Review
Marcus Collins, of X-Factor fame, has announced that his debut single will be coming out on 4 March, shortly followed by an album entitled ‘Seven Nation Army’ six days later.
Yes. THAT Seven Nation Army.
We hope that should Jack White ever read this, he understands that we know why he wanted to sell the rights to Seven Nation Army, and that we appreciate that he wants to spread the love of the song around a bit. If we bump into Gary Barlow, who co-wrote and produced Marcus’ album, however, we will be demanding his neck as severance for allowing this song to be produced.
The reason why the original is an anthem of epic proportions is simplicity: it is a bloke singing, playing an infectious guitar riff while his ex-wife banging away on a drum. That’s all. Marcus’ overcomplicated track has a jazz band, extra vocals and dropped all mention of the guitar out of it – it is pure treble and a total disaster.
Now before we write him off entirely, he did get to second place for a good reason, and that being that his vocals are crystalline and pure, and that he can whammy it up to octaves that would make a mezzo-soprano jealous. Masculine, however, he is not – and there are definitely points where you stop and question whether it really is a man singing.
Overall, while definitely good enough to be included in the album, the lack of common sense in debut-track selection is disappointing, and will be mentioned more than once. We will have to reserve ultimate judgement on Marcus until we hear more material, but he should be warned that we were expecting great things and are currently disappointed.
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