Union J – Tonight We Live Forever

“This is a great, great song.”

Tim: After a not-officially-acknowledged-but-let’s-be-honest disappointingly performing first album, they’ve moved record labels in an an attempt to reach out globally and now they’re back with this, replete with emojis that’ll annoy you if you want to sing along.

Tom: There’s a new Unicode entry for “levitating man in business suit”. I’d love to see them fit that in.

Tim: Ignoring the mystery of why “it’s all 👍” is pronounced the same as “👍 it’s all good 👍” and that truly cringeworthy “look at this CRAZY hot dog thing” clip in the video, this is a great, great song.

Tom: Yep: and specifically ruined by those clips so it can’t be ripped off YouTube.

Tim: As ever. There’s also a whole load of oh-ing, a properly upbeat chorus with wonderful soaring notes to wave your arms around to, and I know I spent most of the last post we wrote about them comparing their debut to One Direction’s, but now I’ve though about it it’s hard not to see the themic similarities between this and Live While We’re Young – both a “let’s all have a whole lot of fun together” message.

Tom: True. It ain’t quite One Direction, but then, what is?

Tim: Hmm, possibly 5 Seconds of Summer, but not much else. So basically, IT’S ALL 👍.

Union J – Loving You Is Easy

“When they finally turn everything up to eleven, it’s actually a really good track.”

Tom: Cementing their position as Slightly Too Late To Be One Direction here, I think.

Tim: So close, and yet…

Tom: I was all ready to dismiss this as a bit too generic, a bit too like every other standard boyband, until they came back from that middle eight. When they finally turn everything up to eleven, it’s actually a really good track.

Tim: It really is. But you didn’t like the first part? I think it’s all pretty good – what with the recent move towards proper instruments and “rock” and stuff that most British boybands have been going for, it’s very nice to have a largely synth-backed track.

Tom: Then, of course, they dial it back down to have a Meaningful Ballad Outro, and it just fades away from me again. There’s so much potential here, and they just haven’t quite got to it.

Tim: There I agree – the crappy piano intro and outro can properly do one, as far as I’m concerned, because it’s entirely unnecessary.

Tom: That middle eight, incidentally, can quite happily have the Killers’ “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” sung over it. Just pointing that out.

Tim: Gosh, so it can. Thanks for the heads up.

Union J – Beautiful Life

“I wonder if, had they been a year earlier, Union J would have been One Direction?”

Tim: They’re not going to be as big as One Direction. Let’s face it: no-one is. But, at least they’re giving it a decent shot by, well, doing exactly the same things they did.

Tom: I wonder if, had they been a year earlier, Union J would have been One Direction? Is it just a matter of timing, that the market was ready for a new boy band there, and they were good enough and at the right time? Or is there something special about 1D that UJ have – apart from a much better acronym?

Tim: Good question; I don’t know, really. They weren’t really marketed any differently on the show, so it may just be timing. Or Harry’s hair.

But as for what’s the same: fairly loud first track? Yes. Didn’t do quite as well, let’s not dwell on that. Second track: something a bit less low-key. And so we have this. Which, actually, isn’t particularly low-key once the chorus hits so I suppose that’s something.

Tom: It isn’t, but there’s not much I can say for it. It’s a generic ballad that fits into the background. That said, I don’t think I can remember any of their other tracks, so perhaps that fits a pattern.

Tim: In all, I actually prefer this to Carry You – there’s just more to it. The harmonies are more involved, the instrumentation’s more confident in its variation. And I’m quite a fan of grinding metal noises, so that helps as well.

Tom: I wonder how many people, having ripped the audio from the YouTube video, will eventually feel that the song seems “wrong” without the grinding metal?

Tim: Gosh, what a lot of hypothetical questioning we have today. I reckon: a few.

This, really, might have worked better as a lead single – it doesn’t have the soaring chorus, but it does have everything else a good pop song should have.

Tom: Apart from keeping my attention.

Union J – Carry You

“We’re getting the boy-band battles of the late 90s back, aren’t we?”

Tom: Union J’s motto should basically be “move over, One Direction”. Not in the sense that they’re any better, just because they’ll desperately want 1D to fade from the limelight so they’ve got a shot.

Tom: We’re getting the boy-band battles of the late 90s back, aren’t we? Westlife, Boyzone and Take That may have become groups for the mums, but that just meant all these upstarts came along. We might not have the dodgy sort-of-rap breakdowns any more, but all the trappings are there.

Tim: Hmm. And I’d often agree, and much as these guys are great, this debut single really isn’t what it should be. The verses are decent, and the middle eight’s got a bit of juice to it but the chorus just isn’t enough to, well, carry it. There’s three notes, and song can’t live on three notes.

Tom: This as a debut single? Man. They’re going darker than One Direction, for sure, and I just don’t think it works all that well. It’s well-produced, well-written, and well-sung; but this sounds more like an album track to me.