I wouldn't recommend it. What awful, contrived garbage! A friend put it on recently, and I couldn't avoid it. I don't hand out many 0.5 star ratings on RYM, but this case definitely warranted it.

Here's my review:



I was an unwilling listener of this album recently. While I had heard some of their music played in shopping malls and seen advertisements on TV for their material, I had managed to mostly avoid Il Divo until a friend put this on while my wife and I were visiting with a few others. Actually, I seem to recall one of my wife's work colleagues buying this for her as a Christmas present, and it was hastily jettisoned with nary a listen. In any case, I had rather happily spent the last six years largely ignorant of this schlock, but I was powerless to continue along the straight and narrow. I silently shuddered at the thought of my ears becoming devirginized to the aural assault of the popera kings, and my trepidation proved to be quite warranted.

The album is just as calculated and sickeningly melodramatic as I expected it would be. Essentially, Il Divo try their very hardest to woo the panties off of middle aged women worldwide across twelve songs that span three human dialects, but only one real language- the language of amor. And so it is that they take already overblown and overcovered showstoppers like "Unbreak My Heart" and "My Way" and beat them into submission in their quest to titillate. Thankfully, the conversation in the room was able to divert my attention at times, but then another dramatic moment would seize the day and permeate the room like cheap cologne. Tension began to mount between the host and the only person in the room who commented about enjoying the music, and it didn't subside until the album had finished. That this music could have contributed to it ever so subtly says more than I can about the abomination that Il Divo is.

As we were headed out, I took a look at the album cover, and it featured a red sticker that boldly stated "The World's First Operatic Supergroup!", much to my chagrin. That I subsequently discovered that Simon Cowell was behind this should have come as no surprise. I don't know whether the cleanly-shaven thirtysomethings always decked out in suits and ties that comprise the group are in on the gag, but if the laughter of the two on the right of the album cover doesn't answer the question, surely the beedy eyes of the rat-faced guy with greased hair on the left, who has always scared the bejesus out of me, surely do. This is a wholly contrived product crassly conceived to ignite a storm amidst a sea of estrogen, and the fact that I've come to their artist page to review this album only to discover that Il Divo (which I'm guessing means the male version of "The Divas") have released five albums in the ensuing six years proves that it succeeded mightily in this aim. Oh, the humanity!

What's also scary is that the success of Il Divo gave birth to the perhaps even creepier The Priests.

can't wait for 2012, seriously

don't really care about the video release date, though, b3-c4hz last time i checked, i had to put Idiocracy in my half/mirror/half/donertoaster-maker-section, and still The Suburbs was the latest bastest milestoan aver..

toured with Barbra Streisand a few years back. Maybe it's things like that that make the Rock Hall not even consider Babs. I mean, the guys have decent voices, but, as we know, it's not about that, necessarily.

I've probably heard Il Divo with all the time I spend in CVSes and Shaws but don't know them by name. What the lyrics of their most recognizable songs?

Generally the worst music I'm forcefully exposed two falls into three categories.

1) Whiny punk-pop songs with singers who can't even sing in key.
'You don't know what it's liiiike...welcome to my life!'

2) Pop love songs oriented at generic lovers with no specific traits, with lazy repetitious lyrics.
'I call her love love love love love!'

3) Defensive 'blaming the girl for not liking me' songs.
'Sheeee don't like meeeee cause Iiii'm not where it's at! (Even though I clearly only want her because she is where it's at)'

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Yeah, it's sad what's become of the parody genre. It's basically become 'Show well known scenes from a movie verbatim, making fun of them and making grossout jokes along the way'.

Here are the movies that show you how to correctly do parody:
Spaceballs
Galaxyquest
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz

The movie needs to tell it's own story with it's own characters, based on the source material in a way that exposes the silly things about it.

A couple of months ago, I actually saw the first couple songs from an Il Divo concert DVD, and if you thought the CD was bad, the DVD is that much worse.

Someone must have seen that Andrea Bocelli was selling a lot of records (to people who must hear his crap and think, "This is 'cultured'! This must be what classical music is like!") and decided to apply the boy-band formula to Bocelli's style of music. But since the people buying Bocelli's records are not teens and tweens, they obviously had to get slightly older pretty-boys.

The concert was almost exactly like a boy-band concert, except instead of screaming, weeping teenage girls, the audience was made of up screaming, weeping middle-aged women. It was sad to watch and realize that the whole thing was all a marketing ploy.