Shayne Ward's New Single Is A Cover Of Nickelback's "Gotta Be Somebody"

By all rights, everything about that headline is immensely tragic. Alas, it's the truth. Here's what we know: Digital Spy premiered a minute-long clip of Shayne Ward's lead single from forthcoming third album Obsession today. And it's a cover of Nickelback's 2008 single "Gotta Be Somebody."

Yes, the same Nickelback that used to inspire such venomous post titles as When You Die And Go To Hell, It's Actually A Never-Ending Nickelback Concert and Vapid Milquetoast Zeroes Keep Buying Nickelback here on Chart Rigger. (Wow—I'm quite proud of those!)

So once again, as with the case of Joe McElderry's "Ambitions," we have a X Factor winner signed to the SyCo label covering a fairly recent tune. What, does Simon Cowell just turn on the radio and say, "Oh, that's nice—let's have Alexandra do this one and Shayne do that one and then toss this modern day chestnut over to Joe"?

OK—ALL THAT ASIDE, here is a portion of Shayne's version, and also the Nickelback original:



The Shayne version—not quite the disaster you would expect, no? And again, it's only a clip of the song. Let's all just calm down. After all, there's always the chance that he'll appear 80% naked in the music video, right?

Shayne's "Gotta Be Somebody" is produced by Ray Hedges (of B*Witched "C'est La Vie" fame), Nigel Butler (of Emma Bunton "Who The Hell Are You" fame),  Cutfather (of Ace Of Base "Cruel Summer" fame) and David Kopatz (of Jordin Sparks "S.O.S. [Let The Music Play]" fame), and will be released November 7 in the UK.