Eternal 'Angel Of Mine'

Chart Peak: 4
YouTube

'Angel Of Mine' was Eternal's 3rd Top 5 smash of 1997 and their 14th consecutive Top 15 hit overall since 1993.. It made No. 4 in October 1997 as the follow-up to their first No. 1 single 'I Wanna Be The Only One'.

I've no idea how many of the people who read these blog posts actually click through to the YouTube videos, but for any who don't I shall reproduce the uploader's description of this one: "THIS SONG WAS ORIGINALLY RECORDED BY UNITED KINGDOM PHENOMENAL ICON OF R&B SOUL 'ETERNAL' BACK IN 1997 AT THE SAME MOMENT DIANA PRINCESS WAS GONE BY CAR ACCIDENT AND TERRIBLE CRISIS ECONOMIC IN ASIA.HIKS!!!" Hope you feel more enlightened now.

As we all know now, there was only to be one Number One single for them and in fact 'Angel Of Mine', the new song on a well-timed Greatest Hits album, was the end of that run of Top 15 hits - only one more single emerged, by which time the act had been reduced to a duo of the Bennett sisters, and they were dropped at the turn of the century. Thus we see their last appearance (chronologically) in the Now series and really it's none too soon because I feel like I've ploughed though hundreds of Eternal songs on this blog, and now there are at most only another four to go. By and large my experience has been one of disappointment because I thought they were largely OK at the time and yet I'm mostly bored by them in retrospect. The only difference is that I hated 'Angel Of Mine' from the start, always finding it so sickly and sanctimonious it makes the Backstreet Boys sound like Tom Lehrer. The closest I come to having a positive memory of it is that I remember some of my fellow cast members in the university German drama group singing it in rehearsal - and even then the positive part of the memory is the togetherness rather than the actual performance. The girls (both Eternal and my fellow students) harmonised well but couldn't make up for the poor song. In fact the song was so bad it was a US Number One in 1999; in fairness it knocked off the actually rather good '...Baby One More Time' but this was hardly a golden era at the top of the Billboard chart. It was of course not a hit over there for Eternal but for the RnB singer Monica. Her version was understandably shunned in the UK, peaking at a more deserved 55.

Also appearing on: Now 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37
Available on: The Best Love...Ever!

Eternal 'Oh Baby I...'

Chart Peak: 4
YouTube

'Oh Baby I...' was Eternal's 5th consecutive hit and one of the biggest to date for Vernie, Easther, Louise and Kelle... It was a No. 4 smash in November '94

Nothing seems more inevitable on a mid-90s Now album than an Eternal track, does it? This at least has some significance as the last appearance (though penultimate hit) by the original quartet before Louise left/was pushed out. It's also the song that gives debut album Always and Forever its title, despite being the fifth single released from it.

To be honest it's a bit sappier than I remembered it being, but it is sort of catchy and the single mix has some nice sitar-like guitars that remind me of some early-70s soul tracks. Much as they remind me that I'd rather be listening to those instead of this, I'm still happy to rank this among the better Eternal singles.

Also appearing on: Now 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38
Available on: The Best

Eternal 'Good Thing'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

'Good Thing' - due for release on 26th February 1996 - is the trio's sassy new single... It follows 'Poer Of A Woman' and 'I Am Blessed' and is, as ever, chartbound.

Starting to sense a bit of weariness in these sleevenotes, although it's no different from my own attitude to the arrival of yet another middling Eternal single. If there's one band I liked more before I started writing this blog, it's probably them as I'm forced to contemplate yet another functional single, unexciting but not deserving to be lambasted. 'Good Thing' is already their seventh Now appearance and their second with the word "good" in the title. It's unconnected to the Fine Young Cannibals song of the same title, but not wholly dissimilar to the sort of thing you might get if you asked somebody to write a song that sounded a bit like 'Whatta Man' by Salt'N'Pepa featuring En Vogue without risking a lawsuit. It's not that I want to be negative, and this is not an unpleasant one to hear but it offers little.

Also appearing on: Now 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38
Available on: Greatest Hits

Eternal 'Stay'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

Eternal are four all-singing girls from South London. 'Stay' is their very first hit and had reached No. 4 by 17th October '93.

Maybe it's just my pesky cynicism, but calling them "four all-singing girls" sounds a bit like an insult to their dancing abilities. It's a mid-90s Now album so of course Eternal are going to show up, a moment I rarely look forward to: it's not that I dislike their music so much as I struggle to find perspectives about it. 

'Stay' does at least have the distinction of being their debut single, and also their only hit in the US - it reached 19 on the Hot 100, which is not a bad achievement at at time when there was a little demand over there for British music as there ever has been. But that also tips you off to how exact a pastiche this is of then-current swingbeat. That too is something you can admire, since as far as I can tell it was produced by British people, but it feels rather pointless from any perspective other than a strictly commercial one. It feels too much of its time and place to have any resonance here in the 21st century. Even the title feels generic: it's the third most common one-word title for a hit single, and the group used one of the other two as well ('Crazy' in 1994). I think this is part of the reason why Eternal's actually mildly impressive chart feats rarely seem to get a mention nowadays, they're just too forgettable. 

Also appearing on: Now 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38
Available on: Stay - The Essential Eternal Collection

Eternal 'Don't You Love Me?'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

'Don't You Love Me?' became Eternal's biggest hit to date when it shot straight into the Top 3 on 2nd March '97... It is the girls' 12th consecutive Top 20 hit.

This is already the third song title on the album that starts with the word "Don't". How negative.

I jest of course, but this is negative in the sense that it speaks of bad things happening. I remember feeling at the time that narrating all this real suffering and then asking "don't you love me?" in the chorus seemed a bit self-centered, but I suppose it's meant to imply that the people in the verses are saying that to God or something. Either way, though, it's about as effective a piece of social comment as Jamiroquai's effort, and less funky.

It feels very like a self-conscious effort to launch the band onto the US gospel market, although as far as I'm aware they never had any real success there. For all that the Bennett sisters are by all accounts committed Christians, it feels to much of a cynical move to convince.

Also appearing on: Now 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38
Available on: The Best

Eternal 'Save Our Love'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

Easther, Vernie, Louise and Kelle are Eternal... 'Save Our Love', which made No. 8 in January 1994, was the London Girls' 2nd UK smash and followed 'Stay' into the Top 10.

I think this is the first track that's been entirely new to me. I've mentioned before that I didn't hear 'The Sign' at the time, but at least I know it now; whereas to the extent that anyone remembers Eternal at all now this seems to be overshadowed by later hits. Mind you, it is just about possible that I did hear this record at some point in the past and just forgot about it, because it's not a very distinctive record. 'Save Our Love' is solid but standard-issue female RnB of the times, chiefly notable for having been co-written by the Eddie from Charles & Eddie. And possibly also for the fact that the title of their previous hit is repeated several times in this one.

It's impossible to be very critical of this, but not much easier to be very positive because they haven't given us a lot to work on here. A non-entity of a song really.


Also appearing on: Now 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38
Available on: Greatest Hits

Eternal 'Power Of A Woman'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

Their first single since the departure of Louise, and as with the Blur and Oasis singles, they seem to have kept them apart to avoid a resumption of hostilities. 'Power Of A Woman' is probably the closest they came to the apparent intention of creating a British En Vogue (except that there were usually four of them). Evidently the power of a women doesn't actually extend to writing songs, as this was penned by two blokes, but the remaining members of the band had a decent enough set of pipes between them and whilst utterly insubstantial this is less woeful than many other girl-group records (even many of their others, in fact).

Also appearing on: Now 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38
Available on: Essential Eternal