Following his top five UK and S.E. Asia chart success, including number ones in the Philippines and Indonesia, Irish Pop Star Shane Filan released an Asia Deluxe Edition of ‘Love Always’. Download/Stream #LoveAlwaysAsiaDlxEd here. The album has been repackaged new tracks and, for the first time in his solo career Shane has included four live tracks; ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’, ‘This I Promise You’, ‘Heaven’ and ‘You Raise Me Up’. Also included are two brand new songs written especially for the album – one of which ‘Back To You’ he wrote as a tribute to his devoted family. The 19 track album features some of Shane’s favourite ballads along with some fan suggestions, from all time classics like ‘Make You Feel My Love’ and ‘Eternal Flame’ to new hits including ‘Beautiful in White’ which has already amassed over 130 million views on YouTube. But he also hopes to give fans something special by including the two new songs recorded whilst on the road.
Shane says ‘This is the first time I have put live tracks on the album. I go on tour so much now that I thought it would be nice to include something that people haven’t had before. There will also be two new songs which I wrote before Christmas and I am so proud of them. ‘Back To You’ is the new single and a song I am very close to. The track is about being on the road the whole time and being separated from those you love. You do it because it’s part of the job but you realize how much you miss the family. We filmed a really cool video for ‘Back To You’ in Galway (Ireland) and my daughter Nicole is the star of it. She loves acting and I was lucky enough to give her that first break – she was a natural! There is this beautiful narrative of me on tour while Nicole waits at home for me to return. It is really special to me and I hope people like it. With ‘Back To You’ I was talking about how tough it was being away from Gillian and the kids all the time. That’s how we wrote the song. I always find that if I write about things that are real and true to me, I get a better song. I can’t write about heartache or a breaking up because I am lucky enough not to have any experience of that.’
Shane has cemented his position as one of the UK & Ireland’s most popular male solo artists, following phenomenal success with Westlife – one of the world’s most successful bands of the last few decades – and he shows no signs of slowing down. “There’s nothing that make me happier than singing and being on stage” he says, “it’s something I am very proud of and it’s what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”
The current single, “Beautiful In White,” spurred by his Asian fan base as without him knowing, had become Southeast Asia’s most requested wedding song. It has gained over 3 Million streams on Spotify in the Philippines alone. ‘It was really important for me to finally record Beautiful In White. The song has taken on a life of its own. The version on YouTube which has 130 million views was only a demo recording which I did back in the early Westlife days. The song never got released, but was leaked onto YouTube and now it’s really well-known. So I wanted to modernize it and update it for my fans. Furthermore, the music video for Beautiful In White is very simple and elegant. I wanted to create something classy and timeless. So it’s a performance-based video which was shot in Dublin. I’m really looking forward to everyone seeing it.’ Shane also surprised his fans with the release of an Official Music Video for “Beautiful In White”.
Another highlight on the Asia Deluxe Edition album is two versions of Shane’s duet with Philippines’ Bossa Nova Queen, Sitti, and Asia’s Female Icon, Anggun.
Anggun is a World Music Award winner, United Nations Global Ambassador, and a judge on Asia’s GotTalent. Shane is proud to reveal how the pair has recorded a spine tingling version of the Lady Antebellum smash hit ‘Need You Now’. Shane Filan says ‘Anggun is somebody I have been watching for a while and we were discussing a duet since the album started a year ago. It really is the perfect fit – we recorded the vocals a month ago and as it is written by Lady Antebellum it’s perfect for the deluxe album. It‘s written as a girl/boy duet and it just works for us both. I did it on the original ‘Love Always’ album but even then I knew it needed to be a duet so I feel that the record is now complete. I can’t wait for people to hear it.’ Meanwhile, Anggun expressed that “I have always been a fan of Shane and I really love his latest opus ‘Love Always’. So when he asked me to join him on the song “Need You Now”, a song that I truly love, it was an immediate yes for me. This song is about what we are learning as we go through the ups and downs of different relationships. It’s storytelling for all of us. I’m so proud of this collaboration and can’t wait to perform that song with Shane in the near future.”
Adding to the Asian flavor of the Deluxe Edition album is another rendition of Shane’s “Need You Now” this time with Philippines’ Queen of Bossa Nova, Sitti. ‘It was great to record this song, and Sitti’s vocal on it sounds amazing. We never actually met until the day we performed it together in Manila as we both recorded our parts separately,’ Shane says on working with today’s Bossa Nova Queen. Sitti says, ‘It was an absolute pleasure and a dream come true for me, a Westlife fan.’
The Asia Deluxe Edition will also be accompanied by a second leg of the UK and Asia tour also titled “Love Always”. “And Shane says coming home to the UK is a special feeling you don’t get playing anywhere else in the world. ‘What is incredible is that people are there to see you on your own. And it is a real humbling feeling to look out and see 2000 people who have bought tickets to come and see me. They are all there to see just you and the show and you are so close to them – you can high five the front row. It is a different experience but it is incredible. People are singing your songs back to you. That is something that I never knew with Westlife. I didn’t really understand that feeling and then with the first solo album it was a complete wow moment when people were singing my songs back to me. As I’ve got older I know more about myself and about writing songs and it is very important to me and something I enjoy.”
Catch Shane Filan Live In Manila 2018 at The Kia Theatre on 15th September, 2018 (Saturday) as he performs Westlife’s Greatest Hits and More!