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Another set of graduates from a television talent show, Girls Aloud were the winners of 2002's Popstars: The Rivals, the successor show to the original Popstars that gave us Hear'Say. This time, the wrinkle came courtesy of that 'Rivals' epithet, with the aim of the show being that two groups - one all girl, one all boy - would be auditioned and created to slug it out in the Christmas charts. The girls were the clear winners this time, both in the short and long term whereas the 'boyband' winners, One True Voice, sat at number two behind 'The Sound Of The Underground' with their debut single 'Sacred Trust' before promptly fading into obscurity while Girls Aloud - both singular and plural - enjoyed a level of media based success that continues to this day.
This, though, is where it all started - with a misnomer. Given the background to the band and the heavy media exposure that turned the spotlight on their creation, then any debut single from them couldn't have been more overground if it was perched in a sniper's nest atop the Petronas Towers. But still it tries. Fair enough, there is something slightly rough urban and sleazy about the fast tempo, electronic dance jangle that adds a degree of street level, Grit Girls credibility to what is in effect commercial enterprise in its most naked form, but it's the same credibility inherent in a pre-aged, designer diamante 'punk' t shirt from Topshop. Because while the raw material juxtaposition of surf guitar riff and garage beats do catch my ear in a pleasing 'this is different' kind of way (particularly when put up against some of the company it's keeping here), it's all just too damn polite for its own good. "Chain reaction running through my veins, pumps the bass line up into my brain. Screws my mind until I lose control"; now that lyric sounds promising, and it might have lived up to the billing if the guitars had screamed, the beats thundered and the girls had shown a bit more attitude. But they don't, they don't and they don't - the true 'sound of the underground' should take no prisoners, this politely opts to take no risks instead. And that's not the same thing at all.
Originally an Elton John single from 1976, his piano led, minor key ballad of confusion and self doubt is given an off the shelf makeover of full flavour grandeur with a shuffling last dance beat while the boys from Blue eschew any attempt at re-interpretation and instead take turns to intone the lyrics with a solemn gravity that borders on the Biblical (that cover shot could easily grace an album of sacred music)and pours concrete over the fragility of the original to create an edifice that's as functional as a multi storey car park, but just blandly ugly. In other words, all very predictable, with the only real surprise being Elton himself lending his piano to it and chipping in with his own eyes squeezed tight angst. I'd like to think he's playing along rather than honestly thinking all this is any improvement to his own song, but if he does, he's wrong - this 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word' is not needed and ultimately disposable, an end product headed not to the landfill but as clog up on the charity shops shelves put up in place of the boxes that used to house faded vinyl copies of James Last, Mantovani and Paul Young's 'No Parlez'.
From the soundtrack of Eminem's self starring, loosely autobiographical movie '8 Mile', 'Lose Yourself' ditches the humour for another altogether more serious - yet no less revealing - address on the state of his nation and a first person kick up the arse monologue dedicated to his 'Rabbit' character (another one!) within the film. Only it's not that clear cut in the line between alter ego and reality are necessarily blurred; not only can we read 'Eminem' for 'Rabbit', the song itself gradually sheds all reference to the third person and moves to a series of clearly personal 'I' statements that Eminem spits out with an intensity that borders on self flagellation for the life he's lived and fears he could live again.
It's a confidence free fear of failures that stands at sharp angles to his previous cocksure deliveries - how can a man who wrote 'Without Me' be living with any doubt? Well, because Eminem has always been at war with his past and sought to 'rise above' and regain control of his own situation via his music. Take these lines from 'Revelation' (recorded with D12): (rap music) "compelled me to excel when school it failed me. Expelled me and when the principal would tell me I was nothing, and I wouldn't amount to shit. I made my first million and counted it. Now look at a fucking drop-out that quits, stupid as shit, rich as fuck, and proud of it". Or the blisteringly honest 'in character' closing 'battle rap from '8 Mile' itself -"I am white, I am a fucking bum, I do live in a trailer with my mom........here tell these people something they don't know about me". There are 'issues' here that Eminem is not afraid to air in public; the man is angry.
To compliment Eminem's rage, 'Lose Yourself' wraps itself around a simple and direct chug-a-lug metal riff and drum pattern with an extra ice adding piano motif that's a world away from the usual hip hop beat box and samples. But that's all it needs - the main 'instrument' here is Eminem himself and this time he's not playful; he's pummelling, and he dares you not to listen. "I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed. I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage" - Eminem's anger in self awareness is palpable, it drips off the lyrics like beads of sweated venom to splash over all who doubted him, with the biggest splash back reserved for the doubts that rule him. The "You better lose yourself in the music, the moment. You own it, you better never let it go" is a shout of inspiration from one who lived it and made it work, but there's also a subtext of unease of Eminem (not Rabbit) acknowledging the distance he's come and recognising that the road back there isn't far for a loose cannon like himself ("I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot. Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not").
Which is the dichotomy at the heart of 'Lose Yourself' that makes it so arresting - 'Rich as fuck' maybe, but at what price? "here tell these people something they don't know about me" - with a life lived out in the media, there's not much 'these people' don't know about Eminem - for my own part, there is no other popular music star whose mother, wife and daughter I know on first name terms. On one level you can take 'Lose Yourself' as A.N.Other rap song, albeit one more accessible to a white audience than is the norm. On the other hand (and while it might be pretentious to label this rap as psychoanalysis) there's mineshaft depth here that's equal measures of alienation and inspiration. It all depends on where you're coming from and what you want to hear. And if you do choose to gaze into Eminem's abyss, 'Lose Yourself' will gaze directly back with an aggression that will make you blink first. 'Lose Yourself' won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Original Song. It deserved it.
Not content with notching up eleven number ones off their own bat, Westlife (possibly fearing overkill) have now started sub-contracting others to have hits on their behalf. Well that's what it feels like anyway - 'If You're Not the One' is far removed from the garage dance of 'Gotta Get" and falls squarely in the love power ballad-y arena that Westlife have made their own. What makes this slightly more palatable is the reining in of the handwringing angst in favour of a more subdued tone that sounds almost demo like when compared to the excesses of something like 'Unbreakable', helped in spades by the fact there's only one of Bedingfield to make his case. But the path marked 'good points' is not a long one, and 'If You're Not the One' soon splinters off onto the major road paved by the treacly sentiment that comes from overplaying your hand in the 'I love you so much' stakes and an in-built wetness that comes complete with its own drainpipe and guttering. "If I don’t need you then why am I crying on my bed, if I don’t need you then why does your name resound in my head?" - love or mental illness? It's a fine line Dan.
Regular readers will know that the 1978 version of me had a bit of a 'thing' for the film of 'Grease' (you can go back and read if you want, I'm not ashamed). What I haven't mentioned though was that while my mates (and their fathers I suppose) were getting all in a lather about the appearance of 'bad Sandy' at the end (where the character brought herself down to Danny Zucco's level by dressing like a tart), it left the pre-pubescent me very confused. And worried.
I mean, what on earth was going on here? Had I not just sat through ninety minutes of Olivia Newton John playing Sandy as a sweet and virginal girl next door you could take home to mother? So how could she now be swaggering around in skin tight leather, high heels and......smoking!!! How could there be such a sudden transformation? And for that matter, who now was the 'real' Sandy - was 'tarty Sandy' the act or was had she really been hiding her true character for those ninety prim minutes? What was the answer this riddle? I didn't know, but as elusive issues of sexuality left me highly embarrassed back then, I ignored it as best I could and poured all my energies into trying to look like John Travolta. For all the good that did mind.
Fast forward twenty five years and Christina Aguilera presents me with a similar set of issues; initially presented as a full wash cycle, clean cut, doe eyed New York girl in jumpers and sensible shoes, the 2002 model now pouts up in a set of stringy, XXX, bargain basement whore's Sunday worst ensemble so barely there they'd make a pole dancer blush. We'd had forewarnings of course - her brothel chic turn in 'Lady Marmalade' showed us she knew how to work a set of stockings, suspenders and half cup bra, but you could always put that down to her being led astray by Lil' Kim and the rest of the bad girls from the back of the bus. Here, as a solo article, there was no hiding place and no excuses.
Not that Aguilera is in any mood to hide or excuse herself - from the title in the 'new' Christina has banished the coy to flaunt her sexuality with the subtlety of a sweaty groin thrust to the face, a living centrefold from a low rent 'specialist' magazine with piercings instead of staples. And to make sure we're in no doubt that the tone and title don't refer to personal hygiene, the extra 'R' ensures it rolls around the tongue before leaving the mouth in a lascivious drool - Aguilera doesn't want to wait for anyone to rub her the right way to get the genie out of the bottle anymore, she's happy enough to rub it herself. In public too. Crikey.
Well that's the idea anyway, but like a lot of best planned would be aural lays it goes awry in presentation; Aguilera's usually reliable delivery here is shrill, more harpy shriek than siren seduction and, combined with the aimless, faceless hardcore R&B thump that clangs around her mercilessly, it renders 'Dirrty' more pornography than erotica and about as much a turn on as being washed down with a fireman's hose.
"Dirty, filthy, nasty" - Redman sets out the core intent over the introduction, and if that's the tone she set out to achieve then this can be marked up as a bullseye. But there's a hard and calculating feel about 'Dirrty' that reduces Aguilera's sex selling antics to the level of the self centred exhibitionism of a streaker at a sports event, and it leaves me wondering if this is the 'real' Christina or is it some marketing ruse that allows her to stand out in a saturated market? If it's the latter, then shame on someone, but if it's the former then 'Dirrty' is a top shelf, look but don't touch wrong turn; 'bad Sandy' at least had a good natured wink in her eye that let you know that it was all so much fancy dress - Aguilera and 'Dirrty' fix you with a glare of cold steel that digs an unbridgeable gap between song that offers no scope for emotional involvement other than the fleeting gratification offered by pornography. And it's just as disposable.
We're now on westlife's eleventh number one should anybody be counting (I confess I wasn't). Eleven number ones....I mean, there have been a few I know, but I wouldn't have said that they'd reached double figures until I just counted them myself this evening. And, on counting, I was surprised too at how many I'd actually forgotten already. Not just the songs but the titles have left my mind too - in fact, Westlife's hits have blurred into an amorphous cumulus cloud of sound that my mind seems broadly able to split into two between the powerful love ballad-y ones and 'Uptown Girl'.
Which kind of implies that the longer they've gone on, the more re-cycling has been undertaken too. Nothing wrong with recycling per se and I can live with that to an extent; after all, the same criticisms have long since been levelled at AC/DC, a band who no-one could accuse of being too inventive and unpredictable. As a long standing fan though, the fact I know what I'm going to get doesn't stop me looking out for it whenever they release something new (which, alas, is far too infrequently these days). But that's because even after all these years, Angus and the gang still burn with a spiky fire that can get me running around a room waving my arms in the air (well mentally at least). Westlife, on the other hand, leave me woozy with the somnambulistic hangover of a week of sleepless nights.
'Unbreakable' falls in the 'powerful love ballad-y' camp and again bucks no trends - a strummed acoustic intro leads into another staircase climb of screw turning intensity as the lads declare their eternal love in ever more earnest pronouncements. Only this time there is a slight difference, this time the love and power might still be there in spades, but the ballad-y component has taken something of a back seat; 'Unbreakable' is a less an actual song and more a string of bludgeoning statements ("Swept away on a wave of emotion, overcaught in the eye of the storm") that rely more on force of will than anything as trite as a melody to get their point across.
In fact, 'Unbreakable' doesn't have much of a tune at all, nothing that resolves itself in the traditional way anyway, but while it would be nice to report that Westlife had gone atonal or were dabbling in twelve-tone period, they're not. What they are doing is turning a blind eye to pretend that there's a song somewhere underneath the storm that links together what would otherwise be five blokes shouting in random statements in harmony. Just when you think the wheels have to come off and the game has been rumbled, a monster key change at 3:40 pushes them to shout even louder until all the cracks have been thoroughly papered over by their wild eyed pledges that extend from this world to the next ("This love is unbreakable, through fire and flame. When all this is over, our love still remains") that get their own way through bullying the listener with chest beating force and aural violence into a mute acceptance of what they have to say . Well it may work for some, but it's falling on deaf ears here - 'Unbreakable' plays out like a sequel too far, a 'Beverly Hills Cop 3', a 'Police Academy: Mission to Moscow' or a 'Rambo 4', something half baked, half finished and half arsed, content to rely on the strength of the brand and past glories to sell itself rather than making any worthwhile statement itself other than heralding its own existence.
In it's original incarnation as a Bryan Adams single from 1984, 'Heaven' holds me in a certain nostalgic sway by virtue of it (and its parent 'Reckless' album) being an almost permanent fixture on the uncool kids tape machine thingy in our sixth form common room to the extent that hearing a few chords of any of it now is enough to start me filling up. Well not quite, and I'm not going to let any in-built sentimentality cloud my judgement either - I didn't care for Adams and his sawn off Springsteen shtick then and I don't care for it now either, and 'Heaven' itself irritated the pedant in me both 'then' and 'now' with its "When you're lying here in my arms I'm finding it hard to believe we're in heaven" pay off making no sense in context at all without a strategic comma (after the "believe") that Adams' delivery never slots in place.
Dutch singer Do doesn't add it either, but at least her measured vocal sandpapers Adams' own roughhouse delivery into something easier on the ear. What's less easy on the ear is the harsh and banging nineties Eurodance beat that DJ Sammy sets it to. And that, in a nutshell, is what this is - Bryan Adams' 'Heaven' set to a harsh and banging nineties Eurodance beat that sacrifices subtlety on the altar of stomp and exuberance; 'Heaven' blares like angry horn blasts blaring from a traffic jam stalled in summer heat, its relentless parp drowning out any would be tenderness from the lyric in much the same way as Adams' own bombastic seventies soft rock baggage did back in the day. In truth, both give me a headache, but DJ Sammy's lacks the veneer of nostalgia to make it part ways palatable and along with the headache, his take makes my teeth grind too, mostly through its sheer lack of originality - if I'd been asked to quickly knock up a dance version of 'Heaven' then my attempt would have sounded not dissimilar. Better even, and I guess that something's out of joint when the 'artist' shows less imagination in his art than his own indifferent audience.
Not a children's television spin off single featuring two talking glove puppets, but an R&B/hip hop duet between Cornell Iral Haynes Jr (Nelly) and Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child (who were currently on hiatus). What's the 'dilemma'? Well Kelly has just moved into Nelly's 'hood ("I met this chick and she just moved right up the block from me") and she's wasted no time in giving him the eye ("she got the hots for me, the finest thing my hood did see"). But "oh no, oh no, she gotta a man and a son, doh'ohhh", but that's ok because Nelly's going to "wait for my cue and just listen, play my position. Like a shortstop, pick up e'rything mami hittin. And in no time I plan to make this wah-one mi-i-ne and that's for sure".* Nothing like a bit of self confidence I suppose, but to show he's not a total heel he confides "I never been the type to break up a happy home", even though at heart he's just a red blooded male and a slave to his hormones ("There's somethin bout baby girl I just can't leave alone"). Kelly herself loves the attention and practically waves her knickers at him with a "No matter what I do, all I think about is you. Even when I'm with my boo, boy you know I'm crazy over you" belted out shamelessly loud enough for all the neighbours to hear (Nelly at least has the decency to mumble his lines into his collar) - and the hussy's only just moved in too!
Morally ambiguous to the core, 'Dilemma' would have sat better with a side order of self aware humour (those lyrics border on parody in themselves in any case), but from the moody 'man with things on his mind' cover art in, both protagonists play out their parts with the earnest sincerity of Greek tragedy over a nothing we haven't heard before sparse and scratchy, low key hip hop beat, punctuated by the duo's coos, caws and groans in a way that dares you to smile. Or breathe even - 'Dilemma' is a tightly wound emotional vacuum of a song that aims for the meaningful but ends up falling flat through a generic coldness that elicits no sympathy for Nelly's sociopathic tendencies or Kelly's fly by night commitment issues; far from agonising over the ethics of their 'dilemma' I'd say these two should hook up right away, they deserve each other. And how does it all end? No one here is saying, but for my money it ends by saying 'Dilemma' is just too damn worthy for my palate and, given the choice of sitting through it again or giving 'The Ketchup Song' another spin, then I know what I would do. No dilemma there at all.
* Lyrics as cut and pasted from a website. Sorry.
Las Ketchup are a Spanish Europop act fronted by three not unattractive sisters and 'The Ketchup Song' is a novelty, Eurodance number from the 'Saturday Night' genus with its own hardwired hand and leg moves. In other words, something that many would like to tar, feather and run out of town on a rail. But do you know what? After the trying too hard, humourless slog that some recent number ones have inflicted on me, I for one am happy to wallow in its breezy Latin swish and bungee jump headlong into the cascading chorus that, by feeling just a few bars too long, always wrongfoots me by seeming likely to derail and hit the ground hard but instead bounces back to the Sugarhill Gang/'Rappers Delight' quoting main theme at the last second every time. What are the girls saying? Ah who cares, just do as I do and take it as a phonetic rush of smiley faced Esperanto and don't worry about it. I can even do the dance moves too......see?
What could be better than one Pop Idol? How about two of them? On the same song? This is one light bulb moment of inspiration that wouldn’t have taken long to light up over the heads of someone pulling the strings here; in truth, fuelled by the precedent of the Kylie and Jason duet, the appearance of this is as predictable as an Eastboard sunrise with the key players breaking out the BMW catalogues as soon as Will and Gareth entered the studio. Ker and Ching indeed.
But that’s all by the by – whither the outcome? Well, whether it's born of a misplaced confidence or youthful arrogance, there's a certain admiration to be gleaned from the bucketfuls of chutzpah on display in thinking they could bring anything new to a table that The Beatles and Elvis Presley formerly sat at the head of. The A side 'proper' here is the duo's cover of 'The Long And Winding Road', a song that (it's fair to say) was never a personal favourite from The Beatles canon. It's not one of Paul McCartney's favourite Beatles songs either, not as it appears on the 'Let It Be' album anyway (in fact, he cited it as one of the reasons he ended up quitting the band). That’s not because of the song per se, but because producer Phil Spector, to McCartney’s immense displeasure, swamped the band's back to basics take with the overdubbed frenzy of '18 violins, four violas, four cellos, three trumpets, three trombones, two guitars, and a choir of 14 women' behind their backs. Blimey.
McCartney himself has tried to re-write this historical misstep by including The Beatles' original version (sans Phil's meddling) on the 2003 'Let It Be - Naked' album, so evidently there's scope here for creativity. Gates and Young, however, do not take the opportunity to inject some ideas of their own (unless you call turning a solo vocal into a duet a ‘creative step’) and instead follow the white lines of Spector's arrangement as faithfully as a Sunday driver. For all his chagrin, McCartney's vocal at least added an edge of friction to Spector's add on arrangement by picking over it’s surface with the grace of a stone skimming over a lake of porridge.
The Pop Idol tag team are not out to rock any boats though, and to smooth out any roughness they keep it sweet by hitching their vocals directly to the melody. But in so doing they’re forced into adopting a sickly, strained modulation of stretched syllables and held notes to make the lyric ‘fit’ a melody that just isn't there, two whiny mouths stuffed full of sherbet dib dab that adds extra cheese to what was already a curates egg of a dish. It turns 'The Long And Winding Road' into muzak soundtracking an elevator bound straight for hell, but at least it should give McCartney comfort in knowing he got off lightly in comparison back in 1970.
The B side is a Gareth Gates solo recording that goes for gold by having a crack at a song as closely associated with Presley as a comedy quiff, greasy burgers and a white jump suit. A proper 'man's song' and a bellow of a ballad in Presley’s hands, Elvis booms the opening "We're caught in a trap, I can't walk out. Because I love you too much baby" as a matter of fact assessment of a relationship going bad in a way that suggests he can take it or leave it if his woman won't come to her senses. But then by the song's close he’s singing a different tune from a position on his knees to plead for another chance to make this thing work ("Oh let our love survive, dry the tears from your eyes. Let's don't let a good thing die"). Show business showboating maybe, but Presley avoids the camp and plays it from the gut with a confidence that demands attention.
How does Gates' version compare? Well, it doesn't really - the incessant wah wah guitar that plays over the top is as alien and unwelcome as a scribbled moustache on the Mona Lisa, but then that's probably a necessary distraction from Gates' puppy yelp that turns Presley's grand statement into the playground whinge of a boy being sent to do a man's job. In a word, awful, but as I say, you've got to admire the lad's bottle. Haven't you?
Round about the time this single came out, I used to wonder what was the point of Pink. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I used to wonder as to just who she was appealing to. Her outré behaviour and sexually aggressive image caught the eye for sure, but it stood at odds with her comparatively safe dance/rock output which in turn was too conservative and 'uncool' for the rock chic alt crowd who got down with Alanis, Gwen and Courtney (particularly as she's already shown she was willing to flaunt her sexuality in all the 'wrong' ways on 'Lady Marmalade') but too raucous for a prissy teen crowd seduced by early Britney and Christina. In hindsight I can regard her as something of a dry run for Lady Gaga (who trumps her on every level), because underneath it all Pink's various 'parts' never added up to much we haven't seen before.
Take 'Just Like A Pill' - that DIY new wave/no wave cover suggests some Lydia Lunch type subversion lurking within, but nothing of the sort. In fact, although 'Just Like A Pill' does have roots in the American music scene of the late seventies/eighties, it's less the underground than the defiantly overground AOR drive time staples that Pat Benatar or Heart were cranking out over on FM radio. Yes, Pink scowls and sneers out the implied drug references ("This must be a bad trip, all of the other pills, they were different") that equate a bad relationship with addiction in a way that dares to be daring, but at its core there's a safety net of conservative predictability that no amount of dyed hair or cropped tops are going to dispel.
Because although it would love to beg to differ, 'Just Like A Pill' never puts a foot off piste into anything leftfield and for me the biggest giveaway of its wannabe edge is the repeated "I said I tried to call the nurse again but she's being a little bitch" line. Pink snarls it out in a way that suggests she's saying something far, far worse, but its attempt at a punky shock is contrived to the point of grating to these ears, a whiff of danger that's only going to scandalise the same white, puritan, middle class America who went into meltdown over Janet Jackson's 2004 breast bearing Superbowl 'incident'.* Which kind of answer my own opening question I guess; 'Just Like A Pill' is going to appeal to rebellious teens with parents of low tolerance threshold who want to rock the boat and assert their right to be different but not that different. Because for all its aggressive front and defiance, 'Just Like A Pill' boils down to Pink as a helpless and needy woman as much dominated by her hormones and clearly unsuitable partner as any of the babes who populated Take That's output. And it leaves me cold I'm afraid.
* There was a censored version of the song that changed 'bitch' to 'witch'. Oh well, job done I guess.
Second run at the top for this Paragons song - if Blondie diluted its reggae source with a wiry new wave sensibility, then Atomic Kitten deny it altogether by emptying out the roots and filling the bottle entirely with pop. Which is hardly a masterstroke; 'The Tide Is High' already had a natural rhythm with verve aplenty, but by filtering it down to just the melody it loses far more than it gains. Because I'm wondering if anybody involved actually listened to John Holt's original? The girls take the gender swap lyric as read and do their best Debbie Harry impersonations with an assumed aloofness that sits ill against the simplified backing, creating an incongruous miss-match of styles that salts any fizz flat. The forced, titular 'get the feeling' middle eight appears as the afterthought of an afterthought and only adds to the lazy desperation born of struggling to find three pretty girls something to do before the public finally lose interest.
Like So Solid Crew before them, Blazin' Squad were a British hip-hop conglomerate who scored a solitary number one. In Blazin' Squad's case it came via a cover version of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's 1996 hit 'Tha Crossroads', albeit sawn off to a single word. Unfortunately, the title isn't the only thing that's cut down; 'Crossroads' is more abridgment of the original than a cover version per se. Out go the multi-layered, multi-worded rat-a-tat rhyming harmonies and in place comes a pruned to the bone, no-frills truncation with an effect that's less a Brodie's Notes summation to something more akin to condensing a novel by simply ripping out every third page. But the free ebb and flow of the interlocking vocals was as much part of 'Tha Crossroads' as the words and music themselves, and in adding no quirk of their own to stamp an identity and replace what's been lost, Blazin' Squad's 'Crossroads' is a vanilla affair of Pop Idol wannabe gangsta that's all posture and no substance. Nothing 'Blazin' certainly, and, in terms of hip hop, about as authentic as that pitch they're dancing on in the cover shot.
Second number one on the trot for Sugababes and it's one that makes me wish I was more of a musicologist than I am; I'm sure a music theorist could explain what the shifts of key, pitch and tempo are actually 'doing' in terms of composition or harmonic structure, but the best my layman's view can do is say that 'Round Round' does to pop what convex funhouse mirrors do to reflections. There's a strange, skewed aura to it that reminds of the house Gene Hackman's Sheriff is building in Clint Eastwood's 1992 'Unforgiven' - "You know, he don't have a straight angle in that whole god-damned porch, or the whole house for that matter. He is the worst damn carpenter". 'Round Round' is much the same.
Yes the "Round, round baby round, round, spend the night on" chorus provides a constant homebase for the song to return to, but around that touchstone flies a shifting palette of sound that wrong foots every chance it gets. One minute it's glitterball disco, the next it's "Run away now, if you stop me then I'll hit the ground" R&B funk before shifting into power ballad mode at 2:33 ("Does it hurt, when you see how I've done without you"). Which makes it sound like it must be the worst damn shambles imaginable, but it's not. The people behind 'Round Round' are master carpenters skilled at their trade and the discord as whole has the dreamy, hypnotic quality of a German Expressionist film, shot in pastel, where even though you don't quite know what's going on, there's more than enough thread of a plot to fill in the gaps punched by the weirdness. 'Round Round' takes a few listens to reveal all its secrets and harmonies, but there's a depth here that belies any preconceptions about what a song by three pretty girls called 'Sugababes' should be 'about' that's as involving as its welcome, particularly in this current climate of incessant, bland drizzle.
Third number one in a row instant 'success story' courtesy of the 2002 Pop Idol series (Darius was runner up to Will Young), 'Colourblind' at least stands apart from its predecessors in that Darius actually co-wrote it, and co-wrote it before appearing on the show too. Not only that, it fences off its own territory too in that in place of the smooth balladry we've come to expect, at first blush ''Colourblind' has the rugged jags of the American college/alt country scene (I have Counting Crows in mind mainly*). Whilst I'm not presenting that as a ringing endorsement, it does mean that ''Colourblind' has traction enough to stick in my ear after Gareth and Will have slipped straight through and out the other side.
But that's as far as my generosity really - as a song, 'Colourblind' is a one trick pony that equates primary colours with primary emotions with the level of skill and insight worthy of a grade C in GCSE English. "Feeling green, when the jealousy swells and it won't go away and dreams. Feeling yellow, I'm confused inside a little hazy but mellow": Darius wallows in his lyric like a pig in muck, but instead of being half as clever as it thinks it is, 'Colourblind' and its hard laboured metaphor has the grace and charm of a drunk woman tottering around on a single, six inch stiletto. "Nobody warned me about your smile, you're the light. When I close my eyes I'm 'Colourblind" trills the chorus, but I'm none the wiser as to whether Darius thinks this is a good or bad thing. It's not that I demand that a song point its way with large red arrows, but its vagaries adds to the ennui that turns that initially eye catching shiny object into a mould old milkbottle top on closer inspection.
*....and serendipity ahoy, Counting Crows also have a song called 'Colorblind' - it goes "I am colorblind. Coffee black and egg white. Pull me out from inside. I am ready, I am taffy stuck and tongue tied. Stutter shook and uptight. Pull me out from inside. I am ready, I am fine": nope, no ringing endorsements from me here.
Continuing the tag team of reality show number ones, Gates' latest is an original pop ballad cast from the usual 'I'm sorry for cheating on you' mould. At least, I think that's what it's about - Gates is happy to admit a wrist slapping "I've been letting you down, girl I know I've been such a fool. Giving in to temptation when I should've played it cool", but by the chorus he's not up for taking all the blame; "She was kind of exciting, a little crazy I should've known. She must have altered my senses" and, after all, "It can happen to anyone of us, anyone you think of, anyone can fall". Which presumably means that the corollary of him not being able to keep it in his pants is the very real risk that, on the cue of a glance or a smile, she might not be able to keep her knickers on either, an analysis that doesn't exactly suggest he's ready for commitment. Yes, 'Anyone Of Us' is as vague as you like, but it doesn't matter - Gareth is 'new' man enough to admit he's wrong and that's all the audience wants to hear. But it's rather more than I do; "Say you will believe me, I can't take my heart will break" - Gates' whining sincerity is that of a schoolboy apologising for smashing next door's greenhouse with his football and it all goes to make 'Anyone Of Us' a song with all the substance of vapour and one that hangs in the air like mild flatulence, too forceful to be ignored but not stinky enough to clear the room.
Prescient indeed that a genuine 'pop idol' should follow a media generated one, albeit an idol who had been dead over twenty five years. Indeed, it's been as long again since Mr Presley last troubled these charts and what odds would you have been given back then that his next number one would have been an obscure song from the soundtrack of an even obscurer (even by his standards)1968 film?* Ok, 'A Little Less Conversation' isn't a straight reissue and instead comes re-tooled via a Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenborg) Big Beat remix (the first artist officially authorised by the Presley estate to do so), but instead of taking the lazy route of simply laying Presley's vocal over a brand new dance track, Holkenborg instead injects each of the song's original components with a shot of adrenalin with a result that's more celebration than sacrilege.
The original 'A Little Less Conversation' was already an almost funk, busy flux of moving parts back in 1968, albeit one kept in polite order by virtue of its inoffensive context. In contrast, Holkenborg's mix oils the joints and loosens the chains until they clatter and bang like stones in a saucepan, with Presley's own vocal boom stirring the mix with a kinetic force. Actually, it's fascinating to hear just how at home Elvis sounds amongst the whirl and it's tempting to speculate that this is the sort of effortlessly cool, bang up to date '2002 Comeback Special' single he might have launched had he not died in 1977, if only to show Tom Jones (who has tried much the same with much less effect) exactly how it should be done. Will someone be doing the same to an obscure Will Young album track in 2027? The odds on that one would be even longer.
* 1968's 'Live a Little, Love a Little'
It's more than slightly depressing to see such a freshly minted 'pop idol' falling back on a trusty cover version so early in a career of professional popular idolatry. And what's more, a cover version once removed at that; though originally recorded by The Doors (of course), Young's 'Light My Fire' has more in common with Jose Feliciano's 1968 lighter, Latin version than its actual source. What they have in common though is dwarfed by the gulf that separates them - Feliciano was Latin, and the sultry groove he adopted came as a natural par for the course. Young's crack at the same, however, is cardboard stiff and cardboard bland and his attempt to follow Feliciano's vocal guide is a strangled yelp that warbles with all the grace of a housebrick being forced through a sieve. Unimaginative, uninspired and more than a bit pointless, 'Light My Fire' is all these things and less (and the small print on the sleeve reads more as a threat than a promise). I'd like to believe that at the very least it meant a new generation would have been made aware that a group called The Doors did once exist, but to be honest, I don't think they'd have been interested - who needs Jim when you can have Will eh?
After the darkness of 'Stan', Eminem slips back into the light to delivers an update on what he's been doing since 'The Real Slim Shady' via a rolling rap of score settling, shameless self promotion and gleeful schoolyard smut. Yes, on 'Without Me' Eminem pushes his 'shady' persona into overdrive to wind up right thinking parents everywhere. Again, is this the real Eminem, or is the 'Mr Hyde' alter ego a throwback to the useful device prevalent in the blues that allowed the artist to refer to themself in the third person in a way that allowed them to get away with lyrical murder (for example, the way Ellas McDaniel adopted the 'Bo Diddley' persona to get away with bragging how he "walked 47 miles of barbed wire, used a cobra snake for a neck tie" when he obviously didn't and obviously doesn't) so that Eminem's stream of obscenities ("So come on and dip, bum on your lips fuck that, cum on your lips and some on your tits and get ready cos this shit's about to get heavy I just settled all my lawsuits FUCK YOU DEBBIE!") can be passed off as being from the Eminem's dark side while his own halo remains intact.
Kind of. Sort of. Oh I could (over) analyse all day, but there's not much I can add to my views on Eminem and his alter ego than those outlined back on 'The Real Slim Shady' other than to add that 'Without Me' has little purpose other than to perpetuate the cult of Shady and is too personal to brook any meaningful distinction between man and persona. True, the raps here are bitty and the targets less precise and blunter than previous ("Moby, you can get stomped by Obie, you 36 year old bald headed fag blow me. You don't know me, you're too old let go its over, nobody listens to techno"). But what the hell; Eminem's no pause for breath shit slinging is that of an infant in a mud pit and his bullish self confidence ("Now this looks like a job for me so everybody just follow me, cos we need a little controversy, cos it feels so empty without me") rings with the infectious joy of a peal of a bell largely because it's true. Dammit, these charts need Eminem.
'Every loser wins' - so sang Nick Berry back in 1986, yet though I was quick to take the mick, it seems that I'm the one left with egg on my face; Nick might have been right all along. Liberty X are another set of graduates from the Popstars shows, albeit with the twist that the five members were actually rejects eliminated from the show's latter stages in favour of the bunch that went to become Hear'say - even losers win on Popstars. And what's more, that egg on my face was actually double yoked in that 'Just A Little' is by far the best offering to date from anyone involved in any of these talent shows. True the hits from the so-called winners so far have been piss poor to a note, but 'Just A Little' more than holds its own against allcomers, not just reality TV stars. Ok, so its juddering R&B offers nothing new to the genre, but the clipped guitar that drives it and compressed crunch of its production recalls a mid-eighties Prince and gives it a genre credibility over and above what you might expect from a disparate bunch of talent show leftovers. At least, it does whenever Kelli Young takes the lead; being a democracy, the producers seem keen to give each a turn in the spotlight to see who shone the brightest and the tag team nature of the shared vocals splinters the effect somewhat. But not enough to spoil the pleasant surprise of the single as a whole.
Just as things were starting to bubble along quite nicely, here comes dour old Ronan again with an entry that applies the 'party over' dampeners with the force of an anti-lock braking system. He didn't write it of course (that honour goes to Garth Brooks), but I can just imagine how the po-faced gravitas of that title alone would have appealed to Keating and his team on his quest to become a 'serious' artist - you could never imagine him doing a 'Kiss Kiss' now could you?
As you'd expect from a Brooks song, the original 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' is a country ballad of overloaded sentimentality with the underlying homespun philosophy of 'do it now because tomorrow is too late' at its core. Brooks doesn't trowel any of it on too thickly and his simple structure conveys his simple message with an effect that, if I'm being honest, is the sort of thing that always appeals to the glum in me. Job done.
Keating wisely stays away from trying to pop it up and instead heats Brooks' dry sugar into a treacly paste of sincerity that he uses to smother the song by the panful in a suffocating, schmaltzy sap until Brooks' observational whimsy becomes a mantra for a way of life - no 'cheer up it may never happen' for Ronan. In fact, for the final seal of approval as to how deathly seriously everybody is taking it, the overly-literal promotional video provides an unintentional hoot as Keating deadpans the "If tomorrow never comes will she know how much I loved her" directly at the camera while cartwheeling in slow-mo in front of a speeding car as his angsty partner/lover writhes back in their bed like a live wire in a bucket of water. Did he trip or did he jump? Or was he pushed into the car's path by a pissed off passer-by fed up with all his whinging? I know where my money would be.
Since the late eighties, Australian soap opera 'Neighbours' has been something of an institution here in the UK and has been a launch pad for more than one wannabe musical career. By far the most famous graduate of this particular school is Kylie Minogue, with Jason Donovan in second place a few lengths behind. Natalie Imbruglia, Craig McLaughlan, Dan Falzon, Stefan Dennis etc have all had a crack to greater or lesser effect (usually lesser) but it took Holly Vallance (aka Felicity "Flick" Scully) to become the third of the alumni to score a UK number one.
'Kiss Kiss' started out in life as 'Şımarık', an Eastern flavoured pop song by Turkish singer Tarkan. American Stella Soleil added an English lyric and title and gave it a rap/hip hop makeover in 2001 and now Vallance neatly takes the middle ground by keeping the Anglophile styling of Soleil but cutting back on her urban beats and grit to highlight the Eastern twang of its origins, albeit keeping the pop fizzing and not straying too far into the ghetto of 'world music'. All of which makes the resultant hybrid....something and nothing really, a watered down version of both worlds that takes without giving and doesn't leave Vallance a whole lot to do other than pout and preen in the video. Less 'Turkish Delight' and more 'Turkish Indifference', 'Kiss Kiss' is a harmless diversion but it's nothing that leaves the world in a better place with its passing.
Out of all the girl/boy bands we have met, are meeting and are going to meet during this and the last decade, a Sugababes 'Best Of' is the one compilation from any of them that I'd most like to find in my Christmas stocking. Why? Well because I admire their consistency; as a band they manage to surprise with almost every release by pulling rabbits out of a hat I'd long thought was empty. Which is strange really, considering the 'Babes' themselves have been a moveable feast with more line-up changes than Spinal Tap have had drummers, but that adds ammunition to my assertion that a 'good' pop song will always out regardless of who's fronting it; sometimes it's the people behind the scenes who are the most important.
'Freak Like Me' is a Richard X production that, while not quite a 'mash-up', is nevertheless a mutant hybrid that splices fistfuls of DNA from Tubeway Army's 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' to Adina Howard's 1994 hit 'Freak Like Me'.* The result, on paper at least, should have been a stone cold headshot to the R&B sass of Howard, but not a bit of it - this 'Freak Like Me' is three minutes of wired and jittery, alien urban electronica where Numan's once cold slabs of synthesiser stomp are tweaked until they throb with the sensual slow burn to the metronomic rhythm of an imaginary soft red light switching on and fading off, while the girls themselves pull off the attitude of sexy disinterest that's always so damn attractive. Making Numan sexy and danceable has to be a work of some kind of genius, but even if you're not prepared to go quite that far, it's hard to deny that 'Freak Like Me' is earcatching and arresting. Particularly amongst the indifferent company it's keeping.
* X originally created a mash-up of the two songs under his 'Girls On Top' alias called "We Don't Give a Damn About Our Friends". Sugababes were drafted in to provide the vocals when Howard refused permission for hers to be used for a commercial release.
Put it down to my musical upbringing, to my personal taste or to my whatever, but 2002 has left me floundering like a fish out of water thus far. Dealing with a series of weak examples of genres I was never that fussed on in the first place has been like climbing a sheer rock face with no crampons or ropes; suffice it so say, handholds have been hard to find. So for probably the first time on my travels I find myself quite pleased to see Oasis live up to their name and come to my rescue; I know where I am with the Gallaghers and they always give me something to get my teeth into, albeit usually with a sharp bite rather than a savoury chew.
Ok, so what's on the menu this time? Well 'The Hindu Times' is a song that baits its line with any number of hooks and riffs, none of which land the big fish that would make this a killer. So as far as that goes, it's business as usual and it's ironic to report that Gareth Gates took more risks on his take of 'Unchained Melody' than 'The Hindu Times' takes with the entire Oasis sound - it might trim some of the flab that hung round the middle of their more recent releases in a return to the cocky swagger of 'Rock & Roll Star' and 'Supersonic' ("Cos god gave me soul in your rock and roll babe"), but in truth whereas those previous songs cut with a razor sharpness, the edge has been dulled by time and repetition to a crayon thick, pub rock wooze of cod psychedelia kicked off with a drum roll where even Liam's once 'top of the world' sneer now sounds smeared and strained in delivering the same old dial-a-match lyrics ("There's a light that shines on, shines on me, and it keeps me warm").
One aspect of 'The Hindu Times' I'd always previously enjoyed were the punky John Perry/Tom Verlaine - like guitar fills that I'd always assumed were contributed by Andy Bell in a throwback to his days in Ride, but it was suggested to me literally this morning that they are in fact a direct lift from Stereophonics' 'Same Size Feet'. And blow me down, after a little research I've found out that they are indeed - magpie Noel strikes again, and in striking dulls that edge just a little bit further to cast off the main line that tied 'The Hindu Times' to my affections. So as I say, business as usual. As guitar anthems go in the 2002 chart, then 'The Hindu Times' and its attendant 'attitude' is a big fish in a shallow pond. In the grand scheme of things, it never rises far above the ordinary.
In terms of Pop Idol, when I said (on the previous entry) that "We'll be meeting the 'losing' members of that trio sooner rather than later", I wasn't joking - Gates was runner up to Will Young in that self same programme. And being a magna cum laude graduate to Young's summa, he didn't get first dibs on the exclusive original song, which might explain why the old war horse of 'Unchained Melody' is led out of the stable for one more canter. Maybe, but it won't explain why, with Robson and Jerome's 1995 version hardly a distant memory, the general public felt they simply needed yet another version of it.
Gates at least tries to do something a bit different on his take, but in reducing the once clockwork solemnity to a generic, cabaret-lite clapathon then the effect, if not quite akin to setting Chopin's 'Funeral March' to a funky drummer rhythm, is no less misguided and misunderstanding as to what the song is all about. Again, Gates can carry a tune, albeit with a voice heavy on the quiver, but then you'd expect no less after all the hullabaloo he'd been through on the show. The problem is that you get no more either, certainly nothing worth 'idolising' and I'd be happy to stake the farm on the proposition that, without the show and the public's affection for the close but no cigar pretty boy with a stammer, then this particular workhorse would have been sent to the knacker's yard and boiled down into glue long before it got anywhere near the top ten, let alone number one.
After Popstars had re-ignited interest in television talent shows, Pop Idol "was a talent contest to decide the best new young pop singer (or "pop idol") in the United Kingdom, based on viewer voting and participation".* Oh yes, once Hear'Say had rubbed the lamp, this was one particular genie that had no intention of going back in the bottle. Winner of the inaugural series was one Will Young and his reward was a debut single penned by Cathy Dennis (incidentally, all three finalists in the show recorded it too. We'll be meeting the 'losing' members of that trio sooner rather than later).
Dennis reputedly wrote 'Anything Is Possible' in three hours, but if I was paying her by the minute then I'd be double checking her timesheets - 'Anything Is Possible' aims for the peg marked 'smooth ballad' but in execution it plays like a series of off-cut motifs and discarded melody riffs stitched together in an awkward Smorgasbord of ill fitting key and tempo changes that Young has to smooth flat like a cowboy carpet layer disguising a bodge job by hammering the lumps out with a mallet. It's worked in the past, but the fly in this ointment is that Young's voice hardly carries the force of a mallet blow - a steady drip of treacly syrup, Young intones the "I never thought I could be feeling this way, standing here in front of you this perfect day" not as a interpreter trying to breathe life into doggerel but as a man desperate to please but more desperate not to put a foot wrong. And he doesn't really, but in letting the song play him it doesn't make this any more palatable.
Flip side 'Evergreen' was formerly a Westlife album track and sounds exactly like you'd expect a Westlife track to sound**, something I went into on my last review. Again, Young stays faithful to the source and serves up a professional job with a hummable tune that, while not irritating me enough to be able to hate it nevertheless runs over me without trace like water on glass. Taken together, this release has a bleached vapidity that perfectly encapsulates all that I dislike about Pop Idol and its ilk, and it's nothing to do with a snobbish dislike of 'manufactured' music either; in the final analysis, these shows aren't about unearthing fresh talent (and Young himself has all the 'pop idol' qualities of eating porridge for breakfast every single day of your life). Nothing so daring. No, they're about unearthing people with a hardwired desire for fame that's such that they are willing to whore whatever talent they might have and be manipulated into a non boat rocking 'career' that sells the same old mediocrity in exceptional numbers in a way whereby the 'artist' can be controlled in order to generate the maximum revenue for those pulling the strings.
* Thank you Wikipedia.
** "Eyes, like a sunrise, like a rainfall down my soul. And I wonder, I wonder why you look at me like that" - I can probably guess why if that's the sort of bollocks you're going to spout at her.
I'm starting to view the seemingly endless procession of Westlife number ones with, if not exactly dread, but with the same weary resignation that Mickey Mouse came to greet the endless procession of magical brooms he'd conjured up in Fantasia - suffice it to say that I greet these things with a heavy heart. And that's largely because I know what to expect before the needle hits the groove (or the laser reads the digital data off the optical surface). That's not a criticism per se - I kind of know what I'm going to get whenever I buy the latest album from The Fall album unheard too (which I'm wont to do). The difference there though is that I like The Fall and feel they're speaking my language. There's a direct Wi-Fi connection in our band/listener relationship that's simply not there with the latest Westlife output. On both counts.
But to criticise them solely on these grounds is not really logical because the criticism also generates its own defence; Westlife aren't speaking to me, don't pretend to be and most of my dislike stems from my inability to penetrate that invisible barrier that exists between us for whatever reason, and so unless I want to look like a clueless old fart maybe I'd best keep my gob shut. Maybe, but that's not satisfactory either - the difference as I see it is that I found The Fall myself; they didn't come looking for me. Mark E Smith and the ever shifting line-up that back him up might be something of an acquired taste, but they're a non-exclusive club that will have anyone as a member (and if you don't want to join then you can take a walk - Smith won't miss you).
I'm using The Fall as a recurring example here for the sake of convenience - there are any number of acts I equally adore who would fit the agenda just as well. That is, artists who plug away for no apparent reward other than the joy of making music. Everyone is welcome. Westlife, on the other hand, have a set demographic in mind and they go after it with the accuracy of a cruise missile primed for maximum impact and me and my kind are purposely excluded from the blast radius. Oh if I want to like it then fine, it's no skin off their nose; my money is as good as anyone else's, but my patronage is neither expected, wanted or needed. Similarly, me telling the world I was a fan of Westlife would in no way be 'cool', 'hip' or 'down with the kids'. In fact, a middle aged bloke (such as myself) carrying a copy of the latest Westlife album would be...well, just a bit creepy, almost the latter day equivalent of going out armed with the dirty mac and pocket full of sweets that were the supposed trademarks of the 'bad men' of my childhood out to lure me into the bushes to see some non existent puppies.
So it's just as well that I'm not much of a fan really then, but that leads me back to my opening dilemma - after all the dust has settled, there's a song here that needs a word or two said about it. And so I'll crack on, even though I already know before I start that it's going to sound much like the previous eight - that is, a professional job with a hummable tune that, whilst not irritating me enough to hate it will nevertheless run over me without trace like water on glass. "World Of Our Own" gives credence to my earlier suggestion that Westlife are the Benjamin Button of boybands; after earlier singles of fist clenching angst, their output has gradually mellowed to let in more gas from the pop bottle and "World Of Our Own" is their most unpretentiously direct single to date.
That's not to say that they've stopped trying - "World Of Our Own" comes boxfresh and as chrome shiny as the lift the boys are standing in on the cover. There's a clipped, dance friendly bassline that never delves into funk enough to overshadow the wrecking ball swing of the chorus. There's a New Order style guitar riff in there that adds, if hardly an indie edge, at least an edge that Westlife have never shown before and a simple key change at 2:30 gives it fresh legs just as it was flagging from running on its own treadmill. Simple and effective, "World Of Our Own" is a professional job with a hummable tune that, while not irritating me enough to be able to hate it nevertheless runs over me without trace like water on glass. And yes I know I've already said that, but if Westlife can repeat themselves then I can too.
A mere thirty one years after we met the father, son Enrique gives lie to the claim that apples don't fall far from the tree by eschewing Inglesias Sr's Mediterranean groove for a low key, Americana drive time power ballad (just as I was bemoaning the lack of guitar based songs in recent months, now we get two on the trot. Typical). Low key in production that is; 'Hero' might for the most part be a song of plucked acoustics but it's no more than two steps removed from the hot air balloon of an eighties soft rock behemoth - the likes of Foreigner, Journey or (shudder) REO Speedwagon wouldn't need to waste too much candle in tweaking this for their own agenda.
So what does that tell us about 'Hero'? Nothing that the title doesn't really, Enrique's sultry groan rubs the dry sticks of the tune until they smoulder, but he can't get it to give off much actual heat in its passing - 'Hero' imagines itself as freshly minted from the mould stamped 'tortured singer songwriter', but in striving for effect that vital ingredient called 'heart' has been neglected and in its place is a set of tips taken from the 'How To Write One' manual. As far as that goes, 'Hero' ticks off the quiet start/loud climax, "I can be your hero, baby, I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever" promises checklist to the letter, but following such a strict template makes 'Hero' run on oil rather than warm blood and its mechanical presentation betrays not a hint of spontaneity or fragility. It has the best of intentions, but on listening to 'Hero' I hear more ice than fire at its core - buying the biggest, most expensive Valentine's card in the shop remains an empty gesture as long as it was given for effect only and such an overblown statement will never take the place of a genuine hug.
If a wave of sentiment had a hand in pushing 'More Than A Woman' to number one, then it used both along with a good boot in the pants to get this one there - already a number one hit from 1971, 'My Sweet Lord' was re-issued as a charity single following the death of Harrison from cancer in late 2001, meaning that not only was he the second former Beatle to score a posthumous number one, this was the first time two artists had found success from beyond the grave consecutively.
Of the song itself, there's little more I can say that I didn't back on my earlier review (this is a straight re-release with no remixing or embellishing), except to say that in the context of these hard edged years of boy bands and shiny dance tunes, hearing Harrison's song of warm spirituality is like slipping into a warm bath after a hard day. How long has it been since we last heard a guitar on these pages (let alone a slide guitar)? The answer to that is 'too long', and after wading through the rampant swagger of endless "and I swear if you come back in my life, I'll be there till the end of time" and "This memory will last for eternity, and all of our tears will be lost in the rain" mock epic bravado, George and his understated "I really want to be with you" refrain remains unwithered by time and knocks the ball out of the park in the emotion stakes.
Not a cover of The Tavares 1978 disco hit, this 'More Than A Woman' is a prime slice of latter day R&B from the proclaimed "Queen of Urban Pop". In execution, 'More Than A Woman' plays out like (2000 Aaliyah single) 'Try Again' redux, only pimped to the R&B max. Because whereas 'Try Again' clicked with a sparse and understated cool that nagged for your attention, Timbaland's production on 'More Than A Woman' is a breathless rush that crams too much information into too small a place. Instead of carrying her, it lays down an assault course of loops and cuts of clutter and dead ends that give Aaliyah's sweet soprano voice no room to find a fly, free flowing groove. Which was always kind of the point in this genre. With some pruning, 'More Than A Woman' could find its own path to the sunlight, but I'd suggest her tragic death at age 22 some five months earlier contributed more to its success of this than any inherent value - she's done a lot better than this.
Another set of graduates from a television talent show, Girls Aloud were the winners of 2002's Popstars: The Rivals, the successor show to the original Popstars that gave us Hear'Say. This time, the wrinkle came courtesy of that 'Rivals' epithet, with the aim of the show being that two groups - one all girl, one all boy - would be auditioned and created to slug it out in the Christmas charts. The girls were the clear winners this time, both in the short and long term whereas the 'boyband' winners, One True Voice, sat at number two behind 'The Sound Of The Underground' with their debut single 'Sacred Trust' before promptly fading into obscurity while Girls Aloud - both singular and plural - enjoyed a level of media based success that continues to this day.
