— Mark Sutherland
That's right, Squiggle. Not The Artist Formerly Known as Prince or The Artist or TAFKAP but Squiggle. Sure, I suppose the staff at ver Hits could've knocked their heads together until they came up with something a little wittier but there's something to be said for the first thought being the one to go with. Squiggle: it really takes the air out of the tires of a singer with an overinflated sense of self-importance.
It was almost easy to forget that old Squigs was as prolific a recording artist as ever what with his name change and all. In '92 Prince was still a major pop star with the Diamonds & Pearls album and its accompanying singles (an oddity here was that its lower charting hits — the title track, "Money Don't Matter 2 Night", "Thunder" — were all vastly superior to Top 10 smashes "Gett Off" and "Cream"); a year later and all anyone seemed to discuss in relation to him was his new, unpronounceable name. Though the stunt earned him plenty of publicity, Squiggly Wiggly no longer seemed especially relevant when it came to his music.
But Rip, Squig + Panic had plenty left in him. While it's true that his eighties' peak couldn't be touched, it's a credit to the man that he never fell off to any noticeable degree. As thoroughly unnecessary as Batman and Graffiti Bridge undoubtedly are, they don't come close to the nadir David Bowie had been going through at the same time which stretched from Never Let Me Down to Tin Machine II. That said, this consistency paired with how he just kept pumping out the material meant that he could be taken for granted. While Q Magazine made it their mission from about 1993 on to help bring Bowie back into relevance, there was little need to do so for the Purple Perv.
This is the fourth and possibly last Single of the Fortnight/Best New Single for Squiggy McSquigface. While both "1999" and "Sign O' the Times" represent his creative zenith, "Anotherloverholeinyohead" is a welcome reminder that he couldn't quite manage to strike gold at will. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", however, seems to fall somewhere in between. Not especially showy though still infused with more than enough of his swagger, it's plenty likable even if it struggles to grab the listener's attention. Squiggy Smalls is probably the last person you'd imagine having a song that you can put on and scarcely notice but that's what happens here. And it's not even a disadvantage. While you may not come away from it with an earworm, his sometimes grating voice sounds better than it usually does and his highfalutin tendencies are kept in similar check. As Mark Sutherland says, some of the song's ropier lyrics were in danger of being used to "chat up" disinterested girls
Yet, it "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" must have caught the attention of enough of the British public since it ended up becoming Squigonometry's sole UK number one hit. As Alexis Petridis notes, it's surprising he never managed it until the spring of 1994. On the other hand, did he really come that close prior this point? The magnificent double A-side of "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" from 1985 was unjustly denied the top spot by some load of shite from Foreigner but the only other time he was within inches of the summit was with "Batdance" which didn't have a hope in hell against Soul II Soul's immovable "Back to Life". As such, many regard this triumph as a lifetime achievement number one. I have to say though that I appreciate the fact that this one succeeded where so many others failed. Those of us who could give or take Can You Squig It's work were down for this one. Plus, the raunchy material no longer seemed to matter; what the Squigmeister did best in the nineties was craft smooth, effortless soul. What more did we need?
The practice of using Squig Newton's so-called 'love symbol' was quietly phased out come the millennium as her reverted to Prince. (Though it may not have seemed like it at the time, it was inevitable that he would eventually drop the squiggle; perhaps this explains why the great man turned down maverick Canadian musician/producer Bob Wiseman's million dollar offer to buy the name 'Prince' from him) By this point everyone had given up anyway so it hardly mattered. Squiggle never caught on outside the Smash Hits offices — and probably only performed modestly inside them — so it was collectively decided to deadname the old scamp. While he was never quite as successful as he had once been, his influence only seemed to grow, especially after his famous solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in tribute to George Harrison. The Squiggle years became this curious blip, one that deserves reappraising. Squigboy did his thing in a more understated manner. This may not have been the Prince we wanted but it was certainly the Squiggle we deserved.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul: "Fallin'"
What the faded-rock-legend-duets-with-imperial-period-pop-phenom dynamic was to the late eighties, the groups-of-wildly-different-styles-team-up was to the mid nineties. Sutherland doesn't anticipate much but surely he's a pop critic and thus incapable of identifying any weaknesses in either of these lauded and "deeply influential" bands. The Fannies don't seem to contribute much and it frankly doesn't help that a Tom Petty sample is the most stand out part of the backing. Honestly, the entire thing sounds sampled, begging the question of why they didn't at least choose to plunder a stronger TFC record. Luckily, De La Soul are present to pick up the slack and thus transforming a wholly forgettable work into a merely passable one. It's a pity the DLS zaniness didn't rub off on the Fannies since the Scots power poppers really could've used a bit of pizzazz. On the other hand, at least Trugoy, Posdnuos and Maseo didn't become a bunch of dullards thanks to hanging out with Norman, Ray, Gerry and the "Monkey Without Portfolio" so there is that.
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