Time To Think - Sarah Whatmore

On the surface, Sarah Whatmore's proclamation that she had no interest in becoming yet another cookie-cutter popstar churned out and spat out by Pop Idol is commendable. After all, she was a budding singer-songwriter before her appearance on the aforementioned show and she did capitalise in the early days after that show with two top 20 hits. If we're to believe her, she decided that continuing on that route wasn't "her" and she wanted to make it on her merits.

That it took eight years or so for her debut album to hit the shops suggests that the journey might not have been paved with the gold she was hoping for. Indeed the only things of note about her in the intervening years was the story that she was gazumped by Britney for "Toxic" and that one of my mates once rather bizarrely accused an ex-girlfriend of mine of being "large" because she was the same build as Sarah Whatmore. Don't worry though, his guide dog is fine now.

All of this would become an irrelevance if female singer (some-time) songwriters weren't all the rage (in some ways making the timing of Whatmore's reappearance right on the money) and if her album was actually much cop. Sadly it isn't.

You've certainly heard worse and I couldn't sit here and tell you the album is awful. But it contains nothing that makes it stand out from the crowd and contains absolutely nothing that sticks in your head ten minutes after you've heard it.

One paced, this album gives you nothing that you can't get better elsewhere. So whilst it might be a commendable effort in one sense, in another it's almost certain to sink without trace.

Still, for what it's worth, back in the day I loved Automatic.