Aiden Grimshaw - Misty Eye

Remember Aiden Grimshaw from a little talent show called The X Factor? If not this should jog your memory – he’s the little fella with the impressive quiff and permanent glaring singing face who lost out to Katie Waissel (the annoying one with Marie Antoinette hair, yep we had to Google her too) in week 6. Normally, on receiving a CD from one of Simon Cowell’s alumni, you feel inclined to don an anti-contamination suit and handle it with extreme caution, lest the effect of Syco possess you like an evil money-demon. Young Aiden, while signed to another branch of Sony, thankfully isn’t under the management of the man with the hoiked up ankle-bashers and gleaming white teeth anymore. We already feel calmer about the whole affair.

Aiden Grimshaw has been cast off by Cowell to RCA. It’s home to a few reality TV graduates of course, but it also looks after The Strokes, Imogen Heap, A$AP Rocky, and until recently it hosted the late and great Whitney Houston. Aiden’s new label isn’t as much about gloss and non-existent talent as your assumptions might lead you to presume. The brooding press shots are still there, of course, along with some designer stubble and the ever-present quiff, but Aiden Grimshaw’s forehead seems far less crumpled. It’s presumably because he’s no longer being forced to put a new spin on Shirley Bassey’s ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ by ‘mentor’ Dannii Minogue – whilst we are in awe of Shirley’s booming tones, always, it is, perhaps a little vintage for a youngster like Aiden. There’s no denying that Grimshaw slots nicely into the more commercial end of proceedings at RCA, but with more than Susan Boyle for company, the foundations for doing something a little different are very promising.

Somebody has clearly been doing their research, because ‘Misty Eye’ is made up of on the pulse pop music. Lite radio-friendly takes on drum n’ bass are clear on catchy ‘dance’ hits like ‘Is This Love’, and someone was obviously listening to Miike Snow’s recent album when they dreamt up the piano riff to ‘This Island’. There are some heartfelt ballads to lasso the tweenage hearts of the nation, as we’d expect. Then there’s the all important rap guest spot featuring Smiler (an emerging rapper who incidentally also covered another Shirley Bassey song – what is it with that woman?!) on ‘What We Gunna Be’. If everything was utterly boring and coma inducing, this formulaic approach would be very angering. However, I can’t lie, it works. By the time I reached ‘Nothing At All’, I admit I was bobbing along to the music quite energetically. Heaven help me.

There’s also no denying that this is an album of snappy, quickly gratifying pop hits; but once you get past that you begin to see that it’s not really that bad. Finally cut loose from Simon Cowell’s mad-train of shitty pop-garbage, Grimshaw is doing a much better job. ‘Misty Eye’ is never going to be hailed for its wild artistic vision and breakthrough experimentalism –but being honest, not many of us were expecting that when we read this review. We probably, let’s be fair, fancied having a bit of a chuckle. Aiden Grimshaw should be highly commended, if for one thing; he has succeeded in doing what we thought impossible. He has created a post-X-Factor album that doesn’t make me want to rip out my eardrums to end the agony or lop off the lad’s quiff with some pre-sharpened scissors. ‘Misty Eye’ is an all right pop effort actually; in other words the boy dun’ good. Is This Love? Not quite, but let’s at least give old Grimmy a break.