Lee Ryan: 'Reinforce Love'

It's a long road back from the post-boyband hinterlands, but Lee Ryan is pulling every trick in the book. After a brief stint on Hell's Kitchen - as classy as a reality TV appearance can be in 2007 - he's releasing a single in aid of not one, but two children's charities. The next step, we presume, will involve being fired from a canon on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

'Reinforce Love', said charity single, is a big, blousy ballad about a very important person in Ryan's life: someone who "encourages" him, "lifts him up" and "gives him wings". With its tremulous piano chords, gospel choir backing vocals and vague hints of Motown, it sounds a bit like a forgotten Elton John single from the mid-nineties. Not unpleasant, then, but someone needs to tell Ryan that 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word' was five years ago now.