East 17: "Around the World"

27 April 1994

"Never, ever has a single deserved to be number one as much as this one does."

— Leesa Daniels

A slight exaggeration perhaps. "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" deserved it more. "Up the Junction" just as much. I imagine there are a few others but damned if I can think of them. Oh right, there's that fuss everyone in the UK makes at Christmastime over the fact that "Fairytale of New York" failed to nab the top spot back in '87 so I guess it can take its place on here as well. As I say, I'm sure there are a few others but I agree with Leesa Daniels that the latest from East 17 is one of them. It isn't simply a matter of it deserving a chart topper however; "Around the World" also feels like a number one smash.

The boy band ballad is normally a blot on what are frankly not particularly outstanding discographies to begin with. I remember coming back to Canada from our year in England to the New Kids on the Block phenomenon. I wasn't convinced by them but at least I could understand what girls around my age saw in the likes of "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" and "Cover Girl" but when it came to weepies like "Please Don't Go Girl" and "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" I could see no merit whatsoever. You could always count on a sickly ballad to occasionally spoil Take That's otherwise impressive run of stellar singles. And don't get me started on all those horrible all-male US R&B acts of the era. 

But East 17 seemed suited to the slower grooves on "Deep" and "Around the World" while more uptempo selections like "House of Love" and "It's Alright" only exposed them as way out of Take That's league. Part of the key to their success may have been due to not getting too soft even when tackling more laid back material. Tony Mortimer's raps are better suited to the slower-paced numbers and there's greater overall space available for some fine Brian Harvey singing and even a separate rap from lesser 'Teen Tony Coldwell, a man who happens to be the last remaining original member of the group as they perform at nostalgia fests and pop-themed cruise ships near you (probably). Their livelier stuff just seems too crammed with production tricks to worry about getting to the talents of the guys in the group.

Thematically, "Around the World" is not unlike Slade's superb melancholic hit "Far, Far Away" from their still brilliant film Flame. Musically speaking, they're nothing alike but both are about the thrill of being on the road while also being dragged down by it. The Slade song comes from around the time that their imperial period in the early seventies was winding down which may explain why it's considerably more downbeat than what they were usually capable of. But there's not even a faint sense of depression present in regards to East 17. The lyrics read like they've taken a year-long trip around the globe and they're just about ready to head back home.

The one part of the world East 17 didn't seem to be venturing to was North America. The very idea of the Walthamstow quartet cracking the US wasn't even taken seriously while they were enjoying success just about everywhere else. Last week I discussed Eternal's mostly aborted attempt to break into the American market but at least they had that chance; as far as Britain's second biggest boy band was concerned it wasn't even seriously contemplated. Yet, a record like "Around the World" seems like it could have done well over there, perhaps even more so than the equally unloved and unknown — in the States at any rate — "Stay Another Day". Sure, Americans had no use for boy bands in this post-NKOTB, pre-Backstreet Boys void but who could resist casual raps, a glorious melody and some sugar-sweet vocals? 

The one knock I have (aside from them overdoing it on repeated choruses near the end: seriously, wrap it up boys) is Daniels' confident claim that East 17 were Britain's best band. I mean, I kind of like her saying it but timing is everything and she was about to look silly. In the issue following this one there's a review by Mark Sutherland of a new release that was named that fortnight's Best New Album. For many in Britain — and, indeed, quite a few of us elsewhere — it would end up being the album of the year. Blur's Parklife ushered in the Britpop movement which I will admit I have mixed feelings about. Yet, it was — and remains — a revelation. Playfully jumping around from style to style, lots of fun character songs and with far more heart than what they were generally credited with having — and, crucially, it was packed with potential hits. There may have been a bit of a lull in indie rock following the demise of Madchester and the stale state of the bulk of Shoegaze but the guitar bands were back. Good as they may have been, a group like East 17 just wasn't going to be able to cut it for much longer. But at least they got themselves a Christmas Number One in before their inevitable slide down the dumper — and one that just about makes up for this one coming up short.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Beck: "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)"

I get the feeling Daniels isn't into all this indie rubbish. Quite right too, at least in this instance. Like Bowie and Prince before him, Beck was the sort of single-minded individual who you could always admire even if you didn't love absolutely everything he ever recorded. To wit. Our good reviewer is bored stiff by the whole affair but there's an equally important element that she has missed: it sucks. Beck has never been the greatest vocalist out there but he is in particularly weak form on this occasion. It might have been fine as some deep cut filler for breakthrough album Mellow Gold but "Pay No Mind" has no business as a single. No one absolutely no one bought it. The slacker musical maverick really grabbed attention during this time but he didn't really come into his own until the audacious Midnite Vultures and the tender Sea Change, when he actually seemed to care about what he was doing as opposed to this pathetic nonsense.

East 17: "Deep"

20 January 1993

"Like all great pop records, and make no mistake, this is a great pop record, Deep is about "getting it on"."

— 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.

~~~~~

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.