14 July 2011
Wantedmania, if there was such a thing, didn’t extend to my then-domicile of France in 2011, so I have no contemporary context to add to ‘Glad You Came’ other than passing familiarity with the tune. There’s Irish interest here, of course, since one-fifth of The Wanted was Siva Kaneswaran, becoming the second member of his family to have an Irish number one single (after brother David with Zoo’s ‘Poison’ / ‘I Believe’ in 2005) and the third to have an Irish top ten hit (after sister Hazel with Dove’s ‘Don’t Dream’ in 1999). The most recent prominence of the group, though, was with the death of Tom Parker in 2022 after a few years of illness.
‘Glad You Came’ at least reminds us that (mostly-)British boyband tunes have tended to be uptempo and youthful, so simply by not being a dreary bootcut-jeans-and-frosted-tips ballad about a make-amends date-night this clears the pitifully low bar of outgunning Boyzone and Westlife. The vaguely ‘world’ accordion keyboard setting of the musical hook, reminiscent of Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina’s ‘Stereo Love’, suggests the lads have been on a summer trip to an Ibiza-esque island party resort, or are at least cognisant of such things. This track and group are harmless, but what’s that looming in the blue Ibiza skyline? Why, it’s another five-piece boyband, also four parts English to one part Irish, who just a few months after ‘Glad You Came’ will blast The Wanted out of the water.
