Get On With Your Short Life

The title track of this latest offering from Brian Kennedy contains the following lines: “Why do you have to waste time on your waistline/When you could be having dinner with me?/Will you really be a winner/If you’re thinner?”. Now while quite honestly a pretty awful couplet, what makes it laughable is that Kennedy sings it straight, as if it’s the most meaningful thing he’s ever heard.

This is Brian’s problem: Unless he wants to become some sort of Daniel O’Donnell for the generation of Irish women who actually do have orgasms, he needs to cop himself on. While he’s possessed of an excellent voice that can both whisper and scream, and in tune, mind you, the material we’re presented with here makes The Corrs sound like And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

What’s doubly annoying here is that Kennedy could do it properly if he so chose. Here he does it only once, on the sublime ‘Christopher St.’, a simple guitar/vocal workout that’s got less frills than the street in question. Quite beautiful.

Brian Kennedy needs to decide if he wants to be Ronan Keating or Elvis Costello. Here’s how you decide; listen to ‘Lovin’ Each Day’ followed by ‘I Want You’. Easy, isn’t it.