1992 Tasmin Archer: Sleeping Satellite

So, 'Sleeping Satellite' - my reaction to this back in 1992 was hatred to the point I would physically leave any room where it happened to be playing. Which might seem a tad extreme considering what it is, but nevertheless it irritated me to the point of no return. But much like the earlier Bryan Adams song, it's something that seems to have faded from view since its day in the sun and I can't recall hearing it at all really over the past ten years, which begs the question as to whether those intervening years mellowed my opinion? Alas, no - on exhuming it from its natural grave tonight for a fresh listen, that opening "I blame you for the moonlit sky" raised the hair on my arms as if it had never been away. Welcome back Tasmin.

And yes, the annoyance really does set in that quickly, chiefly because of Archer's insistence on modulating her tone at the end of each line to deliver her statements as if they were questions; it's unexpected and it immediately throws the song skewiff, though not in a good way. I'm all for subverting the norm, but this always makes me feel I'm one minute late for the party and that 'Sleeping Satelllite' has already welcomed its guests with an introductory bon mot that I missed that makes sense of why it then goes off on a wander of its own along a light beat, slow dance shuffle without ever resolving itself into anything satisfactory.

Structure aside, what provides the lead weight to truly sink 'Sleeping Satelllite' are the awful lyrics; Archer is trying to make a grand, new age friendly statement about....something or other....but it plays out like the over earnest prose of a pretentious teenager on speech day. "Have we lost what it takes to advance? Have we peaked too soon? If the world is so green then why does it scream under a blue moon?" - it's meaningless nonsense to a word and this lack of a solid core of anything gives 'Sleeping Satelllite' all the style and substance of smoke wafting from the flame of a scented candle. And for those with no nose for this type of thing (like me), it leaves an irritating stench in its passing.