What people remember about “Stay” are its extremes – the teetering, cracking soprano of Marcella Detroit’s lead vocal, and Siobhan Fahey’s growled and throaty intervention on the bridge. The deliberate contrast laid the song open to plenty of parodies, and a faint air of gimmickry hung over it – so ambitious, so unlike the rest of the charts, but still somehow a little absurd, an awkward collision between “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, switching clumsily between intensity and bluster.
And it is that, but it’s aged very well indeed. In a world where “Dark Romance” – Twilight knock-offs, basically – has its own bookstore section, the florid, crushed-velvet obsessiveness of “Stay” makes complete aesthetic sense. It’s gothy, needy, with a dangerous undertow, hard to take entirely seriously and intoxicating if you do – if the word “emo” had meant anything in 1992 it would have been slapped on this.
Obviously, the switched-dynamics form of the song matches its content: a tale of two worlds, the singer’s and the subject’s, and the relationship between them. One is claustrophobic, intense, something to escape: the other reached by risky passage, but where safety is hardly guaranteed and worse terrors may lurk. The specifics of what’s going on in “Stay” are obscured – but the emotional truth of it is keenly, melodramatically, felt. Some worlds, the singer is saying, change those who visit them: return is not an option. That applies whether the other world is a relationship, a lifestyle, a subculture, or even something more literal or fantastic. But if this was the song’s only message it would be a little trite, and the power of “Stay” is that it digs deeper. The idea of no returns is a self-serving one – it’s what the dwellers in those worlds tell themselves, and their secret terror (the terror at the heart of this song) is that this is a lie, you can go back.
Score: 8
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Again, I apologise for the huge break between entries. I’ve Taken Steps to address this and free up a bit of time to work on Popular more regularly (among other things) – more news on that in a bit, I guess.
At a distance it sounds like a typical, stirring power ballad, gleamingly expressive and expressly expensive, sung in the technically adroit tones of someone who, in her own world, wrote songs for Eric Clapton and sang backing vocals in his band. But the closer you venture, the source of the power becomes obscurer. There are sounds of water and storm; the voice is phased as though singing from underwater, or from the top end of the drowning pool.
And these words aren’t typical, stirring power ballad words of unquestioning fealty and undying signifiers of passion or love. “In the darkness of your dreams/You must only think of me,” sounds more like a threat than an entreaty. With “When your pride is on the floor/I’ll make you beg for more” you know that nothing’s gonna stop her now…and yet she continues to make a show of pleading, of praying…”Stay with me,” some of the oldest words in the canon of semi-lost souls…
And then the intruder splits the song apart. I doubt whether “Stay” would have stayed for even half of its eight weeks at number one without that intruder. The mask slips, the hand reaches to the other side of the mirror to find the hidden fangs, the bloodily concealed carnality of Siobhan, who with no compassion whatsoever hisses, “You’d better hope and pray that you make it safe back to your own world.” The video made it more explicit; the pained nobility of Marcella against the murderously winking grins of Siobhan, each fighting for the soul of the inert male body on the operating table, waiting to live again…Jane Eyre and Mrs Rochester, but who is who?
“Stay” could be considered Bananarama’s revenge; the one who broke away with her crack-laden sidewalk of a voice now grinding the notion of AoR into red dust – and in its closing sequence Marcella is now screaming and pleading for real, or praying for reality, deliverance from a bilateral nightmare. Oh, it was a fight, all right; New Pop against Old Rock, life against death, heartbeats against boxes of ghosts, passion against acceptance, all combining to make this powerful wake-up call of a record…and then a fellow from Bristol heard another track on the same album and used it as the basis for another beginning of time, and thus was the heart of New Pop once again successfully transplanted.
Siobhan Donaghy is one of the really underrated British songwriters IMO. Although it’s a shame infighting and record company politics meant they never topped, or even really followed up the Hormonally Yours album that spawned this and a string of other hits.
As a child I found this song really haunting. I remember playing it through headphones while hiding under my duvet. I didn’t understand it then, and as you say the exact meaning remains tantalisingly obscure now. But it’s just as powerful years later.
I really love ‘Hello (Turn Your Radio On)’ too, and their videos were almost unfailingly marvellous.
At the time: 3 (if that). Now: 7! Just warmed to it gradually over the years and I actually think all their singles are good or fun trying to be. I wish we had a successful modern equivalent as I think they’d stand out even more than SS did at the time (or maybe I just want a Knifier Veronicas?).
This seemed largely undone by its lengthy stay at the top (post Bryan Adams there was a feeling of deja vu) and the silliness of their image. The production is very strong, nothing like the self-consciously epic thing I (falsely) remember – intro drone like Gary Numan’s Cars, ping pong effect on the chorus, Blue Nile-ish piano motif before the chorus crashes back in. But I could really do without the chugging Billy Idol guitar; cellos would have better suited the song’s velvet gown of sound.
Stay, last time I checked, was the most common title for a UK hit single.
it’s a compelling song – willing to risk being ridiculous and triumphing as a result. It benefits from the tension between Marcella Detroit’s professionalism and Siobhan’s panto growl. After a long stretch of male voices and perspectives at number one it was/is refreshing to hear something that sounds so powerfully feminine
I have a weird and extremely vivid memory of watching the video for this on election eve (POLITICAL BUNNY) later in the year, very very tired — the magazine was going to press the following day — and finding myself in the midst of an overwhelmingly Carmodian reading; the belief that they were singing STAY to the Tories, not as a plea for them to stay (too late by then, as the polls had closed) but as a warning to the rest of us that they were going to (none of the votecounts were yet in), a WARNING FROM THE BEYOND.
Watching it again to recapture this sense has always been a bit like a revisiting a dream — everything present to memory except the feeling of logic, so urgent then but now quite gone. Except that whenever I do watch it again, I do find myself hunting for even just a fragment of that response.
TOTPWatch: Shakespeare’s Sister performed ‘Stay’ on Top of the Pops on four occasions;
23 January 1992. Also in the studio that week were; 2 Unlimited, Curtis Stigers, Kylie Minogue and Wet Wet Wet, plus a live performance by satellite from Mariah Carey in New York. Steve Anderson & Mark Franklin were the hosts.
6 February 1992. Also in the studio that week were; Primal Scream, 2 Unlimited and Curtis Stigers, plus a live performance by satellite from Wet Wet Wet in Milan. Mark Franklin & Adrian Rose were the hosts.
20 February 1992. Also in the studio that week were; The Brand New Heavies featuring N’dea Davenport, Rozalla, Julia Fordham, Opus III and Shanice. Tony Dortie & Mark Franklin were the hosts.
5 March 1992. Also in the studio that week were; The Charlatans, Opus III and Crowded House, plus a live performance by satellite from Mr Big in Chicago. Mark Franklin & Femi Oke were the hosts.
@5
a) cor, i hope you check this often
b) er, i can’t actually think of any! A few with the word ‘stay’ somewhere in the title, but not any other ‘stays’, i don’t think. (i realise i’m asking for the response: there was ‘stay’ and ‘stay’ and ‘stay’….)
this ‘stay’ is pretty good, but has always seemed a bit too tasteful and actorly to me – like the producers of inspector morse had commissioned their composer to ‘do goth’ for an episode, the way they infamously did rave.
Light Entertainment Watch. Only a few UK TV appearances for Shakespears Sister are on the list;
BIG WORLD CAFE: with Eagle Eye Cherry, Mariella Frostrup, Shakespears Sister, Squeeze (1989)
THE BRITS: with Richard O’Brien, Shakespears Sister, Right Said Fred, Annie Lennox, Tasmin Archer, Genesis, The Cure, Erasure, Simply Red (1993)
BRUCE’S GUEST NIGHT: with Jack Dee, Shakespears Sister, Larry Hagman, Leslie Grantham (1992)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Shakespears Sister, Indigo Girls, Mary Chapin Carpenter (1992)
T•F•I• FRIDAY: with Cher, Ronald Fraser, George Best, Tim Booth and the Bad Angel, Nigel Kennedy, Shakespears Sister, Sleeper, Louise Wener (1996)
TOM JONES: THE RIGHT TIME: with EMF, Erasure, Shakespears Sister (1992)
Yes, *eight* weeks at number 1 for this – an incredible total – but in my mind, justified. It’s bizarre to think that there was no movie tie-in, no charity donation or anything to help the long run at the top, people simply kept buying it because they liked the song, something extremely rare for big sellers of the last twenty years. It also climbed back to #12 in November 2010 after being covered on The X Factor, which cements its power really.
Still too early for me to remember from the time, this was another
#1 I discovered in the early 2000s, and it was new enough for me that Siobhan’s intervention still caught me by surprise. A simple gimmick, but it works.
Rave Watch: Oh my good grief. During the eight weeks ‘Stay’ was #1 we had all these peak:
Opus III – It’s A Fine Day (#5)
New Atlantic – I Know (#12)
Liquid – Sweet Harmony (#15)
And two of the most ridiculously epic, OTT yet greatest tracks not only of 1992, but all time:
Praga Khan – Injected With A Poison (#16)
KLF – America: What Time Is Love? (#4)
Nothing that rose to #2 is as good as this though.
#9 four other 90s ‘Stay’s off the top of my head: Eternal, Lisa Loeb (& Nine Stories), Bernard Butler and Kenny Thomas.
This was always a great record.
#11 I’ll disagree there (and I know I won’t be alone in doing so) – Shanice’s ‘I Love Your Smile’ and Ce Ce Peniston’s ‘Finally’ were unfortunately denied by this anthem’s needless persistence (apparently selling as few as between 10-30,000 copies in its final weeks…sorry no citation just my not-entirely-reliable memory there).
Absolutely great. Beautiful, menacing, haunting: what more could you want? An unexpected thing of joy at the time, too, given that while Shakespear’s Sister had put out some more than passably decent material previously (and Marcella Detroit’s voice was evidently already out of this world), nothing, quite hinted at the carefully controlled power (and its timely release) demonstrated on this track.
The strange thing it has in common with the Wet Wet Wet monstrosity of tedium that we were discussing recently is that “Stay”, too, was the follow up to a flop single (OK in the case of the Wets there were two) that had been intended to kick-start the group’s new album. (“Goodbye Cruel World”, no 59 in October ’91 – but reached no 32 on re-release later in ’92). In meaner times, maybe the group would have been dropped by their label, and “Stay” might never have seen the light of day…
@12 thanks – hmm, don’t know any of those except eternal (though i might if i heard them). and i had forgotten the very existence of kenny thomas, despite him being me and my friends’ number one laughter/hate figure at the time – i now remember foolishly leaving my school bag unattended one time and returning to discover an intricately designed and very large kenny thomas logo had been added to the band names i’d marker penned on it. (i think i retaliated with a c&c music factory logo on the perpetrator’s bag, though in retrospect they were probably better than most of what was on there seriously).
For me this is the first 90s sounding number 1, shame we had to wait 2 years for it
Thumbs up from me also. I always thought SS (mainly Siobhan) were a little magpie-ish. “Goodbye Cruel World” (Siobhan’s and Marcella’s Davis/Crawford exchange notwithstanding) strip-mines Bowie, for instance.
“Stay” however, came from another place. And the video throws into sharp relief, the life vs death argument that Sir Terry Pratchett re-ignited last week. Although Siobhan’s turn as DEATH is somewhat more vampish and glamorous than Sir Terry’s puzzled Grim Reaper of the Discworld.
The pale white duo adding a little gothic glamour to the charts, may have been welcome at first, but 8 weeks in…? At the time, it felt like the guest who wouldn’t leave the party. And there were plenty of party tunes that #11 above has mentioned.
Now, with the benefit of distance, the song is quite a joy, with Marcella Detroit’s ever so fragile plaintive pleas, framing that devastating bridge. A New Pop power ballad indeed.
Re 9: Bleedin’ cheek!
There was Stay by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs in 1960, covered by The Hollies (1963) and Jackson Browne (1978).
And another by Barry Manilow in ’82.
Otherwise, they’re all post SS: Eternal got to no.4 with one I can’t remember; Sash got to no.2 (again, can’t remember). Also Mica Paris, Stephen Gately, 60 ft Dolls, 18 Wheeler… prob more…
flahr listens to “Stay” for the first time:
“what. this is awful. come on, look at the cover, look at the names, this is SUPPOSED to be a goth-rock stomp by Bananarama and instead it’s-”
*song turns into a goth-rock stomp by Bananarama*
“oh alright fair enough”
The “I’ll go anywhere with you, just wrap me up in chains” line always struck me as odd.
Anybody ever tried to segue this with Athlete’s “Wires”?
19: And there’s ‘Stay’ by the Controllers from mid-80s – used to know a girl who had it (and Unique Three ‘The Theme’)as her favourite records of all time – a friend of mine used to ask everyone that question (ie whats your best tune?) back in the day and I sadly remember a load of them 20 years later! – don’t know if that ‘Stay’ was a a pop hit though.
“I’ll go anywhere with you, just wrap me up in chains” <— paging carmody in a dream!
I’m another who appreciates this much more now than I did at the time. It’s a striking, theatrical single which is surprisingly strong stuff when you listen to the words (In the silence of your room/in the darkness of your dream/you must only think of me/there can be no in-between). A fair point at #5 Bryan Adams had made us less charitable towards those pitching a long erm.. stay at number 1 and as it turned out 1992 was one of those rare years with no single-week chart-toppers so little did we know by the end of the decade this kind of hit would increasingly be in a minority.
Back to the matter in hand. It’s true Shakespears Sister would be widely mocked (the good girl/bad girl angle was certainly an open goal for French & Saunders) but then so were the Pet Shop Boys at one point. It’s often proof that an image is strong enough when it becomes vulnerable to parody. Also this was a memorable video, rather haunting even to those of a certain age. It held your attention not least because Siobhan actually looked pretty foxy in the sci-fi Ice Queen/glam vamp/goth temptress outfit enough to show up a rather simpering and clingy Marcella.
Also: Emo did mean something in 1992, as old-skool ilxor Colin M33der (= “the inventor of emo”) sometimes ruefully acknowledged…
Despite the prolonged exposure, I never listened to what the song is about. The story I picked up from the video was about someone in a coma, and the STAY was a plea for them to stay alive. Or something. Perhaps subconsciously I was mixing up shakespears sister/girlfriend in a coma
A fine, fine record, and it was refreshing that something so original and dramatic could spend so long at the top. Incidentally, I remember Mike on “Troubled Diva” reviewing a Duffy gig at a modest venue in Nottingham while “Mercy” was number one (come on, the bunny’s irrelevant at this remove!) and praising Duffy for fulfilling the gig when her management could have pressed for something a lot bigger given that she was number one. During “Stay’s” reign, Shakespears Sister played the decidedly modest Subterania (formerly Acklam Hall) in west London, and the newspaper review said it was possibly the smallest venue a current number one act had ever played. Any other contenders you can think of?
I’m sure Emo did mean something to us by then – we’d already seen Emo Phillips, one of a large number of American standups introduced to us by the Des O’Connor show (strange as that might sound now). I remember the line that grabbed me on his first appearance: “I’m a great lover … I bet.”
Its longevity at the top definitely was a problem for me at the time – it was only when I heard it again six months after it had departed the charts that I found myself remembering that it was an extraordinarily powerful record.
Given the resurgence in popularity of “Stay” post X Factor, you really would hope that SS were due a bit of a revival. They had a number of other tracks which, whilst not quite up to the standards of “Stay”, certainly sailed close. I even liked their much-maligned (and barely purchased) comeback single “I Can Drive”. Siobhan Fahey was (is) an interesting pop star as well, somebody who clearly had an extraordinarily keen sense of image and style which ran rather contrary to the mainstream whilst somehow getting accepted by it. I can’t help but think that she should have done a lot more with her career than she’s managed.
Some accounts suggest the song was constructed by the duo as two separate pieces, to highlight their respective abilities and attitudes – never consciously in the first instance, but with one half written the other then had to offer a counterpoint. This certainly supports the idea that whatever faith the listener invests in any one meaning, that faith is never completely repaid. Whether true or not, it succeeds completely and utterly in showcasing how good the two halves were, although they only had synergy with this and You’re History. Stay is always beautiful, beguiling and for my money slightly too short.
#3 Siobhan Fahey, surely? It may be true of Siobhan Donaghy, but…
#27 is no less an interpretation of what the song is about than any other – see above.
#11 8 weeks at number one for a record that wasn’t a film tie in – amazingly the first SINCE Two Tribes and the last before…Bunny alert.
#14 I don’t know if I’d’ve ever remembered the issue about low sales, but looking back at the facts and figures, it’s certainly true – average sales for a number one in the first quarter of 1992 were very, very low indeed and only 3 records can be blamed – this and the preceding two.
You can’t blame the record, it sold as much as it could…
The top sellers on each format for week ending 11/04/1992, its last week at number 1:
7″: (the next number 1) (#2)
12″: Altern 8 – Evapor 8 (#10)
CD: Annie Lennox – Why (#5)
Cassette: Shakespear’s Sister – Stay (#1)
It sold 28,000 across all formats that week, a couple hundred behind the next number 1 at #2. There’s been weeks with lower sales than that since (late 2004 to mid 2008 especially) but it’s still a pretty dire total. The mid-2000s slump was blamed on illegal downloading, the idea of legal downloads yet to catch on…so why wasn’t anyone buying singles in 1992? Were they buying Super Nintendos and Sega Mega Drives instead?
The vid. reminded me of the feel of Powell and Pressburger’s films (long an inspiration for K. Bush of course). Siobhan F kind of combines the demonic shoemaker in Red Shoes with Sister Ruth from Black Narcissus, which is brilliant obviously. I just checked wiki and *it* says that the vid. is inspired by Cat-women of the the moon (1953), which is v. hard to believe beyond the basic lunar setting
Anyhow, this was a solid top-5 hit in the US (where I was at the time) rather than a top-of-the-chart hogging monster, so it never felt like anything other than a real breath o’ fresh air to me. And let’s all try to remember the first few times we heard the song or saw the vid: I honestly remember feeling the top of my head lift off slightly when Siob. F. enters and the beat starts. I’m pretty sure I let fly with an expletive. I was so surprised I almost couldn’t believe it. Of course, it’s a stunt, just like having Trinity hover in the air then run around the walls then arc over the streets between buildings at the beginning of the Matrix is (there are lots of other movie cases). But these kinds of liminal moments in pop, founded in novelty and surprise are a thing of beauty I reckon. They’re hard to evaluate in any objective way because the world moves on: the surprise is lost, what was novel becomes commonplace, etc.. But in my books Stay is a well-played:
9
Been lurking here from across the pond for six months now. I figured now was as good as a time as any for my first post, as this is both my all-time favorite song, as well as (not coincidentally) about the time I started following the UK charts after starting to lose interest in Billboard in the early Soundscan era.
I still remember the first time I heard this. It’s hard to put a finger on why I like it so much. I guess it’s just the all-around epic feel of it combining the two different extremes as has already talked about here. Interestingly I never saw the famous video until around 2000 when I found it online.
Here in the US, it took a while to get going on the charts, and I was actually afraid it might flop, but it ultimately peaked at #4. Sadly it seems to be almost completely forgotten in the US since and I haven’t heard it on the radio in years.
I already said this is my all-time favorite song, so obviously a 10 from me.
It’s a funny thing, if I’d had last.fm scrobbling my whole life, Shakespeare’s Sister could well be my number one overall artist, though I’ve barely listened to them since 1994. I was 12 years old in 1992 and my connection to the world of music was almost exclusively Top Of The Pops and the Top 40 on Radio One, so I had plenty of time to absorb this song – enough that its initial impact is utterly lost to me. I bought the single, got the album for my birthday and played it at least once a day (and often more) for the next year. I taped TV appearances, cheered on the other songs from Hormonally Yours and was very dissapointed when they failed to have the same impact. In the context of the album ‘Stay’ doesn’t even stand out that much. It’s different, yes, but not neccecarily better – my favourite part of the tape was always the opening 1-2 of Goodbye Cruel World and I Don’t Care.
What I failed to appreciate at the time (but which seems glaringly obvious now) is how the song which got me into the band was also the song that would destroy them. Largely written by Marcella, and featuring her lead vocal, it created the image of her as the band leader, with Siobhan as dead weight, coasting on the coat-tails of Marcella’s talent. The worst example of this was the sketch on The Mary Whitehouse Experience with Siobhan’s voice replaced by a foghorn and David Baddiel as Marcella saying “what do I pay you for exactly?” This annoyed the 12-year-old me very much indeed. Didn’t they know SS was Siobhan’s band? Didn’t they know this was the only song with Marcella on lead vocal? And she sounded nothing like a foghorn! As an adult (of sorts) now the “Marcella good Siobhan bad” idea still looks willfully stupid. The song would sound weightless and sappy without the “dark” section building to the climax. Marcella wasn’t more talented, she just had a more trained voice and a much greater range, but her place was to add elaborate frills to Siobhan’s character and ideas. It shouldn’t be a competition of course, but in the end it had to be. Marcella hired a manager who demanded she take a 50% stake in the band, Siobhan had a breakdown and checked into a psyciatric unit, and that was that. Marcella’s subsequent output was workmanlike and competent (with a few black marks like her cameo in a certain bunnied TV-spinoff novelty single), while Siobhan has kept making interesting enough left-field pop music of varying sorts. I moved on to Kingmaker, sorry.
What I’m not sure of is how well ‘Stay’ has aged. Certainly it’s still a great song, but is the orchestration a little OTT? The guitars a bit too much? The song’s so familiar to me that there’s no way I can tell. What I’m sure of is that the last minute or so has the same powerful sweep, a hysterical emotional climax without histrionics, and I haven’t heard anything that’s matched it on its own terms in the near twenty (!) years since. For that reason, in addition to personal ones, it’s got to be a 10 for me.
A song that got lots of US airplay at the time — everyone accepted its power — but has since vanished without a trace. I can’t separate its impact from Sophie B. Hawkins’ “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,” another top ten from the summer of ’92: same kind of unhinged feminine lust, as if their makers had updated “Running Up That Hill” for the nineties.
#32 Great stats, Billy Hicks, more more more! Is this from inside the industry or outsider research?
Just reading the phrase “Were they buying Super Nintendos and Sega Mega Drives instead” gave me a giddy nostalgic buzz, not for my own experience but of the rise of those machines – and (yawny, yawny, hobby horse again) – “Did you see TOTP last night?” was usurped as the conversation in the queue for the tea trolley by the likes of “Have far have you got on Alex Kidd?” (Even I realise this is more Master System than Mega Drive).
Seriously though, nobody was buying that much of anything and the principal cause was the recession. It’s easy to overlook this, and whilst I try to keep this apolitical I realise that already the full impact and depth of the recession is becoming hard to comprehend because it did not lead to a change in Government at the time of the General Election. Since other Bad Times had obviously precipitated changes in Government, it’s therefore easier for students of social history to imagine (and indeed argue) that it wasn’t so bad, and to chortle in a semi-ironic way at those who claim otherwise. (It’s altogether harder for students of economic history to do so).
I hadn’t heard this song for ages, so I thought (considering Tom’s review made me want to reinvestigate) I’d check out the video.
Aaaaanyway, what struck me is that (a) I’d always half-remembered it as a hell of a lot longer and (b) perhaps it should be a hell of a lot longer.
My basic perception of it, soundwise, is that it all goes along quite nicely, an edge of melodrama and then – bang – really weird middle-eight bit…but that (really rather good) middle-eight over and done with, the song just goes ‘erk, dunno where to go now’ and just fizzles out. Which is a shame, as it could have used the middle-eight to go really bloody over the top (in a good way, of course).
I think I’ll give it 7.
Yes, agree w/the people who are saying it’s too short – not many singles (especially in the 90s) you can say that about.
The reason, or one of the reasons why there were no changes in government around this time, was largely down to the fact we “caught the cold” relatively later than other countries. Black Monday occurred in 1987, and although there were relative shockwaves on the global markets at the time, LSE was largely insulated from the US Savings & Loan crisis which meant that re-stabilisation was quicker in a de-regulated market. As a result, London became the go-to place to do business. The only problem was that no marketplace is immune from financial contagion, bearing in mind that hedge-funds and derivatives were a fairly unknown and niche area of investment activity, so when we caught the cold, we caught it big with a massive increase in unemployment (300,000 shy of Thatcher’s 3.2m in 1982), and all that talk of Boom & Bust. I’m simplifying things here, but after the early ’90s recession. The growth in hedge funds and the money their managers were making was pretty much a game changer for the markets, especially here in the UK. A deregulated city meant that UHNW/non-dom investors could feel safe to do business in London without having a massive tax burden. The other factor is the fact that Kinnock was not an attractive propsition as Prime Minister, despite having a clearly more attractive manifesto.
Not a “fact” but an assertion. Please be more careful with your choice of words.
Kinnock reduced a three-figure Tory parliamentary majority to 17 in the ’92 election; he did extremely well to bring Labour back into the ranks of the would-be electable – it’s just a pity that he didn’t quite convince enough of the floating voters to go his way, most of whom shrugged their shoulders and decided to give the “new boy” (Major) more of a chance to prove himself. A good thing, too, as it turned out, since Kinnock would otherwise have been blamed for the Euromess that eventually brought Major’s government down.
This one definitely earns points for ambition and for not being afraid to look a little silly. I was too young when it came out to fully appreciate how odd it was for a song like this to be number one at all, let alone for so long. I do understand why people here respond so favourably to it.
But for me, no amount atmospheric phased vocals and synth pads can make up for the dreary, unbearably slow-moving melodies of the verses and chorus – Detroit’s melismas seem to me a conscious effort to add a little variety to all the repetive phrases. In fact, with little tune to work with and hardly any polysyllables, she tries hard to get something out of it and kind of succeeds. Though of course, if she was the author of that part of the song, she made the rod for her own back!
Fahey’s intervention does enliven things somewhat but the whole enterprise feels bolted together and it’s just all so slow and dragging. A three, maybe a four for ambition.
I’m genuinely, genuinely surprised that there hasn’t by this point been an exceptionaly angry rant about the mid-80s origins of emo. Has Google been switched off or something?
#28 – By no means a small venue, but I saw post-“Where Is The Love” Black Eyed Peas being almost completely ignored by a half-full NEC Arena, supporting Christina Aguilera but having been bizarrely under-advertised. I don’t think most of the people there had the first idea who they were.
#41 Point noted. Scrub “the fact” and replace with “perhaps”.
re:41 At last someone has said it. How lovely it would be if all those who claim Peter Mandleson single-handedly made Labour electable would look back slightly further than 1994 (which as all good Blairites know is when history started).
#35 and #42 – I really should have said in my comment that the negative element for me on this record (making it a 7 rather than an 8) is Marcella’s ridiculously flamboyant vocal tics throughout. So I don’t agree that they add something to the song, rather, they’re a distraction from its strengths. There again, I have never really been a fan of over-showy vocal performances. If your voice is good, that will be apparent to the listener without adding little falsetto trills and operatic scales into the mix.
re: 33
I wondered briefly if the wiki writer had got confused and was thinking of Murnau’s Die Frau im Mond, but actually — based on high-speed scanning reacquaintance — that doesn’t seem very like it either. But Fahey’s acting style really is like someone stepping out of a B/W German Expressionist film from the mid-20s into a Powell and Pressburger lush and mannered colourfield, or maybe out of Aelita
I’d say it’s more out of Valentine Dyall.
eg from Murnau’s Nosferatu:
The video is a clash between styles and thus perspectives just the way the song is: her strange fast flicker between amusement and anger is what reminded me of Expressionism, I think, as much as the oodles of eyeliner. Plus I only just saw Aelita for the first time a few weeks ago.
Valentine Dyall was actually in a B/W Powell and Pressburger, if not more than one: though he’s more famous these days for the Goon Show and Doctor Who.
Hey, they were no Alisha’s Attic
