Album Review: Union J – You Got It All (The Album)
2 min read
I’m annoyed with Union J. I’m annoyed with Union J for a few reasons. Firstly, they stole One Direction’s story. Good looks + good voices + talent show = Boy Band. I’m also annoyed that they changed their name from Triple J when they added band member George. We’ve got 1D and 5Sos; 3J would have fit right in and I can’t for the life of me figure out what we should abbreviate this band to. I’m just calling it early, this might spell the end for them. What does a boy band do without a catchy nickname? Regardless of this Boy Band faux pas, the quartet of 3 J’s and a G have released their second album in as many years, titled You Got It All (The Album).
The boys have talked a lot about “finding their sound” and “choosing their path” (would “picking one direction” be going too far?) on this record and I found that to be mostly true. They hit the ground running on opening track Tonight (We Live Forever) with a mature sounding vocal and a spunky, upbeat feel that is a nice place for the band to sit. They continue this authentic, Phillip Phillips-y vibe on All About A Girl and Central Park and it definitely works for them. Other that that though, it’s not great news.
The title track You Got It All is the Little Things of this album, kind of sweet but mostly lame. The lyrical cringes kept coming unfortunately with I would run a million miles to the moon / if I knew you’d be there too on Midnight Train and the kinda creepy I love to watch you sleep / cause I love to watch you dream on I Love To Watch You Sleep. I’m sorry but I’m a practical girl, running a million miles to the moon is impossible and watching me sleep is unsettling. There will almost definitely be drool on both occasions. If these songs spoke of running down to 7/11 to get me some Chunky Monkey or watching me kick your butt in Mario Kart, I’m your girl.
There are some boy band goodies on this album, and I have to admit while I figured 1D and 5SOS had this corner of the market covered, there’s a hell of a lot of space to cover. This little craze is going no where and I mean, if The Backstreet Boys can tour with New Kids On The Block (NKOTBSB – get on it if you haven’t already. Like you haven’t.) who says UnJ can’t have a piece of the pie?
It didn’t work, did it?
