1997 Spice Girls: Too Much

Too much? Of a good thing? After six singles and six number ones then maybe - whilst you could never be 100% certain what you were going to get from the Spices, they never took you down the road less travelled. And whatever genre the girls dabbled in, their output always displayed a lightness of touch that didn't come structured by girders or fuelled by diesel. Despite the oh so serious cover shot 'Too Much' doesn't buck that trend. In fact, it spreads its vaguely R&B, vaguely doo wop, vaguely American influences way too thinly over a song that's all chorus with precious little in-between. And when the pastry is rolled so paper thin then the whole pie crumbles way before it gets to your mouth. For once the girls provide at least a semblance of distinction in their vocals to keeps the interest levels up, and a certain in-built catchiness doesn't hurt either, but ultimately 'Too Much' belies its title and serves up anorexic flim flam that needs a damn good feed.

1997 Teletubbies: Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!

Being the seventies child that I am, I'm always quick to refer to 'my' era of children's television as being a 'golden' one, a vision of Arcadia before the Goths and the Vandals breached its walls, sacked its buildings and laid waste to its gardens (I'm looking at you Timmy Mallet). In other words, a benchmarking of quality to which all others should aspire and inevitably fall short; was 'Going Live' better than 'Tiswas'? I think not, but then I would say that wouldn't I?

Teletubbies were a late nineties BBC television show aimed at young children that featured four primary coloured, baby faced, non human characters with a TV built into their chest and an antenna on their heads (that's them on the cover). These are facts that I've gleaned via simply 'being around' when the show first aired; I can hold my hands up and say that I've never actually seen a single episode in my life. In fairness to me, it's hard (and not a little bit creepy) to keep up with children's week day television when you're an adult in full time employment with no kids of your own and so it's fair to assume that the people behind the show didn't have people like me in mind as their target audience.

So on those terms at least, I'm carrying too many years to credibly provide any meaningful comment on a song that derived from that very show. And yes, before you start, I'm quite aware that the people behind some of the singles I've merrily slagged off down the years could make exactly the same claim about their wares too, but as 'Teletubbies Say "Eh-Oh!"' is basically an extended version of the theme to a show aimed specifically at pre-school children then I think I'm justified in placing it outside any of the interconnecting circles of the popular music Venn Diagram.

Ah, but even though I was too old to appreciate the Teletubbies at their peak, I was most definitely at the right age in the seventies to appreciate The Wombles when they were at theirs. And it's through clear memory rather than the warm valves of nostalgic glow that I remember how much pleasure 'The Wombling Song' theme tune single gave me when I was given it as a birthday present in 1974. Can I now be so curmudgeonly as to in any way criticise a song that would probably have given the nineties version of me the same level of enjoyment and treasure trove of memories? I think not. So I'm not going to.*


* The nostalgia supremacist in me is dying to point out that Mike Batt's Wombles tune was a 'proper' song with an iconic clarinet riff worthy of Benny Goodman and a tune that could be both be enjoyed in its own right and have carried any set of lyrics whereas, in comparison, 'Teletubbies Say "Eh-Oh!"' is a thirty second indent stretched by repetition alone into single length until it makes my teeth buzz the way they do whenever I eat too much chocolate. Lucky I'm not so petty and culturally insecure to do that eh?

1997 Various Artists: Perfect Day

It hasn't escaped my attention that the volume of number ones per year has been steadily increasing. In past decades, a tally of eighteen would have made for a busy year but right now it feels like I've been slogging through 1997 forever and it's not over yet. There will be worse to come too. I don't believe that this is because there are significantly more singles being released than in the past; rather, aggressive marketing and promotion of multi pack formats by the record companies resulted in a spate of songs rocketing out of the traps to the top in the first week of release only to drop out of sight completely by the fourth when momentum fizzled out.

It all made for a choppy looking chart where flavour of the month recordings came and went in a brave new world where the slow, steady climb to the top was, like vinyl, becoming a thing of the past. In a further unwelcome development, where a number one was once regarded as the pinnacle of achievement, heavily promoted artists and their songs were now being regarded as some kind of failure if they only managed a lowly number three placing. How times change.

If you're going for a heavy marketing push in the UK though, then there's no better medium than the ubiquitous BBC. The only fly in the ointment with that is, being financed by a licence fee, the Corporation is by and large advertising free. The rules aren't so stringent when it comes to blowing their own trumpet though - 'Perfect Day' is a cover of Lou Reed's 1972 album track by an impressive roster of star names, the main purpose being to promote/celebrate the diversity of the BBC’s output but with a (not that) subliminal message in the accompanying film that encouraged us all to pay our licence fees.

Whilst it undeniably gives me no small frisson of pleasure to see a Reed song (and the man himself - he sings the opening and closing lines) at number one, the product as a whole is only more or less successful depending on what side of the face you take its value on. In its function of self promotion then I've no doubt that it worked well, but I can only take it on terms of my brief and on that level the recording in front of me is less successful. Reed's original was a meditative confessional soaked in barely disguised self loathing ("You made me forget myself, I thought I was someone else. Someone good") and ambiguous menace ("You're going to reap just what you sow") - Reed is glad of his day but a character flaw stops him from enjoying the moment as much as he should have. It gave the song an air of tragic inevitability that fitted the edgy, faded glam of its parent 'Transformer' album to a T (and also used to good effect on the drug overdose/hallucination scene in the 1996 film ‘Trainspotting’).

The current recording is a bi-polar affair split along an axis of those who know the song and are out to do it justice (Bowie, Brett Anderson etc) and those who seem less familiar and sanitise it as a thing of uplifting joy (Heather Small, Lesley Garrett etc ). And by bouncing from style to style like a damaged pinball (the turns by and large take a line each), it makes for a choppy take and an awkward listen that's a microcosm of the crudely eclectic charts it inhabits. Nothing here fits with dovetail smoothness and the crude joins are glued in place by Reed's melody that remains largely unchanged from the original. Which makes this 'Perfect Day' little more than highly professional karaoke and the only verdict I can offer is to roll my eyes and wonder why anybody would want to go to the trouble of owning a copy. Other than to bask in the self satisfaction of knowing all proceeds went to that year's Children In Need appeal. Obviously.

1997 Aqua: Barbie Girl

More of that Eurodance stuff, this time a Denmark/Norway hybrid. Whilst most tracks of this ilk come with a 'well at least it's fun' caveat, I can't find much to enjoy in the Zebedee bounce and cartoon grin that 'Barbie Girl' injects straight into my eyeball. No, like a ringtone from Hades 'Barbie Girl' pulsates with a hard wired annoyance that's aided and abetted by Lene Nystrøm's helium soaked, toy like vocal that's too pleased with itself by half. True the "I'm a Barbie girl in the Barbie world. Life in plastic, it's fantastic" offers a veneer of satire that in part excuses its relentless repetition and lifts it out of itself to a degree, but let's not kid ourselves that we're dealing with Rabelais here, and with a message so vague, it's questionable as to who the dig is aimed at (or if it even is a dig in the first place). 'Barbie Girl' is as chunky and primary coloured as stickle bricks; fine for small hands, but of limited appeal to anybody old enough to find the idea of scoffing a five pound bag of sherbet at one sitting nauseating. Very limited.

1997 Spice Girls: Spice Up Your Life

Lead off single from their forthcoming new album and film, 'Spice Up Your Life' also acts as a precursor to the short-lived yet highly visible pop fad for all things Latin that would invade the charts in the late(er) nineties. A generic dervish of flab free salsa, samba, tango & mambo rhythms, 'Spice Up Your Life' zips along at a fair crack, but its velocity is such that the girls' vocals struggle to cling on for the ride. The "Colours of the world" shout out is a clumsy brake from Scary Spice to try and stamp some order, but their identity as a whole gets washed into anonymity by the slipstream until only the shameless, self referencing of the title remains - this could be the work off N. E. Girl Band, which surely isn't what it says in the Spice Girls constitution. All of which goes to make 'Spice Up Your Life' a cardboard camera of a song; it provides workable, functional holiday snaps but, ultimately, it's quite disposable.

1997 Elton John: Candle In The Wind '97/Something About The Way You Look Tonight

"Oh what a circus! Oh what a show!
Argentina has gone to town
Over the death of an actress called Eva
Peron"

Not a lyric from any version of 'Candle In The Wind' but the opening lines to 'Oh What A Circus' from Lloyd Webber's 'Evita' (sung in the musical by Che Guevara no less). And circus is right - on August 31 of this year, a car carrying Diana, Princess of Wales crashed in a Parisian road tunnel, claiming the life of both her and her boyfriend. For anyone so young to lose their lives in such a way is a sad event, but the crash itself was small beer compared to the media feeding frenzy that exploded the next day - Mr Guevara again:

"We've all gone crazy
Mourning all day and mourning all night
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right"

As one who was there I can report that this was bang on the money. Crazy? Oh yes - in the days that followed it became a virtual act of treason to be spotted in public without red eyes and your face not buried in a soaking hankie. The tsunami of grief that poured out over the death of the 'people's princess' bordered on mass hysteria amongst a large section of the populace who had never so much as breathed the same air as the one time Lady Di, egged on by a media high on the euphoria of misery and keen to document every single second of it.

Age was no factor, both the very young, very old and those at all stages in-between were caught up in a web of personal anguish that left normally rational people almost totally incapacitated. There they were on the news bulletins every night, gathered outside places of Diana significance clutching armfuls of flowers and cuddly toys and standing in either silent prayer or wailing like the damned. Had Che made his comments above within earshot then like as not he'd have been strung from the nearest beam stout enough to bear his weight. A strange few days, I can truly say that I've never experienced anything like it before in my life and hope never to again.

Of course, a commerative song was inevitable, but whist my money at the time was on an all star ensemble, long time Diana friend Elton John stepped up to the plate with a re-working of his own 'Candle In The Wind'.* It's easy enough to see why; John's "And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind" is a strong metaphor and one that could be utilised to equal effect on the Princess as it did on its original recipient Marilyn Monroe (there's also a certain neat symmetry between the two in that both were glamorous icons dead at thirty six after a troubled life lived mostly in public under the glare of a spotlight they weren't equipped to deal with). What couldn't be recycled though were the Monroe specific words from fanboy lyricist Bernie Taupin ("I would've liked to know you, but I was just a kid") who duly re-wrote them to be context specific. And it's where the whole enterprise becomes unstuck. But let Che have his say first:

"But who is this Santa Evita?
Why all this howling hysterical sorrow?
What kind of goddess has lived among us?
How will we ever get by without her?"

Tim Rice's lyric is sarcastic, sardonic and Guevara is taking the piss. Unfortunately, Elton isn't, and this 'Candle In The Wind' provides the answers to Che's hypothetical questions -"Goodbye England's rose. May you ever grow in our hearts, you were the grace that placed itself where lives were torn apart. You called out to our country, and you whispered to those in pain. Now you belong to heaven, and the stars spell out your name"

Which isn't exactly the image I had of Diana whilst she was alive, but he goes on: "Loveliness we've lost. These empty days without your smile, this torch we'll always carry for our nation's golden child". And it's this myth making image, block boarded in greetings card platitudes of a soft focus Diana romping through the fields of Albion's green and pleasant land as a Christ-like figure amongst her followers that grates in its slack jawed solemn sincerity. Manna to the believers of course, but it's why this 'Candle In The Wind' isn't a 'pop single' per se any more than the 'Dunblane' single was. What it is is little more than a funeral souvenir for the emotionally deluded to buy and line up alongside the commerative plate, the tea towel, the mug etc as a solid, artefact of vicarious grief that grants them an access point to a nominally closed off world and lets them objectify their misery (or, as Che sang, "So share my glory, so share my coffin") so that, for a few days at least, they can confirm the fact that they're still alive.

Elton sings it from the heart as any friend would, but I'm afraid the "From a country lost without your soul who'll miss the wings of your compassion" never spoke for me and had no business even pretending it did, and the whole cult of personality reverence left me with the same bemusement that Che felt about Eva Peron's passing (in the song natch). A curious thing too is that for all its ten million plus sales, I have never met anybody who actually owned up to buying this. Neither can I say that I'd ever care to, but I'll leave the last word on this to Mr Guevara :

"Oh what an exit! That's how to go!
When they're ringing your curtain down
Demand to be buried like Eva Peron
It's quite a sunset
And good for the country in a roundabout way
We've made the front page of all the world's papers today"

Ah but that's not the end of the story here - 'Candle In The Wind' was a double A sided disc of death with Elton's 'Something About The Way You Look Tonight', a song dedicated to Gianni Verscae who was murdered earlier that year. Being only dedicated and not person specific, 'Something' is all the more palatable but this was still Elton John by numbers, a piano led ballad that could have been culled from any point in his post 1975-ish career that relies on John's trademark solemn sincerity to breath some emotion into Taupin's clunky lyric ("I need to tell you how you light up every second of the day. But in the moonlight you just shine like a beacon on the bay"). But this would only ever have been a PS for British fans who had more than enough grief to be going on with on the other side.


* Elton of course had previous in this field and I think someone missed a trick here - if he'd released this as an EP with his earlier 'Funeral For A Friend', 'Song For Guy' (written in memory of Elton's dead motorbike courier Guy Burchett) and 'Kiss The Bride' then he could have marketed it as 'The Four Funerals And A Wedding EP'. But I'm being flippant now *slaps wrist*.

1997 Verve: The Drugs Don't Work

Verve were a Brit band who, although active during the Britpop era, always stood slightly aloof from the party like mature students watching the freshers get up to their antics with a raised eyebrow. In many ways,'The Drugs Don't Work' acts as a fitting comedown, a full stop epitaph for the whole ludicrous era. Which is perhaps too convenient a way of looking at it, but taken directly then 'The Drugs Don't Work' presents me with a dilemma; with a line 'Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown' at number one, then the latent miserabilist in me should be whooping with joy (if you'll excuse the oxymoron). In its downbeat tone and despairing nature it's a song I should be embracing, but I don't. Not that much anyway. Again, dislike would be far too strong a word - distrust would be a better one, but that's going to take some explaining.

Basically, I don't trust it because, as a whole, I find it too pat and ordered, too neat and polished in a way that belies the end of tether world it's meant to inhabit. In a curious way, its studious polish and shimmer of echoing designer angst reminds me of nothing more than Boyzone's take on 'Words' - that is, an attempt to add emotion by proxy instead of letting the song beneath do the talking. Because it could - 'The Drugs Don't Work' is a highly emotive statement of loss and longing that doesn't need those generic guitar and string embellishments.

For proof of that, look no further than the demo version served up on the B side that bleeds its emotion through a simplicity that does nothing to hold it back. Yet for their definitive statement, Verve offer it up as a coffee table cover version, a weighty tome of high gloss that's there to impress, but with some much bulk then lines like "if heaven calls, I'm coming, too. Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead" lose their power by simply getting lost along the way. As I've said before, less can often be more and in its attempt to present a grandiose statement of wounded gravitas, 'The Drugs Don't Work' floods the engine. Shame.