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| Birth Name(s) : Westlife |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Full Westlife Biography
Westlife are an Irish pop music group that formed in July 1998. They were signed by Simon Cowell and managed by Louis Walsh. In recent years, Westlife's sound has evolved from boy band "teen pop-ballads sound" into a more adult contemporary music romantic-ballads (ACM) sound.
Westlife were awarded the Best Irish Pop Act, a public voting category, at the annual Ireland Meteor Awards for the seventh consecutive year on 2 February 2007.
Westlife's first big break came in 1998 when they opened for the Boyzone in Dublin. Later that year, they won Best New Tour Act at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.
Westlife's next album was quickly recorded, and released in November 2000. Coast to Coast was an enormous hit in the UK, becoming the country's 4th biggest selling album of the year and Westlife's biggest selling album to date. Westlife took on a signing tour around the UK called "Coast To Coast". The album was preceded by a duet with Mariah Carey on the Phil Collins classic "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" and the ballad "My Love". Both singles reached #1 in the UK charts. With this, Westlife broke an unexpected record, having their first seven singles debut at the top of the UK charts. In December 2000, however, that run was broken when they failed to secure their eighth chart-topper in a row when kid's favourite Bob The Builder's "Can We Fix It" was crowned Christmas number one.
Westlife released their third album in November 2001 called World of Our Own, which featured several songs that eventually became Number 1 hits including "Uptown Girl", "Queen of My Heart" and "World of Our Own".
This album also featured the original version of "Evergreen", which was then covered by Gareth Gates and Will Young for Pop Idol.
In 2003 Westlife toured the UK and Europe with the greatest hits, and still shrugged off rumours of a split.
In September 2003, Westlife released "Hey Whatever", which made it to Number 4 in the UK Charts. In November 2003 came Westlife's 'Make or Break' and fourth studio album Turnaround, which made number 1 on the UK charts. Along with the number 1 album was their twelfth number 1 single. "Mandy" (a cover of Barry Manilow's ballad) was released in November 2003. "Obvious" was also released on the album and charted at number 3 in February 2004.
Before the album release, Westlife travelled up and down the UK to find "the perfect fan" to help promote their album. After X Factor style auditions, they found Joanne Hindley (who later appeared on X Factor). They recorded "The Way You Look Tonight". To celebrate their first ever fan to appear on a Westlife song they televised it, showing auditions and live performances. Their performances included Joanne, their fathers and glamour model Katie Price. They also performed alone.
Westlife plan to release Us Against The World as the second single off Back Home in the beginning of 2008.
On 2 November 2007, Westlife announced they will play Croke Park in Dublin on 1 June 2008 during an interview on Irish TV show The Late Late Show. Croke Park is the fourth biggest stadium in Europe which holds 82,300 people making the concert Westlife's biggest performance to date. Kian described the tour to be a pop extravaganza. Shane confirmed that the band will not release a new album in 2008 but they will release a tour DVD. It was confirmed on 22 November that Shayne Ward will be supporting Westlife for the gig at Croke Park.
Westlife have performed duets with some of the biggest names of the music industry, including Mariah Carey, Donny Osmond, Lulu, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Christian Castro, Ronan Keating and more recently Delta Goodrem. Claudia Schiffer and Vinnie Jones have also starred in their music videos. Westlife also collaborated with Asian-music sensation BoA with the song "Flying Without Wings", which would appear on her mini-album, Shine We Are!.
Westlife have yet to manage to truly break the United States market. Their debut single and music video "Swear It Again" was released in the US in 2000 and was hit on mainstream radio and MTV, reaching #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and being shown on MTV's Total Request Live. Their debut American album was also released in 2000, but they have not yet released another album in the USA. In 2002, an attempt to promote and release an American version of Westlife's "World Of Our Own" album was cut short due to the band having a larger fan base in other areas, as the two most prominent boy bands in the US, Backstreet Boys and N' Sync, took breaks. The Westlife hit song "Flying Without Wings" peaked at #10 in the US when American Idol winner Ruben Studdard released it after winning season 2 of the show. They have stated in interviews that they were disappointed when they heard he released the song in the US because that song was such a huge hit in the UK and they were planning on eventually bringing that song to American audiences. In 2003 they went to Nashville to film a TV documentary and recorded a song originally performed by country music legend Kenny Rogers, "Daytime Friends", which won them much praise. |
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