Dusty Springfield 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me'

Chart Peak: 1 [1 week in 1966]

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As a tribute to the late, great diva Dusty Springfield, we have included 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me'... This timeless ballad was a No. 1 single for Britain's finest soul singer in 1966.

I've mentioned before that Now 42 contains some unusual selections, and it concludes with the most exceptional of all. This is as far as I know the oldest track on a main-series Now album relative to its last chart appearance: comparably old tracks were appearing due to re-issues and even the seven-year-old 'Grease Mega-Mix' on Now 40 coincided with renewed chart success of one of its constituent parts. Presumably this is a case of Ashley Abram or somebody somewhere in the organisation pulling rank just this once, as no other star has been awarded such a tribute appearance before or since, unless they had a posthumous hit; though it does make it all the odder that she didn't make the cut with any of her hits with the Pet Shop Boys. It's also the only example I can recall of a first-person sleeve note.

I'm not totally sure I can agree with the word 'timeless' in that description, though. Even in 1966, when this single snuck a week at the top of the chart between 'Somebody Help Me' and 'Pretty Flamingo' (according to the Record Retailer chart used by modern reference books; it had a second week on the NME chart), it can't have seemed totally up-to-date: other Number One singles that year included 'Paint It, Black', 'Good Vibrations' and 'Eleanor Rigby', all of them much more radical recordings. What 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' is, is a good old-fashioned belter. It's adapted from an Italian chart-topper which Springfield herself discovered and asked her friends Vicki Whickham (who I see was awarded the OBE this month - topical!) and Simon Napier-Bell to supply an English lyric. It's perhaps odd that she didn't approach more experienced wordsmiths (both of them were involved in management, although Napier-Bell had written some music) though it may be that she trusted people who knew her personally to write something she could relate to emotionally. It has been suggested in retrospect that the song relates in some way to her tempestuous love life, which would of course have been complicated further by the fact that she couldn't be open about her sexuality in those days. Whether or not that was the writers' intent, it's hard not to think that her own experience contributed to the power of her vocal performance (the 47th take apparently, such was her perfectionism) and it's that vocal which in all honesty, makes this record the classic it is rather than simply a well-made pop song. The many subsequent covers have all fallen somewhat short, and yes I even include Elvis in that, because it takes an extraordinary performance by an extraordinary talent to keep the rather extreme sentiment from sounding OTT and ridiculous or phony. When she comes in for the big finish and exhorts you to "BELIIIIEVE MEEEE!!!" you actually sort of do.

It's a sign of how strong the competition was that this is only a middling chart-topper for 1966, and that it's some way from being my favourite Dusty track. I can't pretend it's not a highlight of Now 42, and with that big dramatic flourish at the end a glorious closer. But it's only a highlight, not the highlight.

Available on: Just Dusty

Blur 'Tender'

Chart Peak: 2

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The highly anticipated return of Blur comes in the form of the mesmerising 'Tender'... Featuring anthemic support from the London Gospel Community Choir {sic}, the single provides the first taste from Blur's sixth album due for release in March '99.

In early 1999, the magazine Heat was launched amid great fanfare. I didn't buy it, but I was curious enough to flick though a copy of the first issue in Woolworth's and one story near the front caught my eye. In a shock expose of the singles chart, Heat announced that they'd tried and failed to persuade any bookmaker to take a bet on the next three weeks' Number One singles being, in order: '...Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears, 'Tender' by Blur and 'When The Going Gets Tough' by Boyzone. Whilst there was at the time a taboo among bookies about taking bets on the chart performance of charity records, this was taken as proof that the whole thing was a foregone conclusion. There probably was some truth in the original accusation, since this was of course the era of big frontloaded sales and heavy pre-release promotion, with big singles often deliberately scheduled apart.  But Heat overstated their case since, in the event, 'Tender' was no match for even Britney's second-week sales and had to settle for a peak at 2; it did have the consolation of spending more weeks in the Top 10 than their last chart-topper, 'Beetlebum' managed in the entire Top 40. People who bought the second CD got two Number 2 singles for their money, since 'Song 2' - surely the best-known Blur song not to make a Now album - appeared in both sound and video forms. However, given my aversion to multi-format purchases, I made do with CD1, in its annoyingly sealed, ruined when opened, sleeve: perhaps they were hoping people would buy extra copies to listen to and get that Number One single.

As you can see though, my copy remained in fairly good condition because I didn't really play it all that often. Blur were my favourite band in the late 1990s, and I'd enjoyed the swerve in direction they took with the Blur album in 1997, so I was actually quite excited when I first heard news of a sixth album in late 1998. I was even more excited when my dad came home from working on a TV commercial in South Africa and informed me that the ad's directors had been sent a tape of the forthcoming single so they could pitch for the video. In the event, they didn't get the job, but it didn't matter much because the clip that was filmed, at reportedly great expense, was never shown and instead the official promo video is a moody black-and-white live performance. A genuinely live one, dubious singing and all, so it doesn't fully represent the audio track and thus isn't the link at the top of this post. However, it does offer a hint of the aesthetic Blur were going for at this point, supposedly a more honest sound, with Damon Albarn writing about his own emotions rather than the imagined characters and situations with which his earlier lyrics were filled. The trouble was, I didn't really want to hear about his personal life all that much and I was already suspicious of earnestness in pop. Although I persuaded myself I liked 'Tender' the first time I heard it on the radio, and never really considered not buying it, I wasn't sold on it, especially its inordinate length. it's 7:40, and the radio edit was never commercially issued, though it's on the jukebox single and showed up on a covermount CD from Q magazine - even the extensive and expensive Blur 21 box has no room for it. Even here on Now 42 we get the full length version, which might be why there are only 19 tracks on this disc and 21 on the other. It occurs to me in retrospect that this is kind of Blur's 'Hey Jude' and like that song, it's not all bad but it's the work of a band past their prime. Indeed, both songs are the product of a fracturing collaboration: 'Hey Jude' was one of the last McCartney songs John Lennon admitted to liking, and 'Tender' features a chorus written and sung by Graham Coxon, who left the band a couple of years later. Parent album 13 is the band's last studio work to date with his full participation, and ironically it's an album where Coxon is responsible for the poppiest moments whilst Albarn disappears into his own pretentiousness or laziness. In that context, this is actually one of the more melodic tracks and it is a good-sounding record with well-recorded percussion and a surprisingly smooth double-bass line from Alex James of all people, plus the luxuriant backing vocals of the London Community Gospel Choir, which make you wish they'd been given something more exciting to sing than "Oh my baby". It even follows 'Hey Jude' by leaving in a blooper on purpose - at almost exactly the four-minute mark, you can hear the very start of the title word being sung at the wrong moment.

There's a good five-minute single lurking in here, but it's too hidden. It was never the same between me and Blur after this, and I didn't even get round to buying the (largely) post-Coxon album Think Tank until a couple of weeks ago. I only paid £2:99 for it then. 

Also appearing on: Now 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 43
Available on: 13 (Special Edition)

Ladysmith Black Mambazo 'Inkanyezi Nezazi (The Star And The Wiseman)'

Chart Peak: 63 [33 in 1997]

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Featured in a popular Heinz TV commercial, the haunting accapella strains of 'Inkanyezi Nezazi' made Ladysmith Black Mambazo a household name during the course of 1998. The South African group are also well-known for their collaboration with Paul Simon on the acclaimed Graceland album.

Quick quiz question for you - with which other act contributing to Now 42 did Ladysmith Black Mambazo collaborate on a hit single in 1999? Answer later in this post.
It's obviously not uncommon for a track that appears on a Now album to be a less-than-massive chart hit, although in most cases it's a track released as a single very close to the release date of the compilation, suggesting that bigger sales were expected at time of going to press. This single, however, was re-released in the summer of 1998, before even Now 40 was released, putting this into the smaller category of knowingly-included minor hits. Oddly, that 1998 release was a package of remixes on A&M's dance imprint AM:PM, although this doesn't seem the sort of song that would lend itself to club airplay even with non-vocal parts added.

Presumably the track shows up here in respect of the big sales of a best-of compilation at Christmas 1998, and it's not surprising for a song that's sold albums rather than singles to make an appearance. It still feels incredibly out of place here, though, so culturally distant is it from the typical sound of the British chart. It's not just that they're not singing in English, but the very structure of the song is alien and there are only vocals - but not only singing, the choir use all manner of voice music, with hums and percussive clicks. Whilst I've no grasp of what the song's about (I'm guessing a star and a wiseman are involved somewhere) it's a pleasant listen and a nice change, though I can't fathom what it has to do with baked beans, a food I haven't liked for decades. It's hard to imagine what people who bought this album for Armand Van Helden or the Cartoons would have made of it either.

And the answer to that question? B*Witched. They made the Top 20 together with 'I Shall Be There' in December.

Also appearing on: Now 31 [with China Black]
Available on: Ultimate Collection

All Saints 'War Of Nerves'

Chart Peak: 7

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'War Of Nerves' was the last track recorded for All Saints' debut album... Shaznay wrote the lyrics during the weekend of Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997 and says "It brought the subject of death closer to a lot of people who hadn't experienced it".

That weekend was also the weekend when All Saints made their chart debut and nobody noticed: they were a new entry at 4 on the chart dated 6th September 1997, which would normally have been announced on the 1st but for the only time I can recall the Sunday chart show was cancelled entirely that day. In the days before online publication, we didn't get to hear the position until the Wednesday. Presumably the intent of the songwriting wasn't purely self-interested, but by the time this remixed version showed up as the fifth single from the album in late 1998, there were rumours of some disputes within the band. It's certainly not an impression much discouraged by the video, very dark in the literal sense and perhaps metaphorically too. Notably you don't see all four of the band together at any point, and the repeated shots of their faces on the back of a bus implies a certain discomfort with their fame. I suppose it's just about possible that the final shot of that bus in the tunnel is a hint back towards Diana's death as well.

The song itself was surely a single too far from the album, peaking at 7 after three consecutive chart-toppers (fun fact: every follow-up to an All Saints Number One peaked at either 1 or 7) and swiftly being forgotten. I probably hadn't heard it for almost fifteen years, and I hadn't heard it much at the time either, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be quite decent after all. Not an obvious hit at all, but there's something decidedly charming and sad about the melody, and it's swoopingly produced by no less than Cameron McVey. I also hadn't noticed until this week that the title doesn't quite appear in the lyric, she actually sings "Trying to break through this wall of nerves". Maybe the title was an accident, and the fact that it's not in the chorus makes little commercial sense, but I'm starting to wonder whether this is actually my favourite All Saints track. In the 1990s I'd never have thought it possible to have a favourite at all. The fact that they didn't make another record until 2000, a very long gap for such an act, seems to give some credence to the rumours of a fractious relationship.

Also appearing on: Now 38, 39, 40, 41, 47, 65
Available on: All Hits - Special Edition

Kele Le Roc 'My Love'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

Hailing from the East End of London, 20 year old Kele Le Roc recorded her debut album in los Angeles with a host of internationally reknowned {sic} producers. She recalls "In LA I had so much inspiration - who wouldn't in a place where every day is summer.!"

You may find this curmudgeonly of me, but I don't think I would have. Still, Kelly Biggs (who, like Iggy Pop and David Soul, adopted a surname at odds with her usual musical style) must have thought differently, and she got to work with little-remembered Eighties star Robbie Nevil on this, another of the saccharine ballads that seem bunched together on Side 4 here. The video isn't on YouTube, but as I recall it looked very like it was aimed at the Valentine's market - the single was not actually released until March but I suspect it may have been postponed from the date originally intended. It became her second consecutive single to peak at 8, and later won a MOBO Award for Best Single, but that wasn't enough for the ensuing album to make the Top 40, nor for any more albums to have emerged in the fourteen years since, though she's attempted to relaunch her career on several occasions, and has had other hits in collaboration, one of which even gets her back onto the Now series.

Also appearing on: Now 41
Available on: Everybody's Somebody

Dru Hill 'These Are The Times'

Chart Peak: 4

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The multi-talented quartet Dru Hill are no stranger to success - they have racked up six No.1 singles in the States within just two years... 'These Are The Times' was co-written and co-produced by the legendary "hitmaker" Babyface.

Sadly the note doesn't elaborate on what the multiple talents of the members of Dru Hill might have been. This is one of the very few songs on Now 42 I don't really remember, and by far the biggest hit on here I could say that of. I do remember their previous hit 'How Deep Is Your Love' (not the Bee Gees song) but apart from that they were just background most of the time to me, their run of US hits not being fully replicated over here though this was their fifth Top 40 hit, not counting collaborations. They were a big RnB act just as that sort of music was starting to become mainstream here, and as I'd left school by this point I was rarely in touch with genre fans. I recall them more as a launchpad for lead singer Sisqo's solo career, and would not be able to name any other band members without looking it up - in fact I would have struggled to remember how many of them there were without that sleevenote.

As to the song itself, the fact that Babyface was involved really tells you all you need to know. It's the sort of bland, syrupy ballad that gives blandness a bad name, the sort of things Barry Manilow would reject as lacking grit. The closest we get to an exception is the rather odd lyric where they offer to "swallow you like Reese's Pieces", an analogy which may not have made sense to all the British audience. Their career faltered after this point on both sides of the Atlantic, though they released a comeback album in 2010 and according to their Wikipedia entry they also had their own reality TV show called Keith Sweat's Platinum House. You know your career's passed its prime when your TV show is named after somebody else.

Available on: Anthems R&B [Explicit]

911 'A Little Bit More'

Chart Peak: 1 [1 week]

YouTube

Dr. Hook's 1976 hit 'A Little Bit More' was given the 911 treatment in January '99 and gave the boys their first No1 single... Their current album is a collection of their favourite songs which, according to Jimmy "appeal not just to our fans, but also to music lovers who remember them first time around!"

We'll gloss over the implication in that quote that "911 fans" and "music lovers" were two separate groups of people, shall we? As I said last time, 911 were a band who had a certain charm so I find it hard to dislike them, but do also find it hard to persuade myself that much of their music is any good. By the time of this eleventh single, they (or at least the record company) were clearly desperate for a Number One single; there's an infamous story that when their cover of 'More Than A Woman' was at the top of the midweek charts, they posed for photos with a massive 1, only to be pipped at the post by Spacedust. Evidently somebody at Innocent thought the best thing to do was more covers, so we got a whole album of them and this addition to the barrage of Number One singles in early 1999. The sleeve of Now 42 takes no chances and shows them posing with Casper the Friendly Ghost instead.

Apparently, 'A Little Bit More' was already a cover when Dr Hook did it, having originally been recorded by its author Bobby Gosh. In any version though, it's a pretty hideous song, sounding more like an ode to date rape than the romantic anthem it was probably intended to be. It neither deserves nor gets a good performance from the boys, and the whole thing comes over as a box-ticking exercise. Although it succeeded in topping the chart, it was so late in their career that they had no momentum left, and this was the propenultimate single of their original career. Don't worry, there's a new album coming out in 2014.

Also appearing on: Now 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 43
Available on: There It Is