Don’t believe everything you see on TV: Olly Murs had been away, but four years after his last record, he returned with a musical comeback of epic proportions, heading straight to Number 1 with his brilliant new album ‘Marry Me’.
For sure, the singer, songwriter and solid-gold pop star had been all over our screens last year. He’d been front and centre as host of ITV’s Starstruck, helping the public make real their musical dreams, with wing-persons assistance from the likes of Adam Lambert, Jason Manford, Beverley Knight and new judge Shania Twain.
Then, he returned to the big swivelly chair on The Voice. Appearing alongside fellow coaches Anne-Marie, Sir Tom Jones and will.i.am in the latest run, it was his fifth consecutive season on the hit talent show.
But in the artist world – the world that forged him, where he burnished the creative credentials that makes him an invaluable part of those musical shows – Murs has been off the radar for over four years. For a musician who had four Number One singles and now five Number One albums in a near-back-to-back run after bursting onto the scene with his double-platinum self-titled debut in 2010, that’s a big gap.
But as he matter-of-factly admits, after the release of 2018’s sixth album You Know I Know (a double that was half greatest hits, half new tracks) he needed a rest. And a reset. The result was Olly Murs’ most consistent, most ambitious, punchiest, poppiest – and, in places, proudly soppiest – album yet.
