Stereophonics 'Just Looking'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

Kelly Jones, Richard Jones (no relation) and Stuart Cable have been playing together since their early teens - originally rehearsing in Stuart's bedroom... Featured in the soundtrack for British comedy This Year's Love, 'Just Looking' peaked at No.4 in the UK charts.

I don't know how many people remember the film nowadays, although it did produce two hit singles (David Gray's title song made the Top 20 when re-released in 2000). However, 'Just Looking' is better known as a single from the album Performance And Cocktails, and is pretty much exactly the point I went off them: having not liked them when I first heard of them, I rather liked quite a few of the singles and bought the first album on vinyl the week it was released. I was not wholly enthused by their next new song, 'The Bartender And The Thief' and although I'd entertained the possibility of buying a second album, by the time it actually came out I wasn't interested enough. Well, I did actually find some low-quality MP3 files of it (remember, this was 1999 so that was more unusual) and on the basis of those I felt justified in my decision.

It probably swung my decision somewhat that they were a band I'd never really warmed to. Even though I thought, and still think, the first album was a good piece of work, it didn't turn me into a fan. That debut's most distinctive feature was that most of the lyrics were derived from the events and people in the band's home town, and having mined that seam so thoroughly on one album Kelly Jones had to look elsewhere for inspiration on subsequent ones. Unfortunately, he never seemed to find much of it, and their career is full of self-consciously "classic" trad-rock that lacks lyrical and musical excitement. In fairness, heard out of context 14 years later, this track isn't as bad as I remembered. I hope that's not only because they made so many worse records after it. There's something rather trite about the lyric though, and the music plays its one card, the burst into a full electric band, fairly early on, so it has nowhere to go after that.

Note for coincidence fans: both The Cardigans and Stereophonics made their next Now appearances in collaboration with Tom Jones.

Also appearing on: Now 43, 45 [with Tom Jones], 48, 49, 51, 56, 60, 68
Available on: Performance And Cocktails

The Cardigans 'Erase/Rewind'

Chart Peak: 7

YouTube

'Erase/Rewind' is the second single from the Cardigans latest album... Its predecessor 'My Favourite Game' continues to be played on radio stations across the country following its use in a popular car commercial.

Again with the car adverts! Actually, I don't remember that ad, though it might explain the unusual chart performance of 'My Favourite Game', which hung around remarkably long for a non-Top-10 single in the late 1990s. This follow-up took them to the Top 10 positions for the second time, and the last if you ignore their collaboration with Tom Jones later that year. Whilst its initial success was doubtless assisted by their previous hit (and its "banned" video, featured as a CD-ROM extra on one format of this), there's no question that 'Erase/Rewind' was a genuine hit in its own right and a contributor to the big sales of the Gran Turismo album. It's very much part of the trajectory they were on at this point in their career, trying very hard to rid themselves of the twee candyfloss image that they'd created for themselves but which they were evidently tiring of, especially after the huge success of 'Lovefool' took it beyond people who heard the irony.

Over a whole album this rather nihilistic tone is apparently a bit wearing, which is presumably why so many copies of Gran Turismo turn up in charity shops, and why I've never yet bought one. But on its own, this is a brilliant record with a decidedly unfluffy soundscape of tinkling keyboards, rumbling bass and unusually treated acoustic guitars. The reverb on Nina Persson's vocal just adds to the artificial tone and the use of loops and short repetition, as well as the gradual but steady pace, fit the tone of the lyric, which is determined but emotionally cold. It always seemed to me like the protagonist had finally snapped, but had been so beaten down that even when she took control, she was no longer fully human. As I've said before, I have a soft spot for arty music that's also actively poppy, and I couldn't resist this track although I never bought the single either. I was glad to get it when I bought this though.

Their compatriots The Wannadies, also best-known for a song not necessarily typical of their original intention had surely heard this track when they recorded 'Yeah'. Now 12 veteran Sabrina's version is, er, different.

Also appearing on: Now 37, 41, 44 [with Tom Jones]
Available on: Gran Turismo

Mister Oizo 'Flat Beat'

Chart Peak: 1 [2 weeks]

YouTube

This quirky dance tune was plugged into the brains of the nation after it featured in the new Levis commercial... The song is identified with the star of the ad - the cheeky yellow puppet Flat Eric

Indeed, the track was seemingly created specifically for the commercial, which was also directed by Quentin Dupiuex (AKA Mr. Oizo) - he got the job off the back of an early video with a proto-Flat Eric character. A single release swiftly followed, making the Top 5 in many European countries and becoming the UK's last instrumental chart-topper to date (ignoring the spoken intro which is oddly moved to the end of the video).

It's fair to say that this isn't a track that it sounds like it would have been a Number One single under any other circumstances, a very minimal electronic track. That's not to say it isn't good, in fact I've always liked it and rather assumed it would have been considered much cooler had it come from an avant-garde composer or even from a dance artist who hadn't had a hit with it. Seen by some as a precursor to electro-house or even dubstep, it's not a record I would know how to dance to but I don't really care. I've never bought a pair of expensive jeans but I'm glad I got to hear this. Also, Flat Eric is cute, especially in the still they used in the CD booklet.

This is possibly the only Now album to feature two tracks by people called Quentin (Norman Cook was born Quentin Leo Cook, though he later changed the name officially) and it's also worth noting that whilst somebody on a message board recently suggested that Now 42 was relatively light on big hits, this is the  fourth consecutive Number One single on the album. Of course the turnover at the top of the chart was very high in early 1999, though as previously noted '...Baby One More Time' had to wait for Now 44 and big hits by B*Witched and the Offspring never showed up at all.

Available on: Flat Beat

Armand Van Helden featuring Duane Harden 'You Don't Know Me'

Chart Peak: 1 [1 week]

YouTube

Armand started DJing when he was just 15 years old, playing disco, hip-hop and Latin freestyle all over the world thanks to his father's job with the US Air Force... Between '91 and '93, when his professional career as a DJ and remixer was taking off, his day jobs included working for a law firm and flipping burgers in a diner!

You know what, I don't think burger-flipping is a particularly surprising day-job for an aspiring musician (unless it was Morrissey or somebody); it's a common job that requires relatively little training or commitment.  Anyway, it's a job he was eventually able to get away from, and like Fatboy Slim he had his solo Number One well into his career - indeed, both had topped the chart as remixers before they did so on their own, Van Helden having done so on Tori Amos's 'Professional Widow' in early 1997. Though he'd been releasing records of his own for some years by then, it raised a level of commercial expectation that he defiantly dashed with his next few singles. Reputedly, his record company had a word and the result was this highly commercial comeback single. 'You Don't Know Me' (sometimes written 'U Don't...' but it's definitely 'You' on the UK single cover) is an upbeat house track based on an instrumental section from from 'Dance With You', a 1979 disco hit by Carrie Lucas. Apparently, vocalist Duane Harden was pretty much left to his own devices by Van Helden, who left the studio to get on with something else. Next thing you know, he's on the phone at the end of the Top 40 rundown, with Mark Goodier congratulating him and claiming the next single 'Flowerz' could do even better (it didn't).

Although my brother bought this single at the time (which is how I'm so sure of the spelling), I didn't like it at all then. I rather enjoy it now, despite the obvious lack of originality. Harden's lyric isn't saying much new either, but that no longer bothers me - I can take this as the entertainment it's supposed to be. I even quite like the video, which shows the duo being refused admission to a series of clubs - mainly because (SPOILER WARNING) they don't have the predictable payoff of them finally getting into the best club of all. It does unfortunately draw attention to the one weakness of the track, a slightly lazy fade at the end of the radio edit. But then, I wouldn't have the patience to listen to the full eight minute version either. This'll do.


Available on: Defected Presents For The Love Of House Volume 2

Fatboy Slim 'Praise You'

Chart Peak: 1

YouTube

'Praise You' provided man of the moment Norman Cook with his first Number One single as Fatboy Slim... Norman was awarded the '99 Brit for Best British Dance Act - over ten years since he won his first Brit Award as a member of the Housemartins for Best British Newcomer.

Cook's only solo chart topper arrived, funnily enough, as the third single from his second album in this guise. It was one of those cases where it felt like a matter of time before he got a Number One anyway, such was the excitement around the album, and perhaps the record company even chose to hold back this crowd-pleasing single for an opportune time in the spring. It's certainly a song of broader appeal than 'The Rockafeller Skank' and 'Gangsta Trippin', both of which featured highly repetitive vocal samples. 'Praise You', by contrast, has a more conventional song structure and a full vocal, derived from Camille Yarborough's 'Take Yo' Praise', which most people would never have heard before. I'm not accusing Cook of anything here, though, it's not as if he pretended it was him singing; and in this case at least it's clear that he's acted out of affection for the source material, blending it with various other samples and reviving it for a wider and younger audience.

The other thing everybody remembers of this is of course the promo video, directed by and starring Spike Jonze. If anything it seems a little ahead of its time - it looks more at home on YouTube, where we're used to seeing videos shot in public without proper lighting, and where people publicly sharing their own interpretation of a popular song is commonplace. One of the actors who played a dancer posted a sort of making-of video although most of it seems to have been cribbed from a tacky BBC3 I Love 1999 segment. Towards the end there's a brief excerpt of future Cook collaborator David Byrne showing his autocue-reading skills, which are as convincing as you'd expect.

To tell the truth, I'd got a bit tired of this song because it was so ubiquitous for so long, and these days I'm as likely to listen to the flipside 'Sho Nuff', but I still have fundamental affection for this record and it's here that Disc 2 starts to get good.

Also appearing on: Now 40, 41, 43
Available on: Cruel Intentions

Lenny Kravitz 'Fly Away'

Chart Peak: 1 [1 week]

YouTube

Eight months in the making, the album 5 is Lenny's first record in three years and he says "It was just as exciting as making a record for the first time... I was like a kid with a box of crayons - using all the colours"... 'Fly Away', the soundtrack to the successful Peugeot ad, was Lenny's first UK No.1 in February this year.

His first Number One and his last solo Top 40 hit, though he did "of course" feature on 'Show Me Your Soul' with P. Diddy, Loon and Pharrell Williams, a Number 35 hit in 2004. His previous single peaked at 75, which gives him the unusual distinction of having appeared at opposite ends of the chart with consecutive releases, but does rather strengthen the suspicion that 'Fly Away' owes most of its success to the TV ad. In the USA, where it was used in different commercials, it peaked at 12.

The other reason I tend to suspect that it succeeded mainly off the back of the advert is that it's awful. Now, I freely admit that Kravitz is a musician I've never been keen on, partly because he seems to fancy himself so much but mainly because of what he does: he's the classic jack of all trades, who plays many instruments competently but none with real feeling and has also perfected the art of dabbling in several different styles of music and making them all equally uninteresting. 'Fly Away' is a glam-rock song so formulaic and turgid it makes Oasis sound like Stockhausen, and even Noel Gallagher would bualk at some of the lyrics "Let's go to the stars, to Jupiter or even Mars, it could all be ours" is the worst rhyming-dictionary doggerell. Playing all the instruments himself as well as producing, Kravitz fails to generate any energy or charm - I presume he was using a click-track and following it too closely. I heard this record a lot in 1999 and never once enjoyed it, and time has not been kind.

Also appearing on: Now 24, 26
Available on: 5 [Explicit]

Robbie Williams 'Strong'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

You can't get a better recommendation for a place in pop's hall of fame than 3 Brit Awards - in February '99 Robbie scooped Brits for Best Video ('Millennium'), Best Song ('Angels') and Best Male Solo Artist... 'Strong' is due for release on March 15th.

Well, that first point is debatable (what about 4 Brit Awards?) but it does neatly link Robbie who holds the records for both Brit Awards and Now appearances. 'Strong' was the opening track and third single from his  enormously popular album I've Been Expecting You, though if the titles suggest bullish confidence, this one at least is undercut by the self-doubt that was - and presumably still is - always part of his stock-in-trade. "You think I'm strong/You're wrong, you're wrong!" he bellows into the anthemic chorus, which is mildly brave but the effect is somewhat spoilt by the fact that he can't think of a better lyric to follow than "I'll sing my song, my song, my song". In the video, intentionally or otherwise, he's shown performing these lines to a huge stadium crowd who sing it straight back at him, not necessarily taking on board the message. There again, it's always hard with him to be sure how much is a real cri de coeur and how much mere grandstanding; the harder-hearted might argue that even the constant insecurity and self-deprecation is itself as self-centred as his more obvious boastfulness.

Certainly, there's a lot of mugging and acting-up in the rather lazy promo video, compiled from tour and home video footage rather than specially shot, though they have at least lined up the lyric "I dance like me Dad" with a shot of him on stage with his father. This may be part of the reason why the song wasn't much of a hit outside the UK, even in countries where he was generally popular, or perhaps the lyrics about "a thousand fags" and "easy lays" didn't fully translate. Maybe people saw through the rather half-baked nature of the song (it's quite simplistic musically too) but his British fans had to buy the CD single anyway for his Brits performance.

Also appearing on: Now 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51 (with Nicole Kidman), 52 (with 1 Giant Leap & Maxi Jazz), 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 74, 75, 77 (with Gary Barlow), 83
Available on: I've Been Expecting You