From The FT Mailbag…
“well ewing, my friend has just emailed me your article, ‘holding on for tomorrow’ where u refer to ronan keating as BLAND, PITIFUL, TOO SINCERE and his music RHYTHMLESS, DRIVELESS and ENTIRELY SURPRISELESS!!!
i just had to vent my anger and the best person is to you, the author of this rubbish! and for your information, i am neither a grannie, gay, girl or geezer! and, IF you went to one of ronan’s concerts this tour, you woud see that the majority of his fans in the audience arent any of these prototypes you describe. your choice of ‘the charming godfather of grannie pop’ honestly stinks of jealousy! considering ronan has had enormous success with both boyzone and now with a solo career, continues to lead a very happy family life and has performed to sell out tours all over the uk, australia, south africa and europe, and still at the very young age of 25. he has had 4 number 1 albums with bz and now 2 on his own.
bland is certainly NOT the correct description of ronan in any shape or form, either musically or personally!!! his new album ‘destination’ has 13 tracks that vary from slow ballads to up-tempo fast beat songs.
and your remark about van morrison? you may or may not be aware that ronan has sung a cover-version of ‘brown eyed girl’ but i can assure you it is an excellent version and goes down a storm when he sings it live!! certainly none of the adjectives you have used to describe ronan.
and what makes my blood boil is how u call him, ever so sarcastically ‘such a nice boy’ – leave the man alone will you and pick on someone who deserves this kind of back stabbing eh? the one consolation is i know he doesnt take any notice of this type of reporting – infact he would laugh in your face and say ‘feck off’ !!!!
stephanie and billie-jean”
(I will be sending S and B-J the new ILM address as soon as we switch over, needless to say!)