Standing Tall

by

Kym Marsh

Edit

Kym Marsh's debut CD is great!!! Despite rumors of her just being dropped by record label after poor 3rd single sales, this album is one of my faves. This album charted at no.9 in the UK

Cry - 10/10

- First single. This is a great mid-tempo track is considered the greatest track on the album. The chorus is really catchy as violin strings give it a great effect. UK Charted no.2

Come on over - 9/10

- Uptempo no. and the 2nd single The acoustic is really catchy on this track but the lack of beat linking the chorus and verses slow the song down for a little bit. Charted UK no.10

Sentimental - FAVE

- 3rd single and my fave track on the album. This is really different from the two singles beforehand, it is more rocky. It starts off simple acoustic but then the rock sound kicks in at the bridge. UK Charted no.35

I think it's gonna rain today - 9/10

- This is a really husky song. Kym does little singing and is more talking. Is similar to the Kelly Clarkson track 'Beautiful Disaster'

After Goodbye - 9/10

- First ballad. This song is really epic and the guitar is brill! Kym's vocals are really strong and the song is strong throughout

Girl I used to be - 9/10

- This is a carbon copy of Cry. The acoustic is basically the same and the vocal beat is basically the same. Doesn't make it rubbish though, is very catchy

Standing Tall - 10/10

- This opens with an electric guitar and sets the pace for the rest of the album. This is really unique from the rest of the album as it's something that a rock/pop artist would do

Cross every river - 7/10

- If country music is your thing then this song is for you. In my opinion is bland but the song does have potential to be an amazing song

Glow - 8/10

- This is a Eurovision style song, good to start off with but I amen't keen on the chorus

Live Forever - 7/10

- On the same basis as Cross every river, if you like country pop then you'll like this

Shine on me - 10/10

- This is like an acoustic and slowe sounding version of Sentimental.

Because of you - 7/10

- This is just a simple acoustic song which makes it boring. Kym wrote this song about her kids, so her heart is in the right place

Here comes heaven - This is kinda country. This song is a grower, but you can tire of it too.

Tempted - 10/10

- One of my faves. Similar to another song but I can't put my finger on it. This is really catchy and the whole song has you hooked

Don't break me heart - 8/10

- A sickly ballad, but still good. Really impressive vocals

All in all Kym's sound is acoustic pop with a hint of rock and country. Fans of Natalie Imbruglia, Dido and The Corrs will love Kym

Kym Marsh's album. Where do you go?

Kym's an extremely sexy woman, with deeply alluring rough edges. She grew up on a rough housing estate, worked for Ann Summers(!), started celeb-life fat, in horrendous Hear'say and finished up marrying a failed soap actor as well as regularly appearing in a famous soap opera herself. (She plays a dysfunctional matriarch, who earns a crust from bar-maiding and sleeping with the greasy pub landlord. Her son was swapped at birth (I think!) and her family is dropping like flies, but she still has that envied Northern sassiness and brassiness so coveted in soft Southern boroughs, and, almost supernaturally shiny hair and lippy. Her character is called...Michelle.) Kym's a Manchester version of Cher, hard-faced and soft-hearted.

So what about her album? What about the review?

Well in a review context, it has a few good songs and quite a lot of bad ones. 'Come On Over' is the star, solid acoustic strumming and Kym's seductive vocal make it a winner, and 'Sentimental' also works quite well, Kym showing a range and an uncharacteristic lack of fear of doing something a bit different.

About a third of the way in though, it starts getting bogged down by dreary ballads and predictable pap. 'After Goodbye' is weak, so too 'Here Comes Heaven' and the rest of 'Standing Tall' is sort of fair-to-middlin' with the exception of 'Cry' which is a mouldy stinkhorn.

A wholly predictable 3-star album, over-produced to death, and not letting us see enough of Kym, battling valiantly against the double threat, real on the horizon, of the solo careers of Emma Bunton and, (gasp!) the Wicked Witch of the West; Mylene Klass.

She needn't have worried, neither did much better, but it must've hurt that they were both so much posher.

Kym's living proof that winning one of these 'X-Factor' type reality shows doesn't automatically mean oblivion. Cowell, (Robson and Jerome, Clive Dunn, Bobby Bland and the Blandells etc) and new chimp at the tea party, Piers Morgan, must be dreaming of a success like Kym's. Unfortunately, as their 'sponsored' artiste's belt out yet another rancid cover version, they're merely making provision for their REAL positions in life as plumbers, driving instructors and shop-assistants. After a mercifully brief tenure as showbiz royalty, they will deservedly disappear into the ether of gaseous has-beens, Cowell and Osbourne already bickering like children about the next monumental loser.

Kym's above all that. She's doing just fine on Britain's biggest, bestest drama series. She's looking good, and viewing figures are steady. Her and her extremely lucky husband have been through a bad patch (what is it with these celebrities!?) but are sorted.(but for how long!?).

She's even made up with Mylene, all the bitching and vileness long forgotten, in a welter of sisterhood, leg-waxing and girly kisses.

'Standing Tall' is a warning to all those wannabes, huddled against the rain outside an antiseptic theatre, getting prodded til they're bruised by their parents and friends.

A definite aura of the abattoir about them as they're herded into those terrible rooms, to be cruelly ridiculed and slighted by people who have no more discernable talent than they do. Except being able to 'discover' joke novelty acts. Dignity and self-respect are better than (this kind of) fame. It is literally - the fame of defeat.

Kym stood tall and prevailed but she's looking down (under fabulously long anthracite eyelashes!) at the thousands who fell along the way.

Probably the most appropriate album title ever....