Marcus Collins // Marcus Collins

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Usually once the X-Factor is complete, it’s the winners album that comes out first before any of the other finalists, however this time round, 2011 runner up Marcus Collins is first out the starting block with his self titled debut.

Opening with the debut single, Seven Nation Army (cover of the White Stripes song of the same name. See our review of it here), it quickly moves onto Love & Hate, a song that you could see Cee Lo Green sing. Innocence is up next and you can’t help think that it sounds like a 90’s Take That song. This is followed up by Don’t Surrender, a nice gentle pop song that showcases a nice laid back Marcus,

From laid back, we jump into more up beat Mercy featuring lots of horn flourishes before heading into what is quite possibly a favourite from his X-Factor days, Higher & Higher. That’s Just Life comes across as being a nice little summery tune that you can imagine being blasted from the car, with the windows down. Quicken the tempo, we’re brought into Tightrope. This song has got us sitting on the fence (Or maybe the Tightrope!) There’s something we like about this track, but at the same time, there’s something that we don’t. We just can’t explain it….

It’s Time brings the tempo back down to the casual pop tune, that feels very radio friendly.Next we’re back to the 80s with Feel Like I Feel. Finally we have what was the ‘b-side’ to the debut single, Break These Chains (which we loved over Seven Nation Army)

As a debut, it plays to Marcus’ strengths with regards to style. The quality of the songs (8 are co-written by Collins whilst 3 are covers) are of a high standard but our only gripe is that the track order does make it feel a little all over the place jumping from fast to slow back to fast in such quick succession. It feels like it’s been a rush job where someone’s only briefly listened to the tracks, put them in an order and gone done, get it pressed.

Fans from the show will no doubt support and enjoy. Other may take time to be convinced by this release. Only once the current X-Factor tour is over will be truly get an idea of whether he will survive the test of time.

Rating: 3.5/5

Marcus Collins // Seven Nation Army

Buy @ Amazon.co.uk | Download @ Amazon.co.uk
Download @ iTunes

For those of you that don’t know who Marcus is, he was the runner up in the 2011 UK X-Factor competition, missing out to Little Mix. Now he’s releasing his debut single, a cover of the White Stripes Seven Nation Army

With it’s distinctive bass line, we can’t help feel that if the song had been kept at the same genre, we might like it a little bit more. Sadly, we’re not impressed with this first offering. First rule of doing a cover; do it justice! There’s just too many instruments, feels as if the song doesn’t fit his voice and that he is just trying too hard. We’re thinking if the single b-side (and now we see it’s apparently appearing on the album as the last track) Break These Chains would grab more attention than this (and that’s just basing it on a 1 minute clip!)

Rather worryingly, his album is out shortly but is this rushed album a mistake? Only time will tell…..

Rating: 2/5

New Music Friday: Military Wives & Marcus Collins

We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to bring you snippets from the 2011 Christmas No.1 group, Military Wives! The album, In My Dreams is released on the 5th March and features the no.1 single Wherever You Are as well as songs by Adele, U2 & Coldplay! Check out the samples below! We’ve wishing them the best with the album

Military Wives - In My Dreams by DeccaRecords

Pre-order: Amazon | HMV

2nd track for today comes from X-Factor runner-up, Marcus Collins! As you probably know, his debut single will be a cover of the White Stripes Seven Nation Army. But to be fair, we’re looking forward to the ‘b-side’ (at least on the digital version) to it, Break These Chains.  Check out a snippet below!

'Break These Chains' by MarcusCollins

Pre-order single @ Amazon | HMV | iTunes