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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.
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.
