BLUE – "If You Come Back"

I think until this point Blue had some shred of credibility for being in some way an R&B act and not simply a boyband, but this insipid grab-bag of borrowed ideas surely put paid to that. It’s barely even superior to Westlife.

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Yup.

4.

This is as good as Blue got – the usual macho posturing was toned down a bit, they remembered to add a tune (and a different tune from their usual one, which got several iterations under different names, at that), the beats aren’t aggressively intrusive, and there is an actual verse-chorus song, with a chorus that is more of a repetitive chant here, too.

The case against: Oh the vocalising is a bit whiny and it’s pedestrian – – even if not, mostly, in an unpleasant way. The way the vocal is shared between the singers doesn’t help with creating empathy or any sense that the singers feel whatever meaning the lyrics could potentially have , and doesn’t always sounds quite right – oh it’s suburban disco stuff for sure. And then it fades out…

Yeah, I feel I am damning with faint praise, but as wallpaper radio or (perhaps more so) car radio music goes, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this. If I had to hear one track by Blue, it would be this one, beyond any shadow of a doubt. I’ll give it a (6), the mark of inoffensiveness.

Isn’t there an elephant in the room? If You Come Back is merely a fourth generation photocopy of Back For Good, with – as Tom mentions – a bit of crayoned-in I Swear to make its origins less obvious.

I’m always prepared to believe any age is somebody’s “golden age”, and I do find Too Close and the next Blue bunny amusing in their ridiculousness, but the thin gruel of If You Come Back surely can’t bring back heartwarming memories for anyone, no one at all.

Re 6: Passable originals getting gazumped by weak covers is something that crops up with depressing regularity around this time. Though calling If You Come Back an original is really stretching the meaning of the word.

If you come back

If you come

If you

If…

(3)

Blue better than One Direction, I love them so much. U Make Me Wanna don’t know why, but I just love this song http://lyricsmusic.name/blue-lyrics/one-love/u-make-me-wanna.html

Think I prefer it to S Club’s Have You Ever, so a 4/10 from me.