''One'' is the second

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British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

house music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...

trio

Dirty Vegas Dirty Vegas are an English house music group initially made up of Ben Harris and Paul Harris (no relation) on instruments and production and Steve Smith on vocals. The group formed in 2001, then broke up in 2005 before reforming in December 2008 ...

, released 18 October 2004 in the UK (see

2004 in British music This article gives details on 2004 in music in the United Kingdom. Summary Michelle McManus, the winner of the second British series of ''Pop Idol'', enjoyed success with her first single release, which topped the charts. Second and third pl ...

Release & promotion

On August 6, band member Steve Smith delivered an acoustic performance of several of the songs from the upcoming album. The album was released by

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...

and

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...

in Europe on 18 October 2004. A limited number of promotional two-record vinyl copies were also available. The album was later released in the United States, on 30 November 2004. Ahead of the album's release in the States, a club and theater tour was announced. The tour included sixteen dates, starting in Washington, DC on 26 October.

Critical reception

''One'' garnered generally negative reviews from

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

s. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 35, based on 8 reviews, making it the worst-reviewed album of 2004. Steve Lowe of ''

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'' heavily criticized the group's AOR tracks filled with earnest lyrics and

Richard Marx Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary music, adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Marx's Richard Marx (album), self-titled debut album went tri ...

-like production, concluding that "If this exhaustingly awful album repeats its predecessor’s success, the world will seem more confusing than ever." ''

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''s Dorian Lynskey also panned the overall work of the album, "At best, it suggests

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger ...

indulging their U2 fantasies. At worst, the brain scrabbles for comparisons. The post-millennial

Bruce Hornsby Bruce Randall Hornsby (born November 23, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions ...

? Mike & The Mechanics go to Ibiza? Frontman Steve Smith delivers lyrics that he presumably made up on the spot in the voice of a man who rolls up the sleeves of his sports jacket. ''One''s sole redeeming feature is that its title helpfully informs reviewers how many stars to give it."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

's David Jeffries said of the group in this album that "They're still dreamy and maudlin, and still not lyricists who will threaten Dylan, but the production is slick and hides the band's shortcomings." David Dierksen of ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'' said that despite sounding like the group's self-titled debut, he praised the album's production for capturing their live performances and instilling a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the tracks, saying that "What Dirty Vegas has really accomplished with this release is a completely unpretentious piece of work designed to move folks who want nothing more than something fun and catchy to listen to. And bless ‘em for pulling it off because even the simplest pop can be botched." Brian Howe of '' Paste'' praised the group for its mixture of acoustics, electronica and orchestral music to craft tracks that contain multi-layered intricacies in their structures, concluding that "When so much music is so bleak, a little unlikely optimism might be a crucial palliative measure, rather than

Pollyanna ''Pollyanna'' is a 1913 novel by American author Eleanor H. Porter, considered a classic of children's literature. The book's success led to Porter's soon writing a sequel, ''Pollyanna Grows Up'' (1915). Eleven more ''Pollyanna'' sequels, know ...

-ish head-burying, and it’s sanguinity that Dirty Vegas delivers in spades."

Track listing

Release details

The album was released in various countries in October and November 2004.

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2004 albums Dirty Vegas albums Parlophone albums