NLT - Karma

Artist: NLT
Album: Not Like Them
Year: 2008
Rating: 4.2/5

These guys are supposed to bring teen pop back into the charts in a big way, but why did I only give them a 4.2? Here's why.

Boybands. Always manufactured, often times cute and seldom talented*sigh*. OK, there are only a few boybands why have caught my eye, or ear and NLT is beginning to be one of them. Although, no boyband will ever compare to Westlife for me, NLT is not that bad. Over the years, I've preferred British boybands over American ones, mainly because there weren't any current American boybands worth listening to back then.

I adore R&B and I adore boybands, but why don't I adore NLT as much as the first two? Simple, they haven't blown me away, I haven't heard a song that made me go "wow" and buy their album at that very moment yet(for Westlife it was 'Amazing'). Yes, their songs are nice, they're catchy and the melodies are nice but it's not different than Day 26 or other boy bands right now.

'Karma' is probably the best song they've released, and it's still not up to boyband standards for me, close but not quite. I'll give them another album maybe and if they're still like this, I'll stop listening. The song itself reminds me of 'Got Me Going' by Day 26. Not good, right? Right.

These guys have got to stop copying and start looking for their own sound. Westlife(I'm sorry, I compare all the newer boy bands to Westlife, get used to it.) may be criticized for singing ballads all the time but that's their niche, that's their sound and they've sold 45+ Million records, had 14 number one singles and 7 number one albums with it so as you can see, it just works. If these guys don't start sounding any different from everybody else or establishing themselves as the one and only, they're not going anywhere, at least in my books they aren't.

NLT are an OK boyband, but they've got a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do before they can achieve the success that BSB, Take That and Westlife have.