Anything she can do...

With his ex-wife Kerry Katona dominating the red-tops in a PR campaign that would have Max Clifford touching himself inappropriately, it's easy to forget about Brian McFadden. Although, if I'm completely honest, it's never been particularly easy to remember him either.

As part of the world's most popular boyband, he did little more than stand left-of-centre to stop his smaller bandmates from falling over. Perhaps inspired by Kerry's own career-sabotaging decision to leave Atomic Kitten right before they hit the big time, Brian walked away from Westlife to focus on his family. But within six months he was walking again, this time away from his wife.

What Brian had actually meant by 'focus on his family' was 'focus on his solo career' - and he got off to a great start with a number one single he cowrote with Guy Chambers. But public interest faded pretty quickly, and by the time his debut album's campaign was finished, so too was his relationship with Sony BMG.

Ever the optimist, Brian trotted out the age-old euphemism for 'I was dropped by my label' by claiming that they had simply parted ways because he wanted to have creative control over his music.

Since then, he's been based down under where he's continued plugging away at his music career and singer-songwriter Delta Goodrem. Now, with his third album on the horizon, he's hoping to take the world by storm.

With a cool new 'electropop' sound, and an appalingly naff title, Wall Of Soundz could be Brian's ticket back to the top. After all, as he says "People are loving the music... and they're thinking 'This doesn't really sound like Brian McFadden'." Which is probably a good thing for everyone concerned.

Although his sophomore release was limited to Australia (since Brian 'chose' not to release the record in Ireland or across Europe where people might have some fleeting familiarity with him), Brian thinks this one could be big: "My last album suited certain places. This is the first time I feel like I can take a record everywhere because it suits radio everywhere in the world at the moment."

It's easy to scoff at such blind self-belief, but as his ex-wife's media transformation has proved, there's no limit to the amount of successful comebacks that one person can enjoy.