Roman Holliday: "Don't Try to Stop It"

23 June 1983

"Very lively, a good summer record and, with the right breaks, it should be a big hit."

— George Michael

"It sounds like a sophisticated JoBoxers."

— Andrew Ridgley

The lads from Wham! are in the singles reviewer's chair this fortnight and they don't exactly kill it like Gary Kemp a couple issues back. Dragged down a bit perhaps by an uninspiring bunch of records, the pair don't seem to have much to say. In keeping with their group dynamic of one member doing vocals, music, writing and production and the other seemingly content to be a mate and look the part, George Michael takes the lead with the bulk of the little analysis offered up. For his part, perennial other one Andrew Ridgely does trot out the odd perceptive remark (his comment above comparing Roman Holliday to JoBoxers is the closest thing to a fascinating observation) but is otherwise consigned to the background. Good to know that Wham! could never stop being Wham!

We're a long way off from the starkly serious George Michael — not to mention the equally starkly serious facial hair that accompanied his metamorphosis — that pop music fans would eventually become all-too familiar with but we're already seeing a figure in dire need of a sense of humour. He also shows signs of a sizable rock star ego. Unable at times to put the records he's been tasked with first, he says of heavy metal that its one saving grace is that the "attitudes that go with it are far less dangerous than the elitism I bump into once or twice a week at London's trendier nightclubs". Of the sleeve of "Disco Bond" by The Frank Barber Orchestra, he points out that "if I were the sexist pig I've been accused of being, I'd probably say that the only decent thing about this record are the tasty birds on the cover". He's far from the worst offender in this regard but it's a bit sad seeing him make much of this review about himself.

Some records may have a lot going on in their favour yet still manage not to deliver much. Roman Holliday ably merge their obvious debt to fifties doo-wop and rock 'n' roll with post punk soul and touches of ska but they fail to convince in doing so. Their Peel session from a year earlier isn't really to my taste but their strict reliance on older styles feels much more comfortably in their element. Hardly tipped for a ride on the Giddy Carousel of Pop but it's easy to imagine them being good fun as a live act. (In the wacky video for "Don't Try to Stop It" they finish up their hectic day with a gig for some senior citizens which makes me wonder if they were nodding towards older audiences being better at appreciating their swing pop sound) It's hard to imagine what else backers John Peel and The Clash's Mick Jones saw in them otherwise. 

Good, throwaway fun for some, "Don't Try to Stop It" got some of the breaks that Michael had hoped for as it landed in the Top 20. Despite putting their very youthful-looking vocalist Steve Lambert on the cover later in the year, Roman Holliday were pretty much one and done, the follow-up, "Motormania", "enjoying" just a cup of coffee in charts. Novelty songs can have that effect. On the bright side, at least they could go back to being a real group again. You know, like Wham!

Postscript: Gosh the above was a little harsh. I guess I really was bored stiff with all those horns and all that pasty-white soul that had taken over British pop during much of the eighties. "Don't Try to Stop It" really isn't so bad and I'm not even sure it deserves to be lumped in with the likes of Dexys or JoBoxers anyway. Kevin Rowland may have sung about "poor old Johnnie Ray" but it seems like the members of Roman Holliday might have actually listened to the man. I suppose I was salty that George didn't name the vastly superior "Forbidden Colurs" by David Sylvian and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto as his Single of the Fortnight, which his bestie Andrew would have no doubt concurred with. (Oh, snap!)

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Marillion: "Garden Party"

With Genesis already subsumed into Phil Collins' solo career (honestly, was there any difference between the two by this point?) it was only right that the quintet that made up Marillion was around to make the pop kids aware of prog rock — even if the vast majority of them didn't want to know. Good on Fish and whoever else that made up his old band by making the four-and-a-half minutes allotted to "Garden Party" seem like it takes over an hour to get through: there's a kind of value-for-money to their knack for prolonging time. Like much of the prog I've heard, "Garden Party" is enjoyable enough musically but the lyrics and vocals drag it down. (Is it any wonder that Emerson, Lake & Palmer's extraordinary nine minute instrumental "Fanfare for the Common Man" is the genre's high point?) Thankfully, Marillion would get better by out Genesising Genesis with the marvelous single "Kayleigh" and the Misplaced Childhood album. Take that Abacab.

(Click here to see my original review)

Youssou N'Dour featuring Neneh Cherry: "7 Seconds"*

8 June 1994

"Brilliant though it no doubt is, this isn't what summer hits are normally made of."

— Tom "Bunny" Patterson-Frith

Please note that this is an unofficial entry. I have no idea what was Single of the Fortnight Best New Single in this issue of ver Hits and, indeed, this will be all too common as scanned copies being posted online gets harder and harder to come by. As a result, I am suspending 1994 posts on this blog until more become available. For now, I will be re-publishing and editing (and, in some cases, re-writing) older entries from 1983 and onwards. I would have stopped a week ago but I thought that going on hiatus with a reggae cover of "Baby I Love Your Way" seemed like a lame way to finish up. It's possible that "7 Seconds" by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry was the actual SOTF BNS in the June 8 edition of Smash Hits but that will not be revealed until it gets uploaded — assuming it ever does. I don't hold out much hope, however: in the six years I've been keeping this blog going, I've only ever managed to guess one critical fave (which happened to be Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill"). But hey, I'm due! Plus, what kind of fool would go for something other than this mesmerizing ode to racial harmony? It's not like Hits writers and guest reviewers have screwed up before, is it?

~~~~~

During the summer of 1994, I visited the UK for the first time since the end of our year there five years earlier. I was seventeen and had to spend the first couple weeks with my parents as we drove around Scotland and the north of England before heading back down to Essex where I stayed with my friend Neil. It was a nice trip but I was at an age in which I wasn't keen to spend this much time with them. I wanted to talk to girls but they were always around (plus I was a total chicken shit but that's hardly relevant here). I sometimes wanted to be alone but I couldn't shake them. 

One thing that seemed to work in my favour was that they were either unable or unwilling to listen to anything other than Radio 1. We didn't have it on all the time but it played enough for a number of songs to make an impression on me. The final day of our road trip took us from King's Lynn (don't ask) to Billericay with a stop around Constable Country. It was a beautiful day as we drove through East Anglia and the Radio 1 Roadshow they were broadcasting suited the mood perfectly. I happily sang along to old favourites like The Wonder Stuff's "Dizzy" and Deacon Blue's "Wages Day" and enjoyed current hits from the likes of The Grid (see below), Blur and East 17. 1994 may not have had the best weather (though it wasn't bad on the whole) but it was teeming with shine pop hits. Even lightweight fare from China Black and 

One thing that I neglected to go into in last week's post was one of the subtler differences between the UK singles charts in 1991 and 1994. As I have already gone into, there were a pair of dominant power ballads from films that took control of the charts top spot for months on end which any same person would have eventually gotten sick of. In the case of Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", it shared the Top 40 during its sixteen weeks on top with a hundred and forty-two other hits while the charts managed to stuff about one hundred and sixty-nine records as pretenders to Wet Wet Wet's immovable "Love Is All Around" — and in one fewer week to boot. While a few Top 10 smashes enjoyed prolonged residencies, the mid-nineties kicked off a period of one and done minor hits, the sort of singles which would debut at a spot like thirty-four or thirty-seven before falling out the following week.

A new entry at number forty for the week of June 19, 1994 may well have seemed like a one and done hit. Senegal's Youssou N'Dour had been a star in much of Africa and in France but the closest he'd ever come to a UK hit was with Peter Gabriel in 1989 with "Shakin' the Tree". So for him to even crack the lowest spot on the Top 40 was something of an achievement. That said, this would not have been encouraging for guest Neneh Cherry. Had "7 Seconds" tumbled down to, say, number sixty-seven the following week, it would've no doubt rivaled the likes of The Jam's "In the City", Dexys Midnight Runners' "Dance Stance" and The Breeders "Cannonball" as the greatest song to peak at the bottom of the hit parade.

Yet, fade away it didn't, even though it would have an unconventionally slow path towards its eventual peak position. The week after its debut it would modestly climb to number thirty-five before dropping down a spot seven days later. Your typical minor chart hit dies upon dropping down but this wasn't Then it shot up ten places to number twenty-six before moving up an additional two where it would be stalled for a fortnight — and then it kept on climbing, albeit only gradually.

How did this happen? I figured that it struggled to find airtime until a chance booking on Top of the Pops saved it but Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry wouldn't appear on TOTP until the end of August by which time "7 Seconds" was a legitimate hit and on the cusp of the Top 10. There may have been other TV spots that aided its cause but if this did occur we aren't to know now since there's no record of them on Wikipedia. Most likely is that "7 Seconds" gradually caught on due to word-of-mouth while being held back somewhat by its overall dour sound — not to mention the glum black and white video that accompanied it. The Radio 1 Roadshow we listened to as we drove through Suffolk didn't have room for such a record. Neither did the pub jukeboxes which we spinning Take That's "Love Ain't Here Anymore" and, to be sure, "Love Is All Around".

And while we're on the subject, Wet Wet Wet's megahit seemed to be everyone's favourite song but the sentiment wouldn't last. Whereas the lengthy chart sojourn of "7 Seconds" only seemed to endear people more towards it. Somehow or other it managed to creep up on enough of the British public that it wouldn't be out of the Top 40 until the middle of October and it wound up on plenty of year end best of lists.

One of the keys to its success has to have been its wide-ranging appeal. With a mood not unlike Sting's magnificent "Shape of My Heart" and Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia", it was profound in a way that would catch the ears of Baby Boomers who otherwise wouldn't have cared about the team up of a little-known Senegalese singer and a Swedish hip hop star. Yet it maintained a cool factor comparable to Beck or Bjork. The song's dreaminess even placed it alongside ambient hits of the day by Engima and Deep Forest. Plus, it's easy for there to be something for everyone when you've got such an exquisite song to work with. It may not have soundtracked a nice fin de siecle summer but its very inability to do so may well be why it has refused to go away ever since.

~~~~~

Also (Possibly) Released This Fortnight

The Grid: "Swamp Thing"

Another candidate for single of the year, The Grid seemed to get caught in that very brief fad for countrifying Eurodance music. While "Swamp Thing" was on its way up the charts it was joined by "Everybody Gonfi-Gon" by Italian act Two Cowboys. Things exploded a few months later with the massively overplayed Rednex smash "Cotton Eye Joe". Unlike those two, however, The Grid deftly avoided novelty song hell. Whether the late Roger Dinsdale played the banjo throughout or if he was just sampled it really doesn't matter: either way, it still sounds as fantastic as it did thirty years ago. How convenient that this Tom "Bunny" Patterson-Frith got to review two of the finest singles of the entire decade in one go! 

Freur: "Matters of the Heart"

9 June 1983

"A blissfully romantic song, graced by an arresting vocal and an arrangement that hugs like loving arms at a windy bus stop."

— Mark Steels

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose double-glazing. Choose a hi-fi. Choose vitamins. Choose Breakfast Television. Choose to purchase your council flat. Choose seatbelts. Choose a sit-down Wimpy. Choose a holiday in Tenerife. Choose nuclear disarmament. Choose to believe Hugh Trevor-Roper. Choose lucozade. Choose peace in Northern Ireland. Choose Steve Cram. Choose getting a video for the kids.

(This is a clear example of padding out an essay that I was obviously at a loss with. "Oh look," observant readers no doubt exclaimed, "Paul's nicking from Trainspotting with references to the eighties!" Double-glazing! Sit-down Wimpy! Lucozade! It's as if I raided an old copy of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole for as many references as I could manage. But if this is what you think what happened then I'm afraid you'd be wrong: I have memorized three of the first four Mole books so I didn't have to research at all!)

A couple weeks' back in the so-called "cop" piece that closes out these entries, I discussed "The Stand" by The Alarm, who I argued were at the forefront of Welsh pop due to there being absolutely no one else. Not true at all. There was Alison Statton, formerly of Young Marble Giants but this time vocalist for post-punk smooth jazzers Weekend, who enjoyed a SOTF a year earlier with "Past Meets Present". One of Britain's biggest acts of the time, Shakin' Stevens, also happened to be Welsh. But it wasn't a region overflowing with musical talent and the very fact that I keep thinking about late-eighties sophisti-pop one-hit wonders Waterfront says it all.

(The "cop" piece is now known as Also Reviewed This Fortnight. I neglected to acknowledge that Welsh pop did enjoy a renaissance in the nineties after that brief, regrettable period in which Waterfront somehow ended up being the Principality's chief musical ambassadors. That said, I'd probably take eighties' Cymru pop over it: a little Manics goes a long way in my book, I could never get past Cerys Matthews' wretched voice when dealing with Catatonia, I must be dead inside since I've never warmed to Super Furry Animals and I absolutely adore these three bands compared to Stereophonics. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci may well redeem such a mediocre scene but I really wouldn't know. Why haven't I given them a listen?)

Emerging out of Cardiff in 1983 was synth-pop gloomsters Freur. In fact, they were never called Freur, that was simply how one pronounced their name. They used a symbol and only came up with 'Freur' as a compromise with their record label. A good ten years before Prince cooked up his in-no-way pretentious "name" (with the much lengthier pronunciation of "the Artist Formerly Known as Prince"), this Welsh quartet must have really thought they were on to something with their, in the words of Kimberley Leston, "squiggle resembling a poorly tapeworm". The squiggle got them to number 59 in the charts with their first single "Doot-Doot' (either that or their eccentric name prevented them from getting any higher) and this was its follow-up. Not a great song but a marked improvement over its insubstantial predecessor. Trying for that glacial snyth sound that worked so well on Ultravox's "Vienna" and OMD's "Souvenir", it works out for them musically with a beautifully ghostly sound but it's a lyrical mess. It has lines that seem be meant to be profound but, upon closer study and thought, are mostly just nonsense. "Clowns in the street / The city is asleep / And no one hears a beat"? Hmmm, I'd be interested in investigating quite what they're getting at if I wasn't convinced they were churning out whatever sounds good. If the song's thesis is 'matters of the heart are complicated, you know' then I can't disagree but if leaves me wondering why I should care.

(Yeah, I stand by the above. Songs like "Matters of the Heart" work well when you're not paying attention but come undone if even the slightest bit of thought is put into them. But the melody is nice which I brushed over (checks notes) just over five years ago)

It is perhaps with this musical proficiency/lyrical ineptness in mind that Freur would gradually shift towards techno ambiance. Not strictly instrumental nor with a particular emphasis on samples and/or guest vocalists from the pop/rock "scene" but with certainly less importance placed on vocals. It's not an especially big leap to make going from synth-pop to electronica but it was something very few were able to pull off (indeed, it was a shift not many seemed interested in attempting). Dave Nonis, Mark Almond's mustachioed cohort in Soft Cell, would eventually re-emerge in nineties techno boffins with banjos The Grid but, by and large, your Vince Clarke's and Chris Lowe's who headed up the technical side of their acts avoided going full-on big beat. Freur embraced changes in the musical landscape and ended up as Underworld.

(Clearly lacking anything else to say, I wrap things up with a look at how some synth boffins chose to move towards house and dance music and away from pure pop. I clearly wasn't aware of Colourbox's similar shift when they evolved into into M|A|R|R|S in 1987 or thereabouts. I even sometimes wonder if members of JoBoxers ended up forming the basis of The Orb or if members of It's Immaterial eventually formed N-Trance but, sadly, neither of these things happened. I imagine I'll discover another seemingly random transformation but it will be from a pair of acts I would never have thought of. And that's the beauty of this "trend")

Choose life. Choose success. Choose film soundtracks. Choose rave. Choose hardwood flooring. Choose Michael Eavis. Choose credibility. Choose the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-ngna. Choose New Labour. Choose lad mags. Choose ecstasy. Choose authenticity.

(I have to say these passages that nick from Ewan McGregor's Renton from Trainspotting are really what save this review from utter worthlessness. Yeah, it's pads out an admittedly empty and analysis-free review but it serves a purpose. The nineties weren't all that great for many of the above reasons. The Adrian Mole books even started to suck during this time. Except for The Wilderness Years because all we ever wanted to see was out Aidy become happy. There's hope for all, you see) 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Durutti Column: "I Get Along Very Well Without You"

"Snap", to quote Steels in full. Oh the grief he must be assaulted with every time this "review" gets shared on social media. This hippest of bands with no songs anyone can name and a roster of anonymous members sure has a loyal following of people I don't know. Mojo even did a 'How to Buy' feature on them. A pity, then, that they just weren't all that good. I don't know of a single Durutti Column record that doesn't sound better in my imagination than what they actually recorded. I dig plenty of hipster pop but only on the condition that I would wish to listen to it. A big ask, I know. I suppose I will have to prepare for an eventual "assault" if and when this piece gets passed around on social media. I'll be ready.

(Oh what a sad little paragraph. I shouldn't try to take anything away from Ivor Vini Reilly. He's a deeply talented figure in his own right. I've just never been fussed by anything he's ever done — and that's more on me than him. And let's not take anything away from his nibs either: as Brian Eno said, only 10,000 people bought the first Durutti Column album but everyone who did went on to form bands who sold 1,000 copies of their debut release. Nothing to sneeze at, readers)

(Click here to see my original review)

Big Mountain: "Baby I Love Your Way"

25 May 1994

"UB40? Chaka Demus? Big Mountain?"

— Damon

"And the saxophone!"

— Trey

"That's a great vibe."

— David

2 Unlimited, Aaliyah, Abigail, Absolutely Fabulous, Ace of Base, Aerosmith, Alex Party, All-4-One, Tori Amos, Carleen Anderson, Animal, Anticappella featuring MC Fixx It, Arrested Development, Arrow, Aswad, Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic Starr, BC-52's, Bad Boys Inc., Michael Ball, Duke Baysee, The Beastie Boys, The Beautiful South, Big Mountain, Blackgirl, Blast featuring V.D.C., Blind Melon, Blondie, Blur, Michael Bolton, The Boomtown Rats, Boyz II Men, Brand New Heavies, Bravado, Toni Braxton, Bobby Brown, Jocelyn Brown & Kym Mazell, Kate Bush & Larry Adler, C&C Music Factory, Cappella, Mariah Carey, China Black, Clock, Clubhouse, Joe Cocker, Alice Cooper, Corona, Cracker, Crash Test Dummies, Crowded House, Chaka Demus & Pliers, D:Ream, DJ Duke, DJ Miko, Deep Forest, Degrees of Motion, Marcella Detroit, Tony Di Bart, Dinosaur Jr, Direckt, EYC, East 17, Echobelly, Enigma, Kim English, Erasure, Eternal, Aretha Franklin, Future Sound of London, Peter Gabriel, Galliano, Gloworm, The Grid, Gun, Guns N' Roses, Sophie B. Hawkins, Hed Boys, Helicopter, House of Pain, House of Virginism, Ice Cube featuring George Clinton, Janet Jackson, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Jodeci, Joe, Elton John, KWS & Gwen Dickey, K-Klass, R Kelly, Kerbdog, Killing Joke, Kristine W, L7, Let Loose, Level 42, CJ Lewis, Lighter Shade of Brown, Livin' Joy, Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories, Lucas, Lulu, M-Beat featuring General Levy, Magic Affair, Sean Maguire, Manchester United FC, Manic Street Preachers, Richard Marx, Maxx, Bitty McLean, John Mellencamp & Michelle N'Degecocello, Dannii Minogue, Kylie Minogue, Morrissey & Siouxsie, Mr V, Youssou N'Dour featuring Neneh Cherry, Shara Nelson, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, PJ & Duncan, Robert Palmer, Pearl Jam, Ce Ce Peniston, Dawn Penn, Pet Shop Boys, Pink Floyd, Pizzaman, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Pretenders, Primal Scream, Prince, The Prodigy, Public Enemy, Pulp, Bonnie Riatt, Eddi Reader, Red Dragon with Brian & Tony, Reel 2 Real featuring the Mad Stuntman, Roachford, Juliette Roberts, The Rolling Stones, Rollins Band, Diana Ross, Roxette, SWV, Salt 'N' Pepa, Sasha with Sam, Mollison, Seal, Shampoo, Shed Seven, Nina Simone, Skin, S*M*A*S*H, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Soundgarden, Sounds of Blackness, Spin Doctors, Status Quo, Dave Stewart, Stiltskin, Sugar, Swing Out Sister, Take That, Terrorvision, Therapy?, The Three Tenors, Time Frequency, Tinman, Tin Tin Out featuring Sweet Tee, Two Cowboys, UB-bloody-40, Utah Saints, Volcano, Warren G & Nate Dogg, Crystal Waters, Whitesnake, Wildhearts, The Wonder Stuff, Worlds Apart, Wrecky-N-Effect

Just as I had with Our Bryan a while back, I have chosen to provide a list of every "artist" who appeared on the UK Top 40 during the very extended reign of Wet Wet Wet's "Love Is All Around" in the number one spot. There are similarities between it and "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", both in terms of their status and the way the hit parades behaved during these two periods. Canada's favourite sandpaper-voiced son had a sixteen week stranglehold of the top spot while the Wets came just a week short of tying him. Neither one seemed particularly cool at the time and their extended reigns at the top only encouraged more of a backlash against them. (I visited the UK during that summer at the height of its popularity and returned to Canada before I could get completely fed up with it)

The two mammoth records also held off a pair of unlucky number twos. Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" ended up stuck in the runner up spot for an extended period as did "I Swear" by All-4-One. (I suppose the fact that they both managed to make it to number one on the American Hot 100 made up for this disappointment though) Indeed, the upper placings on the charts during these periods seemed remarkably static. In '94 in particular it seemed like The Grid's "Swamp Thing" (still an incredible single), The BC-52s' "Meet the Flintstones" (as godawful as ever) and Aswad's "Shine" (better than I remember it being) took up spots in the Top 5 and just refused to budge.

Another link is that they were both aided by being in popular films: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in the case of "Everything I Do..." and Four Weddings & a Funeral for "Love Is All Around". As was the present Single of the Fortnight Best New Single, a cover of "Baby I Love Your Way" performed by Big Mountain from the acclaimed 1994 picture Reality Bites. Hmm...one of these parings of movie and song is not like the others, is it?

(Before moving on, yet another thing that the two massive hits share in common is that Smash Hits didn't want to have anything to do with either of them.)

While it was mercifully free of lutes and the sort of tune that would get your average morris dancer on their feet, "Everything I Do..." had a woodsy quality to it that went well with the Robin Hood flick; it no doubt helped that the gravelly-voiced, lumberjack Bryan Adams was behind it as well. "Love Is All Around" had a triumphant bombast (again, aided in large part to the unsubtle Marti Pellow on vocals) that suited the runaway joy of what is still one the finest rom com's ever made. "Baby I Love Your Way", however, hardly seems to work as part of what is considered to be one of the quintessential Generation X films. Such was it's status as an odd one out that it quickly became overshadowed by Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)", which doubtless benefited from the singer-songwriter's unique status as an unsigned act with a number one hit.

Ethan Hawke's Troy is one of those movie characters who seemed to spawn real life imitators, even though he could be an insufferable twit. (Surely I'm not the only one out there who thinks Winona Ryder's Lelania would have been better off had she managed to work things out with Ben Stiller's Michael) Prior to 1994, I wasn't aware of anyone who gave a toss about "selling out"; afterwards, it became a matter of utmost concern to virtually everyone I knew. Kurt Cobain wasn't able to do as much as Troy when it came to a whole generation suddenly becoming scared about our creative endeavours winding up in the hands of corporate elites in exchange for a buck or two. (How glad I am that I have managed to avoid selling out this blog in spite of all the moneyed interests who've been sniffing around) It's strange, then, that a little-known reggae group hailing from San Diego would take their cover of a Peter Frampton number and have it used in a picture all about young people's alienation with the real world. People like Troy who were obsessed with "authenticity" would not have been pleased.

"Baby I Love Your Way" is one of those songs that seems to have lasted in spite of its overall lack of quality. While it gave its composer a sizable hit when plucked from his staggeringly successful Frampton Comes Alive concert set, it really wouldn't become a rock standard until Miami dance act Will to Power merged it with Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" on a memorable, if tasteless, medley at the end of 1988. Funnily enough, it was the former that came out of it better than the latter in spite of the chasm separating the original versions. This had to have been down to the vocalists: while Suzi Carr sang "Baby..." like she was one of the Wilson sisters from Heart or Taylor Dayne or someone equally competent from the era, longhaired brute Bob Rosenberg had, to quote David Anthony in Smash Hits, a "weedy voice" which did "Freebird" no favours. Imagine my reaction when I finally heard the originals.

Will to Power's version was at best adequate but it gave a second wind to a poor song. Big Mountain's idea of putting it to a reggae backing is so inspired that it's hard to believe no one had thought of it earlier. It sounds like this was how it had been meant to be all along. It probably doesn't hurt that a little ganja would've livened up something so trite. It's easy to picture members of UB-bloody-40 erupting in a jealous rage when they first encountered this record — and, to be sure, they would have messed it up where Big Mountain added some much needed spark and sunshine.

Beyond the three lads in E.Y.C. (I looked it up and it doesn't stand for Excellent Young Cannibals) and a handful of others, Big Mountain's "Baby I Love Your Way" has never been a critical favourite. I can't say I love it either but it deserves a little less scorn. They didn't have much to work with so it's commendable that they were able to get something reasonable out of it. I'm sure Troy from Reality Bites would have ripped into them for allegedly selling out but Michael would've been into it, Lelaina wouldn't have been bothered by it and Vickie and Sammy would've played the hell out of it — and who can blame them?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

"Absolutely Fabulous"

Not unlike annoying self-titled albums, this Comic Relief single is credited to Absolutely Fabulous, which is also the name of the hit comedy series of the same time and the name of this "song". But I'm just going to mark it down as the title. I would say it saved me the effort of having to type it twice but here I am expending full sentences explaining why. Jennifer Saunders already had experience with Red Nose Day novelty hits but it was Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe who did the heavy lifting in this instance, right down to them plundering lines of Edina and Patsy to fill out the "verses". Complaints about references to "Pump Up the Volume" and "Ride on Time" being dated miss the point: how up on current techno music do you expect a pair of middle-aged drug addicts to be? Not exactly the finest moment for anyone involved but a good time nonetheless — and only slightly ruined by the "lyrics" printed in ver Hits which confirm that it is indeed "dull and soulless dance music" rather than "Donald Saunders dart music" as I had long been convinced. I still prefer it my way.