Mike + The Mechanics 'Over My Shoulder'

Chart Peak: 12
YouTube

Mike + the Mechanics are a hugely successful sometime group based around the musical talents of Genesis' Mike Rutherford and singers Paul Carrack (ex-Ace, Squeeze etc.) and Paul Young (ex Sad Cafe)... Over My Shoulder was a No.12 hit in March '95.

"Hugely" successful might be overstating the case a little, but it's true that they have lasted a long time for a side-project. Indeed they're still touring today, though with a different line-up as Young died and Carrack returned to solo activity. They only ever had one Top 10 single (with 'The Living Years', not a song I'm fond of) and this proved to be their next biggest hit. It's a song that gives me a strong sense of time and place, both from seeing the video in early 1995 (it was a big VH-1 favourite back then, as I recall) and from hearing it when I went on a work experience trip to France that summer. Fortunately, the memories are pretty positive and I actually rather like the song too.

Whilst it would probably be stretching a point to call Paul Carrack an overlooked musician, it does seem that he's a less well-known name than he probably should be given his talents as a singer; he has a great smoothness with just enough grit to stay the right side of bland, at least when he gets the right material. Though not commercially successful a songwriter as you might expect the man who penned a pop standard like 'How Long' to be, he certainly has skills in that department: he co-wrote 'Over My Shoulder' with Rutherford and in its modest way it ranks with the best of them both. It's very nearly a classic and then it seems to lose it right at the end, as if Carrack gets bored and leaves the backing singers to finish of as the song drifts into a slightly half-baked fade. As his only real appearance on a Now album though (the other Mechanics track has Young on lead vocal) it'll definitely do.

Bonus factoid: apparently Tom Fletcher, later to appear on several albums as a member of McFly, is an extra in the video.

Also appearing on: Now 33
Available on: The Singles: 1985 - 2014 + Rarities

Mike and the Mechanics 'All I Need Is A Miracle 96'

Chart Peak: 27 [original version: 54 in 1986]

YouTube

Originally a chart record back in 1986, 'All I Need Is A Miracle made the Top 30 in remix form in early 1996... Ten years after they first got together, Mike And The Mechanics are surely the most popular part-time band in the world.

A pedant writes: just as 'Out Of The Sinking' was a remix and not just a re-issue, 'All I Need Is A Miracle' is an entirely re-recorded version of the original, and not just a remix. I'm not sure why this was felt necessary, as the finished track still sounds rather 1980s, but it did provide some sort of bait for potential buyers of the imaginatively-titled Hits compilation, for which this was the lead single. The original version had not been a major hit in the UK but went Top 5 in the US, I also recall hearing it (and 'Invisible Touch') when we were on holiday in Canada in 1986.

Many members of well-known bands have taken the opportunity of side-projects to record more experimental material, but Genesis are unusual in having seemed to do the opposite. Admittedly, I've never heard anything by Tony Banks or his unappealingly-named band Bankstatement, but whilst Phil Collins possibly had more edge in his early solo work than he's given credit for (not saying much) Mike Rutherford's second-longest-lasting project were headed straight for the coffee table. There's nothing wrong with making pop-oriented music, of course, and in posts elsewhere on this blog I've often been unfashionably positive about the moves Genesis made towards a more commercial sound. The trouble with the Mechanics was that by and large the material wasn't up to the job and whilst they mostly avoided the turgid showing-off that tends to ruin supergroups, a lot of their recordings sound neither spontaneous nor perfectly poppy but a bit stale. 'All I Need Is A Miracle' is according to Rutherford one of their more optimistic songs (I suppose because it at least acknowledges the possibility of a miracle), and it has a decent vocal from the late Paul Young, not to be confused with the Paul Young featured on other Now albums who's still with us, but it deserved to be no more of a hit than it was.

Also appearing on: Now 30
Available on: Mike + The Mechanics Hits