Wednesday 11 November 2009

Simply Red 'For Your Babies'

Chart Peak: 9

YouTube

The chances are that if you're at all interested in Simply Red, you already have the Stars album from which this was the third of five hit singles - it had already been the biggest-selling album of 1991 and was to be the top seller of 1992. If the song title doesn't ring any bells, well, that's what the YouTube links are for, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend actually looking at the screen, because the video is an annoying parade of clichés and pomposity. The song itself drifts rather in the direction of the sanctimonious too; a fairly typical example of the sentimental song of a new parent but for the fact that Mick Hucknall didn't as far as we know become a father until more than ten years later.

Mind you, this doesn't sound anywhere near as bad now as I thought it might. Perhaps it's the knowledge that Simply Red got so much worse than this but there is a decent if slight tune buried under the self-consciously tasteful production and Hucknall could still sing then. It's not something I'd want to hear too much of and I'd hardly say it deserved the success it had, but it slips down easy.

Also appearing on: Now 5, 7, 9, 20, 21, 24, 32, 33
Available on: Simply Red 25: The Greatest Hits

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