Leila K: "Ça plane pour moi"

23 June 1993

"Phew! Ruck and Rool! (Or whatever it is in French)."

— Sylvia Patterson

This is the second consecutive Single of the Fortnight Best New Single which is a rather unnecessary though endearingly naff cover version. Last time it was "I Am the Walrus" recorded by an entrepreneur-turned-crowded pleasing doofus in hippie garb; now it's "Ça plane pour moi", a new wave/pop classic of the late-seventies transformed into a something on the thrashier side of Eurodance.

Being in her mid-twenties, Leila K was a much more marketable figure than Mike Fab-Gere so she ought to have been pumping out the hits. To some extent she did but in the UK the chart hits were more modest. The catchy pop-rap of "Got to Get" took her into the Top 10 in 1991 but her only other Top 40 entry was "Open Sesame" from early '93 which reached a respectable but ultimately nothing special number twenty-three. What did both of these records have in common for the Swedish model-turned-pop princess? She rapped and/or sang in English on both of 'em.

The influence of the Continent had been all over the pop charts in 1993. Eurodance duos like Culture Beat, 2 Unlimited, Capella and The Good Men (aka Chocolate Puma) all scored major hits. Solo artist Haddaway was also a player in this movement. While they hailed from different countries, they all shared more than just their pumping beats: their vocals were done in English. The same applied to Swedes Ace of Base at the same time though they were much more of a "proper" group. They may have performed in the mother tongues when they were back home but once they'd gone international it was the world's lingua franca all day.

To do a cover of "Ça plane pour moi" in the context of early nineties' Eurodance must have seemed like a timely move. Not only does it capture that Eurotrash aesthetic of runway models and fast fashion and tanned guys with ponytails cruising around in their Lamborghinis but it manages to undermine the original by Plastic Bertrand by shoving it into the similarly lowbrow culture from its own time. Where it was once a fresh bit of catchy pop-punk, it was now transformed into a theme for endless rail strikes, trashy holiday spots on the Costa del Sol and pathetic bands representing Yugoslavia at Eurovision. Eurotrash wasn't a recent phenomenon, it had always been around.

Plastic Bertrand's original managed to survive if only because Leila K's interpretation wasn't as big as it deserved to be. While said to have been something of a big deal in the newly established Czech Republic, it came up well short of the UK Top 40. Sylvia Patterson's assessment is bang on but this had little effect on its chances. She would have been well-advised to have done it in English (or just covered its Anglo equivalent "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" instead) since Britain in '93 had very little time for foreign languages on their charts.

It probably isn't quite as fun and mad as the Plastic Bertrand original but Leila K's rendition has charms of its own. As Patterson suggests, it's updated for the nineties and the Eurodance scene while still retaining some crazy guitar work. Speaking of how it managed to undermine Bertrand's '78 hit, isn't it strange that it hadn't been a disco floor filler until '93? Sure, it's punk and/or new wave and/or post-punk (the very fact that no one can seem to agree on a genre or subgenre tells you all you need to know about how unique it is) but at it's heart it's always been a dance track. We just never knew it until Leila K set us straight.

With the completion of the Channel Tunnel imminent, it looked as if Britain was becoming much more European as the nineties progressed. Voices like that of that great French resident Nigel Lawson that the European Union was fast evolving into a 'United States of Europe' were being rightly ignored. Yet, the British wanted nothing more than to be British: the sort of people who spend about half their time worshiping America and the other half despising their godforsaken friends on the other side of the Atlantic and who typically didn't want to have that much to do with Europe itself. The coming lad culture wasn't expecting to help bring about Brexit but they should take some of the credit for having done so.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Blur: "Chemical World"

The vendetta against Blur continues. I guess it's easy to see in retrospect but why didn't these pop critics recognize a talented quartet when one was right there in front of them. Patterson has never hid her distaste for Damon Albarn but I have to wonder if that's more to do with his unwillingness to reciprocate the friendship she desired rather than him being the utter git she long claimed him to be. Still, at least she's big enough to admit that "Chemical World" is  ace. But why the surprise? Well, she (rightly) didn't think much of "Popscene" from a year earlier but "For Tomorrow" had already been released nabbing them their customary number twenty-eight spot and that should have signaled to all that they had arrived. Yet, some were still in denial. But it wouldn't be long before the bulk of the critics began to give it all a big rethink.

Mike Fab-Gere & The Permissive Society: "I Am the Walrus"

9 June 1993

"Yes, no wonder we're bitter."

— Sian Pattenden

It is remarkable how often The Beatles managed to entertain, fascinate and perplex their vast audience. Even at the height of Beatlemania their songs were outrageously original with even Bob Dylan managing to see past their bubblegum facade. Always a step ahead of both their competition and their fans, they couldn't stop flooring everyone. The Rubber Soul album was released at the end of 1965 was a major step forward but even it must have seemed quaint about nine months later when follow up Revolver came out. Rinse and repeat with Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band less than a year after that. From "Tomorrow Never Knows" to "Strawberry Fields Forever" to "A Day in the Life" and on to the B side of their number one hit "Hello Goodbye": all hail the genius of John Lennon.

"I Am the Walrus" has long been something many budding musicians have aspired to but even the most accomplished have failed to match its brilliance. Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne has carved out a very successful career based on a combination of an ease with hooks to die for and a seemingly unquenchable desire to ape those distinctive cellos which accompany this most unorthodox Beatle number. XTC (under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear) and Tears for Fears did their own "Walrus" parodies in the eighties — and rather flippin' great they are too. As if admitting that they weren't capable of Walruses of their own, a number of nineties' acts came out with well-intentioned but flawed covers. Let's take a look at them in order from worst to least unbearable.

Jim Carrey & George Martin: "I Am the Walrus"

From In My Life, a collection of dismal sessions led by The Beatles' producer and a series of MOR pop stars and the Hollywood A list. Martin revives the song's studio effects competently enough (while somehow managing to make it sound infinitely less inspired) but Carrey's decision to sing it as if impersonating the titular character he played in The Mask dooms it to hell. Amazingly enough, Goldie Hawn, Robin Williams and Celine Dion all surpassed Carrey's shoddy performance with absolute abominations of their own. Proof that, like all four Beatles, Martin was not above the dredges of bad taste.

Oingo Boingo: "I Am the Walrus"

One would think that a a music geek and film score wizard like Danny Elfman would be able to recreate and update sixties' acid rock but he isn't up to the task in this instance. He's probably guilty of being too close to the material to give it any kind of uniqueness as well as bring too preoccupied by his new-found day job of composing music for The Simpsons and all those Tim Burton films you enjoyed as a kid but actually kind of suck when you go back and watch them now. Proof that all the musical genius in the world won't cut it when you're trying to live up to the Fabs.

Oasis: "I Am the Walrus"

Awfully close to the Oingo Boingo version but the Gallaghers get bonus marks for having some spirit (or is it spirits?) in them. They would've been better off tackling something like "Day Tripper" or "Ticket to Ride" but it wouldn't be Oasis without at least some degree of overreach. Lots of thrashing guitars which speaks to the role that both grunge and shoegaze played in hardening the Oasis sound in the early nineties. Proof that The Beatles inspire a love of music but their fans are seldom inspired enough to create great music of their own.

Mike Fab-Gere & The Permissive Society: "I Am the Walrus"

The subject of this week's blog — clearly — so I needn't go into much in this instance but let's just say I could probably talk myself into giving it another listen. Eventually. Proof that if you're going to do a cover of a famous song, you might as well do so with some guts and bravado.

So, how does a guy with a business background who sold his company and made a bundle pull of the least bad version of "I Am the Walrus"? While it may help that Mike Southon, the alias of Mike Fab-Gere, would have been an impressionable teen when The Beatles first released it back in 1967, it should be noted that he's the same age Elfman as well as other members of Oingo Boingo. Being too reverential towards the Fab Four rarely results in excellent music being made. Luckily, there's little evidence of Southon marking out in similar fashion.

With enthusiasm, deep pockets and the shamelessness of a good old-fashioned promotions guy, Southon seems to have approached his dalliance with pop music with a kind of amateurish professionalism.  He and The Permissive Society seem like little more than a glorified wedding band. An eight-minute feature up on YouTube starts with a quote proclaiming them to be "the best corporate entertainment I've ever seen". Another states they "adapted completely to our requirements". This PR video even trumpets them as "reliable". How very rock 'n' roll of them. Yet, there's something charming about Southon launching himself into this embarrassing alter-ego of an old hippie who's down for putting on a night of good time fun at a convention for financial planners taking place in Torquay. Had he ever played Singapore, it's easy to imagine Nick Leeson nodding along agreeably to his interpretation of "Roll Over Beethoven" just as he was pondering his latest con job.

"I think The Beatles should've done it that way in the first place frankly", asserts then-features editor of Smash Hits Alex Kadis, perhaps in an effort to overdo it for the cameras. "I think Mike Fab-Gere is a sign of the future". Honestly, she isn't wrong. Not only does this look ahead to the coming Britpop wave in a year's time but it also anticipates just how corporate everything has become in mainstream music. I don't think I would want to pay thousands of dollars to ride on a cruise ship with a half dozen legends of eighties' pop but there are people out there who are more than happy to do so.

"I Am the Walrus" wasn't quite a one off Mike Fab-Gere & The Permissive Society. A follow-up, "Summer of Love" which was co-written by Southon, came out the following year. It's actually the better of their two singles with a slightly more contemporary, techno-friendly sound and is the sort of thing punters actually might have wanted to dance to at one of their corporate or student union gigs. But the crowds weren't coming out to hear their original material; sixties revivalists wanted the real thing. Meanwhile, young people began flocking in the direction of a new generation of revivalists, one of whom had a version of "I Am the Walrus" of their own which wasn't much cop but they supposedly sounded like The Beatles and that was more than good enough.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Björk: "Human Behaviour"

Sian Pattenden is far less excited by this debut effort from the former Sugarcube than she is by Mike Fab-Gere and I'm not so sure she's wrong either. It's a curious choice to launch what would prove to be a highly successful solo career; I actually wasn't aware it even was a single until just recently. Björk had "Big Time Sensuality" and "Venus as a Boy" and "Violently Happy" all in her back pocket but they were all held over in favour of this? Somehow "Human Behaviour" managed to sneak in for a minor Top 40 hit but you have to think that something this unmemorable could have easily stalled her future prospects. Hotels and shopping centres have soft openings so why not a pop career as well? Saving her best stuff for later may have been risky but it all proved to be worth it.

Manic Street Preachers: "From Despair to Where"

26 May 1993

"James' whispered opening lyrics and strummed guitar mark the polite return of the Manics to the music scene. Then they kick the door down and take the joint over."

— Tony Cross

It wasn't all that long ago that found myself growing sick of writing about The Cure in this space so many times. In the case of their mid-eighties' indie-pop trilogy of UK hits "The Lovecats", "The Caterpillar" and "In Between Days" this wasn't much of a problem since it presented me with a welcome reminder of how good they could be when Robert Smith and whoever he deemed fit to join him were at their best. "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (which, full disclosure, I was in no way obliged to cover since this was pre-Single of the Fortnight era) is a perfectly acceptable early Cure number though not among the true high spots of their goth years. But by the time I got to "A Letter to Elise" I had had my fill of them. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been one of their finest moments (even though it isn't) because I had covered a band I'm not all that into more than enough by that point.

I'm already reaching a similar stage when it comes to Manic Street Preachers. This is now their third time on this blog and I know for a fact that they'll be coming up at least one more time. Because online scans of nineties' issues of Smash Hits are incomplete, I'm dreading the prospect of eventually having to blog about them a fifth, sixth and even seventh time. It actually makes me feel well-disposed to a once great pop mag for going too far down the road of disposable pop because at least it might help curb the numbers of times I have to deal with this band who I did enthused over a little too much the last time they came up. (Granted, I was blogging about a hell of a song so no wonder) My usual indifference is turning into a faint sense of loathing for this lot — a statement which could easily be confused for a Manics' song title.

"Motorcycle Emptiness" had been the first obvious sign that there was far more to these Welsh oiks than met the eye and they used much of second album Gold Against the Soul (I always think 'God Against the Soul' would've been a catchier title) reaffirming this. The intention is there but they are aren't up to the task of repeating what made the most acclaimed single they'd ever release able to imprint itself on seemingly an entire generation of British youths. You want passion? James Dean Bradfield has got it nailed and he's going to hammer it home. You want angst? Lyricists Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire could put pen to paper and make Siouxie Sioux look like Debby Boone, all the while talking at their audience at least as much as they talked to them. You want a powerful indie rock foursome that made no bones of their debt to punk and metal? Oh, their chords could rip your grubby old jean jacket given half a chance. You want subtlety? Look someplace else.

The Manics at their absolute best were always touching. "Motorcycle Emptiness", "La tristesse durera", "A Design for Life", "The Everlasting": these are the four songs of their's that I genuinely care about and I'm not alone in this regard. John Aizlewood's perceptive review of their 2001 album Know Your Enemy points to at least three of these very same tracks ("La tristesse..." being the one possible exception: I don't have the source to consult or provide a link to, I'm just going on memory) as examples of when the group truly was "4REAL". The Q Magazine wit and Lightning Seeds fan also pointed out that they could be their own worst enemies.

Thus, "From Despair to Where", a classic example of how there's a fine line between getting it just right and ballsing it up big time. (Manics are unique in the sense that while I feel largely indifferent to them, I seldom feel non-pulsed by any of their individual songs: either I love them or I have no used for 'em) A rational rock fan might find plenty to enjoy and I would agree they're in there, only they don't mesh well at all. Bradfield can't tone it down, the words are just the sort of thing that a pair of university graduates would come up with while play acting as though they're bedsit anthems for the young and the passion just never lets up.

I wouldn't have made this charge at the time (even though I've never really taken to Manic Street Preachers) but they really do represent the rock and roll con job at its finest. Have guitar, will turn heads. It doesn't matter that much of what they had to say was tosh or had been so poorly communicated as to mean precisely nothing. I used to scoff at Meat Loaf for putting his entire (and considerable) frame into his recordings but how is this Welsh foursome any different? "From Despair to Where"? How about, I don't care!

Critics and fans will sometimes lay into the likes of XTC and Talking Heads for being "too clever by half" but somehow or other Manic Street Preachers have managed to avoid such a charge, particularly in the early, Richey period. No doubt being a blistering old school rock group helps in this regard. That shouty Bradfield voice also plays a significant role. Yet, music that sets itself up to diagnose teenage moodiness is really the ultimate in clever-clever pop. It's easy to laugh at The Clash being the "only band that matters" but the Manics made mattering into all that mattered. Yes, they could do extraordinary things but this probably only convinced them that everything they did could sparkle. They didn't but at least those rare moments of inspiration remain. Let's have some more of them come up on this blog if I'm meant to continue this Manic love fest.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Willie Nelson & Sinead O'Connor: "Don't Give Up"

One of the more forgotten trends of '93 was the duet album. Elton John's Duets sold very well in spite of some poor material and some not great singing partners for old Reg. Frank Sinatra's, also with the highly original title Duets, was also a big success as it made old Blue Eyes relevant with Generation X. Willie Nelson didn't release his own album also called Duets this year but the first half of current release Across the Borderline — with four cuts suggests the thought had crossed his mind. This rendition of the 1986 Top 10 hit for Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush isn't a favourite of Tony Cross and I would agree that Willie Nelson and Sinead O'Connor's voices don't really gel. Possibly a kind gesture of solidarity from one performer at the previous year's Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert (in which a large portion of the Madison Square Garden crowd booed O'Connor the same way they would have greeted Dylan some twenty-five years earlier) to another but a brave attempt at something memorable can't quite cut it. Two outstanding artists but they can't all be winners, can they?

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Christmas in B'Dilly Bay with Kid Creole & The Coconuts

9 December 1982

"The man who proves once and for all that you can be 100% hip and highly commercial at the same time, goes for his fourth hit in six months with a bonzer-value Christmas EP."

— Tim De Lisle

I have long maintained that Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas is superior to A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. Honestly, it's not particularly close. While Ella Fitzgerald handled fun festive favourites and po-faced works of faith equally well, just over half-an-hour of the Wall of Sound is about twenty minutes too long for my tastes. The material is not dissimilar — the two albums have six Yuletide hits in common — the running times are near-identical and Spector charges The Ronettes and The Crystals are almost as good at bringing childish joy to a vocal as Ella Fitzgerald herself. But she was a pro like very few others of any generation so it's no knock on Ronnie Spector that she can't quite measure up. Yet, there's no question of its importance and it certainly has its moments.

There aren't many other Christmas albums that are as critically acclaimed as either Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas or A Christmas Gift for You. Indie fans are fond of Low's Christmas which opens with the wonderful Spector-ish "Just Like Christmas" and is followed by the moving "Long Way Around the Sea" and a distortion-filled version of "Little Drummer Boy". Unfortunately, the remaining five tracks don't really do much. I seldom bother playing the whole thing. For lovers of too-cool-for-school indie, they'd do better seeking out the 1981 collection A Christmas Record.

It is not a single-artist release nor the work of a psychopath producer and all those poor souls who worked for him but it is much more than your typical seasonal compilation. The mandate from the deeply hip label ZE was for everyone to compose their own Christmas song and then have them bundled together. By far the best known track on it is "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses. Though nearly a hit at the time in Britain, it has since become much-loved by a wider spectrum of the public. Those chiming, chunky guitars and a catchy indie rock beat make it hard to dislike and that's before you even get to the unique tale being told in the lyrics. "Christmas Wrapping" mixes the American love for fantasy with the dry British practice of introducing a touch of reality to their Christmas songs. No one has ever been able to pull off a decent cover but who needs a facsimile when you've got the glorious real thing?

"Christmas Wrapping" is probably my favourite Christmas song of all time but there's another selection on A Christmas Record that is nearly as good. "Christmas on Riverside Drive" was initially credited to August Darnell the leader of Kid Creole & The Coconuts who was looking to get on with a solo career. He was also currently busy getting his album Wise Guy ready for release and this was the first sign that he could be on his own from this point forward.

Then, ZE began to fret over their bottom line. Darnell was just about the only artist they had signed with much commercial potential (Was (Not Was) would've also had potential but they were still five years away from having hits) so they got on him about altering his latest recordings to spark sales and even bringing back the Kid Creole & The Coconuts name. This all could have and should have blown up in their faces but then the re-titled Tropical Gangsters became a massive hit in Europe. Singles "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby", "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and "Stool Pigeon" all made the UK Top 10.

A fourth single from Tropical Gangsters wouldn't have been out of the question but the end of 1982 presented the group and their record label with the opportunity to kill three birds with one stone. First, they could milk the success they'd built up that year. Second, they could pique the interest of their suddenly large fanbase by recycling a deep cut from previous album Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places. Third, further recycling could be done by giving single release Darnell's magnificent contribution to A Christmas Record. Thus, "No Fish Today", "Dear Addy" and "Christmas on Riverside Drive" ended up bundled together as the E.P. Christmas in B'Dilly Bay.

As I have already said, the concept — hey, if there can be concept albums then surely concept E.P.'s can't be out of the question — doesn't really work. "Dear Addy" and "No Fish Today" both have island rhythms guiding them but I fail to see the connection to Christmas; "Riverside Drive" obviously fits the holiday but Manhattan sophistication is quite a leap from wherever B'Dilly Bay is meant to be. I guess that's what happens when three songs are randomly shoved together much to the disinterest of the public. (Getting into the Top 30 would have been quite the feat for the Coconuts just a year earlier but now it must have seemed like a flop)

But let's not quibble since all three tracks are outstanding, just like everything Darnell did at around this time. In a way, not really fitting together kind of works to its advantage since they show just what an effortlessly brilliant talent he was whether he was playing around with reggae and Asian melodies or if he was the next Cab Calloway. The record itself may be all over the place but, Jesus, isn't that Kid Creole guy just the greatest?

"Christmas on Riverside Drive" really ought to be as beloved a NYC holiday classic as The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" but there isn't really the interest in wealthy couples having a night out, drinking cocktails at a swanky hotel bar and then dining at that wood-paneled steakhouse that Johnny Weissmuller used to frequent. I've never been to New York so I can only go by the music I've listened to, Seinfeld and the three Woody Allen movies I've seen (three's enough, right?). I'm sure much of it isn't magical just as there's probably a lot of the city that isn't even all that great. It probably isn't even all that dangerous. All I know is that when I finally do go there, I'll be singing this damn song to myself (and, possibly, out loud) even if I happen to be there in the middle of the summer. Especially in summer.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Yoko Ono: "My Man"

She used to wear black. Then, she wore nothing with that chap who allegedly was responsible for her breakup with the Fluxus movement. In the early seventies she began favouring berets and hot pants; by the time she reached her seventies, she finally began embracing chic fashions that surprisingly suited her. But for my money the Yoko Ono look that I'll always remember her for is her mullet in a ponytail with those iconic wraparound shades. While her Man often thrived in the avant-garde terrain that he didn't always feel comfortable in, his Woman generally recorded stronger material the closer she inched herself towards the mainstream. They aren't all that similar but "My Man" reminds me a little of "Sisters, O Sisters" form the slightly underrated Some Time in New York City; perhaps it's because they're both funnier and more playful than most would credit Ono with. Her widowhood was still fresh so people may have expected something of a tearjerker but there's plenty of knowing absurdity which implies that the influence may have been much more of a two way street than what we've been led to believe.

(Click here to see my original review)

Saint Etienne: "Who Do You Think You Are" / "Hobart Paving"

12 May 1993 (with more Britpop bitchiness here)

"I think they have real trouble having those sorts of faces and sounding like they do."

— Alex James

"It's wonderful shopping mall music. It's shopping mall music with attitude. That's what it is."

— Damon Albarn

First off, let's take that great, charming prat Alex James to task for the above quote. I know we can't all look like Dave Rowntree but is there something objectionable about the way Saint Etienne members Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell look? Surely the Blur bassist and future Tory-supporting buffoon has seen Bobby Gillespie at some point, if not in the flesh then certainly on screen and/or in print at some point. While it may be that Stanley and Wiggs aren't over-blessed in terms of looks (though they're hardly ugly or anything), what of Cracknell who was an absolute knock out and probably still is.

To be fair to James, it's possible he's clumsily making the point that the combination of their pop sound with their supposedly rough appearances are too much of a contrast for pop stardom. It's possible but is it especially relevant? Given that Blur themselves had both James and singer Damon Albarn as pinups along with the geeky chic appeal of guitarist Graham Coxon (and, lest we forget, Rowntree, who was obviously trying to cover up his good looks by trying to appear like he worked in high street betting shop) and were also struggling with this whole pop game, it probably didn't matter either way.

It's hard to imagine Blur existing prior to the nineties. Yes, there had always been a place for The Kinks and XTC to serve up similarly in-your-face Britishness but they weren't composed of members that girls fancied and that other fellows longed to emulate. (That said, I could be wrong when it comes to The Kinks but I can't get past Ray Davies' slappable face) For their part, it's equally difficult to picture Saint Etienne being around earlier either. Though irony and knowing winks had been long-established pop music traditions, the genius of Stanley, Wiggs and Cracknell was that they were able to marry them to a surprisingly earnest retro chic that was only able to thrive once the fairlight polish had worn off from the eighties.

It's actually kind of a pity that Stanley or Wiggs never tried to pull an Ian McCulloch by claiming that Saint Etienne could easily have been Blur. Not, mind you, because there's any accuracy to such a statement — because clearly there isn't — but because it would have given them more of that pop star clout that the Essex Britpoppers chased and then rejected. For people so in love with all things pop, the 'Tienne never seemed keen enough to rush towards it. And that, Mr Cheesemaker and member of the ultra-douchebag Chipping Norton set (you've seriously lost touch with reality if you happen to be part of a "set"), held this pop trio back far more than their looks.

Not to get too much like the leader of Echo & The Bunnymen myself but in some ways Saint Etienne were far ahead of Blur in 1993. While a Top 10 hit eluded them (and still has), their run of 45's over the previous couple of years had been first rate and of a much more consistent quality than the supposedly great singles band who had the spirited baggy anthem "There's No Other Way" and not a whole lot else. Second album Modern Life Is Rubbish is now highly regarded by many but I consider it to be high on ideas while low on results. Character sketch numbers like "Colin Zeal" and "Pressure on Julian" fail to hold up the way the likes of "Tracy Jacks", "Magic America" and, yes, "Charmless Man" do. Hey, they got better and all the credit to them for doing so but they weren't quite ready for the top in '93 and it shows.

This isn't to say that Saint Etienne were perfect. Their pursuit of what Hits editor Mark Frith called their "perfect pop moment" could be grating at times. There was something far too deliberate about every step they'd take as well. And they seemed to have this desire to release a sublime double A-side when there was absolutely no need to do so.

The pairing "Who Do You Think You Are" and "Hobart Paving" is the sixth double A to take a Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight Best New Single in the first decade-and-a-half of the top pop mag. Significantly, though, only one (Jesus Loves You's "Bow Down Mister" / "Love Hurts") was acknowledged as being part of that particular medium in the reviews page. The others (The Jam's "Going Underground" / "Dreams of Children", Tracey Thorn's "Goodbye Joe" / "Plain Sailing", Bomb the Bass' "Don't Make Me Wait" / "Megablast" and, lo and behold, Saint Etienne's "Join Our Club" / "People Get Ready") only had one of their sides credited

A double A-side ought to force fans into making a choice which seemed to happen whenever The Beatles put one out. Do you prefer "We Can Work It Out?" or "Day Tripper"? "Yellow Submarine" or "Eleanor Rigby"? "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Penny Lane"? "Come Together" or "Something"? If that doesn't happen then it's because fans of the Fab Four just wanted to keep flipping these brilliant records over. (How "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" was never a double A I'll never know) And while this can happen with other bands — "Don't Make Me Wait" / "Megablast" are both bangers — it generally doesn't. Much like on "Who Do You Think You Are", the single people are likely to remember, and "Hobart Paving", the one you either forgot all about or was never even aware of.

Not that "Hobart Paving" is poor. It's actually fairly poignant for them. It just isn't a single under any circumstance. What it sounds like is the penultimate track on an album whose creators wanted to go out on a less downbeat note. (Oh, those jokey closing tracks, the blight of damn-near every Byrds album) In the context of 1993 hits like R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" and Sting's "Fields of Gold" (not to mention plenty of other slow songs I'd rather not bring up) it might make sense to have such a lush "ballad" compete for a chart position but I'd much rather go with the on-brand Etienne approach of covering an obscure minor hit and turning it into some modern dancefloor fun.

That said, there is more than a little boogie to Candlewick Green's original version of "Who Do You Think You Are?" but it's to the immense credit of Stanley, Wiggs and Cracknell for bringing out in full. (The version by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods which was a hit in North America is mostly a retread of the original barring the odd sitar spot; did no one prior to Cracknell think of singing it from a female perspective?) Respect to them as well for digging out a largely forgotten single that would have been crying out for a modern rendition. Stock Aitken Waterman wouldn't have drum machined the life out of it had someone like Hazel Dean done a cover of it a decade earlier.

But let's not go nuts here. "Who Do You Think You Are?" is a superb composition but just another fairly great Saint Etienne single. "You're in a Bad Way" blows it out of the murky Thames water. "Avenue" makes Little Debby look like a pile of puke and it's a good deal better than this as well. "Join Our Club" can get a bit much with all it's cleverness but there's really nothing like it that first couple times you put it on. This being a really grim fortnight for new releases, an irritating Alex James and a not as irritating as his detractors claim Damon Albarn (sorry, Sylvia Patterson) were right to go with this admittedly ill-considered double A-side but Saint Etienne was capable of much better. Not to mention Blur, who would soon get a whole lot better, leaving the likes of the 'Tienne well behind. And it wasn't even strictly down to their looks either.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Streetband featuring Paul Young: "Toast"

Erroneously credited to "Street Gang" on the singles review page, this 1978 novelty hit for the band that would soon evolve into The Q-Tips, who would in turn be a gateway for the lengthy and successful MOR recording career of Paul Young, is Albarn and James' runner-up for Best New Single, only losing out due to it being a reissue. I, for one, appreciate hearing Young doing something other than belting his heart out of unnecessary Joy Division and Crowded House covers and duets with Italian Madonnas. But the gag gets tiresome awfully fast. Unless, of course, they really do love their toast. I may just be bitter having not had a decent piece of toast since about 1996 or something. But if that's the worst thing going on in my life (and, let's be honest, it probably is) then I'll take it. The sort of song I can happily never listen to again.