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As a young metaller, I bought my first heavy rock album at age ten. In fact, it was my birthday and I bought three in one go, all AC/DC - 'If You Want Blood', 'Highway To Hell' and 'For Those About To Rock'. All have stayed with me from that day to this and all three have their memories, though it's perhaps my naïveté that provides one of the more cringeworthy one.
Because one of my favourite songs off them was 'Go Down', a track I used to take delight in playing at an unreasonable volume and took even greater delight in the fact it seemed to wind my parents up in a way Ozzy Osbourne never did. It was only later that I realised what Bon Scott was really singing about with his "I got honey what you love to taste on those lovely lips, so go down, go down, go down, go down. Oh baby, rub it on, it's still as sweet it's been so long". And after that particular penny dropped, I didn't play it quite so loud again.
What's all this got to do with a Spice Girls ballad? Nothing really. Except insofar that I wonder how many parents looked twice at the "Be a little bit wiser baby, put it on, put it on. 'Cause tonight is the night when two become one" that their pre-pubescent daughter was listening/singing along to. Now of course, it could be just my bad mind and they weren't urging their boyfriend to get the condoms out for a night of shagging (but I bet it's not), but even then there's still a mischievous intent behind '2 Become 1' that covers its 'girl power' sexual dominance ("I need some love like I never needed love before,I had a little love, now I'm back for more") with a coy eye flutter the way Scott's leer traded on entendre and innuendo.
And even though trying to distinguish between the girl's vocals is like trying to distinguish between Silver Spoon and Tate & Lyle (to the extent that this may as well have been credited to 'Spice Girl' singular), for once the lack of powerhousing in the lung department works in their favour and the vocals float along on the slight melody to lend '2 Become 1' a Mini Pops innocence that neatly defuses what could have been taken as lying somewhere beyond the pale in its context and morphs it into ambient pop that's so glossy it hurts the eyes. The Spice Girls were always a more appetising proposition when turned off the slapstick whirlwind and this is one of their better releases. Nice one ladies.
On 13 March 1996, unemployed former shopkeeper and former Scout leader Thomas Hamilton (born Thomas Watt, Jr. 10 May 1952) walked into the Dunblane Primary School armed with two 9 mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers, all legally held. He was carrying 743 cartridges, and fired his weapons 109 times. The subsequent police investigation revealed that Hamilton had loaded the magazines for his Browning with an alternating combination of full-metal-jacket and hollow-point ammunition.
After gaining entry to the school, Hamilton made his way to the gymnasium and opened fire on a Primary One class of five- and six-year-olds, killing or wounding all but one person. Fifteen children died together with their class teacher, Gwen Mayor, who was killed trying to protect the children. Hamilton then left the gymnasium through the emergency exit. In the playground outside he began shooting into a mobile classroom.
A teacher in the mobile classroom had previously realised that something was seriously wrong and told the children to hide under the tables. Most of the bullets became embedded in books and equipment, though "one passed through a chair which seconds before had been used by a child." He also fired at a group of children walking in a corridor, injuring one teacher. Hamilton returned into the gym and with one of his two revolvers fired one shot pointing upwards into his mouth, killing himself instantly. A further eleven children and three adults were rushed to the hospital as soon as the emergency services arrived. One child, Mhairi Isabel MacBeath, was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
So reads the Wikipedia entry on the Dunblane massacre. I remember the events first hand as if they happened yesterday and as I can't improve on the above synopsis, I'm not going to try - the facts speak for themselves. This version of Bob Dylan's 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' was recorded and released as a result of the events set out above with all proceeds going to children's charities, and in many ways it's the most troubling single on these pages. Charity records are nothing new, but whereas those in the past tended to be all star affairs, 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' is largely the work of Scottish musician Ted Christopher and a band made up of local musicians. The only 'star turn' was Mark Knopfler who played lead guitar on it.
It's a questionable choice of song in the circumstances; Dylan wrote 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' for Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and in that film it's sung from the point of view of a lawman dying from a gunshot wound . "Mama, put my guns in the ground. I can't shoot them anymore. That long black cloud is coming down, I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door" - these lyrics would have been an eyebrow raiser in this context and bad (or misunderstood at least) taste personified, but Christopher, with Dylan's blessing, re-wrote the lyrics to the more generally anti-gun message of "Lord put all these guns in the ground. We just can't shoot them anymore. It's time that we spread some love around, before we're knockin' on heaven's door". Even so the appropriateness remains questionable; the re-write may shift Dylan's first person commentary to a third person observation, but the pro-active angle of the chorus remains. Only in this case, sixteen people were not knocking on heaven's door at all; they'd already passed through it.
And yes I know that looks like a pithy and picky cheap shot comment, and I probably would not have raised it had that chorus not actually had Dunblane schoolchildren singing it. Emotive certainly, and mixed in a way that renders them almost as voices calling from the afterlife, but whether this was intentional or not I nevertheless can't help but sense an aura of exploitation in hearing voices so young singing such an 'adult themed' lyric in the aftermath of an horrific event that touched all their lives. Am I being too sensitive about this? Maybe. But nevertheless I can't deny that it gives me the same sense of outrage that others felt when Marcus Harvey unveiled his infamous portrait of Myra Hindley in 1997. A reproduction of the stock police photograph of the scowling, peroxide Hindley, it was built up from thousands of individual dabs made by a cast of a child's hand into an artwork that was demonised and physically attacked so often that it had to be hung behind Perspex with security guards on standby.
Is there any real difference between both statements? Harvey's painting came with the 'serious art' veneer that's the usual defence against the outrageous and the unacceptable (in this case the "sick exploitation of dead children"*) and which itself is usually met with a sneer at the pretension of it all. Christopher's recording made no claims to high art and satisfied itself by being on the side of the angels, a homespun outpouring of grief and redemption with a message of hope. And though the "This town will never be the same, so for the bairns of Dunblane we ask please never again" and Christopher's bizarre mid song recitation of Psalm23 could themselves bring sneers at their sheer mawkish clumsiness, it would take a harder heart than mine to do so.
Dunblane's 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' stands as a unique entry into the canon of UK number ones. Recordings such as the Band Aid, Ferry Aid, the song for the Hillsborough appeal were all generated as reaction to an event and, although designed solely to raise money, they also provided a song that at least attempted to stand by itself for the pleasure of anybody who (for example) was itching to hear 'Let It Be' sung by a roster of disparate A and B listers. 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' raised money for charity too, but the end product is less a song and more a public outpouring of grief and attempt at rationalisation by people directly affected by the tragedy. Hillsborough survivors played no part in the recording of "Ferry Cross The Mersey", Zebrugge survivors played no part in the recording of "Let It Be" - it would have been bad taste to invite them and I doubt they would have anyway; they didn't need to - the 'stars' did the work on their behalf.
By citing themselves collectively as 'Dunblane', the artists behind 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' remain insular, enclosed and work within a context that goes beyond 'doing their bit' for the victims. It's not a 'I Don't Like Mondays' attempt at cod analysis (now how inappropriate would that have been?) but neither is it a song I can imagine anybody ever wanting to listen to more than once. There's simply no need to - only the ghoulish would find replay value here and that's why I find it such a difficult recording to get a handle on. It had the full support of all affected parents and its content went unquestioned in the media at the time, so maybe I'm an audience of one when I say that, for me, 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' is a well meaning single created with nothing but the best of intentions but in its knee-jerk reaction it borders on the theatrical in a way that made my skin crawl then as much as it makes my skin crawl now.
* Comment by the charity 'Kidscape'.
With the boy band world dominated by slick dance tracks or power ballads (both of which are mostly cover versions to boot), it's refreshing that this latest Boyzone single does at least try to live up to the promise of its title. 'A Different Beat's stall is a vague 'one world so why can't we all just get along' statement dressed in flashes and flourishes of a 'my first world music single' primer complete with ethic drums and "Eeyeah--oh, eayeh" chanting for added authenticity. Only it's not that authentic; you won't find any polyrhythms, ragas, talas or Afrobeats here - 'A Different Beat' ply's its trade around a standard Western scale given a vague African spin that throws in the disparate and exotic ("I've seen the rain, fall in Africa, I've touched the snow of Alaska") to plug the gaps the borrowings from the music library doesn't fill. A brave stab, yet for all its efforts it never breaks free of the simple white man's cultural tourism that it is; 'A Different Beat' has all the well meaning yet tacky charm of a Blue Peter bring and buy sale, but it would be churlish not to give it credit for at least trying to be different. That's more than most manage after all.
"I feel you" sings Andre. Only he doesn't, and that's his problem. What he can feel is her "running away from my love", and that's not the same thing at all. Because as Andre points out "it's cold when we're apart, and it's playing in my heart", and if only the lucky girl would be "coming home tonight", then Pete is "thinking of the bedroom baby" and "the things that I want to do to you soon as you get home". But whilst the lyrics are straight out of Gary Barlow's manifesto on sexual politics, at least he had the good grace to wrap them up in a tune of substance; 'I Feel You' is a wet lettuce of an R&B ballad, oilier than Pete's hair and just as limp in its sub four minute whine of sexual frustration. But hell, the fact that it makes me nostalgic for Take That is reason enough to damn it to hell in my eyes.
I was minded to start off this write up by describing my relief at the timely cavalry of The Prodigy galloping over the horizon to pull me free from the bog of recent tedium I've been mired in. But then I paused for thought. And the thought was 'Am I getting a bit predictable'? In looking back over recent years, a trend for black or white polarisation seems to be developing - the scope for surprise amongst the songs I've been writing about has lessened to the point where it's almost possible to gauge my views on any particular entry by virtue of the artist alone with no particular need to read any further. I mean, is there really any need to plough through four hundred-odd words to work out that I'm not going to be keen on Boyzone? And conversely, is it worth reading on here to be able to second guess that I'm going to like 'Breathe'? Both reviews could elicit a Mandy Rice Davies "Well he would say that, wouldn't he"? dismissal to undermine anything I have to say - good or bad - before I even say it.
To that I have no answer, save to say that I can only speak as I find and that I'm not going to apologise for preferring The Prodigy to Robson and Jerome; there's no doubt a certain cynicism born of frustration that takes over whenever yet another cover version pop up in front of me for a write up and it's a cynicism that falls away when presented with the hornets nest lobbed into the middle of a family picnic that is 'Breathe'. Less ragged than 'Firestarter' and more danceable but with no less attitude for it, 'Breathe' is kept kettled by the riot police in a confinement where it rattles and rails against the bars but never breaks loose into self destruction. And it's this combination of control and tension that gives 'Breathe' its brooding menace, helped in no small way by Keith Flint's "Come play my game" vocal jibes that drip with twisted menace enough for Aphex Twin to purloin their tone for his (even more menacing and twisted) "I want your soul"s on 1997's 'Come To Daddy'. Just like the cover, 'Breathe' is a fish out of water in this chart line-up.
And I guess that it goes to confirm why, even in this lull, the charts can still delight in their contrasts. In a Venn diagram of the 'real world', the twin spheres of The Prodigy and Robson and Jerome would barely intersect (if they even intersect at all). Yet here they are, strange bedfellows thrown together like random passengers across a table on a train where one's a yob who wants to test every ringtone on his mobile on maximum volume while the other just wants to read a book. The contrast and conflict doesn't make 'Breathe' any better the same way it doesn't make its neighbours any worse, but it does go to show just why I persist in my documenting every number one and why, even at its lowest ebb, I never get bored with music.
Robson and Jerome rode the crest of the fame wave on a blend of nostalgia and patriotism built on the basis of their 'Soldier Soldier' TV series/personas and through a careful selection of 'golden oldie' covers designed to appeal to those who remembered when it was safe to leave your front door unlocked at night. In other words, a niche in the market was spotted and duly filled in a way that earned my grudging tolerance, if not my respect. However, in covering this Jimmy Ruffin Motown classic and giving it a pop spin I'm filled with a definite sense of this social contract of acceptance being broken, of the duo going off piste to chance their arms at plugging the Take That gap by going all boy band on us.*
If that is the case, then they picked the wrong song to do it with: Ruffin's version is definitive and his vocal poses the question as downbeat and hypothetical; he wishes he wasn't in any position to find out the answer but is in one anyway while sympathetic backing from The Originals and The Andates try to ease Ruffin's pain but only add to the song's tightly wrapped claustrophobia with their ghostly wails. Stock and Aitken's dancey production cracks the gloom to let in some light and Jerome Flynn strides out into the sun with a vocal snap that's glad to meet the challenge of the title head on. And even though he does a passable turn as a karaoke Ruffin, it and the dancey strut of the arrangement undermines the song's inherent aim somewhat. Ah who am I kidding, it makes it superfluous in every way.
* I'm not being entirely fair here; the boy's 1995 debut album had covers of a similar ilk ('The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More', 'Daydream Believer' etc), but as these were never let loose on the singles chart then I can't say that they represented an aim to spread their wings any further than their original audience roped in by the show. And I should point out here that they only ever released three singles and all three made number one, a record that I doubt will ever be beaten. So kudos for that at least.
As I noted back on 'Wannabe', the moving parts of the Spice Girls machine would come far better oiled after that curate's egg of a debut, and true to my word 'Say You'll Be There' is an all round slicker proposition that whirs like the mechanism of a cheap watch and with all the efficiency of labour that Mickey Mouse aimed for with those marching brooms in 'Fantasia'. From the faux vinyl crackles of the intro, 'Say You'll Be There' is takes the latter day R&B sound as role model, but in execution it offers up less the credibility of urban grit and more the cheery air of a holiday rep peddling a catchphrase laden patter with a grinding, fixed grin repetition that's engaging on day one of your hols but becomes motive for murder by day five. 'Say You'll Be There' is well crafted pop (and come on, you'd expect no less), but it's paddling in the shallow end with the most interesting thing about it being the separated at birth resemblance to Suede's 'Beautiful Ones' stalled at number eight on the same month's chart (only 'Say You'll Be There' was sent to finishing school and became a model while Suede's song went to a rough, inner city comp and became a drug dealer). Bet the indie kids didn't see that one coming.
Nature (or so I was taught) abhors a vacuum. If the previous decades of number ones has taught me anything to date, it's that the charts aren't all that keen on one either; there's always room for a band of lads for the girls to scream over, and with the demise of Take That there were any number of potential successors to their crown. Boyzone were one, and they'll be popping up a few more times before we're done, but their first entry conveniently picks up where Take Than left off in that it's a cover of a Bee Gees song (number 8 in 1968). Once again, a side by side comparison is instructive.
The Bee Gee's track is sparse, a hesitant piano that builds in force and confidence until a minor key string arrangement sees the song to a close. And that's all that's needed; Barry Gibb's vocal is the focal point here, pushed to the fore and quivering with emotion yet never quite falling over the precipice into overwrought; if his voice breaks then it's honesty rather than theatrics and I've no cause to doubt his sincerity. Ronan Keating's chewy lisp of a voice could never hope to fill in the blanks that such an arrangement leaves, and Boyzone's producers are wise enough not to let him try; this 'Words' comes draped in an off the peg orchestral swell that tries to drag the tears from the listener that Keating on his own couldn't.
Does it work? Not really; the song is solid enough in its construction to make it hard for anybody to ruin it, but this comes coated in the hard plastic falseness of song put through a cynical mood generating machine, an undergraduate music student's exercise in arrangement that blands it out until it's stateless, anonymous and merely a product for whoever is next in line in want of it. Swap Keating for Barlow or any other boy band leader and the effect would be no different. I've often bemoaned the lack of originality in the charts, but if it's as easy as this to get a hit then where's the incentive to try any harder?
There never was a 'Britdance' genre, but there's no doubt that a number of British dance acts benefited by Britpop's prominence and from following in its slipstream. Of course, having one of the genre's royalty on board is always going to help, and Noel Gallagher's vocal on 'Setting Sun' is as wise a move commercially as it's unwise artistically. Because it could have been so different; the Brothers' trademark big beats still swing with the thump of a heavyweight boxer's fists, but there's also a tasty side order of discord with air raid siren screams and some grind to halt beat stretching at 2:20 that almost make it the number one Aphex Twin never had. Almost - 'Setting Sun' shows too much deference to Gallagher's presence to allow it to fully play to the strengths of innovative experimentation it aspires to and, frankly, his role playing attempt to turn this into a 'proper song' just gets in the way. Without him, this would probably not have had a sniff at the number one spot, but with him 'Setting Sun' lacks the in the round weirdness of a 'Firestarter' and instead pitches up squarely in a no-man's land that will satisfy few. But all is not lost; flip it over for a seven minute instrumental version that shows both all that this should have been and exactly why Gallagher was required to make it the hit the A side was.
American College Rock: now there's a broadbrush of a genre with the potential to either wag my tail or sink my heart depending on who's purveying it. Basically a wider catch all version of British 'indie' and usually played on guitars by white faces, at one end of the spectrum are the minor revolutions of (early) REM, The Feelies, The Replacements, 10,000 Maniacs, Pixies, Husker Du (yes, it can cross over into hardcore too) et al, while at the other end sits......well, stuff like this; a white bread whinge set to a Byrdsian jangle.
'Breakfast At Tiffany's' finds singer Todd Pipes struggling to find a shared connection with his girlfriend that will convince her to prop up a fading relationship. "'And I said what about "Breakfast at Tiffany's? She said, 'I think I remember the film, And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it.' And I said, 'Well, that's the one thing we've got.'" - even if it did have more guts and passion in its clatter and stutter than a soundcheck run-through, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' would still irritate in a twee, middle class, would-be highbrow pretension delivered in an inarticulate, reluctantly overheard, "please will you shut up" conversation in a public place when you're trying to concentrate read a book kind of way. A book which, in this case, is much better than the film, though either would be a far preferable way to pass the time than listening to Pipes and his hangdog simper. "Our lives have come between us, but I know you just don't care" - get a grip man, for all our sakes.
For their second number one, Fugees again return to seventies soul for their source material, but unlike the straight 'remake' of 'Killing Me Softly', 'Ready Or Not' takes just the chorus from The Delfonics song of the same title for its hook and augments it with a rap apiece from each of the members in place of the original verses. And instead of the Philly soul of the original, this 'Ready Or Not' is carried on a vocal sampled from Enya to create a ghostly unease that, when combined with the dominant, borderline aggression vocal from Lauryn Hill and the hardcore gangsta raps, makes the repeated "Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide. Gonna find you and make you want me" simultaneously a threat to be feared and a promise to be welcomed. 'Ready Or Not' creates something new out of the sum of its parts, but whilst re-turfing and re-planting old ground can produce its own rewards, there's always a part of me that would prefer to see the obvious talent on display breaking grounds anew.
And as if to demonstrate the versatility of hip hop, English born, Aussie raised bodybuilder Peter Andre throws his hat into the ring with a tale of getting his groove on at a party in Room 211. But alas, neither nationality has too much pedigree in this genre and Andre's hybrid vocal has rather less meat than is displayed on his pecs. Pitched somewhere between a whine and a groan it shoots 'Flava' with two full barrels of vanilla that put paid to any credibility it may once have had, no matter how many black faced move bustin' homeboys he surrounds himself with in the Venice Beach video. Which kind of sums up 'Flava' to a T; wannabe urban street sounds with enough of a pop hook to both save him from total embarrassment and ensures his white audience aren't alienated but which only serves to give it all the realism and substance of a cheap, plastic Christmas tree. A rap from Cee Lo adds a smidgen of rootsiness, but this 'Flava' does not tayzt of anything much.
The aesthete in me would have enjoyed it better if this present number one had been the one to knock the final Take That single off the top in a neat handing of the baton from one nineties phenomena to another. Sadly, it came a few weeks too late for that, but in the circumstances I'll take deposing Mr Barlow at a pinch to make good my symbolism - the pop king was dead, long live the pop queens. But from another personal point of view, that baton that being passed was not one of equal size or weight; I've mentioned previously as to how Take That barely registered inside my worldview during their heyday, but that's not something I can say about the Spice Girls.
No, those Spice Girls and their 'girlpower' mantra made Take That look like The Wedding Present in terms of pure media exposure. The statistics alone show that Take That built up their following over a (albeit short) period of time while those darned spice's descended from a clear blue sky with the ferocity of a plague of locusts, laying waste to all before them from the off. Before the year was out there'd be two more number ones and a movie, as well as a marketing blitz that saw their faces staring out of any campaigns or promotions that had sufficient finances to hire their approval; Cadbury's, Pepsi, Polaroid, ASDA, Aprilla Scooters, Walkers Crisps, pencil cases, dolls, cosmetics, shoes, watches - the list was as endless as it was random, and presumably the only reason there wasn't a Spice Girls coffin was because the Funeral Furnishing Manufacturer's Association didn't pitch up with enough readies to persuade Scary Spice to model it.
But of course, this was all just fine and dandy; it wasn't the rampant commercial and sexual exploitation of five young women, - nothing so crass. This was empowerment, 'girl power' no less, though whether Emily Davison threw herself in front of King George's horse at Epsom in protest at her gender’s right to appear on a coffee mug in sports bra and pants is debateable. I’m not going to delve into the murky world of sexual politics here so suffice it so say that this is the ideology that was sold, sold hard and gobbled up by a young female fanbase who, if they weren't au fait with the collected works of Andrea Dworkin, were hip enough to know those Ginger, Posh, Scary, Sporty and Baby images were cool.
It's a theme too that debut single 'Wannabe' riffs on. Kind of; love a Spice Girl, then love her girly mates too or you're out the door is what it's saying. Fair enough I guess, but what amazed (and still amazes) me about 'Wannabe' is just what a shambolic affair it is. Frankly, it's a mess; the call and response on the opening "Yo, I'll tell ya what I want, what I really really want. So tell me what ya what, what ya really really want" has an Amazonian intent, but then it collapses in on itself to leave a sugary black hole on "If you want my future, forget my past" before beginning again/collapsing again until it slips into a rap that smacks of naked, East Cheam opportunism instead of East Side cred.
Though no diva's, the girls sing with the exuberance of a pre-nightclub hen party, but 'Wannabe' lurches too much to let them settle on a consistent thread they can follow to allow the personal stamp of what is set up as being five distinct characters to come through (other than playing up to their own nicknames in the video). By the time the "Slam your body down and wind it all around" coda appears, both artist and listener have been buffeted by too many rollers and reduced to seasick passengers who can't wait to reach shore.
As a point of reference, I've commented on how I regarded 'Firestarter' to be a genetic blend of genres, and in its own way 'Wannabe' races for the same prize only its joins aren't so seamless; the rap/dance/pop elements grind against each other with the friction of tectonic plates in motion and the result could be a Frankenstein made composite of the girl's original audition tapes ("let's see if you can rap Mel, Emma - do girly pop") stitched together by drunken medical students engaging in high jinks on rag night.
And the analogy holds good in that ‘Wannabe’ did create a monster, but here's no doubt that it’s a strange choice to launch a career with - things would get a hell of a lot slicker from here on in, but they'd also get a hell of a lot blander too. And while each of 'Wannabe' constitute parts would themselves be bland as beige if they were stretched out to song length, when shoved up against each other so haphazardly in the style of a blind man gluing together a broken a teapot, the end result has a certain charm of novelty that, what it loses in functionality, it makes up for in curiosity value.
Though Take That had disbanded, like George Michael and Wham! ten years earlier, such was the standing of the band that it comes as no surprise that the fans crossed over to Gary Barlow's solo career in sufficient numbers to make his debut solo single number one. Like Michael's 'A Different Corner' too, 'Forever Love' is suggestive of a man keen to draw a line between 'then' and 'now'; in both songs the good time partythons of old are jettisoned in favour of a sparse introspection that aspires to maturity. Unlike Michael though, Barlow's voice was always co-star material only - fine in an ensemble but too flat and hollow to carry a song all by itself and by illustration he drifts through his own song here in a somnambulistic trance, pondering the mysteries of love with all the passion of a man on holiday wondering if he turned the gas off.
That's not entirely Barlow's fault though, a far superior vocalist like Michael wouldn't have been able to make a much better fist of it either; the raw material is lacking. 'Forever Love' is a Barlow original, but it sounds like a cover version composite of all the piano led love ballads he probably heard on the radio growing up, making it a patchwork of clichéd motifs that strive to complete an 'I can do that' box ticking exercise rather than aspiring to any genuine purpose - I've read the lyrics through three times now and I'm still not clear if he's in love and happy or out of it and sad ("In a minute I'm needing to hold her, in an hour I'm cold, cold as stone. When she leaves it gets harder and harder to face life alone". Perhaps more tellingly, I've also tried to listen to the song three times this evening and, while it's all inoffensive enough, it's also unmemorable and unengaging to the extent that each time, after about two minutes, I've found my mind wandering to something else (possibly to whether I've left the gas on or not). And in the final analysis, that's 'Forever Love's' main problem; it's just too dull to deserve your full attention.
Best known via Roberta Flack's 1973 three time Grammy winning version, the Fugees put a hip hop spin on 'Killing Me Softly' with a resulting commercial success (five weeks at number one) that far outweighs its artistic merits. I could listen to Lauryn Hill's gravel and honey vocals all day (and when she released her 'The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill' album in 1998, that's just what I did) and for my money she captures the lyric's creepy bewilderment at an unexpected emotional connection with a stranger in a way that's the equal of Flack - no small success by any standards. But then the hip hop bedrock she performs plays to a different tune with the A Tribe Called Quest sampled sitar and beats thumping too heavily to properly compliment Hill's work on what's meant to be a hushed and private moment, and the incessant "one time" interjections couldn't be more gormlessly intrusive if she was mock punched on the shoulder with a "cheer up love, worse things happen at sea". Hip hop is a versatile medium, but this is too clumsy a mix and match to get my mouth watering.
Some notable features of being an England football fan are always a dissatisfaction with the present mixed with a constant harping back to some long lost 'golden age' when things were much better. This generally begins and ends in 1966, with every following year being a search for a sign that this World Cup win wasn't just a glorious fluke. Which means that your average England fan is well versed in disappointment too. But still they hope. Thirty years on, 1996 wasn't even a World Cup year - what it was though was European Championship year, and as England were hosting then a song was inevitable.
But if football is a funny old game then football songs are funnier still; you don't need to be an England to run the risk of copping some pants down hubris if the team song enjoys a level of success and/or longevity that's out of proportion to the team's progress in the tournament. Your writer can remember the pre-tournament optimism of Scotland's 1978 World Cup song ("And we'll really shake them up, when we win the World Cup, 'cos Scotland are the greatest football team"), not sounding quite so reliable a prediction when heard on the radio following match reports of them being stuffed by the mighty footballing nations of Iran and Peru (who they couldn't beat even with the filled full of illegal drugs and soon to be banned Willie Johnston on the team).
'Three Lions' neatly nutmeg's this danger with its starting out with the sheepish "Everyone seems to know the score, they've seen it all before. They just know, they're so sure, that England's gonna throw it away" before harping back to that 'golden age' as a way of inspiring the team and fans of the present to make a break from "thirty years of hurt". And when it comes, the shift from pessimism to optimism, of honesty in your country's shortcomings but nonetheless having a pride in "three lions on a shirt" that's not a boast of arrogance built on jingoistic tubthumping is an absolute delight. As host nation too, the main "football's coming home" refrain, if not metaphorically accurate (in terms of trophies and kudos returning to their rightful place) was at least literally true and would remain so regardless of how well England performed. Clever.
It's not just a football song mind; just as 'World In Motion' freeze framed a blissed out, summer of love, 'Three Lions' comes with its own extra, moment capturing dimension through slotting neatly into the contemporary Britpop canon courtesy of the presence of the Lightning Seeds. And with'new lad' poster boy Frank Skinner on board as singer/writer and marrying it with a Britsport theme then 'Three Lions' is a zeitgeist capturing bullseye that couldn't fail. And yet even though it scores a goal, I can't help but think the ball crosses the line with the helping hand of a goalie's fumble rather than through a well drilled kick to the top left hand corner.
The Lightning Seeds would never be first choice conduit for a gutsy singalong and their fey indie backing, coupled with Baddiel and Skinner's non vocal vocals give 'Three Lions' the feel of something half inflated when it should bounce like a fully pumped match ball. They'd put that right with the 1998 re-recording, but the samples of the fan chants of "football's coming home" on that single amply display where the true power and pathos inherent in this lies; there can be few greater honours for any sports song than for it to be adopted by the terraces, and if there's a better football song knocking around then I've yet to hear it. The lad's done good.
You've got to feel a bit sorry for Ms G. Europe had been successfully exporting its cheesy synth pop to the UK for most of the decade, yet when she tried to reciprocate with this entry for Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, they cocked a snook and gave her eighth placing. Nevermind, at least the UK proved as keen to buy its own homegrown Eurodance as it was to import it; from the opening parp to arms fanfare through to the relentless bounce of the marching beat, 'Ooh Aah' is Eurodance writ large and Gina grabs her moment by going at the lyric like a dog with a bone. The Velcro catchy chorus is maybe flogged a bit too hard, but context is important and in the best tradition of the contest, those "Ooh.....Aah"s are good times Esperanto designed for a whole continent to sing along to. Or not if the '96 voting was anything to go by. But in its cheap, cheerful cheesiness, it gets a solid eight from me.
From this recent spate of George Michael number ones, you'd be forgiven for thinking we were back in his eighties salad days again. And why not - Michael released enough dance tracks in that decade, 'Fastlove' is a dance track, so QED. Ah, but those eighties Wham! singles were very much school disco material whereas by his own album's admission Michael was now older and had a more sophisticated audience in his sights. And to ensure the target is hit, 'Fastlove' dispenses with the happy clappy disco bounce in favour of a no hooks designer swish that's all polished floor. But its jazzy glide is so hard and shiny that Michael struggles to find purchase, and even after five minutes of trying he never manages to stamp his own persona on his own song; 'George Michael' is in full (rather than the half of that cover) shadow and 'Fastlove' could be by anybody. It does what it sets out to do for sure, but it does it with an aloof anonymity and jazzy haughtiness that leaves barely a scent in its passing. And with an ice chip of functionality at its heart instead of a warm glow of engagement, 'Fastlove' fails to appeal.
Frustrated musician and songwriter that he was, I sometimes wonder if, had Charles Manson written a killer song before his acolytes went on their killer spree, would it have got the kudos it deserved, or would his later activities taint it like poison? The question is hypothetical of course; Manson's output consists of hopeless doggerel desperately masquerading as something from the tortured and sensitive singer/songwriter school but falls short. Well short in fact. Which in a roundabout way brings me to Mark Morrison. Not that I'm equating Morrison with Manson you understand. Quite the opposite in fact; Morrison's antics in the media and his brushes with the law have bordered on the farcical at times and have reduced him to a comedy figure of sorts, a comic book West coast gangster wannabe surviving on a diet of wits and street cred where the music has played second fiddle.
Putting all that baggage aside for present purposes, what's left to consider here is his sole number one 'Return Of The Mack', and a damn fine song it is too. So fine that I have read of some critics comparing it to 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' in terms of style, theme and importance. But to my mind that's patent nonsense; 'The Return Of The Mack' is nothing so doubtful or paranoid as Gaye's classic and instead plays more as a male oriented 'I Will Survive'. If there's any Marvin Gay comparisons to be made then it's with the early model and the joy in love soul of 'Stubborn Kind Of Fellow', a song that Morrison refits with the rhythm section of Tom Tom Club's 'Genius Of Love' (I wonder if its opening "What you gonna do when you get out of jail? I'm gonna have some fun" caught the Mack's ear) and updates Gaye's own cocky strut and swagger into what the kids of today know as modern R&B.
There's a fine tradition within blues/ trad R&B of self promoting braggadocio with the players keen to big themselves up in the eyes of all, but it's rare to hear it in a 'my gal's gone' song; Morrison's girl has done him wrong but he's not going to lay down and die in the gutter. And what's more he's back to tell her he's not, over and over again. Throughout the entire song Morrison never shuts up, twisting his voice from plaintive to face rubbing sneer then back again, while his posse behind backs him up with a constant "You lied to me" Greek chorus just in case there's any doubt this girl isn't getting the message.
Classic pop or the acceptable face of modern R&B? Both I think - 'Return of The Mack' is these things and more, but for myself I think I'm drawn to its upbeat confidence in falling out of love as a representation of the 'rise above' attitude I sometimes wish I had. Because if I were in Morrison's shoes I'd be digging out those tortured, sensitive, singer/songwriter albums and crawling under the duvet. Though I guess that's preferable to getting all Manson on them.
The first time I heard 'Firestarter' I got a 'What the ffff.....????' moment that made me feel as old as my father. Admittedly, I'd flicked TV channels and dropped into a screening of the video somewhere in the middle, but caught cold and off guard I struggled to neatly box up an define the discordance I was hearing where the only constant point of reference was Keith Flint scowling the "I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter" in the style of a man shouting his alibi to a gathering crowd as the police drag him backwards away from a burning building. Only in that video he wasn't in safe custody of the law, he was running around what looked like an abandoned sewer in the dark with the madness in his eyes far outgunning any sanity. All very worrying.
Yet taking the song as a whole from A -Z provides no less of a challenge to find a foothold on what it was all about - The Prodigy were a dance act right? Well there was a start, but this wasn't dance music as I knew it - it was nothing I could dance to anyway; my two left feet need a solid 4/4 backbone backbeat before they're confident enough to do anything, but the rhythm on this provides no safe harbour and instead sounds like a drum kit being thrown down the stairs. The engine gunning looped guitar riff sampled from The Breeders adds a rock edge, but that edge is a fine one - 'Firestarter' is by no stretch a boy's own rock song and any of its influences are there to embellish the song, not drive it.
In fact, trying to pigeon hole 'Firestarter' anywhere is always going to be a waste of time; there's too much going on here for that, so much so it puts me in mind of nothing less than the hybrid outcome of repeatedly sending any number of separate musical genres through Seth Brundle's telepods until they were irrevocably genetically spliced and re-spliced until a new mutation crawled out. What this new creation should be labelled I have no idea, but what it do know is that the violent adrenalin rush that rises off 'Firestarter's primal energy like steam makes me want to go out and steal a fast car then drive it into the sunset (or into a brick wall, it wouldn't matter) with my foot to the floor. This is officially 'more like it'. By God yes.
Final single release from Take That's first go round the houses, and in case anyone had any doubt it would be a number one, it's a Bee Gees cover (that the Bee Gees took to number three in 1977). The original slow dances on the smooth harmonies of the brothers, but being five mediocre vocalists (though four on this now that Robbie Williams had jumped ship) who couldn't harmonise on pain of a gun at their collective heads, Take That wisely stay away from a direct copycat take by serving it up with a spare Latin groove that converts it to borderline Muzak. Competent and professional yet dull and uninspiring with a clinical edge of cynicism, this is for fans only. Though I suspect even most of them would have preferred to seen Take That go out with a bang rather than this whimper.
Since providing my comments regarding time and place on 'Some Might Say', I've been pondering whether, had I been born ten years later, I'd have taken Oasis to my heart as readily as the rest of that generation did. And in all honesty, I don't think I would. When I was actually that parallel universe age, then the mile wide streak of snobbery burning inside me would have turned me off them before the needle even hit the groove (I didn't really 'do' popular at that age - yes, my loss I know). But more than that, I think that in order for them to have broken through my firewall I'd have needed a whole different musical education from an early age (or none at all) so as to come at them as a blank page. Because my main criticism then was the same as the one I make now - I'd already heard it all done before and done better to boot.
But whatever, I was who I was and I can remember taking an instant dislike to 'Don't Look Back In Anger' on first hearing, with most of my negativity based on Gallagher's lyrics. "Slip inside the eye of your mind", "So I start a revolution from my bed, cos you said the brains I had went to my head" - I knew of Noel's self confessed love of The Beatles and I could kind of see what he was aiming for - i.e. the sort of off the wall Lennonisms that don't quite mean anything but invite us, the listener, to fill in the gaps. The problem is, we don't. At least, I don't - whereas a Lennon or a Bob Dylan could wrap an enigma within a lyric to leave you wanting more, those aren't the sort of courses 'Don't Look Back In Anger' plays on; it's too stiff and self conscious in its formality to let in any daylight between the words to be a member of that club.
In fact, it puts me in mind of mid-period Dire Straits where Mark Knopfler manfully laboured under the delusion that working with Dylan was enough of an association to be able to write like him.* In Gallagher's case, being a rabid Lennon fan was never going to be enough to be able to ape him with any great success and true to form, the end result is a set of sloganeering imagery that strives for the meaningfully surreal within a defined cultural ambit but instead comes with a central rigid backbone that sabotages the elasticity of expression and meaning that they're aiming for; it reduces them to a pedestrian plod when they so want to fly. Oh what the hell, let's cut to the chase - the lyrics to this are awful. There, I've said it.
And what those rotten lyrics do is to ensure that, for a song that tries hard to wear its heart on its sleeve, the organ it displays is an empty vessel unconnected to any beating life-force (Noel's nasally flat lead vocal hardly extends a helping hand either - better by far to have let Liam sing this one). True, the soaring "Soooooooo Sally can wait" of the chorus invites a wistful, regret based nostalgia that can bring a lump to the throat, but so does the "Ohhhhhhh what happened to you, whatever happened to me? What became of the people we used to be?" hook of the 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads' theme that it's so obviously based on.
For my money, it's a chorus that makes 'Don't Look Back In Anger' the Britpop 'Auld Lang Syne' - a great song to have on a pub jukebox for an arms linked, closing time bellow with your mates. And yes, I've bellowed along with the best of them in my time. But outside of that context it has a Meccanno 'build your own anthem' quality that I find rather cold and unlovable; try as I might, I simply cannot distil any emotion from 'Don't Look Back In Anger'. Truth be told, I have the same problem with most of Oasis's output - all I hear is a magpie collection of riffs and traces (the opening piano motif is a lift from Lennon's 'Imagine' and the shift from verse to chorus is pure 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds') played by rote in all politeness by a covers band overly respectful of the material they're covering. Which is a damning criticism for a band who wrote their own material. In many ways, 'Don't Look Back In Anger' neatly encapsulates everything I don't understand about Oasis and their popularity - I won't say 'everything I don't like' because I have no major beef with either the song at hand or the band in general, but their pick and mix approach to the past only makes me want to switch it off and go back to the source.
* I offer up some lines from 'It Never Rains' from the 'Brothers In Arms' album as an example: "I hear the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Terrible Twins came to call on you. The bigger they are babe, the harder they fall on you". I could devote an entry to just what's 'wrong' with all this and why it's so awful, but that's for another time and another place.
There's an article begging to be written on the bands plucked from the wilds of obscurity by virtue of a television advertising campaign only to be flung back there like a used tissue once the campaign ended. This isn't the time or place for that though so suffice it to say that Babylon Zoo underwent precisely this procedure when 'Spaceman' was used to front the latest batch of the 'iconic' commercials for Levi's jeans. I've bemoaned in the past how music can work well in that limited context when all you're given is a thirty second snippet and some striking visuals but then becomes rather less appealing well served up over the course of a full length song. 'Spaceman' neatly sidesteps this criticism by making sure that the helium voiced, industrial dance beat heard in the advert only lasts for thirty seconds or so on the song itself too before it takes off its futuristic mask to reveal a wannabe glam, too close to Suede for comfort rock guitar stomp beneath. Audacious maybe (the last time anybody tried such a volte face rug pulling trick was Slik on 'Forever And Ever' in 1976), unexpected certainly; but while it's true that three minutes of that 'quirky' spacey vocal would have turned my hair white, there's still a nagging feeling that someone is cheating and being cheated, particularly when the meat of the song is 'heard it all before' dullsville; I'm afraid this 'spaceman' resolutely fails to launch.
Bridging a gap of five years (and following 1990's 'Listen Without Prejudice') with a 'comeback' album called 'Older' made it plain that Michael still harboured a chip on his shoulder regarding his past and remained keen to maintain the distance between his solo nineties work and the eighties model. 'A Different Corner' had set that particular ball rolling and, as the title alone suggests, 'Jesus To A Child' has a similar maturity, albeit one that belies its sombre tone with a lightness of touch and an unforced intimacy. Michael's vocal flows like warm honey over a dreamy bossanova rhythm of fluid sophistication, a combination born of a confidence and lack of self consciousness that the ill at ease with himself Michael on 'A Different Corner' didn't have. Events post 1996 (George's coming 'out' as a homosexual and the revelation that the song is an ode to his Brazilian lover who died of AIDS) have given the song added resonance but with no detraction - in tying it to a specific individual it in no way lessens the impact or puts it in a 'gay love song' niche corner; the "You smiled at me like Jesus to a child" image of salvation through love is a strong one and it's equally applicable to any such bond between two individuals of any sexuality. Which is surely the mark of all the best love songs.
As a young metaller, I bought my first heavy rock album at age ten. In fact, it was my birthday and I bought three in one go, all AC/DC - 'If You Want Blood', 'Highway To Hell' and 'For Those About To Rock'. All have stayed with me from that day to this and all three have their memories, though it's perhaps my naïveté that provides one of the more cringeworthy one.
