Well, I did promise a contribution to ToffeeBoy's Stuff That You Really Might Not Have Expected, At Least Not From Me series... Many apologies for the delay; I really, honestly couldn't come up with more than one boy band track that I could even tolerate, and then I couldn't think what other genre of music might be sufficiently unexpected coming from me - after all, you already know all about the 80s big hair pop fixation. I'm not sure whether it will really be a surprise that I also have a thing for girl groups, and not just the Bangles (who are in any case a girl band) - and especially the classic crop from the 1990s, give or take a year or two. This is what I thought TB's pop series last year should have been all about...
spice.mp3
18 comments:
Saw this one coming, am not the least surprised. As manufactured pop goes, at least these had few good tunes & some creativity in the marketing.
Mrs Tin is a big Take That fan and I've heard so much of them around that house that I got to like them. I heard or read Gary say once that one reason he loves pop is it is so disposable; it's made for the moment and that's it. Mind he's a big ABBA fan and their songs have legs, and I'm guessing Take That songs will have just as much staying power - in England anyway.
first one was good - quite liked that..
second one starts off alright..
by 9:40 was that the third? I was chewing my nails and didn't think I'd get through...
fourth one liked the way she said arse!
I know the last group, whoever that is starting it, is shockingly bad at singing! (says a bloke who loves bands that can't sing or play their instruments - whoops)
now I thought I was quite partial to a bit of bubblegum pop - but once more it just sums up the attachments you make to songs - none of these have any for me.. so sitting and analyzing them isn't what they were made for I'm guessing..
fun.. in a kind of standing in topshop (having a nervous breakdown) sorta way!
I appear to know every word of the All Saints and En Vogue tracks. It was very nice to hear them again. The next 2 passed me by. I love the verse of that Spice Girls one, but it rapidly deteriorates.
I'd like to add to this playlist:
Salt n Pepa - Whatta Man
TLC - Waterfalls/No Scrubs
Sugababes - Overload/Freak Like Me
Girls Aloud - Love Machine (or any number of others)
En Vogue were great. Don't Let Go was always a favourite.
I have to confess that Spice Girls, All Saints and, to some degree, most of the Sugababes' material left me cold. Girls Aloud are one of the most consistently brilliant groups in the world though and i've always had a giant place in my heart for the first B*Witched album.
On the subject of recent boybands, NSync were clearly the pick of the bunch but we shouldn't forget the ill-fated but superb Du Jour. Who knows what they could have gone on to do had MegaRecords not staged their air crash?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwykvrwvWW4
Aba - can't bring myself to listen to girl bands, with so much RR/'Spill stuff waiting for my attention. Sorry!
My littlest one is sick, so I've been ridiculously distracted. But I'll get to reading eventually, sorry it's taking so long.
I have to defend the Spicies....they had at least 5 great songs....which is more than a lot of bands manage and I even went to the cinema with my mates to see Spiceworld:The Movie. And a rollicking good British comedy romp it was too....
donds for En Vogue!
Love em all - except the Spices actually. Voices just horrible (Mel C's is like nails down a blackboard) and song too by-numbers pastichey. I have a fondness for "Spice up your life" though.
Of the others, "Never Ever" was never (ever) my fave All Saints track (horrible spoken-word Appleton opening!). "Pure Showers", "Bootie Call", "Black Coffee" all preferable. And Shaznay's solo debut, "Never Felt Like This Before", is heavenly. (Nearly sent it in for the Earworm feature but bottled it on credibility grounds!)
En Vogue were pure genius. Again, not my fave Sugababes ("Overload"?, "Push The Button"?) but always good to hear em. Think they may have had their day now, mind. Took me ages to place Misteeq - top track.
Would deffo add TLC's "No Scrubs" or "Unpretty". And as barbryn says, pretty much any Girls Aloud single. Oh, and Mini Viva's "Left My Heart in Tokyo". And going back a bit, Bananarama's "Robert de Niro's Waiting". And and and... Pop music - it's bloody BRILLIANT, innit?!
So, even if I've shown myself to be utterly predictable in my semi-secret love for these groups, can I at least claim to have confounded expectations by picking tracks that even people who also like these groups think are pretty feeble..?
Aw Aba, didn't mean to suggest they were THAT bad - just not my personal faves by those bands. Spot on with Misteeq and En Vogue though!
"Pure Showers"?! Clearly I meant 'Shores'. Tsk. Schoolboy error...
Okay, you've pulled me back from the 'Abahachi's Favourite Vaguely Goth Tracks That Real Goths Would Consider Totally Lightweight Sell-Outs', or something along those lines. I was in at least three minds about the Sugababes choice, at least five minds about the Spice Girls and at least three about All Saints - but actually I think the spoken intro is so spectacularly, wonderfully clunky that it makes the song even more perfect. Just me, then; ditto the fact that Girls Aloud have never sounded, to me, quite as good as they ought to, given all the rave reviews from people who also like more serious music. Oh, well.
Just don't get me started on B*witched, and that unspeakable video...
Pure Showers with All Saints?!
That error sounds more Freudian (or at least BennyHill-ian) than schoolboy, bishbosh!
;o)
DsD
Oh, and as unbeleivable as it may be, I DO have a favourite En Vogue song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tIYpvlQP_s
- or "unbelievable" even.
*SIGH!*
I'm enjoying this thread.
"Free Your Mind" is an amazing song. It sounds a bit like Aerosmith.
Why are manufactured girl bands so much better than manufactured boy bands? I think it's because the default setting is "sassy", whereas with boy bands it's, what, "drippy" (Boyzone, Westlife) or embarrassing posturing (5ive, NKotB).
I agree on the sassy/drippy, girlbands/boybands argument, barbryn. Girlbands are invariably better. However, I would argue that, given long enough, most boybands (hell, most bands full-stop) produce at least one classic tune:
Take That (original incarnation, natch): Back for Good
East 17: Steam, Stay Another Day
Backstreet Boys: Backstreet's Back
5ive: Closer to Me
A1: Caught In The Middle...
I even have a guilty-pleasure thing goin' on for Westlife's "My Love". And, on particularly self-pitying hungover Sundays, "Flying without wings" can cause the eyes to moisten...
There is never any excuse for Boyzone though. No no no.
Oh, and while we're on girlbands: Destiny's Child, people! A girlband who proved conclusively that they were built for sass (Jumpin' Jumpin', Survivor, Independent Women, Bootylicious et al) not schmaltz (er, Emotion, anyone?).
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