There is a short answer to all of this which you can jump to at the end, if you want.
The long answer is that sometimes a song comes along which lights up all the bulbs on Melody FM despite the fact that it has no business being relegated to the pits of hell (lighthouse family division) but is in all sorts of ways a really good song. There are a number of people over the years who have managed this. Sade, I think, is the most obvious one – she shipped copy after copy of Diamond Life as people walked out of the door of Smiths with that, Picture Book and Brothers In Arms but she is better than that company, smooth, yes, but sweet and harsh and cool all at once too.
And this is another of those, this is is a record which was suddenly absolutely everywhere all of the time, backing music in supermarkets and a solid staple for Radio 2 back before that window where Radio 2 was briefly the place to be (some time when the audience felt too grown up for Radio 1 and before Digital stations came along in numbers, I guess), and all around the bars whilst I was a student again at the turn of the century, training to teach, but its ubiquity was not a bad thing because it’s a song I can find I can listen to and listen to – the swooping up of the first chord crashing straight into the vocal, her gloriously rough as fuck voice and the emotional acceleration as the song moves towards the end, it’s all good stuff.
I think sometimes, and I think it was probably most true with Sade, that these people are One Of Us – even if they are grasped by the heart of the mainstream we don’t really believe that they belong there, don’t believe that they would choose to be there, if they had a choice, they would be on the backstreet with us because the backstreet’s where we all belong.
The short answer, of course, is that I really like this song and that’s just that.
May 8, 2009 at 9:57 am
It is a belter of a song, I once heard an acoustic cover, by whom I can’t remember but it blew me away.
I feel the same way about Rihanna and Umbrella, you may laugh but if you take away the Jay-Z bit at the beginning and the over production, it is a wonderful song. As evidence I will cite the Mechanical Bride cover, if you’ve not heard it I could upload it for you.
May 8, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I like a lot of stuff that gets in the charts, always have. Don’t tell anyone, but when I’m by myself I sit back with a cup of tea and put on the music channels on the cable, mostly avoiding the alternative stuff and keeping up with what’s going on in the ‘mainstream’. Umbrella at one point was on three or four different channels at the same time at least five times a day!
Meanwhile, Macy Gray will always remind me of a bus ride in London late at night, pleasantly pissed, surrounded by a large group of Italian tourists, all of whom were indulged in a rather loud singalong.
May 10, 2009 at 3:24 am
Well, I’m with Simon in that I end up liking some of the stuff that gets in the charts too.
That said, despite her commercial success Macy Gray seems very indie to me. From what I’ve read about her (which may be limited but anyway) she’s seems like a really offbeat, strong character who does what she wants artistically.
She’s great live if you get the chance. Or at least she was several years ago back in the days when I used to get out to gigs
x.
May 10, 2009 at 3:26 am
ps- cool new look.
May 10, 2009 at 6:53 am
oh Adam, can’t you just like ONE terrible song? Must we agree on every-fucking-thing?!? Macy is the real thing, oh yes baby! xoxo
May 11, 2009 at 10:26 pm
A popular chart song which actually seems to have some extra meaning to the singer, as opposed to a mentality of ‘let’s sing whatever and get as famous as I can’ can transcend cliches and withering looks, or at the very least make people who pride themselves on their music taste feel less guilty about liking it. I think you’ve picked a brilliant example.
In the same vein I really adore Al Green’s cover of Unchained Melody. Maybe everyone has had a go at that song, maybe it is Simon Cowell’s favourite (gaaah)but… Al seems to mean something by it.
Bout of pretentiousness over!