LISA STANSFIELD – "All Around The World"

I watched the video of this yesterday and had it pegged as a 5 or 6, but halfway through another watch just now I realised for the first time that, actually, I really like this song, in particular the emotion in Lisa’s performance and the way the whole thing builds. As I’ve been writing this I’ve realised that yesterday’s video was 2 minutes 17 seconds, and today’s was 4 minutes 18 seconds. Perhaps that accounts for the ‘slow build’ thing.

I think the song is someway less than the sum of its parts (in some ways, her I prefer her earlier solo single, “This Is The Right Time”, which is unapologetically lightweight) ; and I have been considering why that might be.

She’s a decent enough singer, she puts in a commendable performance here, the tune has some kind of direction and shape; all these things are in place. But somehow this is a little bland, airport music or wallpaper, essentially, albeit good airport music or wallpaper; closer to Cathay Pacific than Ryanair, closer to that company run by George Osborne’s family than B&Q.

Ultimately, I think the real problem is the lyrics. They aren’t the only flaw (the orchestration is adequate rather than outstanding), but they are the most fundamental one. They don’t work. Especially not in the chorus. She’s been all around the world, looking for her baby? Errr…no she hasn’t.

Whereas Paul Weller could get away with “I’ve been all around the world, looking for YOU!”…because it implied the searching for an (initially unspecified, and initially unknown) object of affection (whom as such, one could say he had been long seeking), and then its finding, Stansfield is singing of a lost love, whom she hasn’t patently gone to Beijing, Venice or Vancouver to attempt to find again. Not even in those pre-internet days did that sound plausible. Nor still metaphorically does the image work.

And “I’ve been wandering every back street of Rochdale, looking for you” would sound both naff and more than a little bit stalkerish. (Not that that would be any bar to late 80s hitdom).

So the chorus is silly. Lyrically too much, and perhaps melodically an anticlimax. There are some beautiful bits of tune in “All around the world”, even in the chorus, but it all doesn’t fit together properly.

I think it’s another case of an artist getting to no 1 with a song that is clearly not their best (even if somewhat better than mediocre in this case). “All Woman” would rate an 8 in my book (good story telling, substance too), and the sultry, silky, sensual “Time To Make You Mine” quite possibly a 9.

So, then, I guess this will be a seven from me. It’s OK.

Of course, today most would remember this song for Notorious BIG, and I do have to say that “Been Around the World” is better than this one.

For the curious, the US Number One at the time was “When I See You Smile” by Bad English.

It’s a bit painful that this got to #1 while swing out sister, ebtg, patti labelle’s On my Own, even abc going back a bit never did. Still, amidst all the SAW-dust and Bunnies and charity records of the year, it’s hard to complain too much, and certainly 5 strikes me as harsh. Tom’s right that there are some lyrical fuzzies here, but the chords/changes are interesting, Lisa S. flies through every vocal test, the rest of the backing’s solid or better, and a good vid to boot…it’s a, oh why not:
7

Literal, maybe. But it still goes to undermine the plausibility of the song (as do the other infelicities and careless inconsistencies that Tom identifies in the main post), not least as the verses and overall tone don’t build up a picture of a character prone to exaggeration, or of an unreliable narrator. And when you’ve only got three minutes to play with, you can’t make a slip like that at the climactic point of the song.

She had a pretty unusual look (the hair! Betty Boop indeed) that felt more like a hangover from the early 80s to me. Apparently “this is the right time” to capitalise on the burgeoning market for slick-stringed big-voiced Soul-based songs over modern beats (altho there was still a fair bit of retro going on e.g. Sam Brown). Did she get compared to Moyet much? This isn’t bad but it all just feels a bit too glossy, esp. with killer tunes like ‘Got To Have Your Love’ and ‘Tell Me When The Fever Ended’ hoving into view. ‘People Hold On’ still ace tho, and as Chevolek says her first solo hit retains an understated charm.

My grandad was born in Rochdale circa 1887 (we sprog late in our family) but I’ve never been able to find a birth certificate for him. After much delving I’ve concluded that he might have been born under a different name, and the man I thought of as his father might just have been a bigamist. So I’ll not hear anything said against “our Lisa” – depending on how much great-grandad put it about, she could be family!

Besides, she’s the heroine of the piece here, with a terrific vocal performance full of conviction on a slightly under-heated song – Tom nailed it nicely, but the lyrics never seemed convincing to me either. Nice atmosphere to the production, too. Other bit of trivia – Stansfield is Gracie Fields’ real surname, thus linking Rochdale’s biggest musical celebrities.

You’ve got sun-drenched summer hits. You’ve even got the occasionally chilly-sounding winter hit (and no, they’re not all about Christmas). This is a rare example of an ‘autumn hit’. A feeling when listening that the year’s coming to an end, almost as if you can feel the nights getting darker, colder, and hear the leaves falling as she sings. An added poignancy with this one, as it’s the end of a decade.

Not as big a fan of this as I once was, but the ‘I did too much lying, wasting too much time’ pre-chorus still has a spark for me. Very much a transitionary record into the forthcoming 1990s, the likes of ‘You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You’ and other Stock/Aitken/Waterman already feel like a lifetime ago.

It’s not bad, but nothing special either. In my mind, it sets a trend for a number of female singers exploring love and loss around the turn of the decade much more ably than Lisa manages here. There’s an obvious bunnyable Prince cover, but there are a number of future Top Tenners before the trend falls away around the fag-end of Grunge five years hence. So with hindsight, Stansfield is trumped by the likes of Tracey Thorn (who was always better at this), Tori Amos and Shara Nelson among others.

Stand alone, it’s slavishly faithful to the Barry White formula as mentioned above, but does this formula work when seduction isn’t on the menu? And can Lisa really convince she’s been around the world, with that flawlessly white complexion of hers? Been down very pit and pothole maybe.

I believe Our Gracie was a favourite on Workers’ Playtime on the BBC Light Programme, back in the days of ricketts and ration books, so my mum tells me.

Hm, the choruses are a bit more memorable than the generic set-ups of the verses. The chief autobiographical interest for me is that come the end of 1989, I’m in a very different school, having moved from a famous public school to being a sixth former in the biggest comprehensive in London. Sadly, this was not to be a story of redemptive personal transmogrification, but my innate tendency towards clinical depression really kicking in for good at this point, suicide attempts and all.

Anyway, one of the most noticeable features of my new school is the clear class and cultural divide between the two sets of pupils, Eltham kids – working class, of more conventional backgrounds and interests, harder-working – and Lewisham kids – more bohemian backgrounds, more interested in drugs. The classy stylings of ‘All Around the World’, and Lisa Stansfield’s contemporary appearance, attracted rare blanket approval from all of my school peers.

Light Entertainment Watch: Lisa Stansfield has been a regular UK TV presence;

ASPEL & COMPANY: with Bob Hoskins, Hugh Laurie, Lisa Stansfield (1991)

BRUCE’S GUEST NIGHT: with Cliff Richard, Rita Rudner, Lisa Stansfield, Pat Cash, Howard Keel (1992)

BRUCE’S GUEST NIGHT: with Jimmy Tarbuck, Lisa Stansfield, Cliff Richard (1993)

DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT: with Ken Dodd, Jackie Mason, Lisa Stansfield, Dillie Keane, Sarah Brightman, Jayne Torvill, Christopher Dean (1991)

DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT: with Neil Diamond, Ian McShane, Lisa Stansfield, Jethro (1992)

THE KRANKIES KLUB: with Jimmy Cricket, Ward Allen, Lisa Stansfield, Rocky Sharpe and the Replays (1983)

THE MRS MERTON SHOW: with Caroline Aherne, The Patrick Trio, Garry Bushell, Lisa Stansfield (1998)

NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS: with Mark Lamarr, Phill Jupitus, Bill Bailey, Jimmy Carr, Claudia Winkleman, Roisin Murphy, Lisa Stansfield (2003)

THE O ZONE: with Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Tasmin Archer (1993)

THE O ZONE: with Boyzone, Lisa Stansfield, Symposium (1997)

PARKINSON: with Jack Dee, Jools Holland, Beverley Knight, Damian Lewis, Jamie Oliver, Lisa Stansfield (2003)

SHOOTING STARS: with Mark Lamarr, Matt Lucas, David Emanuel, Judith Hann, Mark Homer, Lisa Stansfield (1997)

SUCCESS: with Lisa Stansfield, Hot Gossip, Dustin Gee (1982)

SUCCESS: with Stan Boardman, Lisa Stansfield, Robert Guillame (1982)

THE VIDEO ENTERTAINERS: with Alan Price, Stan Boardman, Poacher, Lisa Stansfield (1981)

THE VIDEO ENTERTAINERS: with Shades, Stan Boardman, Johnny More, Tony Christie, Roy Walker, Lisa Stansfield, Allan Mayes (1981)

THE VIDEO ENTERTAINERS: with Lisa Stansfield, Richard Kerr, Sunny Leslie (1982)

WOGAN: with Katerina Hocking, Sir George Solti, Lisa Stansfield (1990)

WOGAN: with Les Dawson, Lisa Stansfield, Paula Yates (1990)

WOGAN: with Michael Ball, Altovise Davis, Lisa Stansfield (1992)

THE WORD: with Alan Pillay, Lisa Stansfield, Blur (1991)

Hard to argue with the 5 score here.the typical “5” record to my ears.Another of the earliest songs I can remember but time hasnt been kind to this one im afraid to say.

Its a ballad dressed up as a dance/pop hit which doesnt fit together really.A bit middle of the road.LS looked like a bit of a clown (in the literal sense) with the image and the short hair made her look like a cut-price yazz.Certainly the video didnt have the madonna or susanna hoffs look to it.

I liked other LS songs.Poeple Hold on and this is the right time were decent enough and LS looked a lot classy in the “all woman” video.

My sister was a very big fan of Stansfield as well as Madonna and Gloria Estefan so I probably was exposed to this more as a result.

I think LS ended up living in Dublin which is very surprising giving her pop star career.

“good Soul singing”: I sort of wonder if this is at the root of why I’m not so into it – it feels a bit too classicist maybe? There have been a lot of British singers who sound like they’ve made a careful study of soul music and know all the tricks, but it’s all coming at you one step removed.

@Lex, 13. Holy crap that Puffy and Biggie record (new to me) is great. I have to confess, however, that I find it very stressful listening. I love its grooves and its timbral genius, but I almost can’t handle its appropriations of (defilings of?) other records and the hail of N-words. Dre’s great ’90s records tend/tended to stress/freak me out in the same ways. Lisa S. is, of course, the opposite of that sort of divisive, territory-marking, for-me stressful listening. I suspect that I need both sorts of music to feel whole, and that there’s no chance that one sort can ever make the other redundant. Anyhow, thanks for the reference.

#3, I do remember Lisa Stansfield doing this as a duet with Barry White, some years later.

It worked very well.

From “Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists”:

“All. Around. The. World. A saner person would have stopped in, I don’t know, Epping.”

(Anyway, a four. Very bland.)

One of those records that takes me back to a very specific time, place, and sensibility – I had moved to Barcelona from Manchester this autumn and found myself more homesick than I expected or was prepared to admit to. Lisa turned up on whatever the Spanish early evening pop programme was called, singing this & then being interviewed by the presenter – preamble in Spanish I couldn’t really follow, followed by question in heavily accented English, Lisa’s answer in broad and unmistakable Rochdale, then translation back into Spanish – an unexpected and rather lovely moment of familiarity, and I’ve felt an affection for her and the song ever since. a few weeks later a flatmate’s boyfriend arrived from Scotland and sniffed, unimpressed, that something called Madchester had apparently taken over Top of the Pops and the world

..Coming back to (and rethinking) the topic of best Lisa S records….I’ve just been listening to “In All The Right Places” for the first time in years. Man, that is a seriously masterful piece of soul. Everything comes together perfectly there. (I love “Time To Make You Mine” too; but it’s somehow less complete or polished) Maybe because it was from a bit later on in her career, I’d forgotten just how – timelessly – good it was.

#24 Dublin is about the nearest place to Rochdale whilst being non-domiciled for tax purposes.

# 22 Great list Billy. Some real superstars in “the Video Entertainers – wtf were Poacher ? You left out the obvious
“Razzmatazz” which she used to present. I seem to recall she got dropped for kicking a kid. The appearance on The Word was the one where a guy pushed a condom up one nostril and pulled it out of the other and Lisa said “I thought a condom was something you put on your willy”. Always been grateful for that, saved me a fortune in maintenance payments !

Wasn’t it around this time that the concept of the “wigga” was born ? I remember Spitting Image had Lisa and Mick Hucknall duetting on a song called “We Want To Be Black”.

I grew up in Rochdale, so had begun to get a bit irritated by Lisa at this point, not least because she’d always go on about how great Rochdale was, which it really, really wasn’t for me. I’d really loved ‘People Hold On’ and to a lesser extent, ‘This Is The Right Time’, so the dive in tempo was also a disappointment. I’ve changed my opinion since, I think it’s a great classy Brit soul record, though I can see how some would feel it was a little cold, perhaps because this sort of production has more mystique if it’s coming from America and to be fair it does sound a bit cheaper than the likes of Jam & Lewis.
It was my 15th birthday around this time, so bought a load of records that turned out to be important for me; two ‘Deep Heat’ albums, the ‘House Hallucinates’ album, the best of DJ Fast Eddie, and obviously ‘Pacific State’, so I was finally moving away from pure pop.
Anyway, a seven for this one.

One could have a look at her version of Cole Porter’s ‘Down in the Depths’ from the Red Hot & Blue video collection, and see that she really can sing. (That vid has some other v. interesting stuff, e.g. the Iggy Pop/Debbie Harry version of ‘Well, did you eva’ or ‘what a swell party this is. (I’m away from home and can’t check them out.
Also, in reference to a post I made many years ago, my Uncle Vic who hosted Macca and Jane Asher as stage door keeper at the Bristol Old Vic, around the time that Macca is believed to have found the name for Eleanor Rigby, also somehow managed to maintain a regular correspondence with Gracie Fields when she was living out retirement on Capri

How many #1s are there that share the same title but are not covers? This being one, obviously. I guess I could go painstakingly through the list of #1s and work it out but I figure it might be something someone here knows off the top of their head/out of the end of their fingers.

Critic watch:

1,001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010) 1002
Blender (USA) – The 1001 Greatest Songs to Download Right Now! (2003)
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Village Voice (USA) – Singles of the Year 5
New Musical Express (UK) – Singles of the Year 10
Record Mirror (UK) – Singles of the Year 3

Oof, didn’t know that! Were there any high-charting singles on the “fake” chart that had a brief 5-minute fame but lost out in the “real” one?

@49 You’re absolutely dead wrong. “Drive On” by Brother Beyond (NO.39 on the corrected chart) and “Restless Days” by the band And Why Not? (NO.38 on the corrected chart, didn’t get played on the Radio 1 chart show at all due to the error) were actually affected by this error. Shown here is my accurate reconstruction of what the false data (excluding the rest of that chart retained in the corrected version) actually looked like on the chart show that day:
39 7 O’CLOCK – THE QUIREBOYS (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 36
38 REAL WILD HOUSE – RAUL ORELLANA (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 41
37 THE BEST – TINA TURNER (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 42
36 SWING THE MOOD – JIVE BUNNY AND THE MASTERMIXERS (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 37
35 SWEET SURRENDER – WET WET WET (non mover) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 34
34 LEAN ON YOU – CLIFF RICHARD (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 35
33 NEW SOUTH WALES – THE ALARM (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 31
32 GOLDEN GREEN – THE WONDER STUFF (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 33
31 RHYTHM NATION – JANET JACKSON (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 28
29 TELL ME WHEN THE FEVER ENDED – ELECTRIBE 101 (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 32
28 DON’T ASK ME WHY – EURYTHMICS (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 29
27 THE SUN RISING – THE BELOVED (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 26
26 YOU GOT IT (THE RIGHT STUFF) – NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK (new entry) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 23
25 DON’T MAKE ME OVER – SYBIL (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 27
24 DON’T KNOW MUCH – LINDA RONSTADT / AARON NEVILLE (new) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 25
23 BORN TO BE SOLD – TRANSVISION VAMP (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 22
22 WISHING ON A STAR – FRESH 4 FT. LIZZ E (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 24
20 C’MON AND GET MY LOVE – D’MOB INTRODUCING CATHY DENNIS (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 16
17 IF ONLY I COULD – SYDNEY YOUNGBLOOD (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 20
16 EYE KNOW – DE LA SOUL (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 17
14 NEVER TOO MUCH – LUTHER VANDROSS (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 13
13 GRAND PIANO – MIXMASTER (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 12
12 THE ROAD TO HELL – CHRIS REA (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 11
11 RIDE ON TIME – BLACK BOX (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 14
10 LEAVE A LIGHT ON – BELINDA CARLISLE (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 9
09 IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME – CHER (down) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 10
08 I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE – MARTIKA (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 7
07 ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE – PHIL COLLINS (up) CORRECT CHART POSITION: 8