Westlife

Westlife is an Irish boy band. Its current members are Shane Filan, Kian Egan, Nicky Bryne, and Mark Feehily. Bryan McFadden left the band on March 9, 2004 to devote more of his time to his family life with the British TV personality and former Atomic Kitten member Kerry Katona, although he has subsequently separated from her and changed the spelling of his first name to 'Brian'.
   

The band has proven very successful in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, with twelve number-one singles between the years 1999 and 2003, as follows:

"Swear It Again" (1999)
"If I Let You Go" (1999)
"Flying Without Wings" (appeared on the Pokémon The Movie soundtrack) (1999)
"I Have A Dream"/"Seasons In The Sun" (covers of ABBA and Terry Jacks respectively) (1999)
"Fool Again" (2000)
"Against All Odds" (with Mariah Carey) (cover of Phil Collins) (2000)
"My Love" (2000)
"Uptown Girl" (cover of Billy Joel) (2001)
"Queen Of My Heart" (2001)
"World of Our Own" (2002)
"Unbreakable" (2002)
"Mandy" (cover of Barry Manilow) (2003)

Not every single of theirs have gone to No. 1 in the UK:

"What Makes a Man" (2000) #2
"Bop Bop Baby" (2002) #5
"Tonight/Miss You Nights" (2003) #3
"Hey Whatever" (2003) #4
"Obvious" (2004) #3
The band have also won ITV's Record of the Year competition on a record three occasions, with "Flying Without Wings", "My Love", and "Mandy".

Westlife has not managed success in America, although their debut single, "Swear It Again" was a very minor hit at mainstream radio and MTV. Its video made MTV's TRL briefly, and it managed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 for a few weeks, going up to No. 20 on the chart. Their debut 2000 album flopped in America, and they have not released another one there since.

Although the band has enjoyed unprecedented success in the UK singles chart, many detractors argue it has been achieved by releasing bland unmemorable ballads and cover versions into a declining singles market.

Discography

1999 "Westlife" #2 UK, #129 US
2000 "Coast to Coast" #1 UK
2001 "World of Our Own" #1 UK
2002 "Unbreakable - The Greatest Hits - Vol. 1" #1 UK
2003 "Turnaround" #1 UK
2004 "Allow Us To Be Frank" #3 UK