Westlife - Popularity

Popularity

Their début album and single coincided with the apogee of boyband popularity, and their success has been most apparent in their homeland and the UK. They also have had 12 worldwide concert tours over their career of 14 years.

Over the course of their career, they had performed to some highly significant people, including Queen Elizabeth II in 19 May 2011 and then to U.S. president Barack Obama on 23 May 2011. They also gave a private performance for Pope John Paul II in 2001 at the Vatican (the first pop act to top the bill at the church) and for the Sultan of Brunei, an occasion on which they were paid £2.5 million to play a private concert of seven songs. They also performed for the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2000, in 2005 with the songs "World Of Our Own" and "You Raise Me Up" with Rolf Løvland and Fionnuala Sherry, and in 2009 with "What About Now" and "You Raise Me Up" featuring Ragnhild Hemsing.

Despite their success worldwide, Westlife were unable to break into the U.S. market. They had only one hit single in the United States, "Swear It Again", which peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000. The band had made an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live and the U.S. edition of their debut album, Westlife was released, but it didn't meet with success. In 2002, with the two most prominent boy bands in the US, the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, going on hiatus that year, an attempt was made to promote and release a US version of World Of Our Own, but was never succeeded.

"We sent over a CD of World Of Our Own with no name on it. They didn't know it was Westlife and every single radio station in the States - all came back and said that this is an absolutely huge hit. They said it was great for radio and people are gonna love it, especially as there's just a slight bit of rock guitar to it. But as soon as we revealed it was Westlife, the radio pluggers all went, 'Whoa, not Westlife - it's a boyband.' And we cannot break that down, no matter what song we come out with. The problem with America is that it's all radio and you've got to break into radio first. And currently radio doesn't want to play boy bands or pop music. If Bono wrote a song with us tomorrow and it was the biggest hit in the world, if Westlife's name is put to it, it won't be a hit in America because radio will not play us." —Nicky Byrne

"Flying Without Wings" peaked at No.2 in the USA when American Idol Season 2 winner Ruben Studdard recorded and released it as his debut single. In 2003, Westlife went to Nashville to film a TV documentary. While they were there, they gave a live performance of the song "Daytime Friends", originally by country music legend Kenny Rogers.

The band also have "tribute bands" performing their songs like Westlives and That's Life. On the other hand, Westlife also paid tribute to their co-boybands as one of the tour setlist in 2007. Several celebrities like Chris Martin of Coldplay Alexandra Burke and actor Robert Pattinson had stated that they're fond of Westlife. Later pop bands such as One Direction, The Wanted, and JLS expressed such adoration for the group over their respective music careers. Some well-known music artists like Ronan Keating, Will Young, Shayne Ward, Ruben Studdard, also have covered their songs.