Songoftheday 4/21/22 -I wanna know whoever told you I was letting go, of the only joy that I have ever known Girl they were lying...

 

 

"Swear It Again" - Westlife
from the album Westlife (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song comes from the Irish "boy-band" Westlife, who were assembled by British music powerhouses Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell, both of the Pop Idol franchise. Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, and Kian Egan were friends from college who had a group with three other guys in the western city of Sligo. Managed by Walsh who brought them to Cowell, Simon summarily ordered the other three fired for being too unattractive and hired on Bryan McFadden and Nicky Byrne to complete the lineup. With Walsh's connections (he also managed the insanely popular Irish boyband Boyzone), they were signed to RCA Records in 1998. The following year, they comely quintet released their debut single "Swear It Again". Written by producer Steve "Mac" McCutcheon with Wayne Hector, the sugary ballad pushes all the tween button, where they reassure a love whose been cautioned that the intend on sticking around. It's very professionally constructed and produced, but also pretty basic, lowering the bar so the rabid record-buying youth won't need to think about things other than their pretty mugs. It became a huge success in the UK and Ireland, and eventually made it to the States, where it became their sole American hit...

"Swear It Again" reached the pop top-20 in the U.S. in July of 2000. The song also made it to #22 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single went to #1 in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in Belgium (#10F), Australia (#12), Sweden (#12), Spain (#20), Switzerland (#25), the Netherlands (#27), and Canada (#28). The Westlife album, released in November of 1999 in the UK and Ireland and May of 2000 in America, peaked at #129 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but it topped the albums lists in their Irish homeland and came in at #2 in the UK. 

Despite this being Westlife's only Stateside hit, they were definitely just getting started in Europe. The Westlife album's four other singles all followed "Swear It Again" to the top of the British singles chart.  "If I Let You Go", another mid-tempo ballad to swoon the ladies, was written by a Swedish team and sounded totally Backstreet-esque. That was followed by "Flying Without Wings", another Mac/Hector song, which would eventually find itself into the American Idol canon when season two champ Ruben Studdard released it as his "winner's song" (that version will be on this series). For their fourth release, Westlife offered the "double A-side" single both of remakes of cheesy songs from the 1970's - ABBA's "I Have A Dream" and Terry Jacks' "Seasons In The Sun".  The fifth British chart-topper from the debut was "Fool Again", from the same Swedes that wrote "If I Let You Go", although that one happened to stop at #2 in Ireland. Later in 2000, they appeared on the special single release of Mariah Carey's remake of the Phil Collins' classic "Against All Odds", which landed them a sixth #1 hit in the UK (and fifth in Ireland).

That Collins cover also would show up on the group's sophomore effort Coast To Coast, which would top the British and Irish albums charts. It also spun off two more #1 hits in the UK and Ireland with "My Love" and their first uptempo single release, a remake of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". Their third disc, World Of Our Own, saw the members writing a lot of their own material, and were graced with another #1 album in the British Isles. In the UK, both "Queen Of My Heart" and "World Of Our Own" topped the singles chart. In 2002, Westlife had racked up enough hits to release a greatest hits set, Unbreakable, which also sold millions and topped the British and Irish charts, with the title track "Unbreakable" going to #1 in both countries as well. 

The group returned the following year with their next studio set Turnaround, which topped the albums charts in the Isles yet again, and spun off three top ten hits including one #1 with a cover of the 1970s uber-ballad "Mandy" made famous originally by Barry Manilow. But when they went to tour behind the album, McFadden announced he was leaving the group with the "being with my family" reason, but of course shortly setting off on a solo career.

Filan, Feehily, Egan, and Byrne continued on as a quartet, and the next move with the left-field swerve of releasing Allow Us To Be Frank, an album of standards from the 40s and 50s mostly from the work of Frank Sinatra. No singles from the record made the chart, but the album still made it to #3 on the British Albums sales chart. Nevertheless they still made bank by touring the world with their previous pop material under the Number Ones Tour name. Meanwhile, McFadden released his own solo debut Irish Son in 2004, and scored a #1 single in the UK with "Real To Me", followed by a pair of top ten British hits in "Irish Son" (#6) and "Almost Here" with Australian singer Delta Goodrem (#3). However after this debut album he failed to chart another single in the UK, though he did have one in Ireland in 2007 with "Like Only A Woman Can" and in Australia in 2010 with "Just Say So" with Kevin Rudolph.

Westlife's sixth studio album Face To Face came out in 2005, and the lead single, a cover of "You Raise Me Up" originally recorded by Irish/Norwegian Eurovision winners Secret Garden but made famous in America by tenor supreme Josh Groban, returned the boys to the #1 spot in the UK, while the album also hit the top in Britain. That was followed by The Love Album, which contained all remakes, and sent their version of Bette Midler's "The Rose" to #1 in the UK. That was followed by Back Home in 2007, which got to #1 on the British Albums chart, but was their first "modern pop" set to fail to spin off a #1 single, though one of the tracks, a version of neo-swing singer Michael Buble's "Home", made it to #3. 

After taking a year off after touring on the last album, Westlife came back in 2009 with Where We Are, which went to #2 on the British Albums chart, as did the first single from the record, a remake of Daughtry's "What About Now". A year later, another record, Gravity, emerged, but again only had one single, "Safe", which got to #10 on the British chart and didn't even sport a music video, and the foursome had enough of being underserved by their management and label and dropped Cowell and RCA and temporarily dissolved the act after another Greatest Hits release whose new song "Lighthouse" stalled down at #32 in the UK. 

The four members of Westlife went on to all release solo albums. Shane Filan, who sang lead on most of the group's hits, released three solo albums, with his first in 2013, You And Me, having its title track go to #14 in the UK and #7 in Ireland. Kian Egan released Home in 2014, which made the top ten in the UK (#9) and Ireland. Nicky Byrne's solo set, Sunlight, came out in 2016, and hit #8 in Ireland. Lastly, Markus Feehily, who came out of the closet as gay in 2005, put out Fire in 2015, which went to #2 on the Irish Albums chart and #25 in the UK, with the single "Love Is A Drug" being a minor hits in both countries.

Everybody except McFadden reunited as Westlife n 2018, and came back strong, with the record Spectrum that sported five songs co-written by Ed Sheeran. The first of them, "Hello My Love", written by Ed with produced Steve Mac, returned the group to the British top-40 at #13, followed by another Sheeran co-write, "Better Man", at #26, their most recent top-40 British hit. The album topped both the British and Irish charts. Their most recent release, Wild Dreams, arrived in late 2021, and got to #2 in Britain and Ireland. The lead single, "Starlight", popped on to the singles chart at #66. 

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(Click below to see the rest of the post)

There was a completely different video shot for the original European release that set the guys in a theatre...

Here's the group on their first tour video release from Dublin in 2001...

Next up, from their Greatest Hits Tour in 2003 in Manchester, England...

Fast forward to 2010, for the group (without McFadden) at the O2 Arena in London...

And lastly, from their reunion in 2019...

Up tomorrow: Another British "boy band" act breaks through.