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"Tipped to be Peter Andre's ninth Top 20 hit" said the sleevenotes, and they were right. If anyone tipped it to be a hit in America, though, they were wrong. I'd always understood this single as being related to the Disney film The Little Mermaid. And yet of course the film was released nine years before this, with an entirely different rendition of the song actually in the the movie itself. Andre's video includes scenes from the animation though, so it obviously was officially licensed, and it now seems to have found its way to a Disney-released compilation. Maybe there was a VHS release or something to promote.
Anyway, 'Mysterious Girl' notwithstanding, it's probably not very surprising that Andre plays down the calypso elements of the original arrangement in favour of a more conventional MOR arrangement that's supposed to show of his voice, which is in fairness OK. Well, better than some people's anyway. The whole thing seems like an effort relaunch his career at a more grown-up audience after the hip-hop-oriented second album underperformed a bit. But in a classic demonstration of the cruel, fast-moving pop market of 1998, even this Top 10 success wasn't enough to save his career and he was soon condemned to ex-popstar limbo. He didn't release another single until 2004, and that was a whole other story.
And that insight concludes the first disc of Now 40, which even more than I realised when I decided to write about it, comes over as one of the most woeful in the entire history of the series. And it's not only my age either, because I'd rate the equivalent sections of the volumes either side much higher. Tune in again in a few days to see whether Disc 2 can redeem the album at all.
Also appearing on: Now 35, 36, 28, 57
Available on: Ultimate Disney Princess
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