PETER ANDRE – "I Feel You"

there’s a passable tune in there somewhere but the production seems a bit off to my ears. The beat feels lethargic, the instruments sound woozy and PAs voice sounds more like a cartoon character than a man. I’ve forgotten it already

#3 Agreed. I think at this point we’re starting to see the trend of first week discounts kicking in – singles priced at £1.99 for the first week then increasing to £3.99 the following week. For me I Feel You marks the start of another era- teen pop (ie records selling primarily to teenage girls) begins to go the way of heavy metal – selling out to its core fanbase in the first week and never outside of it hence some hefty second week drops. Fast forward a decade and McFly will be producing some chart collapses that probably appalled Iron Maiden.

Going back to first week discounting; this sees the start of yet a third trend – a number one that simply doesn’t feel like a number one.

Ok – so with 2 #1’s missing from my memory bank I had to go and check them both out – the verdict – they don’t actually suck – both pleasant tunes that I wouldn’t have turned off if they came up on the radio – yes his voice is too girly, but unlike the charisma-free performances of Boyzone and R&J you can see that he was at least trying to do something interesting even if it ultimately turned out to be the kind of thing we’d all heard done much better many years earlier.

Almost comically bad. Just too, too, forgettable to be that, though.

I think portraying it as Michael Jackson pastiche is a little ambitious: my thought was Alexander O’Neal (or even Karyn White) album track. Though of course PA’s voice is just not up to it.

Back when Glen Goldsmith was…having one medium-sized hit (“Dreaming”, which is OK, I guess – watered down Keith Sweat. Ah. I see why Andre chose one of his songs already), and a couple of minor ones, Capital Radio used to play him and generally promote him, far, far more than this stature would warrant. I wonder if they did the same with this?

It’s dreadful. Worse than the Outhere Brothers. I’d happily score it zero. Well well well.

There’s a pretty decent underlying, Michael/Janet slowie here (close especially to ‘Come Back To Me’ I’d say). Contemporarily speaking, Bruno Mars or Ne-Yo or (especially my fave from last year) Autre Ne Veut would kill this (and produce the hell out of it). Peter Andre isn’t up to that, of course, but (at least on first few listens) he’s not *too* far away on this one (vocal is *much* better on IFY than on his previous #1). Possibly I’m a soft touch for this genre, but I find IFY perfectly listenable:
5 or 6

#10. I certainly wish we were talking about Unbreak My Heart. In many ways, UBH is not my kind of record. It’s astonishingly emotionally articulate though; to find a lyric which is so plain-speaking, universal and original* at this point (1996) is incredibly rare. Plus, it’s beautifully sung.

*the “Out in the rain” line is a disappointment.

#10 I absolutely agree with both of those. “One on One” is a gem (and will always recall for me a particularly bleak and windswept winter in a particularly windswept and landscapically bleak corner of the Scottish coast).

Other “well well well”s in pop which spring to mind are:
(1) “Well Well Well” by the Woodentops
(2) “Witness (1 Hope) by Roots Manuva.
(3) “Summer Nights” at a push I suppose.

There’s a “well, well” on the chorus of Gregory Abbott’s icky Shake You Down, which production-wise isn’t far removed from I Feel You. Maybe that’s where PA nabbed it from.

Well Well Well also the opening track of Barely Legal by The Hives – released in only 9 Popular months time. Not that that scene (whatever the NME called it – New Rock Revolution or some such?) will be troubling Popular directly.

This is the first number one since I first became interested in the charts and pop music as a child in the mid 80s that I couldn’t remember at all. In stark contrast to #10 above, the charts from here on in are absolutely littered with number ones that I can’t remember at all. I think this record marks the beginning of my disconnection from the world of the Top 40, although it was probably W**t***e who tipped me over the edge. I’m interested to listen to the latter day number ones along with the Popular blog to see if I discover anything interesting that I missed at the time (though I retain a degree of scepticism).

I have become so absorbed in the Popular project that I actually listened to this inconsequential wisp of a song ahead of Tom’s post! 80s MJ ballad was absolutely what I got from this too, with a vague hint of 90s R&B stylings, and the producers doing their best to coax some MJ-style vocals (at least if your ears are full of wax or water) from Pete.

I have racked my brains and finally remembered that it was Sam D (sat next to in Biology) that had “Peter Andre Is Fit” written on the inside of her ring binder. She also had a weird thing for dudes who drove VW Golfs.

And nobody’s remembered “Well Well Well” on John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band”?

Fleetwood Mac: Oh Well

And there’s Georgie Fame and Alan Price’s “Rosetta” from 1971: “Rosetta, are you better, are you well, well, well?” of course I mainly knew that song from the Pinky and Perky cover version.

Peter Andre? Not at all my genre, but for what it is it’s passable and listenable enough, even if the Michael Jackson template is all too obvious. No way can it be grouped alongside the insults to music that were the Outhere Brothers. AMZ #5 is right – first-week marketing is becoming a fine art and the era of the weekly change at the top is on its way.

Arctic Monkeys enablers/landfill indie band, Milburn’s “Well Well Well”.

RE One & One, are people aware that it’s actually a cover? It was written by Billy Steinberg and Rick Nowells, who penned a number of hits for the likes of Bon Jovi and Belinda Carlisle, and was released as a single by Polish singer Edyta Gorniak – who got a sizeable (but largely unsuccessful) international push in the mid 90s.

She has a lovely voice, and I like her version just as much as the more famous version. http://youtu.be/YOwzstVmea0

Gorniak’s international album also contained the first recording of a UK number one single, but one we haven’t arrived at yet so I’ll say no more…

#36 Morrissey is the most blatant example there I think e.g. ‘Picadilly Palare’ seemed notable in falling from 18 to 39 in its second week and then out of the top 75 altogether. Curiously his longest stay in the charts with any one single was ‘The First Of The Gang To Die’ (a mere seven weeks).

This is the ONE 90s #1 I cannot quite recall at all other than knowing it was a slow jam (or at least slow paste) although I do remember it on Top of the Pops as one of a few performances to cause a small stage invasion of fans at the end such was its (and Pete’s) apparent gravity.

#10 Over the next few years we’ll see a lot of records that meander around the top five while ultimately outselling the chart toppers during that time.

#37 – so at the extreme end of this pattern, what’s the highest position reached by a track that only spent one week in chart? Bowie’s “Where Are We Now?” went in at number 6 (IIRC) this time last year but went straight out of the 40 the next week; but then a few months later “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” went straight in at 2 and straight out again after Thatcher’s death. The ultimate would be one week at number one and nothing else – the bunnied reissues which included the 1000th number one could have achieved this since they were designed to hoover up one week’s sales, but in practice enough copies hung over to give them a second week in chart, even if only at number 20.

I have no memory of this at all, even from discussions about forgotten Peter Andre songs.

I love the idea that in its second chart week most people were downloading ‘Ding Dong…’ on more of a “hey this is actually pretty good” basis rather than out of Thatch-hate directly.

Jagger weighs in with a “well well well well well well well ah” in the gorgeous Winter.

Pete got his banner image now – enjoy it while you can!