While the brightly colored schlager pop of 2009 X-Factor winner
Joe McElderry's debut album,
Wide Awake, was an admirable attempt to distance himself from the karaoke treatment most people expected, it was of little surprise that the army of housewives and grandmothers who helped him storm to victory didn't exactly warm to its Hi-NRG beats and falsetto pop melodies. Utterly overshadowed by runner-up
Olly Murs' cod-reggae success, the South Shields vocalist looked to have joined the likes of
Steve Brookstein and
Leon Jackson on the scrapheap of failed
Cowell signings, having been dropped by Sony just months after its release. However, thanks to the constant merry-go-round of reality TV,
McElderry was handed a lifeline after being invited to appear on ITV's Popstar to Operastar, a show he went on to win with over 80-percent of the final vote. But away from the glare of the cameras, he faced a second struggle, to transfer his undeniably likeable and down to earth personality to his Decca-released follow-up,
Classic, a combination of classical crossover standards and orchestral reworkings of modern pop songs. With interpretations of
Andrea Bocelli's "Canto Della Terra" and "Time to Say Goodbye," and a bilingual version of Titanic theme, "My Heart Will Go On," the choice of material may be far more suited to the Sunday night TV audience than the
Scissor Sisters-esque vibes of his first offering. But as pleasant as
McElderry's musical theater-esque voice is, it's nowhere near as powerful or distinctive enough to do justice to such operatic behemoths as "Nessun Dorma" (also featured here in an original English-language adaptation, "Hear My Prayer"), and
Verdi's "Va Pensiero," while the string-soaked version of
Luther Vandross' "Dance with My Father" (the number he performed at his initial X-Factor audition) and renditions of tracks associated with
Susan Boyle ("I Dreamed a Dream"), and Britain's Got Talent winner Jai McDowall (
Josh Groban's "To Where You Are") suggest that he's become scared to leave his talent show background behind. You can't blame
McElderry for wanting to play it safe after his bid at pop stardom backfired, but while
Classic might steer him away from the last chance saloon, it's a formulaic and predictable affair which suggests a lifetime of
Westlife-esque ballads disappointingly lies ahead. ~ Jon O'Brien