1994 D:Ream: Things Can Only Get Better

I know someone from my parent's generation who says they are unable to listen to anybody singing 'The Little Drummer Boy' without feeling stressed over it's association with Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. For many among my own generation, the fact that 'Things Can Only Get Better' was used to soundtrack the Labour party's successful 1997 election campaign means that it now comes with baggage of stress all its own. And for a subset of them, the once Micawber-like optimism of the title has now become a by-word for lost opportunity, broken promises and a whole truck load of cynicism at how it all turned out. None of which is fair on D:Ream or their song, although I guess there's an element of complicity in that they at least had a say in the use of the song for political sloganeering in a way that 'The Little Drummer Boy' writer Katherine Davis most certainly did not.

But back in 1993 it was just another Brit dance song, albeit one remixed from its 1993 version. Both takes spurn the cheese of a Eurodance bounce to boast a revivalist feel instead. And being built up from a gospel base the song should be soaring, and it would if it were not for Peter Cunnah's lead boots vocal that's determined throughout to not count the chickens of the title and to couch most of his "better"s on the downturn note of anticlimactic caution of a man who doesn't quite believe what he's singing. And if Cunnah doesn't believe, then I don't believe either and its this inability to get a good arms aloft, celebratory fist pump in the air at the thought of a better tomorrow that hamstrings 'Things Can Only Get Better' and makes it a good hook wasted. Maybe its political use was more perceptive than anyone could have imagined.