''Colours'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by English boy band

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

. It was released on 6 March 2015 and marked the band's first release with

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

. The album features six original songs and four cover songs. The album's lead single "King of the World" premiered on 20 January 2015. ''Colours'' debuted at number 13 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

Background and production

Band member

Lee Ryan Lee Ryan (born 17 June 1983) is an English singer, songwriter and actor, best known as a member of the boy band Blue. Ryan took part in the BBC series '' Strictly Come Dancing''. He was partnered with professional dancer Nadiya Bychkova and was ...

stated that the album was initially set to be a concept album, consisting entirely of covers of songs by artistes who inspired the band during their childhoods and early years in the music industry, including the likes of

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...

. The idea for the album came about during a flight home from the European leg of their ''Roulette'' tour. The band were then contacted by producer

Brian Rawling Brian Rawling is a British record producer and songwriter. He is the managing director of publisher and production company Metrophonic. Rawling has produced singles and albums for artists such as Cher, with whom he won a Grammy in 1999 for his w ...

who invited them to his private studio in Surrey to record with him. Whilst recording some of the covers which the band had selected, Rawling offered the band the chance to write some original material with several of his well-known contacts, including the likes of

Paul Barry Paul James Barry (born 24 February 1952) is an English-born, Australian-based journalist, newsreader and television presenter, who has won many awards for his investigative reporting. He previously worked for the BBC on numerous programs, bef ...

and Mark Taylor, whom Rawling had previously worked with on material for artists such as

Enrique Iglesias Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (; (born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. He started his recording career in the mid-1990s on the Mexican indie label Fonovisa and became the bestselling Spanish-language act of the decade. By the ...

. As a result of this, the band wrote seven original songs and thus it was decided that the album would become a combination of the original material as well as four carefully selected covers. The album was later trimmed to include six of the original songs, with "Oh Girl" (which was listed as track 11 on product listings for the album) being subsequently removed. Webbe stated that the track "Flashback" was one of the most poignant songs that the band had ever written, and that it was designed to be a song which everyone could relate to in some way or another. The song was written following a discussion in which the band reminisced about their former heights following the success of ''All Rise'' and ''One Love''. The band took to the road in March and April 2015 on their ''Colours of Blue'' tour, where they perform the entire album live aside from the final track, "Endless Love". They have also updated some of their back catalogue to include elements of the soul-pop genre which appears on ''Colours''.

Commercial performance

The album missed the top 10 in the UK, debuting and peaking at number 13, and subsequently the band were dropped by their record label Sony on 8 April 2015.

Track listing

Charts

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2015 albums Blue (English band) albums Albums produced by Brian Rawling