CityLife

Darren Style + Ultrabeat

EURO POPSTER: Styles

WITH the Clubland series continuing to be phenomenally successful, it has reached the point where the two most successful UK acts of the genre can now head on a joint-headline tour.

Darren Styles and Ultrabeat have both enjoyed a modicum of chart success, and here they are tonight with their array of gratuitous dancers and relentlessly monotonous beats.  

Ultrabeat are the kings of ‘scouse house’ and, to damn them with faint praise, are probably the best exponents of this sound.

Songs like Never Ever at least contain a pop hook, and though the cheesy lyrics and cheap sounds grate like fingernails down blackboard, they are not as bad as Darren Styles. 

Less charisma

He bounds on dressed like a Topshop mannequin (only with less charisma, obviously) and starts to peddle his frankly bizarre boyband take on the standard Clubland sound. 

On one level his appeal is obvious, with his groomed good looks making him the Clubland pin up (not a hard title to take, admittedly), but his performance is so strait-jacketed you wonder if he actually wants to be here.

And that’s before you get to the tunes, which are not only unforgivably bad, but are so unmemorable I forgot about them immediately upon stepping out the venue. 

That he plays for a mere half hour just adds insult to the painful injury.
With so much vibrant, culturally stimulating and interesting things going on in the city during this period, why anyone would choose to spend their hard-earned watching this is beyond comprehension.