AQUA – "Turn Back Time"

Love this song. And I liked Sliding Doors at the time, along with all the other films that glamourised being an independent grown-up living in London and getting on the tube all the time and having money and not having to live in sodding Zone 6 and do A-level Maths.

Worth more than 6, I reckon: the staccato sax after the chorus is a nice touch and the rumble of scary voices is, as you note, genuinely disquieting. Only the dated post-trip hop beat really grates.

#3, Hmm, seems to have deleted my edit version.

Basically, I modified it to say “It’s tempting to ” etc. Also, pondered how an error message can be “GURU MEDITATION” like, uh, what?

Anyway, carry on..

The Sliding Doors soundtrack is a wonderful snapshot of its time, starting with the honkingly poor “Have Fun Go Mad” by a chancer named nothing less than Blair, Dodgy’s Good Enough (which never was) and Dido’s “Thank You” way before it became a hit.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120148/soundtrack

#8 Blair “sister of Doon” MacKichan, no less! At that point also enduring the thankless role of bandleader and sidekick on The Jack Docherty Show. And still more famous for being Lynda Bellingham’s son in the Oxo adverts.

#8 ah, my old pal Blair. Worked with him in Turkey.. His sis is Doon Mackichan , His one big hit (as you noted) was eventually done as a cover by The Tweenies, and I did think that was it for him. But, amazingly, he is a bunny! Sort of…

#10 curses, xpost and all that..

The Scandinavians do this sort of thing well don’t they – I’m reminded of ‘Erase/Rewind’ by the Cardigans, as well as some Roxette slowies – and yes of course late Abba. And count me as another who enjoyed ‘Sliding Doors.’ They were never going to hang around for long in UK chart terms, though they were in the Top 10 two years later with ‘Cartoon Heroes’ , and disbanded from 2001-7. This was introduced on the Chart Show with the caption: ‘Aqua in good record shock.’ My recollection is that it got plenty of airplay here, more so than ‘Barbie Girl’ which radio programmers might have thought too divisive. 7, I reckon.

Nobody expected Aqua to follow the inconsequential cartoon stylings of their first two singles with that increasingly rare of things, a Proper Song – yet here it is, delivered without any sense of irony and enough humanity that the machine-generated rhythm track doesn’t spoil it as much as usual. It goes all strange in the middle – not entirely successfully hiding a key change – to contrast very effectively with the more conventionally arranged verses and choruses; and the whole thing is a pleasant surprise, quite possibly the best Number One since The Teletubbies^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H BoRhap’s rerelease. A definite EIGHT.

Nice enough, but fundamentally a polite, insubstantial ballad for a polite, insubstantial romantic comedy. After their last two singles I felt a bit let down by this one, only to find exactly the opposite idea out there in the world of Proper Music Opinions. Can’t blame the song or the band for that but still I have no time for it. A very solid 5.

This is pretty good. Let’s set aside that Aqua have played the cartoony, primary coloured card twice, this example of the “3rd single must be a slowie” rule is executed with charm and aplomb to these ears. Lene takes the wheel and carries the song without Rene’s interjections.

I remember “Sliding Doors” being a watchable rom-com (or more accurately, rom-dramedy) with an impressive Gwyneth Paltrow, formerly seen playing Wendy Darling in “Hook”, balancing the twin timelines determined by whether she caught the tube train or not. It’s a post-Thatcherite love story with mousy-Gwyn vs made-over-Gwyn coping/not coping with infidelity, opportunity, misfortune etc. and John Hannah as potential love interest, which is interesting because he’s not Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis is not involved. Instead we have Peter Howitt (better known as Joey Boswell in “Bread”) in his directorial and screenwriting debut, overseen by a possibly fatherly Sydney Pollack. I’ve not seen the film for a while, but I’m pretty sure the film fails the Bechdel test, but then how many rom-coms pass?

Aqua probably spent a lot of time dissecting the PSB’s learning how to do this kind downtempo pop properly. Or maybe not, as mentioned above, Scandinavians have a long and successful history churning out this style of pop on their own, enough for Neil & Chris to look to ABBA among others for inspiration. So TBT could be part of that family of songs that includes “The Day Before You Came”, “Being Boring”, “Stay On These Roads” and “The Winner Takes It All”. Of course, TBT doesn’t hold a candle to any of these, but let’s not write it off just because TBT keeps good company.

It’s a shame we say goodbye to Aqua here. Lene goes on to appear in Scandinoir movie, “Deliver Us From Evil”. Rene Dif goes on to appear in a hatful of Danish films and TV. Soren and Claus both stay in the music biz. Their trio of #1 singles are quite acceptable compared to Boyzone’s blandness and Spice Girls’ decline. This one gets a 7.

this is a pleasant surprise as I don’t remember hearing it before and was anticipating more cartoon pop. I don’t remember hearing it more recently on Radio 2 which is surprising as it sounds like it would fit right in

We’ve had an odd set of number ones lately. Some I find so bad I can’t comment on them – who would benefit? Some utterly brilliant, 10/10 material – I think destined to remain under-rated, cursed by a combination of short runs at #1, the balkanization of the Top 40 at this time, the seriousness of contemporary esteemed albums and one or two other factors that are too contestable to mention. I’ve held this view for a long time – in 2003 someone asked me (in a very public environment) what my all time favourite no.1 is. I had no faith whatsoever that many people would have heard of this, so I didn’t say it. But it might be. For sure, of all the number ones I enjoy anywhere near this much, it’s the one least marred by over-familiarity, and yet I heard it on the radio a lot at the time.

I honestly can’t praise it enough, to the point where I think specific description of its many strengths would make me feel wounded by alternative viewpoints made subsequently.

If I had to delete all but one of the chart toppers I’ve loaded onto my portable mp3 player – and I’d estimate there may be 30 or so – this would be the one I would save.

On the one hand, it’s clearly the faintest of faint praise to call this “decent for Aqua” – I remember TeleText being astonished that this was actually an Aqua track – when this is actually a really damn good song. That weird horn loop holds it all together, and it’s a perfectly legitimate lyric. I’ve never seen Sliding Doors, but I know the premise (how much of a difference can a single second make to a life? Answer: a lot); I don’t know which way works out, but either way the song’s desire to want that second back, to fix those mistakes, to be able to lock the door before the horse bolts (the only metaphorical explanation I can find for that repeated line “the bolt reminds me I was there” – well, a Scandinavian interpretation of an English metaphor and all that), would certainly fit the story.

On the other hand, it’s come after the dreck that was Barbie Girl and Doctor Jones, two songs which I deride as a bad joke and the same bad joke retold. In much the same way as Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set is them realising that grunge is a dead end (and becoming a much better band for that realisation), I saw this as Aqua realising that the joke had worn thin and it was time to be real musicians for a while. No excessive chirpy giggly crap from Lene, no goofing from Rene, just an actual proper song with more than a joke going for it. Of course, they disappeared and came back with Cartoon Heroes, but… yeah.

I bloody love this.

9.

Also, Now! 41 (one of the most popular of the lot), although we’re very much getting ahead of ourselves there.

I remember Sliding Doors as being OK-ish, but as having a poor, teeth-grindingly pat and formulaic ending involving a Monty Python quote. Lots of ’90s rom-coms (Singles and Next Stop Wonderland are the two that come to mind, but there were others) ended with a totemic phrase (established early in the film) whose utterance supposedly signifies the arrival of a perfect match. Has anyone seen the Kieslowski film, Blind Chance (1981), to which both Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run are apparently deeply indebted?

Beyond the darkness of the unexpected middle eight, I don’t find this loveable, mainly down to the first half of each verse sounding so incredibly similar to the Pet Shop Boys’ Heart. Tom, is it really a sample? Bit pots and kettles here, but this lift really spoils my enjoyment of the record. Also – although it’s kinda obvs – lacks the big-bubbles charm of the first two Aqua entries. It’s no Erase/Rewind to my Scando-friendly ears. A low 5.

“Lovely”, “pleasant”, “pleasing” “proper song”, “agreeable”, “real”, “actual proper song”, “sweet”.

And, frankly, a little bit boring. Good for a change of pace and showing that there are more strings to the bow – and I wouldn’t even necessarily disagree with some of the descriptives above – but not half as engaging as it might have been. A bit like Sliding Doors in fact.

Whosampled.com is my usual go to for picking apart samples, and it’s got nothing on this (and not much more for the PSB Heart; apparently The Ragga Twins used it once, but…). I’m increasingly doubting this one.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few samples in here, but something as prominent as Heart would surely have some form of authoritative log out there by now… surely…

The most surprising Number 1 of the year (Except for a returning legend in the latter half of the year maybe)

Totally unexpected. We can do serious as well as silly.Enjoyed this a lot 16 years ago but would still prefer Barbie Girl out of all 3 now. TBT is not far off the sound of a lush late 80s ballad.Reminded me of The Captain of Her Heart By Double oddly.This new direction of course wouldn’t last and then it was back to the zany by the end of the year. Still would get 7 from me.

Rather lovely in my opinion, I’m going with a generous 8/10 here.