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London lads Duncan James, Anthony Costa [sic], Lee Ryan & Simon Webb are the members of 2001's hottest new R&B/pop sensation Blue... The band's first single 'All Rise' made an unprecedented debut at no4 while follow-up, 'Too Close' gave the boys their first no1 - their "crazy and exciting" year looks set to continue with the release of the hotly-tipped 'If You Come Back' in November.I thought I should probably reproduce all that to give you some context for a song that already seems rather forgotten: it's probably the least-remembered of their three chart-topping singles, although it happens to have been the only one ever to make a Now album. But then almost all their hits seem to have dropped off the radar surprisingly fast, which is presumably why their attempts to reunite and make a comeback seem to have been going on longer than their original career did. It's probably also why it's so rare to go into a charity shop that doesn't have at least one copy of their debut album in it. Even the band's name is generic and of course unoriginal - they were unsuccessfully sued by the identically-named act who had a Top 20 hit in the Seventies with 'Gonna Capture Your Heart'.
'If You Come Back' is the only one of those three Number One singles that wasn't a cover version, althoughit wasn't written by the band themselves either. It's straight out of the boyband sausage factory (one of the people who did write it was an ex-member of 911) and betrays nothing of the "street" sounds of a lot of their songs. Which is no bad thing, really, because that was usually quite cringeworthy, but then again it doesn't sound like anything else either, it's just totally inert.
As for that comeback, well at time of writing their years of circling around Eurovision have finally paid off and they're representing "us" in Germany this year. Unfortunately, the song won't be about a lovely horse.
Also appearing on: Now 49, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59
Available on: All Rise
What is an "unprecedented debut at no4"? At best it's a tautology: I find it hard to believe that no-one had debuted at Number 4 before. Chris, I presume you'll be good at confirming that?
ReplyDeleteI actually meant to mention that in the post but I forgot. I can't claim to have known this offhand but Jennifer Lopez spent her first week at 4 in 1999, and I doubt she was the first either. Even if she had been it wouldn't have been that interesting.
ReplyDeleteMind you, the sleeve note for the Kylie track says that 'I Should Be So Lucky' "spent an unpredecedented 5 weeks at no.1!" so my guess is that whoever wrote the notes just doesn't know what the word "unprecedented" means.
There is such unprecedented cynicism in these comments!
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