Album Review by Neil Ryan
7 point-plan to reviewing 911:
1 I guess they are called 911 after the American Emergency Services telephone code in an optimistic attempt to gain a foothold in the US market.
2 A more realistic interpretation of their name is that they appeal to 9-11 year-old kid sisters.
3 If you don’t own a kid sister don’t bother reading on.
4 As with other cloned boy/girl bands the music consists of slickly produced easy listening pop-dance featuring a smattering of lazy cover versions of hits from the 70s/80s/90s.
5 If you played this record to a group of 10 people (not including kid sisters) and asked them to guess who was singing, you would get 10 different answers (e.g. Westlife, 5ive, Steps, etc).
6 Occasionally you will hear popular DJ’s or Daytime TV presenters remarking thusly: “I heard [insert name of cloned boy/girl band] sing live the other day and they were quite good! They could actually sing!” Don’t be fooled by this praise from the-people-that-irony-forgot. It is their job to sing! That is what they are paid £1000’s to do. Similar acclaim is not afforded to an accountant who proves his worth by reciting his eight times’ table.
7 Buy this record for your kid sister at Xmas. It’s what it’s there for. More importantly: it’s what she’s there for.
