WESTLIFE – "Uptown Girl"

Meanwhile in Related Posts and related comments, I got really angry about the original of this one. I don’t think I can get at all worked up about this – 3 maybe?

(Not a round, though – that’s London’s Burning or Whose Pigs Are These? or Frère Jacques, or on occasion Soft Kitty. Possibly a ‘catch’ – I’m not sure what the definition of one of those is.)

What I remember most about this cover has not a jot to do with itself, but with a completely related item. Specifically, an MTV interview with Wheatus (the “Teenage Dirtbag” ones), who were concurrently charting with a cover of Erasure’s “A Little Respect”. In that interview, they said something about “if you do a cover exactly like the original, you’re invariably gonna suck” or thereabouts. And then went into an impromptu mock-singing of “Uptown Girl”.

@7: I wish I could upvote this comment

This is basically identical to the original; the only real difference is the baggage each artist brings: Billy Joel, the ugly working-class kid from Long Island, vs. Westlife, the Westlife. I suppose you could work out whose vocal sounds more authentically blue-collar, but it would take at least a little effort.

Uptown Girl is the first of seven cover versions to get to number one in the UK this year. No less than four were covers of previous UK number ones (albeit one that had only got there as a cover very recently). A further two had reached the runner up slot in its original version (forty years ago in one case, to be entirely fair) leaving only one that hadn’t been a sizeable hit in the UK previously. Another recent UK chart topper returned as a cover with rewritten lyrics to arguably give an eighth.

It’s a pretty strong indictment of the era that many of these covers were lazy photocopies of the originals and, while the originals remain popular, the covers were quickly forgotten. In context it must be added that of the eight artists only one was the only chart topper for any of those involved.

A few things mitigate for Uptown Girl. It was for charity and it showed that Westlife could handle an uptempo song. It also wound up the fifth biggest selling single of the year which was a good showing for a Comic Relief single at the time although later campaign songs would do better. Finally it restored Westlife’s chart fortunes after their Christmas slip.

Jlucas has already highlighted the second biggest new entry of the week, Clint Eastwood by Gorrilaz. This song entered at number 4 and slipped to 5, then 6 before rebounding back to 4 when Uptown Girl and Whole Again fell back. It was considered something of a surprise hit and was unfortunate to have hit big during a freak sales period; it would have been a number one and perhaps even one that got there as a climber in most normal circumstances.

Inferior to Boyzone’s version of “When The Going Gets Tough”. And the alternating of lead singers here really works even less well than it did there. Almost, but not quite, enough to make one sentimental for Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo (3)

Westlife doing Uptown Girl? Why not? On paper, it seems like throwing off the stifling 20 tog duvet of blandness and attempting something a little more adventurous, even if it’s a cover.

Having said that, Billy Joel’s original is marvellously pitched at peak karaoke. The lads would have had to have been stunningly awful to bugger this up, and as we have established with their previous offerings, it’s their competence that undoes them. A Craplife would have at least been interesting for a while. No, they do the damn thing justice as a straight reading, and seem to enjoy doing it. It’s that sense of fun that comes through here, which means in terms of scoring, a 5 would suffice. Generous to a fault, me.

The original UG kind of bounced off me at the time (it obviously wasn’t aimed at me) and I’ve never given it a thought since until this year when it was used as both a joke about a character’s terrible taste then as the disappointing climactic, self-makeover song in Amy Schumer’s star-vehicle Trainwreck, then (successfully trolling for virality?) Schumer and sometimes also her recent BFF J-Law started appearing at Billy Joel concerts dancing along to UG sometimes atop Joel’s piano. Now, completing the year of UG, here Popular considers a UG cover.

Like all previous #1s by Westlife, their version of UG is undistinguished and instantly forgettable. That the underlying music’s got some pep for a change is about the best that I can say about it. What a strange phenomenon this band is:
3

I found myself particularly allergic to the video for this – I think I find mid-tempo Westlife somehow more actively repellent than their standard mode, which was easier to ignore. I still find everything about it just horrible.

Re14: Xzibit was a more than decent rapper who is best known as the (very endearing) host of MTV’s Pimp My Ride. He’d been around for a fair while by the time of X – it features Dre and Snoop, which might have helped it out. His second biggest UK hit, but not one of his best musical moment.
(He’s in a Werner Herzog film, too, which I had forgotten).

Considering that I hate Westlife and I hate comic relief singles, this turned out pretty well, in that it’s a reasonable karaoke facsimile of a classic pop song and nobody tries any showboating or crap jokes. Still pointless, but the sheer relief of not hearing another Westlife ballad makes me almost enjoy it. Almost.

A perfectly ok kind of record. An uptempo westlife is a novelty in and of itself! I wonder what John Sebastian could have done with this record?

*cough*2001*cough*

Hello Admin, the date on here should be 2001, not 2000, and it’s messing up the populist.

Bad compared to Joel but their biggest hit across Europe with this one. It sounds cheap and not as vocally or musically interesting as Joel.

The reference to Bob The Builder in the video (after he kept them off Christmas #1) is amusing, so I’ll give them that. But watching all five of them leave with Claudia Schiffer is just weird, frankly.

The song itself is listenable enough, but as said there’s no reason to listen to this over the original. A generous 5.