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Olly Murs is the self-titled debut studio album from English singer-songwriter Olly Murs. It was released on 26 November 2010 in the United Kingdom. The album's lead single, "Please Don't Let Me Go", was released on 27 August 2010. The song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart. The second single from the album, "Thinking of Me", was released on 22 November 2010, and debuted at number four. The third single "Heart on My Sleeve" was released in March 2011 and peaked at #20. The song was written by James Morrison and John Shanks, and has previously been released by Australian singer Michael Johns in 2009. The fourth and final release from the album, "Busy" was released in May 2011 and peaked at #44. In October 2011, nearly a year after the album's release, BBC Radio 1 listeners voted Olly Murs as "Album of the Year" in the annual Radio 1 Teen Awards.
User Album Review
Anyone who enjoys a chipper ditty, a milkman-friendly whistle-along of a song, will find a lot to like in this album. Olly is a very confident fellow, with a winning smile and a spring in his step, and this is spread thickly across his debut like marzipan on a wedding cake.
There’s been a certain amount of discussion about his vocal similarities with one Will Young, but Olly is a much more carefree presence on record than his fellow – and far more serious – graduate of the school of reality TV pop stars. Plus he’s got a hat, which he wears all the time. Does Will Young wear a hat all the time? He does not.
And the overriding impression is of a man who has loved and lost but, y’know, it’s all good, and he’s ready to love again whenever you are. Yes there are stalker overtones to second single Thinking of Me, in which Olly basically takes the credit for his ex-girlfriend’s taste in... well, everything, and he happily criticises her new boyfriend too. And yes, he does like to overstate the case – witness the bombastic A Million More Years – but nothing is going to wipe that cocky grin from his face for long.
It’s not really his fault either. Ska and reggae are among the most joyous musical forms known to humankind. Add a bit of soulful pop/rock here or music hall strut there (I Blame Hollywood) and you’ve got an album that, for the first half at least, is very sure of itself indeed.
Even the relatively downbeat second half betrays little sense of doubt. It takes a certain amount of self-regard to insist that the person you have your eye on either admits that they love you or lets you get on with your life, and that’s pretty much what Ask Me to Stay demands.
Heart on My Sleeve is close to being vulnerable, but it’s followed very quickly by Hold On, a Bugsy Malone-sampling heel-clicker about being strong in the face of adversity. After that, it’s basically back to the grinning and the high kicks.
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