#33: JLS - Eyes Wide Shut

It's no secret that the season of X Factor that JLS were on was the season I really watched like a hawk, and it's also no secret that towards the end, I was really rooting for JLS. If I was in the UK, I would've been voting for them off the hook. Comparisons to Westlife, who were my favorite boyband at the time (you know how I get addicted to boybands), helped a great deal, but it all boiled down to the fact that I genuinely liked JLS. Their first album came around and I was a little disappointed with the album tracks but generally content with the singles, and now we have their second album, which was, in as few words as possible, a disappointment.


Except of course for this song. Let's not venture into what I think about The Club Is Alive, because it would take a whole lot more than a few paragraphs and polite words to say what I think about it. I'd rather not.

If, for me, The Wanted are classy and Brit and all that, JLS are commercial, catchy and appeal to the masses. Both bands have their strengths, and I like both of them, so I'll end the comparisons there.

Eyes Wide Shut was the song on the album that really made me grin like a madwoman. It has that gorgeous melody all throughout the song that just fits everyone's strong, autotuned, vocals like a glove - it makes all the sense in the world. And then under that gorgeous melody is gorgeous synth line and distinctly Swedish and/or Swedish-inspired production - very tight with a sense of urgency, yet graceful and melodious.

It's also the right tempo for me. It's not too fast to the point of them sounding like beavers, nor it is too slow that the urgency and tight-ness of the arrangement are lost in the mix - it's an extremely well-done, Swedish/British pop midtempo (leaning more towards the uptempo side), in the realm of a more fun+young+fast version of Westlife's Something Right, which I will admit is still a damn good song.