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Regular readers, if any, may recall that the first time Jimmy Nail cropped up on here (on Now 32) I was fairly positive about him. Perhaps I was in too good a mood then but I do somewhat stand by it: he was never one of the world's greatest singers but on a good day he could come up with something that worked through force of personality.
Ten years earlier, things were a bit different. This cover version was the only hit single from his debut album Take It Or Leave It (most people seem to have preferred the latter option, as the record never made the Top 100). And successful as it was its own right, it didn't eastablish him as anything more than a dilettante in music. In fact he didn't manage another hit for seven years, and I'm not sure he even tried. It has every hallmark of a famous actor cashing in and trying his luck at pop, and in that context it's harder to forgive the poor singing, especially on such a slow song. The really scary part is, I can remember Roger Taylor (yes, he of Queen) explaining that it took him a long time as producer to get the vocal right. What can the outtakes have been like?
It seems to stop quite abruptly too, at least on the versions I've found online,as if everyone involved just can't go on any more. It seems almost apt as a finale to Now 5, which as I've probably made fairly clear, isn't one of the ones I actually have my own copy of to work from; thus I can neither confirm nor deny that it's the first album in the series to use a swear word ("crap" in the Style Council song)> I can confirm that it's been a bit of a disappointment to me, both as listening and as writing fodder. I might take a few weeks off to recover while I work on other blogging projects, but I hope to arrive refreshed in the 1990s again.
Also appearing on: Now 22, 30, 32
Available on: Pure Love
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