World of our Own was the best era
I've been doing a deep dive into Westlife's discography throughout their career, and I'm realizing more and more that World of Our Own and the 2001 era were absolutely their peak.
By that point, they had really matured musically. The album feels like they were doing more than just making generic pop ballads about a guy begging a girl to love him back lol.
What's interesting is that “World of Our Own” is probably their most important signature song that isn't a ballad, while “Uptown Girl” also became such an important part of their identity.
“Queen of My Heart” was a great album opener, and even the album tracks were really solid. The upbeat songs gave the album more variety, especially “When You Come Around,” which is essentially a Shane showcase, “Imaginary Diva,” which is driven by Mark, and “Bad Girls,” which is probably the closest Westlife ever got to exploring more openly sexual themes. Sadly, they never really went in that direction again.
Then you have the heartbreak ballads, which were phenomenal: “If Your Heart's Not in It,” “Why Do I Love You,” “I Wanna Grow Old With You,” “Angel,” and “I Cry,” which had a noticeably different musical style from their usual ballads.
And what I love most is that all five members had a place within the group's vocal dynamic.
Shane was clearly the main vocalist and frontman, while Mark and Brian were equally important as the two co-lead vocalists. Nicky and Kian mainly provided backing vocals, harmonies and ad-libs, but they also had some lead moments here and there, like in “Bad Girls,” “Uptown Girl,” “Walk Away,” and “Don't Let Me Go.”
For me, this is Westlife.
Going through their discography like this actually makes it harder for me to listen to some of the four-piece albums, particularly Back Home and Where We Are. To me, they sometimes feel like more generic and less interesting versions of what the five-piece lineup had already done.
I think I simply prefer their vocal dynamic as a full five-piece. There was something about those five voices together that gave Westlife a very specific identity, and World of Our Own is probably the album where that identity felt the most complete.