An Ambitious Return

We'll get right down to it. This is the new single by Joe McElderry, it's called Ambitions.

It just happens to be a cover version of a song by Norway's very own Donkeyboy. If it's of any interest, you can take a look at that version here. Joe's version, by and large, is along the same lines as the original so there's not too much contextual added value to be had here.

The bigger issue is whether this cuts it as the first "proper"* release of Joe's career. It's certainly a risky move: a vocal which is delivered almost entirely in falsetto and a track which has more than the faintest whiff of danceability about it. It's pretty much the last thing we expected to kickoff the album campaign, and for that, we can do very little but applaud. Undoubtedly, after the "Rage" fiasco a point needs to be proven and, in our humble opinion, Joe is more than deserving of genuine success from this campaign. Ambitions, with any luck, will go ahead and give him just that. At the end of the day, this is interesting, bold and very likeable

Sadly, though, we have real reservations about this being the first introduction to Joe's bona fide pop career. More specifically, we just wonder whether the less pop-savvy members of Joe's target demographic are going to "get it". Let's face it, it's all very well for people like us on the blogosphere doffing our caps at SyCo's bold decision to give Joe a comparatively heavyweight single with origins in a relatively obscure (yet undoubtedly prodigious) Skandivanian pop act, but, is it going to appeal to the cooing mums and teenage audiences which Joe so naturally appealed to on the X Factor? There's just a danger that this isn't quite what those groups in particular are looking for.

From a purely selfish point, we could just say "yeah? Well screw them. SyCo has put effort into making Joe a credible male solo artist by giving him genuinely interesting material to work with". The danger with that is, pop music bloggers on the Internet are fairly low down the pecking order of "people Joe McElderry needs to impress". But, we suppose, that's the thing about taking a risk: there's always the danger that it doesn't quite get pulled off. For the record, we absolutely hope that it does. Ambitions is a brilliant, clever single, which deserves to be the track which removes Joe from any clouds which the Christmas Number 1 debacle may have cast over his future prospects.

So with that said, we'll just put forward this question and leave it out there for consideration: is releasing Ambitions a stroke of genius? Or is it a single which is just too risky at this stage in Joe's career?