Bobby Brown 'Two Can Play That Game'

Chart Peak: 3 [38 in 1995]
YouTube

Bobby hit big a few years back with hits such as 'My Prerogative', 'Every Little Step' and 'Don't Be Cruel'... 'Two Can Play At That Game' is due for a welcome re-release on 20th March 1995.

For a change, one track I definitely remember from 1995 (although the original 1994 release passed me by) - it was ubiquitous that summer and I particularly remember asking a more musically educated classmate to explain why the chorus sounded so odd. Apparently he goes to a very unlikely note on the word "play".

The version featured here and in the video is the K-Klass remix of the original album version, though sources seem to differ as to whether this version was the lead track on the original 1994 single as well. I'm inclined to  believe that it was because even that release date was almost two years after the song first appeared on his album Bobby, which was widely seen to have underperformed. Compared to the original rather dense New Jack Swing production, this mix is certainly more mainstream and you can tell why it was considered to have better chances as a single. It certainly plays up the song's innate catchiness. Whether it's better is a matter of taste but I will say that of the two tracks on Now 30 by American singers with the forename Robert who have complicated personal lives including high-profile relationships with female singers who are now dead... I like this one a lot more than the R. Kelly one.

On a note of trivia, this was his first appearance since Now 16 and it was co-written by David Guppy, who is also on that volume as Redhead Kingpin.

Also appearing on: Now 15, 16, 31
Available on: Kisstory 2014

Bobby Brown 'On Our Own'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

I didn't think I'd seen Ghostbusters 2 (I was certainly far too young to have seen it at the time) but I'm all the more convinced of it having seen the video for the tie-in single: none of the clips look familiar. Mind you, there's not much of the film in there, as this video combines its state-of-the-art-in-1989 visual effects with more of the sort of celebrity cameos that featured in the clip for the theme from the first film. I even recognised some of them. Well, Donald Trump anyway.

That's where the similarities with the previous title song end though. 'Ghostbusters' is one of the highlights of Now 4, as endearingly light-hearted as the movie it was written for. This time around, what we get is, like the video, up-to-date RnB of the time from the hugely successful writers/producers Babyface and LA Reid, fronted by the Brown (no relation) who was a big star in the late 1990s if never likeable - he's also one of only two people on Now 16 to have appeared on the first Now! album, back when he was in New Edition. The song doesn't seem to have all that much to do with the film, aside from the rapped precis which opens the track and is repeated towards the end, rather suggesting that it was something already in the can. It's a perfectly OK record but nothing more than that, and deservedly failed to have anything like the afterlife of the first theme song, despite being one of his biggest hits at the time.

Also appearing on: Now 15, 30, 31
Available on: Dance Ya Know It

New Edition 'Candy Girl'

Chart Peak: 1 (1 week)

YouTube

And so Side Three starts, like the previous two, with a Number One single. What's possibly more remarkable is that this is first encounter with a boy band. New Edition were, of course, a fairly obvious attempt to reinvent the Jackson 5 for the 1980s, and Bobby Brown seems to have followed the blueprint a little to literally in his transition to adulthood. In these more innocent times, their biggest hit is a distant cousin of the family group's 'ABC', with the Motown backbeat replaced by squelchy synths, everything seemingly pitched quite high to avoid clashes with the pre-pubescent vocals. The one other concession to the era are some brief rap segments, which help to break some of the monotony built up by the almost identical verses and chorus.
Oh yeah, and there's a middle eight where they seem to be talking about how great their girlfriends are. Or something like that - dogs might be able to hear the words a bit better. Much as I try to avoid being prejudiced about music, I do find it very difficult to find much to say about this. I suppose the best thing about it is that it's not the Babybird song of the same title.

Available on:Candy Girl