Once upon a time on a summer's day in July 1971 a son was born to a family of Sicilian immigrants living in Grenoble. Calogero Maurici developed an impressive musical talent at an early age, learning to play organ, guitar and flute. But it was the bass which soon became his favourite instrument. Calogero formed his first group as a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, teaming up with his brother and a childhood friend. The trio began playing together under the name Les Charts. Calogero - known as Charly at the time - wore his boyish curls long and proved to be a teen heartthrob in the role of lead singer.

In 1988, Les Charts moved to Paris and began their recording career in earnest, releasing their debut album scarcely a year after their arrival in the French capital. This first album was not a major commercial success, but it garnered good reviews from the critics. And Les Charts soon followed this up in 1991 with a second album, entitled Notre monde à nous. This time round the group found commercial as well as critical success. Indeed, sales of Notre monde à nous soon reached double gold disc status. Meanwhile, the single Aime-moi encorerocketed to the top of the French hit-parade. Les Charts had finally arrived in the charts!

Over the years Les Charts reinforced their reputation thanks to extensive tours, appearances at legendary venues such as the Olympia and a series of acclaimed albums (Hannibal in 1994, live album Acte 1 in 1995 and Changerin 1997). They also worked with a number of leading figures in the music world including Clare Fisher (a specialist in Latino rhythms who worked as an arranger for the likes of Prince and the Jackson brothers). Les Charts also crossed the paths of Matthieu Chédid, Fred Chichin (from the group Les Rita Mitsouko) and the guitarist Steve Stevens. One day, while Charly was in the studio making a demo, he made the acquaintance of another rising star on the French music scene, a certain Pascal Obispo. But, despite such exciting artistic encounters, Les Charts continued to produce their own rather bland blend of pop and teen rock and sales slowly waned over the years. This inevitably led to the demise of the group and Les Charts eventually agreed to go their separate ways. The final album they recorded together was entitled Changer – a premonitory title indeed!

Charly subsequently determined to let the wind of change blow through his own solo career, too. Altering everything from his name (reverting to his real name rather than the cute-sounding Charly) to his haircut (snipping off his long boyish curls), the young singer decided it was time to step centre stage instead of hiding behind his group. He re-emerged on the French music scene as Calogero in 1999and his career proceeded to go from strength to strength. This success was, in fact, down to a few essential ingredients, not the least of which were Calogero's emotion-charged voice and his talent as a melodist.

Calogero enlisted the crème de la crème of French songwriters such as Zazie, Clémence Lhomme and Alana Filippi. But it was his choice of Pascal Obispo as artistic director that really boosted his early solo career. (Obispo was at that point well on the way to assuming his current status as one of France's leading pop stars). With such a Dream Team behind him, it was not long before Calogero's debut solo album, Au milieu des autres, was heading chartwards and France's female population was swooning at the singer's concerts. Calogero's metamorphosis was soon so complete that the ghost of Charly appeared to be wiped from everyone's minds altogether.

Meanwhile, Calogero was increasingly busy penning songs for other artists such as Fred Blondin, Patrick Fiori, Hélène Segara and African singer Ismaël Lo. He also wrote Millésime for his inseparable friend and music partner, Pascal Obispo and contributed four songs to Elie Chouraqui's musical Les dix commandements. From this moment on, Calogero entered into the elite circle of movers and shakers in the French music world.

Calogero returned to the music news in 2002 with a second album, simply entitled Calogero. Alana Filippi, Lionel Florence and Patrice Guirao remained the principle songwriters on Calogero's new album, but this second opus also included songs penned by young singer-songwriter Raphaël and French 60s icon Françoise Hardy. This second album confirmed Calogero's status as significant newcomer, but posed a certain danger for him in that many critics saw him as a pale copy of Obispo. An air of "little brother to someone vastly more important" began to hover over him, but did not stop album sales topping the 700,000 mark. In the spring of 2004, Calogero gained professional as well as public recognition when he was voted Best Male Artist of the Year at the 2004 "Victoires de la Musique" Awards.

3 has thus come out in a more than favourable climate. Indeed, a royal red carpet was already laid out for Calogero's third album (pointedly more pop 'n' rock oriented than its predecessors). Calogero has made no changes in his songwriting line-up on this new album, the only addition to the team being the arrival of French rap star Passi (who guests on the duet Face à la mer). However, despite this acclaimed songwriting team, Calogero's new opus fails to hit the spot, its mix of pop, rock, rap and French variété sounding altogether too formatted and calculated.

Calogero can be justifiably criticised for failing to take any risk on the twelve songs on the album. And despite the varied themes (Calogero tackling subjects as diverse as the state of the world, a new-born child, the absence of a father figure and relationships both happy and fraught), despite the impressive energy of the musicians on their live contributions and despite the singer's drive to move towards a rougher, rock sound, Calogero fails to surprise listeners. In short, 3 features smoothly produced variété best consumed before its sell-by date! Un jour parfait is, perhaps, the best song on the album, but even this brave attempt at rock dissolves into the strains of "déjà entendu" as soon as the vocals arrive.

True, Calogero does seem, at last, to be breaking away from Obispo's influence, but he still has some way to go before cruising under his own steam. Having said this, however, 3 will doubtless rack up significant sales – and while this album will not convince doubters, it will certainly give committed fans a treat. World-shaking, however, it is not!