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— Johnny Dee
"Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein."
Decca Records executive Dick Rowe not only squandered the opportunity to sign The Beatles but he also sealed it with an oft-remembered quote. While people like American chart analyst Chris Molanphy have pointed out that there was some truth to the statement at the time (even though Decca ended up signing guitar group Brian Poole and the Tremeloes that very day) it no doubt stung. (Parody film The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash even sent up Rowe with a very un-British Dan Ackroyd as a chain smoking down-on-his-luck A&R guy being interviewed by Eric Idle asking him in a very un-British fasion "what's it like to be such an asshole?") The lesson that should have been learned (but wasn't): when the popularity of something in music dips, there's every reason to expect that it will come back.
New Kids on the Block were everywhere in 1989 and 1990 — so much so that it seemed like they'd be around forever, until they suddenly weren't. Yet from their rapid demise rose the British boy band movement of the the mid to late nineties, as well as its companion girl group scene. NKOTB had been something of a fluke with no successful copy cat bands emerging Stateside but audiences in the UK had been much more receptive to a bunch of pretty boys prancing around on stage and mugging for the teen music press. Stock Aitken Waterman's massive run of addictive but disposable pop no doubt helped (even though boy bands didn't exactly thrive under their auspices) but the big trigger had been Bros. Fans of Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi, twins Matt and Luke Goss and school friend Craig Logan were one of the first big eighties' acts not to be informed by punk to any noticeable degree. They were teen idols and made no apologies for being that way.
The downside of both Bros and NKOTB was that they couldn't stop being prickly toward their critics. In these days of scorched-earth social media, Matt Goss or Donnie Walhberg acting like a victim might have played well but the press eventually turned on the teen heartthrobs and it would be the beginning of the end for both. As if learning the lessons of those who had been to the top only to see their fortunes dashed, a more media-savy generation of pop pin-up came into being. In the case of Take That, it no doubt helped that chart success had been more gradual than that of the brothers Goss: early singles "Do What U Like", "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" weren't very good and as a result only did modest business; it was only with their cover of the 1975 Tavares single "It Only Takes a Minute" that the Mancuian quintet could say they had a genuine hit — and even then their imperial period was still a year off.
Though Robbie Williams' laddish, party boy side would eventually emerge, Take That had the image of kindly lads who would hold the door for grannies and be active in the UK chapter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Their chief competitor, East 17, wasn't modeled along similar lines. On the surface, the foursome from Walthamstow appeared to be cut from the same cloth as boy band predecessors Bros and NKOTB. Brian Harvey sang like fellow Michael Jackson wannabe Matt Goss while group leader Tony Mortimer rapped like he'd been on a strict diet of Walhbergs Donnie and Mark (aka Marky Mark). They also had a New Kids-esque fashion sense as well as aspiring towards trying to look tough. To be fair, they pulled it off better than the Bostonians ever could (Walhberg aside, the others didn't look the part).
East 17 deftly played Rolling Stones to Take That's Beatles (or, looking ahead a year, they played Oasis to their Blur) but the two groups had their similarities as well. Biggest of all was that they each had fantastically talented leaders. Mortimer and Gary Barlow were as outstanding in the songwriting department as more vaunted individuals like Noel Gallagher, Damon Albarn and Brett Anderson with each possessing a gift of melody well beyond the boy bands of previous years. Plus, they played the press far more adeptly than Bros and NKOTB. Not bad for the bad boys of East 17.
While Take That took a while to take off, East 17 managed to hit the ground running yet early efforts "House of Love" (somehow or other a Top 10 hit) and "Gold" weren't much good. Both rely too heavily on Euro-dance beats in order to stand out. By contrast, "Deep" is the first real East 17 number, cool and laid back with much more emphasis on their vocals (something you'd think all-singing boy bands would tend to focus on). Mortimer's raps aren't always to everyone's tastes but they work in this instance; similarly, Harvey's slick falsetto is used just enough not to get on the listener's nerves — at least in the case of this listener.
Johnny Dee goes on about the perviness in "Deep" but they could've easily been a lot more explicit. There is some innuendo but there's also intimacy and sweetness present. These oiks from London's East End could easily delve into talking women into some fun in their bedroom upstairs while their parents are round the pub but there's more to it than that. "Deep" is a double entendre, one which we might ignore the matter of two people connecting on a deep level while focusing on another type of penetration going on. Whatsmore, it's a pretty great song all things considered. The key to its success is perhaps in Mortimer's tastes and willingness to incorporate a variety of styles. A bit R&B, some trip hop, hip hop shuffle: a very early nineties pop record which happens to be by a boy band but free of the NKOTB cliches. Having a group of hunks dancing around on stage may be the the template but this generation of all-vocals acts did away with such nonsense in order to put together some wonderful pop music that managed to be far more diverse and current than much of the indie rock we were all so enamoured with at the time.
1991 had started with New Kids on the Block as still the biggest act in America and ended with virtually everyone having forgotten about them. Boy bands had been thought to have been rendered extinct by all this alternative music (the death of metal as the result of grunge was something that only got talked about later). Yet, by '93 they were already back and in prime position to run away with the British Top 40. The first big girl group of the era, Eternal, was also on the rise, while teen girls Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm were auditioning to be members of an act that would eventually be known as The Spice Girls. Sensing that they had some waiting to do back home, a Florida-based ensemble called the Backstreet Boys began plotting how they might first go about conquering a European market that was ready for them. Just as Dick Rowe had predicted guitar bands being on their way out, so too did many in the music industry who saw doom for the teen idols: they were somehow even wronger than his nibs been way back in 1962.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Belly: "Feed the Tree"
It was around 1993 in which being in an indie band became justification enough for having rather boring records. "At least they aren't a manufactured pop group!" they'd say. Sorry, not good enough. Tanya Donelly had done some good work in Throwing Muses and The Breeders had their moments but Belly had been a step too far. Donelly hadn't become more adventurous with each subsequent project, rather she seemed to lock herself into alternative rock hell. Dee reckons it's a grower and I suppose it's all right after the forty-third play but I'm not fussed either way. Better than almost everything else on offer here (bloody hell, The Lemonheads sure sucked but, depressingly, I'll be getting to them soon enough) but not a patch on East 17. So-called manufactured pop stars don't always top insufferable indie types but they sure did this time round.
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