CD: Little Mix - DNA | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Little Mix - DNA
CD: Little Mix - DNA
Can a group with its own personality survive an X Factor win?
Well that's a shame. Little Mix were likable, talented winners of The X Factor – four times Everygirl in clashing neon, funky, funny, vulnerable but self aware. They proved repeatedly on the show that they could sing and then some, and even though they were a thrown-together group harmonised like they were sisters.
Their first single proper, after the standard winners' Christmas number one, was/is great too – but rather ominously, “Wings” kicks this album off, as if to shout out that they don't have anything else as attention-grabbing. And they don't. There are some good bits, and some small attempts to keep the rough human edges that made LM so charming as they ascended The X Factor greasy pole, but really it's mostly a hodgepodge of committee design, migraine production and the kind of worthy whineyness we'll never escape post Emeli Sandé.
The 90s R&B references are ladled on – a De La Soul psuedo-cover in "How Ya' Doin", a guest spot from TLC's T Boz on the admittedly crunchy "Red Planet" – but really it's shrill, autotunemungous 2010s mall-pop through and through, with obligatory crashing dubstep flourishes and all the character produced and focus-grouped to within an inch of its life, then focus-grouped some more. A lost opportunity.
Add comment