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Another good pop record. No more than good, certainly; there's nothing unprecedented about it, but it pushes all the right buttons and you can tell why the record company were so pleased to have this song to launch their new act with: whilst both Charles (Pettigrew) and Eddie (Chacon) were songwriters, they didn't supply this one. They put their all into the performance though, although not in an especially intense way. The song requires and gets a cheerier, lighter-hearted rendition.
There are just a couple of problems. One is that the call-and-response vocal "Would I lie to you?" "Oh yeah" does slightly seem to undermine the intended message. The other different disadvantage is that it doesn't really establish much of an identity for the duo, which might be one reason why they too struggled to repeat anything that even faintly resembled the worldwide success of this number. So far, there's been a bit of a sense of the transitory about this album.
Available on: Original Hits: Number 1's
You've started with three of my favourite songs of the 90s, and of all the #1s, this one remains my favourite.
ReplyDeleteWord is that the Fine Young Cannibals wanted this song but lost out to a pair of unknowns who had met on a bus over a copy of a Marvin Gaye album.