— David Hepworth
Five singles reviewed in this issue of ver Hits were Top 10 hits. One of them somehow went all the way to number one — Duran Duran's "Is There Something I Should Know?", one the the all-time anticlimactic chart toppers — while another is considered an indie pop classic — "Blue Monday"; I've always preferred the '88 Quincy Jones remix myself. The other three are respectable enough and there are some other new releases of note. There are some big names present though not all that many of them managed to put out singles that they would become known for. ("Blue Monday" is the lone exception in this regard) What none of them can claim, barring David Hepworth's pick for Single of the Fortnight, is the status of a wave pool song.
Climbing up the wet steps, there are only four things on my mind. First and foremost is the waterslide I am approaching, my eyes occasionally glancing up at the rapidly descending silhouette of the lucky individual taking their turn and at that particularly cool bend where some water would spill over the sides. Second, is on gingerly taking steps as to avoid band-aids and other foreign objects that have always made public swimming pools repulsive, my toes and the balls of my feet making as little contact with the grubby surface as possible. Third, I am reminding myself to not look directly at any untamed bikini lines that might greet me at the top of the staircase like that one time a couple years earlier at the Sheraton Cavalier pool. And, finally, I am listening to the music that is echoing through the indoor water park.
I never normally paid much attention to music in most public recreation facilities. At roller and ice rinks it serves the valuable service of pushing skaters along to a swift tempo — while helping to mask just what a seriously tedious act skating around in circles is — but the songs themselves matter little. If the in-house deejay happened to put on Wham! or Men Without Hats then my ears might have perked up a little but the likes of The Fabulous Thunderbirds or ZZ Top wouldn't have driven me to glide in the direction of the exit. At bowling alleys and pool halls, it always helped my morale as a hopeless bowler and snooker player to have some light pop and rock music on in the background but, again, the particulars of song and artist are of little consequence. But indoor wave pools are another matter entirely. Only certain types of songs work in this environment. They could be some of pop's biggest hits or utter obscurities but if it's something I feel I've heard before it's typically from the Village Square Leisure Centre.
A horn blasts and there's a flurry of excitement as kids get themselves ready to head back to the pool (unless you happen to be one of those losers who choose to stay in the water when the waves are dormant, especially those weirdos who take the opportunity to, like, swim). I grab my inner tube and lug it out to the deep end. A surge of power pop, hip hop, metal or dance pop echoes out of the speakers and the waves begin. The song itself I hardly notice but the frantic energy, the screams of delight from kids all around me, a leisure centre employee over the PA urging us to ride the waves (surely no one's surfing in here, are they?), my tube crashing into others mix with the music to create a pandemonium. This goes on for a while and I begin to get used to it, my adrenaline has subsided and I can even relax as my tube rocks over the waves. I might even hum along to whatever tune is currently being piped in.
The waves subside after a while and everyone glumly goes back to waiting for the next round. Some head over to the hot pool, while others figure this is the best time to get a hot dog and fries. (Again, there's those sad souls who stay in the dormant pool. Maybe it's just me but I got enough actual swimming done in swimming lessons, the last thing I ever wanted to do at place designed for horsing around in the water is a few laps) A waterslide enthusiast, I immediately head for the stairs. The music hasn't stopped, though its energy has leveled off a bit, and it's only now that I begin to pay attention. Madonna's "Lucky Star", "Open Your Heart" and "Papa Don't Preach" are songs I often identify with wave pools but so too is Bobby O's "She Has a Way", a tune I feel like I've heard thousands of times before. Wave pool music works that way: catchy if you choose to listen but unobtrusive if you don't care. I may have been nodding along while standing in line on my tip toes waiting for my go on the waterslide but once the surly attendant signals that I'm up I'm all about the spirit of the slide and any music that happens to be on falls away. Shooting out of the bottom and into the wading pool, I emerge and, assuming it hasn't already wrapped up and moved on to next in the rotation, the song is much the same as I left it forty seconds earlier. She has a way of getting what she wants: yeah, that's how it is at a water park, we all get what we want. I decide to have another go on the waterslide before the next session of waves starts.
David Hepworth prophesied a hit for Bobby O but it failed to materialise. Despite his rave review, Smash Hits neglected to cover him further nor did they bother to print the lyrics to "She Has a Way". This could well have been just the way O liked it too: he wrote the song, did the singing, produced it and had it released on his own O Records label. He had the looks and the sound to be a pop star but perhaps he was content with sharing his work at discotheques and wave pools around the world. Can I be one hundred percent certain that it played at Village Square at some point in my youth? No, I can't. But if it has the feel of a wave pool song then I might as well have.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Style Council: "Speak Like a Child"
"Or "speak like a child", as Paul Weller's curious vocal dialect has it," Hepworth begins. Well, it wouldn't be the work of Paul Welder if it didn't contain some form of vocal mangling, would it? (This is, lest we forget, the same guy who would soon sing about how "we love Cherry Coke, walls come tumbling down!") The hacky Canadian "jokester" that I am, I prefer it as "speak like a child, eh?" In other observations of little merit, were Jam fans already starting to shit themselves or were they waiting for the cappuccinos and espadrilles to appear? Those of us who frequented wave pools didn't mind: we never got to hear any Style Council there (they were always played at the dentist for whatever reason) but we would've been down with "the crazy sayings like "I'm so free and so on!" That's wave pool zen, you know.
(Click here to see my original review)
