I’ve just won a bet with myself. Making a bet with oneself is one of the few (admittedly sad) pleasures to be found in the loneliness of the long distance reviewer. The bet was that ROUGE’s single ‘Don’t Be Shy’ would end with a coquettish girly laugh. And it does. Mind you even before playing their debut single ROUGE already have my sympathies as apparently they recently attracted rather a lot of attention from Richard Blackwood: a man whose only joke is to put the word ‘comedian’ next to his name.
ROUGE are three ladies who scrub up nicely and are now throwing caution to the wind and embarking on the roller-coaster ride of pop stardom. Amrita is a classically trained singer, was Miss India 2004 and is studying Dentistry. Legha is studying Economics, does catwalk modelling and has a grandfather who is apparently the “Arabian Shakespeare”. Finally the ‘baby’ of the group is Laura who has taken time out of her degree in Medicine to add some much needed cosmopolitan flavour – her background is Egyptian - to this everyday humdrum trio who obviously all met over a bottle of Hooch down the local chippie.
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‘Don’t Be Shy’ is average, enlivened briefly by its nod to Indian and Arabic influences. However despite all the multi-ethnic potential that the girls’ résumés offer, the song is ultimately far more interested in being another run-of-the-mill slice of R’n’B but tellingly lacks a decent tune or a unique viewpoint. The nightclub set lyrics are stupefyingly dull with bland outpourings like “Put your drink down, come to me” and “Dance with me until the end of time”.
Destiny’s Child and Mis-Teeq need not quake in their boots.
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