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Westlife

Westlife is an Irish pop music group that formed in July 1998. They were signed by Simon Cowell and managed by Louis Walsh. In recent years, Westlife's sound has evolved from boy band "teen pop" sound into a more adult contemporary music (ACM) sound, with an emphasis on ballads. The group have proven extremely successful in Ireland, the United Kingdom and rest of the Europe, and are also relatively popular in Africa, Australia and Asia, having sold 40 million albums in 40 countries and worth an estimated €28 million (about £20 million or $40 million USD) in 2005.[1][2][3]

Westlife has had 14 number one singles in the United Kingdom between the years 1999 and 2006, the third-highest such total in UK history, behind Elvis Presley and The Beatles, and tied with Cliff Richard.[4][5]

Westlife was awarded the Best Irish Pop Act, a public voting category, at the annual Ireland Meteor Awards for the seventh consecutive year on 2 February 2007. They are also the only artist/group to win 'Record of the Year' in the UK four times. Westlife is also the only band in UK chart history to have entered straight at number one with their first seven singles.[6]

History of Westlife

In the tradition of British and Irish boy bands like Take That and Boyzone comes Westlife, a quintet consisting of Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne, Bryan McFadden, Mark Feehily, and Kian Egan. Filan, Egan, and Feehily emerged from a six-piece band named IOU, while the other half of the group was dispatched when Louis Walsh, Boyzone's manager, took interest in them in forming them into a band initially called Westside. This made room in the band for Byrne and McFadden; Walsh also introduced Westlife to Boyzone vocalist and solo artist Ronan Keating, who became the group's co-manager shortly after they cemented their recording contract.[7][8]

The Original Westlife

Westlife: Big Break

Westlife's first big break came in 1998 when they opened for the Boyzone in Dublin. Later that year, they won Best New Tour Act at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.[9]

In March 1999, their first single, "Swear It Again", was released, and went straight to the top of the charts in Ireland and the UK.[10] The band's success was to be confirmed when their second single, "If I Let You Go", entered the charts at number 1 in August 1999, followed by "Flying Without Wings" in October, which repeated the feat.[10] This version was included in the soundtrack for the Warner Brothers film, Pokemon 2000. They became the first number one artist of the new millennium when their double-A-side single, "I Have a Dream"/"Seasons in the Sun" knocked Cliff Richard's "The Millennium Prayer" off the top spot.[11] Westlife had the honour of the having their Christmas number-one single.[12] Their first album, simply titled Westlife, was released in November 1999 and was also a big hit, peaking at #2. The album included those four #1 singles, and the follow-up "Fool Again" which also reached the top spot in April 2000.[13] After the intital success, they then went on a UK tour performing at Newcastle Metro Radio Arena before releasing the second album.

Coast to Coast

Westlife's next album was quickly recorded, and released in November 2000. Coast to Coast was a #1 hit in the UK, becoming the country's 4th biggest selling album of the year and Westlife's biggest selling album to date.[14][15]

Westlife took on a signing tour around the UK called "Coast To Coast". The album was preceded by a duet with Mariah Carey on the Phil Collins classic "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" and the ballad "My Love". Both singles reached #1 in the UK charts.[16][17] With this, Westlife broke an unexpected record, having their first seven singles debut at the top of the UK charts. In December 2000, however, that run was broken when they failed to secure their eighth chart-topper in a row when kid's favourite Bob The Builder's "Can We Fix It" was crowned Christmas number-one single.[18]

In 2001, the boys launched their first world tour, Where Dreams Come True Tour 2001, unofficially nicknamed "The No Stools Tour", because of the band's reputation of performing perched on stools.[19][9]

World of Our Own

Westlife released their third album in November 2001 called World of Our Own, which featured several singles that eventually became Number 1 hits including "Uptown Girl", "Queen of My Heart" and "World of Our Own".[20][21][22]

This album also featured the original version of "Evergreen", which was then covered by Gareth Gatesand Will Young for Pop Idol.[23][24]

Westlife took this album and went on their second tour, World Of Our Own: In The Round Tour 2002.[9] The tour was taken all over the UK and Europe.

Greatest Hits

November 2002 saw Westlife release their Greatest Hits album, Unbreakable - The Greatest Hits Vol. 1, amidst rumours of a split. They released their first single from this album in October 2002, Unbreakable.[25] This was followed by the double a-side single of Tonight and Miss You Nights which debuted at no.3.[26]

In 2003, Westlife went on to their third tour, The Greatest Hits Tour 2003 and still shrugged off rumours of a split.[27]

Turnaround

In September 2003, Westlife released "Hey Whatever", which made it to Number 4 in the UK Charts.[28] In November 2003 came Westlife's fourth studio album Turnaround, which made number 1 on the UK charts and won them Record of the Year for the third time in five years. Along with the number 1 album was their twelfth number 1 single. "Mandy" (a cover of Barry Manilow's ballad) was released in November 2003.[29] "Obvious" was also released on the album and charted at number 3 in February 2004.[30]

Departure of Brian McFadden

On 9 March 2004, just three weeks before Westlife were due to embark on their fourth European tour, Turnaround Tour 2004, Bryan McFadden left the band.[31][32] He subsequently started a solo career, changing the spelling of his first name back to its original 'Brian'. Brian McFadden entered the chart at number one with his first solo single, "Real To Me".[33] He went on to release more singles, but to only moderate success.

The New Westlife

Allow Us to Be Frank

Less than a month after McFadden's departure, the boys kicked off their fourth arena Turnaround tour. They released a live version of Flying Without Wings as an official UK download. They released their come-back album Allow Us to Be Frank later in the year, a Rat Pack-inspired album and debuted at its peak position at Number Three. Westlife did not release a single from this album even though they shot many music videos. They did, however, release more official UK downloads, including Ain't That A Kick In The Head and Smile.

Before the album release, Westlife travelled up and down the UK to find "the perfect fan" to help promote their album. After X Factor style auditions, they found Joanne Hindley (who later appeared on X Factor).[9] They recorded "The Way You Look Tonight". To celebrate their first ever fan to appear on a Westlife song they televised it, showing auditions and live performances. Their performances included Joanne, their fathers and glamour model Katie Price. They also performed alone.

Westlife continued to tour Europe with their No.1's Tour launched in 2005 before taking a 4 months break from work.[34]

Face to Face

In 2005, after a four-months break, they came back with "You Raise Me Up", a cover of a Secret Garden song, which was the first single off their sixth studio album Face to Face. On 6 November 2005, both the album and the single ("You Raise Me Up") were at Number 1 in the UK charts at the same time. It was the first time the band had held both top album and single position in the same week.[35][36]

In December 2005, Westlife released the second single off their album, "When You Tell Me That You Love Me", which was a duet with Diana Ross who had previously sung the song alone.[37] Westlife then released their third single "Amazing" which debuted at no.4.[38]

As a tradition of Westlife, they launched their 2006 tour, titled Face to Face Tour. They travelled extensively including UK, Ireland, Australia and in Asia: Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This tour marked the first time Westlife have travelled to mainland China for a concert.[39][40]

The Love Album

In late 2006, Westlife signed a brand new five album deal with Sony/BMG. Their 7th studio album, The Love Album, consists all of covers of love songs.

The first single from The Love Album was a cover version of Bette Midler's classic "The Rose", which became their 14th UK number one single.[41] This made Westlife the third act (along with Cliff Richard) in the UK chart history to have most number one singles, only behind Elvis Presley (21, 18 of them different songs) and The Beatles (17). Plans for the release of Total Eclipse of the Heart and that a video were being made were scrapped. In February, the band announced that they would no longer be releasing Bonnie Tyler's song "Total Eclipse of the Heart", produced by Jim Steinman, nor any other singles from the album.

Westlife kicked off their eight tour called The Love Tour on 21 February 2007 in Perth, Australia.[42] The tour took in other cities in Australia, before moving on to South Africa, the UK and Ireland, ending in Dublin on 3 May. The band played its last major concert of 2007 at Carlisle on Sunday 12 August at Bitts Park in Carlisle, England.[43]

Back Home

Westlife's 8th studio album Back Home was released on Monday, 5 November 2007 and contains nine new and original songs and three cover songs. In the album, the band worked with producers including Steve Mac, Quiz & Larossi, Jorgen Elofsson and Maratone. The album debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Charts.[44]

On 29 October 2007, Westlife released the first single from the album, a cover of "Home" by Michael Bublé and it debuted at number 3 in the UK Chart.[45][46] Westlife plans to release Us Against The World as the second single off Back Home in the beginning of 2008.

I'm Already There, not officially a single, charted in the UK Top 75 on downloads alone, following a performance on the X Factor.

The Westlife Show Live

On December 15th 2007, Westlife performed on a live ITV show titled The Westlife Show Live where they were joined by their family and friends and an audience comprised of their fans. The show was hosted by Holly Willoughby and opened by one of Westlife's number 1, Uptown Girl.

Fans had voted online to choose which five Westlife number one singles were their favourite. The five chosen and performed were: 5. If I Let You Go, 4. Unbreakable, 3. You Raise Me Up, 2. World Of Our Own and 1. Flying Without Wings. Additionally, the band performed material from their new album Back Home namely Home, I'm Already There, and their forthcoming single Us Against The World. On the show they also got a surprise, an award for 40 million album sales worldwide.[2][3]

Westlife: Approaching 10 Years

Despite celebrating 10 years in 2008, they are planning to take a year out of the spotlight following their Back Home Tour.[47] Fans began to panic over news the guys are taking a year long break after their upcoming tour. "The fans are all not sure because that's what Boyzone said and whatever but we're just going to take a lot longer to make this 10th album. This is a big tour coming up and then we're actually taking a year off after that. It's a big one for us and a big one for the fans. So it's not like we're taking a year off- we're taking a year away from releasing an album in November because we've done the nine albums in nine years,” Mark confirmed while talking to Female First.co.uk.[48]

On 2 November 2007, Westlife announced they will play Croke Park in Dublin on 1 June 2008 during an interview on Irish TV show The Late Late Show.[49] Croke Park is the fourth biggest stadium in Europe which holds 82,300 people making the concert Westlife's biggest performance to date. Kian described the tour to be a pop extravaganza. Shane confirmed that the band will not release a new album in 2008 but they will release a tour DVD. It was confirmed on 22 November that Shayne Ward will be supporting Westlife for the gig at Croke Park.[50]

Duets

Westlife has performed duets with some of the biggest names of the music industry, including Mariah Carey, Donny Osmond, Lulu, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Christian Castro, Ronan Keating and more recently Delta Goodrem.[51][52][53][54][55][56] Claudia Schiffer and Vinnie Jones have also starred in their music videos.[9][57] Westlife also collaborated with Asian-music sensation BoA with the song "Flying Without Wings", which appeared on her mini-album, Shine We Are!.

The US market

Westlife have yet to manage to truly break in the United States market. Their debut single and music video "Swear It Again" was released in the US in 2000 and was hit on mainstream radio and MTV, reaching #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and being shown on MTV's Total Request Live.[58] Their debut American album was also released in 2000, but they have not yet released another album in the USA.[59] In 2002, an attempt to promote and release an American version of Westlife's "World Of Our Own" album was cut short due to the band having a larger fan base in other areas, as the two most prominent boy bands in the US, Backstreet Boys and N' Sync, took breaks. The Westlife hit song "Flying Without Wings" peaked at #2 in the US when American Idol winner Ruben Studdard released it after winning season 2 of the show.[60] They have stated in interviews that they were disappointed when they heard he released the song in the US because that song was such a huge hit in the UK and they were planning on eventually bringing that song to American audiences. In 2003 they went to Nashville to film a TV documentary and recorded a song originally performed by country music legend Kenny Rogers, "Daytime Friends", which won them much praise.[9]

Discography

For a further discography of Westlife, see Westlife discography.

Albums

Year Album U.K. UK certificate
1999 Westlife 2 4xPlatinum
2000 Coast to Coast 1 5xPlatinum
2001 World Of Our Own 1 4xPlatinum
2002 Unbreakable - The Greatest Hits Vol. 1 1 4xPlatinum
2003 Turnaround 1 2xPlatinum
2004 Allow Us to Be Frank 3 2xPlatinum
2005 Face to Face 1 4xPlatinum
2006 The Love Album 1 3xPlatinum
2007 Back Home 1 Platinum

UK Number 1 Singles[61]

Number of #1 Release date Title From the album Weeks at #1
1 April 12 1999 "Swear It Again" Westlife 2
2 August 9 1999 "If I Let You Go" Westlife 1
3 October 18 1999 "Flying Without Wings" Westlife 1
4 December 6 1999 "I Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun" Westlife 4
5 March 17 2000 "Fool Again" Westlife 1
6 September 18 2000 "Against All Odds" (with Mariah Carey) Coast to Coast 2
7 October 31 2000 "My Love" Coast to Coast 1
8 February 26 2001 "Uptown Girl" Coast to Coast 1
9 November 5 2001 "Queen of My Heart" World of Our Own 1
10 February 18 2002 "World of Our Own" World of Our Own 1
11 October 28 2002 "Unbreakable" Unbreakable: The Greatest Hits Vol I 1
12 November 10 2003 "Mandy" Turnaround 1
13 October 24 2005 "You Raise Me Up" Face to Face 2
14 November 6 2006 "The Rose" The Love Album 1


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See also

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