1lennonlove

Favourite on the album Letters (favourite live song as well) and Walking on Water. Least favourite Slowly and All for Nothing (which bores me for some reason) Kids like Amazing and Starlight. Hope Starlight does well. It is a great radio track, just hope radio stations see that.

There is an artist bashing forum in the UK charts forum. You can have a pop as Sir Paul there. Does that mean you loathe John Lennon too? Bit of a fan if you must know....small clue in my name perhaps. Buzzjacks is good for chart info and I will defo pop in from time to time but will stick out the DS and keep the home fires burning against the strange Matt haters on the MF. Fight the good fight....onwards and upwards etc.

ha ha JaMak I posted on the weather thread too. Very interesting indeed. Love talking about the weather. Thank you the advice about snow gloves. Wish I had the album to enthuse about and therefore earn the right to blush. Have nothing :( Looking forward to his programme after X Factor tonight. :cheer: Dermot refers to Darius after HMBOMT. "Doing a Darius" He was a Pop Idol contestant.

Same here. What is the idea of a proto - Darius thread about? Are we to blame? Is it a good or bad thing?

I agree JaMak. 80,000 in todays current climate for the first week is quite high. The hatred on that site is so bad. You can just go round in circles trying to defend Matt. People just aren't willing to see the other side. To be honest if it sold 200,00 in total I would be very happy indeed.

Looking forward to hearing what you think as I don't think I'll be hearing it until Monday :(

I have thought about it...so tempting especially as I've already ordered it. May have to do it. I can't say that I haven't done this in the past. So not breaking some horrible moral code. You're fairer than I have been in the past Liam.

Same here. Non of my physicals came today. I will chance it at midnight. If not "need a little patience" :lol:

Thank you Regina, I will download it tonight. :)

I tried really hard to like RFYL when it came out. But it is formulaic and bland. When you listen to Matt's songs it takes a while to really get to know them. I love that. You can really dig deep into them (not sure if I've made myself clear there!) With RFYL after you've played it five times or so there is no where to go with it. It just stagnates as a song. I see no dimensions to it. Really heavy stuff I know but Matt's own songs don't do that. People often say it takes quite a few listens to get into Matt songs, and that favourites change over time and I think that illustrates how good a song writer he is. Anyhoo that's what I feel about the songwriting styles of GB and Matt Cardle. I'm not saying one is better than the other generally it's just that I prefer songs that don't just hand themselves over to you complete and sealed as a finished product. Finally just need to add in the Matt Factor. When Matt sings his own songs another dimension is added. The emotion and understanding of the song just adds to the song especially when you see his live performances. There is no doubt Matt is a live performer and I can't wait to seem him live.

I honestly believe that Starlight was meant to be the first single but Matt was made to do the GB song. GB success as a song writer has been mixed at best. All I can say is Matt can now move on. I am so jealous of you all listening to the album. Does anyone know when I can download it off iTunes?

Lucky,lucky you. I ordered mine from Amazon which means it's on a slow boat to China, via Milton Keynes! Did order the signed copy from Play but that is not the deluxe version. Would love to be reading the little booklet too. Let me know what you think about the tracks. Enjoy it Purple.

Hi Amber, I thought the video was a bit silly really. I would just like to see the band for the next video, but what I gather from twitter more girl models involved. Hope no rolling around on sheepskin rug...really not ready for that :D

Love Sparks too - currently my favourite. Hope you like the album, hope I like it. Would love to hear what you think about the album.

I could be paranoid and not cynical and decide that maybe Matt and Columbia had no choice. Syco contracts are notoriously evil and maybe a deal was done where Syco decided on the first single to be released and GB was tied into somehow because of his X Factor connection. Columbia may have been made to use it but like a rebellious child decided to handle it as badly as possible to get it over and done with and that is why Starlight has been prepared for release so quickly. I think Starlight was originally the single but with GB joining X Factor maybe a deal was done behind closed doors and Matt became the victim in the deal. Conspiracy theories all over the place. Sounds ridiculous really. Maybe Matt thought RFYL was a great song and wanted to sing it. I don't think the song is as bad as people think it is and I am surprised at how badly it did in Ireland considering how well Matt did there with WWC.

hi Purple, Funny enough I've just said a similar thing on the DS forum. Spent all afternoon looking at album sales and came to the same conclusion that album sales have dropped considerably. Although yours is a masterpiece of solid research and evidence based assessments. Well done. A gold star for you. It is unfair to compare Matts album sales to Leona's but that is what will happen. When you look at the average sales for pretty established bands like Kasabian, you start to realise how good even 50,000 sales would be for a debut album. Told the MCAT that the MF are not clued into the reality of album sales and will perceive Matt to be a failure, when Columbia will probably be quite satisfied. I hope it gets around the 80,000, not sure it will. Steps is likely to get to number 1 on 30,000. :o As I said in an earlier post it's only when you leave the DS XFactor forum and come out of it's bitter and twisted posting that you realise that you have spent hours defending a position that doesn't need it. Yeah the single didn't do to well but I don't get the impression Matt is too bothered. And all signs point to Matt having solid album sales. In this climate for an artist who wants to produced quality albums that's not too bad. Hope the video for the next single is a little less cheesey - wasn't a big fan myself. Glad to hear the words are set up like that Wkd, that is one of the best things about buying a physical copy. Reading the lyrics and the smell of shiney cd booklets. :yahoo:

Ireland really loved When We Collide. RFYL is not really representative of Matt's album. I like the b sides and the free download on Amazon called Sparks. Hoping Ireland may like the album better. Some of his live performances really show what a great artist his is. Look at the channel 4 chart show performance of Walk on Water. Just great. Keeping my fingers crossed for the album.

I've done the same. Had very little to do with album because I want to hear the whole thing. I have heard the one he did on X Factor. Can't remember what it's called. Brains gone. I love Sparks - Matt is a little person but he totally held his own against the amazonian Rhianna. I liked the way their voices fitted together where she sang the low notes and he did the high. Worked really well.

Wow multi quoting :lol: I remember how much Queen earned on some of their big South American tours, but their stage package was enormous. Can't see how Matt can make Columbia any money? He is only likely to tour theatres for at least a while. I wonder if his financial appeal is his song writing? He can write for others as well as himself. Sony probably own his publishing rights as well. Catalogues can be a real long term investment. Then again studio time costs a lot of money and he's currently making another girl related video for Starlight. They obviously see something in him. I am surprised they allowed a second single out from the album. Is the video costing him or the label? Is he further in debt with Syco because of it? I'd be happy with just a band shoot if truth be told. One of my favourite Queen videos ever is "I want it all", which is just a video of the band singing. I love Jagged Little Pill. It sold over 16 million copies in the US along. Alanis also had a lot to prove with that album coming from a very cute pop background. I watched a very serious programme once that discussed in great detail her misuse of the term "ironic"

I know JaMak- she can just come in a be that happy underdog people in the UK adore. it is a very British thing to hate a winner. This would not happen in the US. Part of me never wanted Matt to win X Factor because I knew he would have to fight so hard just to keep the wolves at bay. It is true about X Factor - people will pay money to support an artist by voting every week but never think about them again outside of the X Factor arena. It's not really a route I would recommend for a musical artist unless like Matt you feel it is your only option left. However the British public are fickle and maybe after a year of being outcast for winning and crushed soundly by music critics, trolls and gutter press Matt will be allowed his renaissance as a musician and develop a solid career as a singer/songwriter. B-)

Hi Regina, Wkd and all, I had no idea album sales had fallen so much. Amazing that labels like Columbia have the time and money to invest in new artists. No wonder it's so hard to get signed up esp. if you are not in a boy band etc where label is more likely to get a return in single sales. Matt is so lucky to get signed to a label when you think about it and given the chance to write his own music pretty much the way he wanted to. No wonder he looks so happy. When you remove the xfactor male singer curse from the equation you can see that Matt really got the break he needed. Interesting to see how Rebecca's debut album does as a comparison. 80,000 looks like a great return if true. I'm sure Columbia and Matt will be delighted with this. Coming out of DS you really start to get a sense of perspective again. It's like living under a black cloud of despair there, where you are constantly hit with figures that are no longer relevant to the current climate. Talking of climate Buzz jacks has a weather discussion forum. How desperately British.

It is sad. I remember the excitement of getting my first album. It was Rage in Eden by Ultravox (am quite old). My kids have never even bought a CD album. They watch music as opposed to listen to it (you tube etc) Albums are not a string of singles stuck together, there is thought about song orders and risks taken with music because it is not ever meant for singles release. I like the blurb about the artists and the lyrics etc. On the flip side I do love just to be able to download tunes but that's because I'm terribly lazy. Kids will never experience the horrible feeling of being looked down upon by HMV staff because you bought a Nik Kershaw album. It's a rites of passage lost to a new generation. :D

Is that all????? How does the music industry make money any more? What will they do when everyone has downloaded and bought back catalogues? Amazing. They must have other ways of making money out of artists like tours etc. Maybe merchandising - which is fine for The Wanted or One Direction but no one is going to buy a Matt Cardle doll.

Hi Everyone, Looking forward to getting Letters from Play any minute. Haven't really listened to the album yet so I'm interested to see if I like it. Will post a genuine and honest appraisal after I heard it as least four times. Not sure why Starlight is being released after the album. Surely everyone who wants the album would've have bought it. Can't really see Matt as a singles artist. Not sure what it achieves. I can only think it's designed to emphasise that Matt can produce his own penned singles as opposed to members of Take That. Is it proving a point? Matt removing himself completely from the X Factor circus? Not sure. Again I don't know the song well enough to decide what impact it would have as a single. Heard Matt getting a lot of flak re reviews in the broadsheets etc. Not totally unexpected. More interested like Wkd and JaMak to find out how many he sells. Was shocked to hear that albums can sell only 60,000 odd copies to make the number 1 spot. This is a very heavy album time what with Noel G, so I'm hoping if Matt is chasing his skirt tails then he may have sold solid numbers. Will now insert :cheer: smiley because it's cute.

Thanks for the tip Regina - it's hard not to get excited by all the animated smileys. I love Sparks. It is currently my favourite song followed closely by Lost and Found. :arrr: Not sure what emotion a pirate has but nevertheless...