PETER ANDRE – "Flava"

He came to my school and sang in assembly.

No. He shouted ‘get up and dance!’
No-one got up and danced.

Even at the time, Peter Andre seemed something of a one-hit wonder – maybe the previous entry had blasted away all opposition in the playground, but I really have no memory of anything other than Mysterious Girl from this period (can’t recall if it would be bunnied or not, but his ‘comeback’ single much later still lingers unwanted in the grey matter.)

It’s strange to think back, now that he’s a fixture of the ITV2 reality TV circuit, that he was first and foremost a musical act before finding a longer lasting career as a man so drearily placid and happy-go-lucky (whilst also somewhat slightly bemused by life). Giving this song a quick go on YouTube though, and it’s pretty evident why this one’s faded from the memory. Very boring song that whose cheap production must have sounded outdated even at the time, a truly woeful rap section – was it a legal requirement that one of these be included in all his singles at this point? – and, as pointed out quite accurately above, the boasting of the song is much too try-hard and just smothers the already flimsy track. To give him his due, Andre seems aware that nobody, least of all himself, is being fooled by the hard boy act.

A 2 here, only because worse is to come this year…

I had to remind myself how this one went. A quick YouTube confirmed my suspicions, that it was “Flava” that almost but not quite ripped off “This Is How We Do It”, before running off on a tangent of 90’s R&B mediocrity. What a handsome young lad he looks in the video.

The Bunny prevents me from discussing the far superior single off “Natural” that peaked at #2 in May 1996 (thank you Chris Moyles).

the video and the song remind me why I get so bored and irritable at the beach – but I suspect that the image of carefree sun soaked lifestyle sold this for some

Andre, hence this track in particular, is new to me. Terrible vocal, verses OK (though probably sonically dated as others have stressed), choruses a mess, feature rap completely stock, Miami-wannabe video embarrassing. So, 2 or 3. (Checking charts now, I’m surprised to learn that Andre had two previous #1s in NZ with ‘Mysterious Girl’ and ‘Get Down On It’. ‘Flava’, however, only got to #8.)

Erm, I quite like it. It’s fun, and yeah, not a patch on Mysterious Bunny but a mildly entertaining few minutes all the same. It’s on my iPod and I’ll generally listen to at least the first minute of it before skipping. I’d go as far as five and a half markwise for this, *just* above average but I can’t bring myself to give it a 6.

A friend of mine who went with me to see the [BUNNIED UNTIL 1999] Comeback Show at the O2 in 2012 suddenly randomly remembered this song on the way out, while searching her brain for other childhood nostalgia acts. The conversation went as follows:

Her: “Peter Andre!”
Me: “Oh yeah, Mysterious Girl?”
Her: “No, the other one!”

That’s about the only memory I have with this song.

#11 I dunno, I was aware that there was a Peter Andre track called Flava, and having heard it recently I can just about imagine the way he sings Flava*. On the other hand I only recollected in the abstract that Gary Barlow tripped over his feet on his first single, and having heard it 2-3 times in the last week, I still forgot its name in the pub on Sunday.

#15 I think this chart should probably help with the ruling. Of course it won’t be exactly the focus of attention when we get to entry #973.

* Having listened to it again again I am amused at the idea that the rent-a-rapper was picked because of his ability (and willingness!) to refer to him in the appropriate accent as ‘Dre – records of how many rushed out to buy Straight Outta Compton are unfortunately unavailable at time of going to press.

I didn’t remember this, so went to Youtube. I didn’t exactly have an open mind, as I saw that the video was 4 mins long and my heart sank. If it had been 3:30, I’d have probably been OK with that – the fact that 30 seconds made that much difference to my opening impression doesn’t speak well for me I guess.

As pointed out elsewhere, musically this seems a bit of a throwback to the early 90s US scene. This song might have been OK had it been married to a better singer. Seems like a missed opportunity as a result – 3 seems fair. It’s also, already, a bit of a throwback for who is doing it too though. The Spice Girls have come to wipe away pretty boys with inadequate voices (certainly as solo artists). Looking at the list for the rest of the decade, no male solo artist resting solely on his image (in my opinion) manages to get to #1 and it’s certainly my recollection that there were fewer of these sorts of acts in general post Spice than pre (though my memory may be faulty).

#16: From that link, Peter Andre did a song featuring Warren G and Coolio? I know what I am going to be listening to soon (though I may regret it).

Two more thoughts after having done some research:

Blimey Marcello. I try not to spoil TPL but I wound up at the wiki page for the parent album for this. It knocked K by Kula Shaker off #1 in the album chart. Those are going to be two interesting entries back to back.

“All Night, All Right” is actually OK but more because of what it leaves out than what it puts in, I think. It’s 3:30 long and Peter Andre doesn’t sing at all on the opening nor final 30 seconds of the track. He doesn’t sing the chorus (which is a stronger hook than anything on Flava – which I have forgotten already having listened to it only at breakfast this morning) only providing interjections over his backing singers. Warren G takes over the middle of the record for about 30-40 seconds. It very efficiently minimises its weaker elements – i.e. Peter Andre and his voice – to probably less than half the run time of an already reasonably short record. I can only imagine the high fives being doled out behind the mixing desk by the producers once this one had gone into the can. About the only thing I can’t detect is any Coolio, so I don’t know how he got a credit. Further investigation of Wiki reveals that the parent album of this song had other tracks featuring Montell Jordan and The Refugee Camp All Stars – they clearly wanted to give him a push in the USA, which obviously must have failed. A mildly diverting start to the day.

26: I don’t know about that – at the top of the charts maybe but the industry in the mid-90s did seem to be trying to get some of these sorts of guys off the ground. You’ve got people like Kavana and Adam Rickitt as well as Peter Andre (though some of these might be later 90s at a guess). They even tried to get the actor John Alford a singing career at one point. Peter Andre was definitely the most successful of these blokes but I remember them all being in my sister’s Bliss/Sugar magazines and the ilk.

This is an unusual one in that the #1 isn’t actually the song most people remember, and in fact I totally forgot about this song during the years I had mentally filed him away under One Hit Wonder.

In my mind this is a kind of proto-Backstreet Boys or 5ive track but I honestly don’t think I’ve heard it in at least 15 years.

The most positive thing I can say about this is that I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. That said, it’s still pretty bad. A very generous 3/10.

The most amusing thing for me was the St. Louis Blues jersey he’s wearing in the video. If you want to establish your North American street cred with a “Big Four” sports jersey, the NHL’s (and by extension the Big Four’s) least valuable franchise is about as uncool as you can get. The only exception being a certain 2000’s rapper who’s actually from St. Louis, and even he’s better off going with the Cardinals or the Rams.

My friend Dave’s daughter, to whom I alluded in the Three Lions thread, had a brief relationship with Peter Andre (just checked, it’s a matter of record so no harm done) – and I can exclusively reveal that Dave told me that beneath that bodybuilder’s figure and six-pack there lurked … a really nice guy.

As I’m reading some of these comments I’m reminded of the Doctor Who monsters called The Silence, whose unique scary point is that once you look away from them you immediately forget all about them – perhaps they were inspired by some 1996 number ones?

Wichita – Fabian! Barely remembered here I guess, his name only rings a bell with me because of a Radio Luxembourg fan annual interview in which he said his unusual hobby was collecting two-minute tapes of himself in conversation with the really big stars, from Elvis on down. Just looked at his Wiki and chuckled at the phrase “Fabian testified before Congress that his recordings had been doctored electronically to “significantly improve his voice”. (He had a bit part in “The Longest Day” too.)

Indie Record Shop Bloke’s view:

This was an independently distributed number one (on Mushroom, an Australian label who also had Garbage on their books at the time).

This at a time where the definition of ‘indie’ was being stretched in multiple directions – Creation was half-owned by Sony by the time Oasis started their run of chart-toppers, and indeed the Mancunians were quietly signed to Sony direct then licensed back, I believe. XL had recently landed a number one single (and would do so again, not long from now on Popular).

It was round about this point that there was an acceleration of label acquisitions – EMI had bought Virgin a couple of years prior, and PolyGram (as was) picked up Geffen, MCA and Island in short order.

Whilst still a long way away from today’s near-duopoly – Universal and Sony, with Warner some way behind and the rest relatively tiny – the label structure was already contracting. There *will* be more indie number ones, one in particular around the turn of the decade which may come as a bit of a surprise – but that’s for another time.

Oh, “Flava”? Shit sandwich. 2.

Andre’s other obvious ancestor that no one’s mentioned yet ( apologies if I’ve missed it ) is Nick Kamen.

Neighbours also used ‘Bury Me Deep In Love’ by the Triffids as incidental music in the episode of Harold and Madge’s wedding and my CD copies of Triffids albums bought in the 90s are labelled as ‘Mushroom Mid-Price Masters’ so I assume these two facts are connected (although the single was released by Island in the UK, according to Wiki). The end credits of Neighbours certainly used to credit Mushroom Recordings as suppliers of music.

I can vaguely remember the hook of this Peter Andre single and the general plastic R&B feel of the backing track but little else. My memory of Tony Di Bart is positively vibrant compared to this one.

Much like Tom discussed Swap Shop Pop as a genre when reviewing Kelly Marie ages and ages ago, most of the mid-nineties pop like this I only know because it appeared on Saturday morning TV, Radio 1 at that point barely touching this kind of stuff (though I remember Sean Maguire complaining at the time that not even Capital were playing his records because they were too lightweight and MOR).

My abiding memory of this song, therefore, is of Andre’s appearance on short-lived ITV Saturday morning programme Wow because there was a power cut in the studio on the day he appeared. It was back on by the end of the show so he was able to perform but the first hour had to be presented from the studio car park and meant they had to show the video to it in full as well to fill a gap where a feature had to be abandoned, so it got particularly heavy exposure that morning.

Perhaps the biggest revelation to most about Peter Andre in 1996 was the fact he wasn’t an Aussie soap-star from Neighbours or Home and Away trying their hand at pop.

#32 I think the St. Louis Blues shirt is more to do with the winged-note logo than the actual team.

Re 47: Totally agree. It feels like he must have come from somewhere else like a TV show, or an advert. Even as a “manufactured” pop star, he was put together pretty shoddily.

But then, not so shoddily that it didn’t work – we are discussing Peter Andre here, and not Cleopatra (shame).

With Flava hot on the heels of Forever Love, neither of which is really a song but merely gives the impression of sounding like a professional approximation of a genre, I think we’re in a new era.*

I’m kind of looking forward to his next entry as I have NO MEMORY OF IT AT ALL which I think is a personal Popular first.

*this sounds a little clunky, sorry. But I’m worried there are plenty more examples to follow.

Re 49. Maybe Pete IS throwing a dinner party. Big flavas. Greg Wallace is gonna be there.