arrangements complementing Young’s tunes of love, longing and regret, making this a high quality affair all round. The hands-aloft joyousness of lead single Jealousy is just one of the highpoints; other moments of magic come along with Silent Valentine, which sounds like a giant hit you feel you’ve known forever, and I Just Want a Lover is a foxy boo-hoo-beneath-the-mirrorball future classic.
And standouts continue to present themselves. Losing Myself sounds like a mid-80s Climie Fisher keytar-and-crap-hair turbo ballad. He sounds completely at home in the environs of Lie Next to Me, while the chimes and cowbells of Good Things sound like something Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis may have handed out to someone with fierce shoulder pads in 1985 (in other words, it’s amazing).
Echoes is a fantastic, perfectly crafted adult pop album for people who’ve long wondered if such a thing existed anymore. It deserves to be reasonably enormous. Bravo, Will.
Trashed Lounge - Source
Album Review: Will Young – Echoes 4 *
Reality TV has come a long way since 2002′s inaugral ‘Pop Idol’ contest, in which Simon Cowell went one better than the Hear’Say-producing ‘Popstars’ by allowing the public to decide the eventual winner. Leaving Darius Danesh and Gareth Gates for dust, it was of course Will Young who cruised to victory, before releasing the biggest-selling single of the decade as his début.
Now, ten years to the month since his first audition, he releases his fifth studio album; and for the first time in his impressively long career he’s taking a slight departure from adult-friendly chill-pop in favour of a more dance-influenced approach. It should be stressed though that by “dance-influenced” I definitely don’t mean he’s off down the club, tearing up the floor with shorty, waving his hands in the air like he just don’t… you get the picture.
‘Echoes’ isn’t as drastic a change as it is perhaps perceived to be – this is still the same Will Young, just in a slightly more keyboard-heavy skin and with Richard X on production duties. Take lead single ‘Jealousy’ as an example – it may have shed the live instruments that made ‘Leave Right Now’ et al so successful, but it’s no less amazing for it. In fact, it’s one of the best singles of 2011; a heartbreaking track with a phenomenal chorus that only Will could do justice.
Truth be told, it’s the best song on the album, but that’s not to say the rest isn’t pretty damn good. ‘Come On’, ‘Silent Valentine’ and ‘Runaway’ are particular highlights, while tracks like ‘I Just Want A Lover’ and ‘Good Things’ would sound at home on a George Michael record. Some tracks on the back half of the LP initially sounds a bit samey and take a few listens to get familiar with, but that’s a minor quibble. ‘Echoes’ is a fantastic album of love songs from a man who’s not only reality TV’s first megastar, but the first winner to shake off the televised roots and become a credible singer-songwriter in his own right. Here’s to the next ten years…
Digital Spy - Source
Will Young has "gone dance". After four successful albums of mum-friendly pop, most would consider it a bold move; but punctuated by the ten-year anniversary of his Pop Idol win and recent retrospective, it feels right that he should be allowed to spread his wings.
He does just that on Echoes, and in the careful and graceful manner that one might naturally expect. Better still, he's hired electro-dance aficionado Richard X (Goldfrapp, MIA) to steer him through the genre's now-murky waters - the fruits of which can be heard in the triumphant lead single 'Jealousy'.
The precedent continues throughout the remaining 12 tracks. From the modish synths of sad disco-pop number 'Runaway' to the Pet Shop Boys-esque 'Personal Thunder' to the lounge-pop twinkles in 'Losing Myself', it's a style that allows the melodies and thoughtful lyrics to breathe with ease.
The result is a perfectly-crafted adult pop album; one that sounds contemporary without straw-clutching and classy without the pretension. The hands-in-the-air ballads 'Lie Next To Me' and 'Silent Valentine' prove that he's still the Will we've always known, just in a shinier, sharper and altogether more comfortable skin.
Robert Copsey
5 stars
London Evening Standard - Source
Ten years after a youthful Will Young sang Blame It on the Boogie to an underwhelmed Simon Cowell, the original and best Pop Idol is still riding high. Echoes, his fifth studio album in a career spawning more than eight million record sales, will be followed by a 23-date UK tour.
Here, the 32-year-old (pictured) teams up with in-demand producer Richard X (MIA, Goldfrapp), who brings a playful, dancey quality to the record - a welcome change from the schmaltzy ballads that have characterised too much of Young's output.
Lead single Jealousy is a case in point. Pounding piano and bass propel paranoid lyrics about love-gone-bad: even Young's voice - still the greatest discovery of Cowell's talent shows - sounds stronger and surer. Come On takes Coldplay's anthemic beats to the dancefloor, while Losing Myself adds Eighties synths to the mix.
Elsewhere, Silent Valentine spends its first two minutes pretending to be an anaemic ballad, before exploding into a glorious pop sing-along.
Not everything works. Lie Next to Me's lumbering backing and little-boy-lost lyrics are wearying.
But when they're followed by the strutting funk of I Just Want a Lover all is forgiven.
There are a few cosier moments later on, presumably to please the old faithful, but Echoes is a daring musical makeover that will win Young many new fans. Myself being one.
RICK PEARSON
Four stars
musicOHM - SourceOne of the earliest and smartest of pop idols, Will Young is releasing his fifth album (excluding 2009's The Hits) to coincide with the 10th anniversary of his original TV show victory. Now in his early 30s, this release – like his career to date – offers a routemap for the elegant evolution from the most throwaway of initial successes to something much more enduring.
What is immediately striking is the apparently intensely personal nature of much of the material. Delivered in Young's tuneful yet frequently vulnerable vocal – all fragility and contrasting strength – songs like Come On ("There's a little bit of me that will always be with you"), Silent Valentine and Personal Thunder are delivered like he genuinely means them: a welcome and relatively rare quality in the modern pop song. Witness the lovelorn admission that "There's a bit of me that will always be with you" on Come On; or the shamefaced "I don't want to ask too much of you / I'll just get drunk and let you down" from Lie Next To Me; or most of all the melancholy, confessional Outsider.
Young's playful, saucy side does emerge occasionally: most resolutely on I Just Want A Lover – a funky paean to the straightforward, no-strings-attached shag. Even here, though, his vulnerability refuses to be totally buried. For all the pleas for "nothing that is complicated ... I don't want to know you", there is still the admission that this is escapism to "ease my broken heart". The track, at times recalling Imagination's Body Talk ("Let me hear your body talking") is one of the album's strongest.
Also great are the first track – also the first single – Jealousy (a great pop song, with its combined hint of both melancholy and imminent seduction, to an underplayed disco soundtrack), Outsider and Silent Valentine. This latter is probably the album's finest moment: a beautiful torch song, beautifully delivered, to a secret, lost, object of desire. When he swoons "You'll always be my silent valentine" and admits that "It's been three years or maybe more / Feels like a day / Still you make my heart ache" the listener swoons and aches right alongside him.
Interestingly, and presumably quite deliberately, the album is pitched on a fault-line between slow balladry and out-and-out "dance music". Nods to disco and funk are discernable in Jealousy, I Just Want a Lover and the S.A.W.-slash-Hi-N.R.G. Good Things, but a kind of sedate, almost dignified, certainly mature feel always wins out. This is an album as unafraid of pianos (Runaway, Outsider, Silent Valentine, Hearts on Fire, Good Things) or strings (Jealousy, Come On) as it is of wearing its wounded heart on its sleeve.
Not simply a fitting commemoration of Young's longevity then, but this release is also a clear illustration of why he has succeeded in transcending his origins. Now arguably one of the UK's most authentic, honest and engaging stars, he is perhaps the first TV show alumnus to attain true "idol" status.
Album Review: Will Young – Echoes 4 *
Reality TV has come a long way since 2002′s inaugral ‘Pop Idol’ contest, in which Simon Cowell went one better than the Hear’Say-producing ‘Popstars’ by allowing the public to decide the eventual winner. Leaving Darius Danesh and Gareth Gates for dust, it was of course Will Young who cruised to victory, before releasing the biggest-selling single of the decade as his début.
Now, ten years to the month since his first audition, he releases his fifth studio album; and for the first time in his impressively long career he’s taking a slight departure from adult-friendly chill-pop in favour of a more dance-influenced approach. It should be stressed though that by “dance-influenced” I definitely don’t mean he’s off down the club, tearing up the floor with shorty, waving his hands in the air like he just don’t… you get the picture.
‘Echoes’ isn’t as drastic a change as it is perhaps perceived to be – this is still the same Will Young, just in a slightly more keyboard-heavy skin and with Richard X on production duties. Take lead single ‘Jealousy’ as an example – it may have shed the live instruments that made ‘Leave Right Now’ et al so successful, but it’s no less amazing for it. In fact, it’s one of the best singles of 2011; a heartbreaking track with a phenomenal chorus that only Will could do justice.
Truth be told, it’s the best song on the album, but that’s not to say the rest isn’t pretty damn good. ‘Come On’, ‘Silent Valentine’ and ‘Runaway’ are particular highlights, while tracks like ‘I Just Want A Lover’ and ‘Good Things’ would sound at home on a George Michael record. Some tracks on the back half of the LP initially sounds a bit samey and take a few listens to get familiar with, but that’s a minor quibble. ‘Echoes’ is a fantastic album of love songs from a man who’s not only reality TV’s first megastar, but the first winner to shake off the televised roots and become a credible singer-songwriter in his own right. Here’s to the next ten years…
Digital Spy - Source
Will Young has "gone dance". After four successful albums of mum-friendly pop, most would consider it a bold move; but punctuated by the ten-year anniversary of his Pop Idol win and recent retrospective, it feels right that he should be allowed to spread his wings.
He does just that on Echoes, and in the careful and graceful manner that one might naturally expect. Better still, he's hired electro-dance aficionado Richard X (Goldfrapp, MIA) to steer him through the genre's now-murky waters - the fruits of which can be heard in the triumphant lead single 'Jealousy'.
The precedent continues throughout the remaining 12 tracks. From the modish synths of sad disco-pop number 'Runaway' to the Pet Shop Boys-esque 'Personal Thunder' to the lounge-pop twinkles in 'Losing Myself', it's a style that allows the melodies and thoughtful lyrics to breathe with ease.
The result is a perfectly-crafted adult pop album; one that sounds contemporary without straw-clutching and classy without the pretension. The hands-in-the-air ballads 'Lie Next To Me' and 'Silent Valentine' prove that he's still the Will we've always known, just in a shinier, sharper and altogether more comfortable skin.
Robert Copsey
5 stars
London Evening Standard - Source
Ten years after a youthful Will Young sang Blame It on the Boogie to an underwhelmed Simon Cowell, the original and best Pop Idol is still riding high. Echoes, his fifth studio album in a career spawning more than eight million record sales, will be followed by a 23-date UK tour.
Here, the 32-year-old (pictured) teams up with in-demand producer Richard X (MIA, Goldfrapp), who brings a playful, dancey quality to the record - a welcome change from the schmaltzy ballads that have characterised too much of Young's output.
Lead single Jealousy is a case in point. Pounding piano and bass propel paranoid lyrics about love-gone-bad: even Young's voice - still the greatest discovery of Cowell's talent shows - sounds stronger and surer. Come On takes Coldplay's anthemic beats to the dancefloor, while Losing Myself adds Eighties synths to the mix.
Elsewhere, Silent Valentine spends its first two minutes pretending to be an anaemic ballad, before exploding into a glorious pop sing-along.
Not everything works. Lie Next to Me's lumbering backing and little-boy-lost lyrics are wearying.
But when they're followed by the strutting funk of I Just Want a Lover all is forgiven.
There are a few cosier moments later on, presumably to please the old faithful, but Echoes is a daring musical makeover that will win Young many new fans. Myself being one.
RICK PEARSON
Four stars
musicOHM - SourceOne of the earliest and smartest of pop idols, Will Young is releasing his fifth album (excluding 2009's The Hits) to coincide with the 10th anniversary of his original TV show victory. Now in his early 30s, this release – like his career to date – offers a routemap for the elegant evolution from the most throwaway of initial successes to something much more enduring.
What is immediately striking is the apparently intensely personal nature of much of the material. Delivered in Young's tuneful yet frequently vulnerable vocal – all fragility and contrasting strength – songs like Come On ("There's a little bit of me that will always be with you"), Silent Valentine and Personal Thunder are delivered like he genuinely means them: a welcome and relatively rare quality in the modern pop song. Witness the lovelorn admission that "There's a bit of me that will always be with you" on Come On; or the shamefaced "I don't want to ask too much of you / I'll just get drunk and let you down" from Lie Next To Me; or most of all the melancholy, confessional Outsider.
Young's playful, saucy side does emerge occasionally: most resolutely on I Just Want A Lover – a funky paean to the straightforward, no-strings-attached shag. Even here, though, his vulnerability refuses to be totally buried. For all the pleas for "nothing that is complicated ... I don't want to know you", there is still the admission that this is escapism to "ease my broken heart". The track, at times recalling Imagination's Body Talk ("Let me hear your body talking") is one of the album's strongest.
Also great are the first track – also the first single – Jealousy (a great pop song, with its combined hint of both melancholy and imminent seduction, to an underplayed disco soundtrack), Outsider and Silent Valentine. This latter is probably the album's finest moment: a beautiful torch song, beautifully delivered, to a secret, lost, object of desire. When he swoons "You'll always be my silent valentine" and admits that "It's been three years or maybe more / Feels like a day / Still you make my heart ache" the listener swoons and aches right alongside him.
Interestingly, and presumably quite deliberately, the album is pitched on a fault-line between slow balladry and out-and-out "dance music". Nods to disco and funk are discernable in Jealousy, I Just Want a Lover and the S.A.W.-slash-Hi-N.R.G. Good Things, but a kind of sedate, almost dignified, certainly mature feel always wins out. This is an album as unafraid of pianos (Runaway, Outsider, Silent Valentine, Hearts on Fire, Good Things) or strings (Jealousy, Come On) as it is of wearing its wounded heart on its sleeve.
Not simply a fitting commemoration of Young's longevity then, but this release is also a clear illustration of why he has succeeded in transcending his origins. Now arguably one of the UK's most authentic, honest and engaging stars, he is perhaps the first TV show alumnus to attain true "idol" status.