Watched him on Thursday’s Paul O’Grady show. Can I just say again how much I love him? He is such a funny, cool person. With such an infectious laugh.
And he has a lovely singing voice. He sang the new single from his latest album (Music Music Music, which was released on Monday), called “What About Us?” (written by Gary Barlow of Take That). The album isn’t available on iTunes Canada. Too bad, though having heard some of the songs on the album already, I suspect that “What About Us?” owes most of its charms to Gary Barlow’s writing skills, not John’s singing. Don’t get me wrong. He has a nice voice, but it’s a very ordinary, lovely voice when he’s singing covers, which is what most of his albums are. It’s a Broadway musical voice that is only elevated when he’s singing something original.
Here’s John performing “What About Us” on Paul O’Grady, November 27, 2008:
Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have that much of a presence on stage — he looks and moves a bit like a lounge singer or some local getting up to sing during Karaoke Night at the local pub, which detracts from the pleasantness of the music. (His guitarist is cute, though.)
The official video for the song is less distracting and it’s on his official label’s Youtube channel (they’re disabled embedding so I can’t put it here — but just click the link to go look). As an aside, I’m a little ticked off that the behind-the-scenes video for that video is not available here. Guess what, SonyBMG — that’s why the video only has 3 views. Why upload it if you don’t want people to watch it? I should be used to it, but I’m not. Other clips are available on JohnBarrowman.com’s own Youtube channel.
Life Begins at 41...or maybe 43 
Saw him in concert last year and I have to totally disagree with you on the stage presence thing. When he was on stage he owned it. Honestly, he had the entire audience eating out of his hand.
I agree with you about the covers. I just got the new cd and I really am suspect about some of his choices. Surely there are far more interesting songs that are better suited for him out there.
I’m hoping his next album will be entirely new music. One can hope, right?
Fair enough. I did wonder if (or rather hope that) his actual concerts were better. Maybe it’s just the in-studio performance — many singers lack that special something when they’re performing on a daytime talk show, though I have to admit that I’ve seen some really good performances on Paul O’Grady.
I’m with you on the hopes for his next album. Maybe the inevitable success of “What About Us” will spark something truly special for the next album. 😀
Hi, you mentioned in this blog that you can’t get the Behind-the-scenes video for What About Us? on here. Just wondering, was that John Barrowman: What About Me? because that’s my video! I’m the one playing John! I really hope you liked it (that’s if you’ve even seen it – you could be talking about something else for all I know!).
No, that wasn’t the video I was talking about. I was talking about the real behind-the-scenes video from the official Sony BMG John Barrowman Youtube channel. Your vid is cute — I like the explanation of the various clothes that are laid out on the bed. 😉