BREAKFAST OF BANALITY 7: ALL SAINTS – Black Coffee & Lady Marmalade
Without a doubt one of the most hateful bands ever for recording not one, but two breakfast themed records. It was a happy day round Headon Towers when this West London girl-group gave up and threw in the rag. A girl group of transatlantic foolishness which could only have come together in that hellish hive of media arse-wankery that is Notting Hill – the band named themselves All Saints as an obvious attempt to try and distract attention from how diabolical they were. They were marketed as the credible answer to the Spice Girls, which was like saying Ian was the credible one out of the Krankies.
I’ve attacked the Moulin Rouge version of Lady Marmalade before – and at least the All Saints version does not make the error of thinking the word is pronounced Marma-Lard. It instead makes the error of being frighteningly bland, and their second cover version in a row to show that their songwriting skills were not quite up to scratch. But then what do you expect from the illegitimate offspring of Anastasia and a woman who has a sofa for a mouth. Black Coffee was at least an original composition, just one which lacked the basic understanding of song composition in as much as it is never a good idea to end with the intro. It was also lyrically complete guff “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here” they sing – and then they promptly split up – never ever to sing together again. Yay!