Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Power Ballad City. Not a red jumper in sight you’ll be delighted to note, but many heart rendering tunes recounting in emotional detail the battle this beautiful dame fought against Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Enter stage right and we see that the help of Cathy Dennis, Guy Chambers and Gary Barlow (uh-oh), has been enlisted to provide much of the music to Delta’s lyrics, with dubious results.
No one can deny that Goodrem has had a hard time of it, but it seems a shame that she’s translated her experiences into such schmaltzy piano laden tracks as current single ‘Out Of The Blue’, and ‘Almost Here’ which finds Brian McFadden (him again!)⇣helping her shovel on the sacharine. There’s a promising whiff of Tori Amos on the title track and ‘Electric Storm’, but a stonking stench of sentimentality, reminiscent of toe-cringing balladeers Celine Dion and Mariah Carey contaminates many of the others.
The main problem with Mistaken Identity is that all the songs adhere to the same heard-it-a-million-times-before template.
Back in her native Oz, the album is selling by the lorry-load, which I’m sure will console Delta’s recently broken heart after her high profile split with tennis star Mark Philippoussis. No boundaries have been crossed with this, Goodrem’s sophmore effort, but then, little enough offence has been committed.