Wet Wet Wet 'Yesterday'

Chart Peak: 4
YouTube

Wet Wet Wet's cover of the Beatles' 'Yesterday' brought the group's number of Top 40 hits to a staggering twenty-five... It reached No. 4 in August '97 and was their third hit this year.

Disc 2 starts here, although the sharp-eyed and numerate may have noticed we're already more than half-way through the "41 Chart Hits" promised on the disc tray: tracks are unevenly split due to the longer average length which means there are only nine tracks on Side 3 of the cassette. 'Yesterday' is something of an exception, getting out of the way within three minutes, although this is still significantly longer than the original. It doesn't seem the most obvious way to launch into a 78-minute CD but this was actually the second Now album running (and third overall) where the Wets had occupied this placing; with three appearances at the very start of the album as well they're almost Queen.

Anyone interested enough in British pop of the 1990s to be reading this will surely be aware that the last time Wet Wet Wet recorded a song for a movie, they spent 15 weeks at Number One with 'Love Is All Around'. Since they'd also topped the chart with a cover of 'With A Little Help From My Friends', you could be forgiven for thinking that Wet Wet Wet covering a Beatles song for a movie (Bean, in this case) was a licence to print money. The record company probably did think that, but of course lightning seldom strikes twice in the same place, and as it transpired this wasn't even the lead single from the soundtrack; the more fashionable Boyzone got that. Ten years into their career, the group were approaching something of a crisis point, with the drummer about to quit in a dispute over songwriting royalties whilst Marti Pellow was struggling with his own demons: 18 months later he collapsed in a hotel and was rushed to rehab for heroin addiction. This proved to the the last single release of their initial career, though they have reunited several times since.

Perhaps a great performer could have used this turmoil to wring out a truly emotional performance. But when faced with a ballad, Pellow reverts to low-budget Mick Hucknall form, whilst the production (by bassist Graeme Clark and unofficial member Graeme Duffin), is hamstrung by the need to give all five Wets something to do and the lack of original ideas, so it simply sounds overfussy as if they're playing along with the original track, but with more repetitions. I suppose it's a pretty strong tribute to the skills of Paul McCartney and George Martin that their string arrangements are copied almost directly, but the sparse and direct nature of the original recording is otherwise lost.

Also appearing on: Now 10, 11, 12, 16, 21, 28, 31, 37
Available on: Now That's What I Call 1997

Wet Wet Wet 'Sweet Surrender'

Chart Peak: 6

YouTube

'Sweet Surrender' became the 6th hit for Marti, Tommy, Neil & Graeme since 'Wishing I Was Lucky' started their success in 1987... It made No. 6 on 1st October 1989.

I was slightly unsettled to note that the original album version of this song stretches to six minutes, although fortunately this is a truncated single edit of about four and a half minutes. Even that wasn't enough of a cut for TotP, who seem to lose interest about half way though.

I think they might have had a point too. Of course, in an audiovisual medium there's the extra aggravation of Marti Pellow's deeply irritating cheeky-chappie persona, but in sound only the effect is more boring than actively annoying. I thought I remembered this song more than I actually did, but closer inspection suggest I was actually getting it mixed up with 'Angel Eyes'. This is the sound of the band living up, or rather down, to their name with a thoroughly dull song that only hints at some signs of life with the middle-eight, and doesn't really deliver then either. It marked the end of their first run of chart domination, although TV and the movies would come to save them later.

Also appearing on: Now 10, 11, 12, 21, 28, 31, 37, 38
Available on: End Of Part One - Their Greatest Hits

Wet Wet Wet 'With A Little Help From My Friends'

Chart Peak: 1 (4 weeks)

YouTube

And we're back ten years exactly to the summer of 1988. Once upon a time I'd planned to do Now XIII instead, but then I saw 12 in a charity shop for 99p, and one thing leads to another...

In fact it's quite apposite that this album kicks off with a single that I bought in a charity shop some years previously - indeed I must now have had it for longer than the original owner, even if I don't play it that often - particularly since it was a charity single* to begin with. Truly, it is the gift that keeps on giving. For those unfamiliar with the backstory, the NME organised the benefit album Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father to mark the 21st anniversary of the most famous Beatles album and raise some money for Childline. To help it along, a single was pulled from the LP (or cassette!) coupling this track by the Wets with the contrasting 'She's Leaving Home' by Billy Bragg With Cara Tivey which became the first Number One single for either act. More interestingly, 'With A Little Help From My Friends' became the first (and still the only) Beatles song to top the charts in more than one version, following its success for Joe Cocker in 1968 - the original was, ironically, a Top 75 hit in 1978 as part of an ill-advised attempt to cash in on the Sgt Pepper film.

As any regular readers of this blog may have noticed, a long preamble like this tends to mean I'm putting off trying to find anything to say about the record itself. And so it is here, since I can't imagine anyone interested not already being familiar with the source material and the band don't produce an especially convincing or distinctive version. In fairness to them, they presumably weren't given a lot of time to work on this, but it would still have been welcome had they come up with a more interesting idea than playing it slightly faster and repeating "my friends" to fade. The fundamental problem is, I think, that Marti Pellow comes over as too confident a vocalist to carry off the light-hearted, giving-it-a-go charm of the original. Not long afterwards, this and Cocker's interpretations of the song collided as the finale of a charity concert, where Pellow somehow manages to be even more annoying. It's not the best of starts, but it's not as bad as the Grease megamix.

*An asterisk on the back cover of the LP indicates that "All royalties from this track are being donated to Childline". Since I don't anticipate making any money from this blog post, it seems the next best thing I can do is provide a link to make a donation online.

Also appearing on: Now 10, 11, 16, 21, 28, 31, 37, 38
Available on: End of Part One

Wet Wet Wet 'Sweet Little Mystery'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

And so Disc Two commences with a track that in some ways sounds more like an opener than 'Barcelona' did.

Despite what one reference book claims, this 'Sweet Little Mystery' has no discernable connection to the John Martyn song, although the title may not be coincidental, as the Wets did eventually cover another Martyn number. Instead we get another slice of the era's blue-eyed soul, but very much on the commercial end of the spectrum: the parent album was called Popped In, Souled Out (see what they did there?) and ironically it finally unseated Now 10 from the top of the chart in January 1988.

Thanks to the current legal situation, you'll have to take my word for it unless you can remember but I'm pretty sure the video showed the band larking about on jeeps in the Gambia, and that reflects the carefree, light-hearted vibe that's obviously intended here. Of course, for this very reason they swiftly became the unacceptable face of the style, and the fact that girls found Marti Pellow's face very acceptable did nothing for their street credibility. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then: plagiarism lawsuits, Pellow's heroin addiction, the only Top 10 single to spend a single week in the Top 75, and an awful lot of awful ballads. But with the benefit of nostalgia, it's still possible to hear some of the charm that these first couple of singles had.


Also appearing on: Now 11, 12, 16, 21, 28, 31, 37, 38
Available on: Best Of