Why do so many television personalities think that they can
sing? Why, after decades of consistently being proved wrong, do record
companies still feel the need to pull slebs in to a recording studio and allow
them to release their anodyne drivel?
Today’s entry in the genre comes from Nick Knowles, the smiling
front man of the BBC’s hit show DIY SOS. A former labourer, over a varied television
career he has presented dozens of shows, many of them in the ‘real life’
category, including Who Dares Wins, Real Rescues, Wildest Dreams and quiz shows including Perfection, Family Reunion
and Who Dares Wins. He also co-wrote the
movie Golden Years, filmed in
Bristol. You can often see Knowles wandering around the city: the production
offices for DIY SOS are also here.
Despite being thought of as a ‘man of the people’, he was
born Nicholas Simon Augustine Knowles in September 1962 in Southall, West London.
Twice married, and with at least one child born to a third woman he dated while
with his first wife, he has a son called Tyrian-J… seriously, is that a Christian
name or a brand of lavatory cleaner?
That’s unfair. Nick seems like a decent person, although if
you read the tabloids you’ll know him as a love rat who avoided paying a decent
amount of child support for Tyrian-J. Then again, he does loads for charity,
and supports the children's anti-bullying charity Act Against Bullying. Life is
complicated, and I’m not judging. Ex-lovers can be vindictive, and after he
split from his last wife she accused him of physical and emotional abuse, claims
he strenuously denied.
But we didn’t come here to discuss his personal life, we
came to mock his singing.
His album, Every Kind
of People, entered the UK charts last year at 92. And then vanished. And a
good thing too, because it is horrendous, stuffed with tortuous, laid-back
versions of well-known soft pop songs. Nick plays reasonable rhythm guitar
(certainly better than me), but he has that annoying habit of singing in a
faux-American accent and adopting that nasal bark peculiar of every annoying
karaoke singer you’ve ever had to suffer. The cover of Here Comes the Sun is simply
dull and boring, but his version of You’re
the First, the Last, My Everything is
abominable, and would have Barry White spinning in his ample grave. His acoustic
strum through of the Louis Armstrong classic What a Wonderful World makes me want to blow up the planet... or at
least the plant where this atrocity was pressed.
As one Amazon reviewer put it: “I had to request my wife
strapped me into a chair lined with sharp rusty knives and force me to watch
Paul Blart: Mall Cop on repeat for several days in order to remove the trauma
of having heard Mr Knowles’ new album.”
Here are a couple of tracks: I’ve chosen the tile song, Every Kind of People, as it perfectly
exemplifies my point about the nasal Americanisms. What in God’s name is a ‘jowb’,
Nick? And then there’s his cover of Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, probably better known to Nick’s intended audience
via Adele’s recording. For some reason, Nick has chosen to gargle with gravel
before recording his vocal, one assumes in an effort to emulate Sir Bob.
Anyway, enjoy!
Download People HERE
Download Love HERE
I've heard better singers than Nick Knowles down my local Pub. He can carry a tune....but It's all so deadly serious and monotonous. Knowles does indeed have a way with a tune....strangling / suffocating the life out of it. He was featured in a recent TV programme about 'Celebrities' who (but should not have) made (mostly awful) records. His cringeworthy performances were noted there too. Awful....
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