Tuesday 20 November 2012

Steps 'When I Said Goodbye'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

'When I Said Goodbye is the latest single from UK mega-band Steps, and features as a double A-side with sunny pop-anthem 'Summer Of Love'... 'When I Said Goodbye' is a romantic duet featuring H and Claire on lead vocals and is accompanied by a video shot in the notoriously passionate city of Rome.
Somehow, referring to "the notoriously passionate city of Rome" seems to suggest that people are flying off the handle and shouting at each other all the time, rather than the romantic atmosphere that I think is what they meant. The video itself certainly tends to the latter interpretation, complete with lots of shots of them standing in front of famous landmarks so you can tell they weren't just filming in Basingstoke. Mind you, there is that shot at about 1:49 where it looks like the camera is about to run over Lee Latchford-Evans, so perhaps somebody was annoyed with him.

Anyway, this release was clearly an attempt to repeat the success of 'Heartbeat/Tragedy', as a bridge with one side (this) from their then-current album and the other ('Summer Of Love') from their next one: on this occasion they only got the one Now! appearance between them though. It seems like a bridge in another way too, as shifting the focus towards H & Claire as the main singers obviously presaged their career as a duo after the band split. In all honesty, this isn't a song I remember hearing at all at the time (I can't even remember which side they played on the chart rundowns) but listening to it now I'd rate it as one of their better slowies, although let down by some cheap-sounding production. I suspect that my tendency to listen to the tracks for this blog on headphones is bad for this track, although it's good for my marriage. Oddly, there are a couple of points where it seems like it's threatening to turn into Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature', though there's no way they could have afforded that sample.


Also appearing on: Now 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51
Available on: The Ultimate Collection

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