I don’t have a single original thought in my head – so this is a rebranding of the “songs from acts you usually dislike” kind of thread.
I know this song really well to the point that, oh God, I think I must have bought it at the time. And it’s still triffic. Quite a tum-te-tum chugger, understated, pleasant, dignified. If it wasn’t for the 80s horns, it would be darn near perfect.
I won’t get carried away – I don’t think 5 Star are due a reappraisal but this isn’t half bad and if it was Janet Jackson it would have sold gerzillions.
And I really disliked the JoBoxers because they had an interview and photo shoot in Smash Hits which made out that they had always lived by the docks as a gang and made their music together naturally. JoBollocks more like. Anyway, the Dumper gobbled them up and patted its tummy after a satisfying burp. And yet – their follow up to their big hit was erm, quite good actually…
Yep, Just Got Lucky is terrific and I liked Boxerbeat as well, a great stomper of a tune.
Johnny Friendly was great.
I had a JoBoxers sticker that I got with Weetabix.
Afterword T-Shirt
Coincidentally enough, Just Got Lucky came up on shuffle in the car yesterday, and sounded great!
Yep..Just got lucky is fab. Five Star not so much but then again each to their own etc.
I bought the debut album. This wasn’t on it, so I bought the second album too.
Utterly brilliant, as was/is William Orbit’s work on Madge’s Ray Of Light (open goal for you, Moose!).
Pure Shores is great but I liked the follow-up, Black Coffee, even better.
A lovely Saint Etienne sound to it
I don’t own or like anything by them apart from those two singles
Ewww.
I love both those Saints songs too, while I’m here.
Ironically enough, it was Pure Shores that led to the end of Orbit’s working relationship with Madge – she was furious that he hadn’t offered it to her first, and never worked with him again…
Brilliant song. Great overall sound to it too. Never liked anything else by
them mind…
You mean, like, never ever…? 🤔
That’s one of the few questions that I want to know.
I can’t be the only one curious to know the others.
I think you can.
I’ve got loads of these. This was the first one that came to mind… Forgive me..
I know it’s Genesis and not Phil but I really like this one
I bought that single for 2 reasons:
1. the horns on it are great
2. it had Tony Hancock on the cover
Swipe me, how glitterin’.
With reference to the original post, I had little tolerance for Mr. Jones even before I knew that he kept his dog vegetarian but I always had some regard for this one…
Smug, Californian, sunny soft rock with a Michael Bolton wannabe singing shit lyrics about wishy washy mawkish bollocks that have nothing to do with real life. It’s a great song, despite all those headwinds.
Smug, Californian, sunny soft rock by over-confident stage-schooled children of millionaire washed up 60s pop bands. Tsk! What do they know about the real world, eh? Do they think that this song will be held up as some kind of mental health anthem in the decades to come or something? As if! (glissando – wavy picture – robot voice says “ wel-come-to-20-21”)
Oh! It appears to be exactly that.
I always thought this was OK but the rest was fairly meh 😉
Everything about Michael Bolton was unappealing. Terrible hair. Faux soul music to within an inch of its life. But this is a fabulous piece of 90s pop – I even bought the single.
In my very first job (could it really have been 1987?!) I shared an office with someone who played Michael Bolton’s The Hunger album on the new-fangled office CD player non-stop… this was a good few years before he started having hits, and my deskmate had “discovered” him while on holiday in the US that Summer… I must’ve gotten some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, as I ended up liking a few of the tracks, including this Neil Schon (Journey) co-write…
That’s a hell of a video. I kept worrying that young Michael was going to catch fire – the flames lick pretty close to his suede jacket.
Flames would be bad, but still less problematic than snot.
A prime piece of 90’s pop.
https://youtu.be/xfbJ09ZTjbk
Let Loose…Crazy for You. Ace!
Ahh, great tune. I was a school lad when this was released, and quite a few of us had a sneaky respect for this song.
Argh. Another landfill boy band with forgettable, dreary songs about love and…and….ah well I see you have quite a nice little number there…and yes, quite a clever lyric.
Blue – All Rise
They did a signing at the megastore I worked in . Arses. But a good song nevertheless!
There is a tale, possibly apocryphal, that Donatella Versace flew Blue out to one of her parties, only to send them back when she realised they weren’t Blur.
@hamlet
I really really hope that’s true!
I’d prefer it to have been the other way round.
See also Slade/Suede.
“Who’s this wazzock sticking his arse out? Where’s Noddy with his top hat??”
Or getting Slade instead of Sade for a Vogue cover feature.
Denise van Outen? What, she released a pop song before she did her TV stuff.? I bet it’s rubbish … oh dear … I can’t seem to stop snapping my fingers. I can’t seem to control my crazy feet…
Can’t Wait Another Minute is my 5 Star choon of choice – it’s trying a bit too hard to be liked (it sounds like its own remix, if you know what I mean), but it’s a fantastic 80s pop-dance track.
My own biggest example of the OP would be The Corrs – dreadful, bland, fiddle-de-dee oirish pablum… except for the incredible Runaway… quite why it stands out from the rest of their output to me I can’t explain, but it does (NB the only version I can find on YT is what I assume is the album version – the mix I’ve always liked must have been the single version, which is far better than this to my ears)
I thought this song really stood out from the miasma of grinding nonsense* they otherwise put out: