Bigging up the runners up

Two blasts from the past are gearing up their promotional efforts to remind the CD-buying public of their existence, and both are showing quite marvellous levels of chutzpah in doing it.

Tomorrow sees the release of Daniel Evans' debut single - a cover of Journey's Open Arms - ahead of the album 'No Easy Way' released on February 22nd. Don't remember Daniel? Maybe that's because he's better known by his unofficial stage name 'Dead Wife'.

During his painfully successful run on the 2008 series of X-Factor, Daniel managed to reference the fact that his wife had passed away every time he came within six feet of a microphone. Of course, Simon Cowell lapped it up, since he understands the value of a good sob story. But he's also smart enough to recognise that what makes for good TV doesn't always translate into solid record sales - which is why Daniel's record is being released independently.

Even though 18 months have passed since Daniel first bludgeoned his way into the nation's tearducts, he's still bashing away at the grief button - even the promotional write-up on Amazon.co.uk begins: "Released in time for Mothers Day and in memory of his late wife Jackie and also dedicated to his mother Pauline..." You know, just in case anyone had forgotten.

But with a tracklist boasting such unsubtle choices as 'To Where You Are', 'On My Own' and 'She's Out Of My Life' - even someone in a persistent vegetative state would find it all rather cynical. Weirdly, the promotional copy describes the album as being "born in the hills of North Wales using talent from the local area", which makes it sound like some demonic chimera, created by a gang bang of Satan-worshipping farmhands.

Daniel says "We are hoping to show that you dont need to be signed to a massive label or a big management company to make good music heard as long as you have realistic expectations and believe in yourself." But just in case his expectations reach beyond his physical capabilities, he's also pledged 30p from every disk sold to the Help for Heroes campaign, which is rather helpfully plastered all over the album's cover.

Speaking of realistic expectations, say 'hello again' to Lemar, the one-time bank worker who came third in the BBC's Fame Academy. With a smoky voice that sounds like someone blowing air over the top of an empty milk-bottle, Lemar has somehow managed to churn out four reasonably successful albums and is currently putting the finishing touches to his Greatest Hits package.

Now, you may be struggling to recall any of Lemar's hits, never mind the greatest ones, but he's in no doubt of his music's legacy. He told the Daily Record "I do feel, while listening to my songs... that I've influenced the sound that you hear in the charts at the moment."

According to Lemar, it's all part of the musical circle of life: "I was influenced by Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke and Al Green then did my thing with it. After you've done it for a certain amount of time you influence other people and inadvertently become a part of musical history."

So there you have it - history has been made by a man beaten into third place by those titans of modern song, David Sneddon and Sinead Quinn. Still, his new song is quite nice in a mid-nineties disco kind of way: