Daniel Powter

This awful piece of work shamelessly stares us in the face with no intention of making the cut. Daniel Powter’s Under the Radar, is Canadian pop at its worst. Here’s the deal, Powter’s claim to fame in ‘Bad Day’ (2005) does not allow him to sleep through the rest of his work or permit him to unnecessarily assail our ears. The album starts with a yawn-inducing ‘Best of Me’ for lovelorn suckers. With the template set on keys, flirtations with pop-rock on guitars, requisite drumming, Powter’s accomplished vocals, and tawdry lyricism ”“ the compositions are overbearingly average. He is doing a substandard of Bryan Adams, a spot of MLTR, and mostly he is like Daniel Bedingfield’s disgruntled step brother, who tries too hard.

On ‘Whole World Around’ a sappy Powter sobs on platitudes – “Open up your heart and let me in.” And ‘Next Plane Home’ burdens itself with the albums saleability, almost tottering under the weight of mindless song-writing on other tracks.

Now here’s the depressing bit – Linda Perry produced Under The Radar! “Special thanks to Linda Perry, my mentor”¦for holding my hand and walking through it with me, and for helping me make the record I never thought was in me.” Was Powter being sarcastic in his thank you letter? Credited with rescuing Pink’s dying career with Misundaztood and completely revamping her sound whilst assisting her on song writing, it would be wrong to assume that Perry could work her magic for Powter. Though the guilt seems to have caught on with Perry in not doing justice to her new protégé – on ‘Am I Still the One’ she pesters herself to work up something decent. Easily avoidable.