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    #51
    I'd add 'Especially For You' to the list of great SAW songs.

    Anyway, I'd like to put Stock Aitken and Waterman into my argument that 1987 was actually a fantastic year for pop music.

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      #52
      Rick Astley had (and still has) a fantastic voice.

      I'm really, really, really tired of Paul McCartney at this point.

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        #53
        Originally posted by WOM View Post
        What's painful is that it's the single, but by no means their best. I'd put Brand New Lover, Lover Come Back to Me, and even My Heart Goes Bang Bang above it.
        Really? They all sounded like YSMR(LAR) knock-offs to me - ditto the slightly later hit, Something in My House.

        Reliable sources tell me that Burns and co had much better songs earlier in their career, but I've yet to be convinced.

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          #54
          Originally posted by Toby Gymshorts View Post
          Rick Astley had (and still has) a fantastic voice.
          I'll admit I do have a strange soft spot for Cry For Help. Was he still with SAW at that point?

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            #55
            Originally posted by Disco Child Ballads View Post
            I'd add 'Especially For You' to the list of great SAW songs.
            It is. But just imagine how great it might have been if better singers had sung it to a better arrangement. Just imagine a duo in the mould of Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway singing it, instead of the The Neighbours with their slight voices, to a better arrangement than the programmed-in-five minutes banana milkshake production SAW perpetrated. And still it's great.

            I think it was Neil Kulkarni who made a point on Chart Music about how phoned-in the production of Jason Donovan's "Sealed With A Kiss" was. Same with "Especially For You".

            And yet they still produced some gems even in the conveyor-belt era. Lonnie Gordon's "Beyond Your Wildest Dreams" from 1990 is quite superb, and Sybil's "Make It Easy On Me" from the same year is quite lovely, too. But by then it truly was diminishing returns.
            Last edited by G-Man; 21-02-2018, 16:21.

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              #56
              Well, I was a huge fan of that SAW shit, at the time, but not too much stands up now (for me). The first (Nothing Can Divide Us) by JD was better than anything else he did.

              But they did a thing for Donna Summer (Breakaway) around the time when she gobbed off. That is still one of my favourite albums ever.

              (Yeah ok, she did some other stuff too.)

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                #57
                Oh, and Bananarama are one of the most important musical acts to happen since the 70's.

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                  #58
                  Must be a pretty vast pool.

                  Originally posted by 3 Colours Red View Post
                  I'll admit I do have a strange soft spot for Cry For Help. Was he still with SAW at that point?
                  No, Astley had left the ol' SAW-mill some time before - after which his chart positions dropped off noticeably. (As a point of reference, rather than one of judgement.)

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                    #59
                    Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View Post
                    You're all thick and ugly and smell; Sloop John B is a truly wonderful single.
                    Half of this post is true, but not the half concerning The Beach Boys.

                    Nick Cave is boring.

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                      #60
                      My bit of revisionism would be The Carpenters. Aside from Goodbye to Love being one of my favourite songs and not just for the guitar solos, I'll happily listen to most of their Greatest Hits. Except the one about aliens.

                      The arrangements are good, Karen had a nice clear voice without a hint of twiddle, and the backing harmonies are just ace.

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                        #61
                        Being boring is the least of Cave's objectionable characteristics. But, yeah, occasional burst of being interesting aside, I'd go along with that.

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                          #62
                          Originally posted by G-Man View Post
                          ...occasional burst of being interesting aside...
                          Beware the morsel of cheese on the trip plate of the dull trap.

                          He's the goth Martin Amis.

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                            #63
                            <applause>

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                              #64
                              Am I the only one who thinks that all the incessant fawning all over Stevie Wonder's 'genius' is a bit overdone?
                              I mean, he's fine, but about a million other middle-of-the-road songwriters are fine, too.

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                                #65
                                Hush your mouth.

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                                  #66
                                  We'll pencil you in as a Nay....

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                                    #67
                                    I've said it before and I've said it again, I Just Called To Say I Love You is a perfectly great pop song.

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                                      #68
                                      ...which still doesn't make it true.

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                                        #69
                                        Hmmm, now I'm unsure whether VA actually does like IJCTSILY or whether he is intentionally demonstrating the limit of his power, Canute style, his retainers having refused to accept that the waves of MOR sludge characterising SW's later output wouldn't sound better just on his say so.

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                                          #70
                                          IJCTSILY is a steaming pile of sloppy shite, but some of Stevie Wonder's earlier stuff is fucking fantastic.

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                                            #71
                                            I'm genuinely hoping there will be a critical reevaluation of Level 42.

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                                              #72
                                              Um...in which direction? How are they perceived (rightly or wrongly) over yonder?

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                                                #73
                                                Jazz-funk is still the genre that dare not show its face in public. It seems harsh in a world where apparently sane people will admit to liking Queen.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Twenty years ago I completely did not get Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Twenty years on I still don't. But I keep giving it a chance every five years or so.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Level 42 still tour to a sizeable hardcore following (in London they'll typically play at the Albert Hall) but have always been seen as pretty uncool. They don't even get the props for early, pre commercial peak, material in the way that, say, UB40 do. The '80s soul weekender culture is generally remembered far less affectionately than the '70s northern soul scene.

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