Tin Tin Out featuring Emma Bunton 'What I Am'

Chart Peak: 2

YouTube

I was quite surprised, when I first got a chart reference book to look it up in, to discover that 'What I Am' by Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians only got to Number 31 in the UK. It seemed to be everywhere when it was out, but maybe it was disproportionately popular in London.

Either way, it probably looked like an opportunity to Tin Tin Out, the low-profile production act who managed no fewer than nine Top 40 hits between 1994 and 1999. And what better way to help this single along than to enlist Emma Bunton, for her first release outside the Spice Girls? Well, I'm sure that was the plan, but it flounders on the sheer familiarity of the original, which emphasises how little imagination seems to have gone into this, right the way down to the note-for-note replication of the original guitar solo. Anybody who didn't like the one version wasn't going to like the other; and this is probably why you don't often hear this one now.
However, since EMI decided to release this and the Geri Halliwell record on the same day to launch the inevitable Spice battle, it's hard to resist the comparison. Against that, this can at least claim to be a memorable (if potentially irritating) song, and Bunton's vocal, though not outstanding, at least projects more personality and some sense of enjoyment instead of heavy breathing. Nonetheless, an air of pointlessness pervades the whole exercise, which is as good an explanation as I cna think of for this one coming in second.

Tin Tin Out also appear on: Now 30 (with Espiritu) 38 (with Shelley Nelson)
Emma Bunton also appears on: Now 48, 50, 55, 56, 57
Available on: A Girl Like Me

Geri Halliwell 'Lift Me Up'

Chart Peak: 1 (1 week)

YouTube

I suppose if there's one distinctive feature of this particular era in chart history, it's the media-amplified battle for Number One. Of course the mother of all these was Blur v. Oasis in 1995, but with hindsight it was very much a product of the times when virtually all Number Ones entered at the top so the loser had little chance of claiming the same glory later.

This and the track that follows it on the album were at the time hyped as just such a battle, not least because of the link between the acts involved, but it's fair to say that it hasn't exactly gone down in pop history as a major event. Much of the blame here must lie with the records themselves, because this one is as painfully thin as Halliwell looks in the video (which, incidentally, I'd never watched all the way through before - Hmmm, even aliens seem to go off the idea of abducting her once she starts singing to them). This is obviously an attempt to project the softer, more romantic side of her, but with trite lyrics set to a melody that's all but non-existent, the focus is on her not-really-much-cop vocal. What single could be lame enough to lose a chart battle to this? Find out tomorrow...

Also appearing on: Now 43, 45, 49, 50, 51, 60
Available on: Schizophonic

R-Kelly 'If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time'

Chart Peak: 2

YouTube

It doesn't seem the most obvious place to start the second disc - or anything else for that matter. I was curiously reassured to see, when I found this video on YouTube, that it really is seven minutes long, because I recall it coming up on the telly over and over again and seeming to go on for ages: apparently there is a five-minute radio edit of the track, but anyone who bought the single had to sit through the full version. It really only needs to be about thirty seconds long though

Kelly was a prolific artist (quite apart from his input as a producer or writer for other acts) so his Now appearances only seem to scratch the surface of his huge output around the turn of the century: this was famously the seventh hit to appear on his double album R. Sadly, they tend to scratch the most boring side of it too - few of his more hilarious tracks crop up, and instead we're lumbered with the most generic RnB pumps and the dullest ballads. Even among the latter this stands out for its deep commitment to dullness - the whole song is basically in the title, and the tune, I finally realised, is 'Speak To Me Someone' - in fairness, it's a pretty standard riff, and they're neither of them a million miles from 'Unchained Melody'. But I can't help resenting something with so little substance taking up so much of my time.

Also appearing on: Now 28, 29, 30, 37, 40 (with Sparkle), 41, 51, 55, 59
Available on: The R In RnB Collection Vol. 1 - Greatest Hits

Phil Collins 'You'll Be In My Heart'

Chart Peak: 17

YouTube

You wouldn't know it just from the video but this, his last major hit with new material, comes from the Disney film of Tarzan - the only concession the vid makes to its cinematic origins is in the scenes where Phil is singing in a cinema seat (it's unclear why none of his fellow patrons tell him to shut up!). In fact, apart from some of the special effects there's precious little evidence that this isn't from his 80s pomp: to my eyes at least he looked much older in those days than he actually was, so I suppose the advantage is that you don't look much different fifteen years on. There's even a scene where they shine a red light on him so he looks like a baked bean, just as he did on the cover of No Jacket Required!

I decided actually watching the film was beyond the call of duty, but apparently it's sung by a gorilla there. Hmm... a gorilla performing the music of Phil Collins... there may be something in that idea. Anyway, it packs in the most of the necessary cliches about always being there for somebody, other people not understanding, etc. But the music fails to pack the necessary punch, which may be part of the reason I have no memory at all of ever hearing it before. And indeed, is why I probably never will again.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 3, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 27, 41, 68.
Available on: Love Songs: A Compilation... Old and New

Supergrass 'Moving'

Chart Peak: 9

YouTube

The last Top 10 single by Supergrass is a record I've always felt curiously ambivalent about. I can appreciate it, and I caught myself mumbling along with the chorus once or twice while I was playing it back. And yet somehow I wouldn't say I liked it. Part of the trouble is that it's yet another in the seemingly endless catalogue of songs about the frustrations of life as a touring musician, which is always difficult to sympathise with, unfair as this might be; it wasn't even new subject matter for the band, who'd already covered this topic on such songs as 'It's Not Me' and 'You Can't See Me'. The video only accentuates this, of course.
I think there might be more to it than that, though. Something to do with the fact that even though their first album, I Should Coco, was one of my favourites at the time, I didn't bother to buy the third one. In fact, even when my dad got a free copy of it, I don't think I ever got round to listening to it before I left home. They sound very jaded at this point in their career - which might not be inappropriate for the subject matter of this particular song, but spoils the experience a bit anyway. The production (by the band themselves) sounds a bit stodgy and fails to capture the energy of their earlier work. It's hard not to suspect that at this point in their career, they were trying too hard to escape the shadow of their biggest hit, 'Alright'.

Mind you, it hasn't got any worse over the years, and probably sounds better in this context near the end of a long disc than as the opener to an album.



Also appearing on: Now 31, 33, 37, 43, 53
Available on: Supergrass

Bran Van 3000 'Drinking In LA'

Chart Peak: 3 (34 in 1998)

YouTube

The second post on this blog about an act from Quebec, fact fans!
I have a feeling that I didn't actually like this record when it first came out and became a minor hit in 1998. I don't think I actually disliked it either, but I was a bit suspicious of a lot of the post-Beck slacker-rock stuff that seemed to be emerging as Britpop wound down. However, I think it was that Christmas that my brother got their remarkable album Glee, which made it clear that this Canadian collective had more to them than the Marcy Playgrounds of this world - though curiously, even after this track became a huge hit, no further UK singles were extracted from the album.
Then this song was reused in a beer commercial, and became inescapable for a while, which put me off it again for a good couple of years. But here in 2009, it's sounding pretty good. I was never much of a drinker - and I've never been to LA, in fact - so songs about boozing tend not to interest me much, but this connects to the older tradition of songs about aimless drinkers. Whilst the mellow vibe about the track indicates that they're having fun, they're not revelling in the booze like William Hague; they chorus does, after all, ask what the hell they're doing drinking and getting nothing done. That tendency to distraction certainly is something I can recognise, bearing in mind the day or two it usually takes me to write one of these short posts... It does make this seem a laughably inappropriate song to advertise beer with though.

In a reverse of the situation with yesterday's Tom Jones track, this record proves its worth through an inferior cover version. Briefly popular latterday baggy act The Twang reached Number 63 with it (as the flip of their own 'Push The Ghosts' and, well, they sounded like they couldn't see anything wrong. Fair play to them and all, but the song doesn't work that way. And in case you ever need to know this for a quiz somewhere, BV3's only other Top 40 single to date was the rather fine Curtis-Mayfield-sampling 'Astounded'.

Available on: Glee (MP3 album)

Tom Jones and The Cardigans 'Burning Down the House'

Chart Peak: 7

YouTube

It's relatively recently come to my attention that Talking Heads are one of the greatest rock groups of all time. Unfortunately, they seem to have eluded the compilers of Now albums, so this is the only occurrence of one of their songs here.

The original was a Top 10 single in the USA and Canada but surprisingly failed to breach even the Top 100 in the UK, even though they'd already managed a breakthrough here with 'Once In A Lifetime'. The form in which the song finally reached the UK chart is scarcely less peculiar - Tom Jones's only Top 10 single of the decade, and the first single from his album Reload (not to be confused with Metallica's disc of the same title) which proved to be his biggest seller of all time. It was an example of the turn-of-the-century trend for duets albums with Jones singing a variety of cover versions alongside younger stars - but even allowing for the premise it's an odd place to start the campaign.

I hadn't noticed until I compared them, but this version is slightly faster than the Talking Heads version, though it runs a bit longer, which is presumably why they seem to run out of song about two-thirds of the way through. The new arrangement is a little bit straighter than the original, lacking that odd buzzing guitar intro and with less of the squelchy sound that decorates the original track and 'Girlfriend Is Better'. Instead we get some brass instruments and a bit more synth, but the focus is on the vocal performances of Jones, who doesn't really do "subtle" and Nina Persson, who plays it very deadpan. Of course, the lyrics don't actually make very much sense, so Jones doesn't really have anywhere to take them, although he's clearly making an effort, and Persson's contribution is the more memorable of the two. At least, she seems more in keeping with the somewhat listless performance, whilst Jones seems a bit out of place on his own record. It would sound OK if you didn't know there was another version, though.


Tom Jones also appears on: Now 13 (with Art Of Noise), 45 (with Stereophonics), 46 (with Mousse T), 47 (with Heather Small), 64 (with Chicane), 72 (with Vanessa Jenkins, Bryn West and Robin Gibb)
The Cardigans also appear on: Now 37, 41, 42
Available on: Reload (Re-issue)