Westlife: "We did too many covers"

Westlife member Mark Feehily has claimed that the band have recorded too many cover versions.

The star noted that while the Irish group have sold more than 43 million records worldwide, many of their biggest hits were songs written by other artists.

Contactmusic quotes Feehily as saying: "Our record company, they don't want to take risks, so they are happier to do more covers.

"To anyone who criticises what we do, we actually do a lot of original pop songs and a lot of our best songs, a lot of our number one singles are actually original pop songs."

He added: "We definitely did go too far, we did too many covers. That's something we allowed to happen and shouldn't have."

Westlife's new single - a take on Daughtry's 'What About Now' - was released this week.