Olly Murs - Don't Say Goodnight Yet

We were thinking about this earlier when we were listening to Olly Murs' new single Oh My Goodness and finding ourselves enjoying it quite a bit, but we can't help liking him. We know we shouldn't, but we do. As Star Trek's Borg say: resistance is futile.

And the thing is, the b-side Don't Say Goodnight Yet is sort of tolerable too. Sure, it's nothing to write home about, but as always with Olly, he sort of strides that borderline MOR zone where his music seeps into your subconscious and you subtly find yourself enjoying it in an 'oh this is sort of alright way'.

We're not sure how we feel about this, but what we do know is that he needs to release another track as brilliant as Heart Skips A Beat.

Olly Murs - Oh My Goodness

The humerous cocked-eyebrow presumption would be that Oh My Goodness is the kind of thing your average Olly Murs fan might say as they engage in some kind of fictional romantic liason with the X Factor star. Or, alternatively, it could just be a statement of shock at how the bloke has actually managed to come up with a half-decent track.

While Oh My Goodness isn't up there with the electro-popping hook-heaven of Heart Skips A Beat (surely a one-off singularity of brilliance within Olly's career), it's horn-riffing snazzy rhythms recall a Robbie Williams at his prime. It's a harking back to a more innocent age of pop, and unlike the tepid Dance With Me Tonight, actually sounds like Olly's having genuine fun singing the track.

He'll have his haters, and he'll have his lovers - but at the end of the day, Olly's cheeky chappy routine holds at least a fair share of merit to it. The UK needs a big male solo star of his scale - in a market dominated by empowered female stars, there's certainly space for a shot of testosterone now and again - and Oh My Goodness is as good a record as any to do it.

When Olly first stepped up to the X Factor plate, he won the nation over with his cocky bravado-filled performance of Superstition, and here - channelling that same lad-apotheosis - is where he finds his niche.

Oh My Goodness is released on the 12th March.