Ordinary Boys – Talk Talk
Strangely enough, I had the idea for this post when this song popped up on my MP3 player approximately a week before the whole Big Brother debacle and it ocurred to me that their career was “completely over”, so I thought maybe I’d just give them a last little celebratory mention. How ironic. Why they re-released Boys Will Be Boys I will never know, when they had this masterpiece in their back-catalogue. Maybe if they had they’d have got to no.1 and not just hovered around the top 5 for a few weeks. Although the whole country yelling “GREY! AND! BOR! ING!” every time they were asked “How’s the weather?” would not be funny for very long at all.
D-Side – Pushin’ Me Out
D-side started off with an OK single, Speechless, but followed it with two of the worst boyband songs of all time – Invisible (the terror of which you can imagine once you know it was later recorded by Clay Aitken) and Real World (which seemed to have been recorded by the Chipmunks). Pushin’ Me Out was their 4th UK single, like many other fab songs it sampled Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s Push It, and it was utterly acetastic. To this day I have absolutely no idea how they managed it. Although 2 members have left, D-Side are still quite popular in Japan and one of them is starting to look a bit like Lee Brennan. They recently released a second album which includes a duet with Antony Costa! It also includes their original version of Friday Hill’s new single, which is rather hilarious if you ask me!
McFly – Room on the 3rd Floor
I don’t despise McFly – they’re always fun on Popworld and their first 3 singles were fairly jolly, but I never really cared for them until I heard this one. Actually I never started caring for them and unless they start taking style tips from Phixx I never will, but this song is still great. It is especially surprising for me to like it since it’s probably their most Beatles-aping song, and everyone knows the Beatles are evil for making everyone think they are the best band in history when actually it was ABBA. There are some excellent bits in this song though, especially the rhymes of “early” and “thirty”, “hurting” and “curtains” and “raining” and “complaining”. I don’t know why they’re good, they just are! The only other truly great thing McFly did was Chills In The Evening, which was a duet with V, but not a single so it doesn’t count in this post.
VS – Call U Sexy
You’ve probably forgotten VS, because they were incredibly forgettable. All they were known for was being managed by Simon Webbe, who at the time had to be explained by “you know, the black guy from Blue”, and even then people didn’t show any interest. They did somehow get one top 10 hit with their first single, whatever it was called, but not with Call U Sexy, their second single, which was properly ace. It showed exactly how r’n’b pop should be done, not that many people are even bothering to add pop to their r’n’b these days. Idiots!
Keisha White – Don’t Fool A Woman In Love
Keisha is the pop star with 9 lives. So far I think she’s on her 5th and still looking unlikely to get her paws (must continue the pointless cat metaphor) on a big hit, although the new single, a very boring ballad called The Weakness In Me, has gained some good reviews. Don’t Fool… actually reminded me a lot of VS in its sound and the look of the video. It’s another very catchy r’n’b pop song and it’s a shame more people didn’t buy it cos then she might be making more ace stuff like this instead of her new bland direction.