About Westlife

A. Vocal ability

The boyband concept is summoned to have different parts and roles. Filan, Feehily and McFadden (pre-depature) take part on the main vocals while Byrne and Egan perform the backing vocals and very occasional solos in songs up to the recent date. They have classifications on vocal range: Filan has 'the popular tune' (mid-range to high voice) and thus sings the tenor-like melody most often, whereas Feehily has 'the soulful voice' and can go from quite low baritone note through to a very high tenor voice. He sometimes sings falsetto. Byrne has 'the husky voice' and can sing high harmonies effortlessly, while Egan has 'the rocky/low' voice.

B. Instruments

The band's main key instrument is their vocals. Some of them have been expertly playing musical instruments like Egan who knows how to play, piano, drums and guitar; and Feehily knows how to play piano. During their gigs and concert tours, they are accompanied by a playing band, acoustic and rock and not usually using their talent onstage.

C. Songwriting

Over years of their career, Westlife's music has evolved from teen pop to a pop sound, with an emphasis on ballads. Most of the group's hits have been composed by experienced songwriters, most notably Steve Mac and Wayne Hector. For the band's list of own songs composed, see Song written.

 

D. Musical style, genre, image, content, and influences

The band classify themselves as a pop band recording pop songs which comprises ballads and love songs. Westlife has been known for their teen pop songs during their early days with slow, mid, and uptempo songs. Albums known for teen pop sound are Westlife, Coast to Coast, World of Our Own and Turnaround. As the years progressed they tried different genres like jazz and big band in 2004 with Allow Us to Be Frank pop-rock in 2009 with their album Where We Are. As they also mature, they verge into adult contemporary being evident on their cover album, The Love Album. Matured pop were also found with their LPs, Face to Face and Back Home. album and

Every Westlife album have always been a mixture of genres. R&B genre is evident as a sound of the band since the start where their voices were harmonizing and blending with each other. We can hear it on their songs "When I'm With You", "How to Break a Heart", and "Sound of a Broken Heart". Acoustic genre also took place as they have its versions with their songs "My Love", "Flying Without Wings", and "If I Let You Go". Club or electronics sounds were also heard from their remixes on each singles released. Dance Music is also a genre of Westlife as heard on their songs "When You're Looking Like That", "Bad Girls", and "Uptown Girl". Live music has came to their way as they have officially released recorded live sounds such as "You Raise Me Up" (Live at Croke Park) and "To Be With You". They did country music too like their recording of "Daytime Friends, Nighttime Lovers". As a pop band they are also inspired to cover songs that were different and put into their own genre which is pop (With the likes of "Home" from jazz music, "I'm Already There" from country music).

During their starting days, the band's musical content was mostly about love and inspirational songs but as they grew older, they have given the chance the songs that were from an individual's everyday experience in life. As for their image, they publicly begun as boyband with wholesome and clean-cut image. Now, they call themselves a manband with a more broad and manly looking image as they grow older.

The group's influences are Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, and Boyzone while pop is their main music influence. They are adored by many people even celebrities like Chris Martin of coldplay. The band have "tribute bands" performing their songs like Westlives, That's Life, and Westlike. On the other hand, Westlife also paid tribute to their co-boybands as one of the tour setlist.

History Of Westlife

Westlife are actually five lads come from Ireland, Nicky Byrne and Bryan McFadden came from the hometown of Boyzone, Dublin. While, Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily are all came from Sligo, a small town in Northwest of Ireland.

Shane did his first proper stage show when he was 12 years of age, the show was Grease at the Hawkswell Theatre in Sligo. The 3 Sligo lads started to know each other by performing this which Shane acted the role Danny, Kian as Kenickie and Mark as Vince Fortaine, all 3 lads were studying at Summerhill Colleg e at that time. Boyzone's success really made Shane wants to be in a pop group. His very first idea was with his friend Michael Garret and they thought of starting a four-piece and calling it SC4, after their school, Summerhill College. Then Shane asked Kian if he was interested and he just laughed at that time since Kian was really into heavy rock band then.

Later Shane, Kian and Mark joined 3 other members - Michael Garrett, Derek Lacey and Graham Keighron - from the same school and started off a group called IOU and realease their debut (and last) single "Together Girl Forever" which was co-written by Shane and Mark.

Shane's mom Mae Filan got in touch with the manager of Boyzone Louis Walsh, he came to hear their group in some Backstreet Boys songs. But Louis just thought of signing Shane, Kian and Mark to form a pop group, so Shane was in the hardest day(s) of his professional life that he had to tell 3 of his friends from IOU that Kian, Mark and himself were out of the band and formed their own group. After some auditions, Nicky and Bryan were joined to the group and that's formed Westside, their previous band name. With Ronan Keating as their co-manager, they started to perform in public as the opening act of the By-Request Tour of Boyzone and they've won the Best New Tour Act Award in the Smash Hits Roadshow Tour. Sooner they changed their name into Westlife, since they found that an American Group has already chosen this name -Westside. So they settled down with their new name and released their debut single "Swear It Again" in 19-April-1999, this single went straight to No.1 in UK single chart. (In fact they started off their business in Asia first by releasing the Swear It Again EP just in Asia in June 1999.) Later, their second single "If I Let You Go" and the third one "Flying Without Wings" were all went straight to No.1s in UK single chart, thus caused them to acheive this record that a pop group could ever have before, became the first band to achieve four successive number ones in Britian, even a greater success than Boyzone!!! The song "Flying Without Wings" had won the 1999's Record of The Year Award in front of 10 million viewers. The lads finally released their self-titled debut album in November 1999 which was also a No.1 UK album. Their fourth No.1 single "I Have A Dream / Seasons In The Sun", which is a double a-sided one, was even the last No.1 UK single in 20th century and the first in 21st century. With their fifth UK No.1 single "Fool Again", they became the first ever British group to have 5 consecutive No.1s in the UK chart, so they broke this record in the UK music history and they even have a Guinness Record for this. But the year 2000 they have won Record Of The Year again for their hit single 'My Love'. They've beaten Ronan Keating, S Club 7 and Robbie William.