Richard Fleeshman: 'Neon'

Soap stars with pop careers, what would you do with them? When it goes right you can end up with Kylie. When it goes wrong you find yourself with Stefan Denis, Jason Donovan or Craig McLachlan. The last time Coronation Street blessed us with a singing sensation, it was Adam Rickett. The less said about that the better. So what are we to make of Richard Fleeshman? By competing and reigning victorious on Soapstar Superstar, he's going to struggle to shed his ex-Corrie star tag. But with an album of indie-based, acoustic bluesy-rock, he's clearly an artist pining for credibility. Unfortunately his fixation on becoming a 'proper' musician means he's ended up making an LP that's lacking any sparkle or tunes, and ultimately wastes a decent singer's voice on a load of Maroon 5 cast-offs.

Fleeshman showed on his reality show stint that he could blast out a few classics with the best of them. He had a decent set of lungs on him and a grasp of how to install a bit of balls into a pop melody. However, Neon sees him impersonating various US MOR rock acts and as a result smothers any natural charm behind a blanket of over-produced, predictable strum-alongs. Maroon 5, Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews Band and Bryan Adams are not the most scintillating acts to be associated with, but when you stick a Semisonic cover smack-bang in the middle of the album, you're going to be tarred with that brush. While his version of 'Secret Smile' is a suicide-inducing lowpoint, we'll put this down to foolish immaturity because the rest of his album isn't anywhere near as ear-drum stabbingly awful. Plus, it's not as if the guy had much to work with on the Minneapolis rockers' snooze-fest.

His opening gambit 'Coming Down' is a fairly up-tempo pop track, which bears a strong resemblance to McFly's best stuff and has a chorus and breakdown that are big and dramatic enough to play on Fleeshman's throaty vocal acrobatics. If the rest of the album were as good as this, it could have sneaked under the radar as a guilty pleasure. However, from then on, Fleeshman drifts into the middle of the road and sticks to it like a crusty pensioner piddling down the motorway at 50mph.

'Play It Down The Middle' is what Fall Out Boy would sound like if they were middle-aged country-rockers. It desperately wants to rock out but isn't allowed by the timid melodies and meandering verses. 'Back Here' is a coma-inducing yawn, placed upon a dribbled acoustic guitar that's about as much fun as placing your genitals in a vice, while 'Skyline' sees Fleeshman putting on an American twang and going all Maroon 5 with his falsetto and cold, calculated guitar washes. Only on track nine 'Going Backwards' does he finally let himself go, ditching the guitar-hero pretence for a surging power-ballad that's got a super-sized chorus that Westlife might fancy nicking for their next covers album. From the moody, furrowed brow on the album cover to the dreary attempts at making a rock ballad to rival 'Angels', this album has many striking similarities to Matt Willis' solo LP. Both want 'indie' credibility and are willing to ditch their sense of fun and adventure at the recording studio door to try and earn themselves some music press kudos.

The result is an album that's self-indulgent and painfully lacking in soul. Fleeshman ends up coming across like a man robotically designed to produce indie tracks by a record company. He's probably Louis Walsh's idea of cutting edge rock act, but for the rest of us, this is forgettable, achingly dull fluff. Fleeshman lists the The Killers, Elton John and Arctic Monkeys as influences on his MySpace, but none of their glamour or edginess is visible in his work. At the end of the final track 'Hold Me Close', you can hear Fleeshman and his bandmates cackling with laughter in the studio. It's a shame the fun, frolics and good times they were having failed to impose themselves on this record.