The four voices harmonise like a dream – must have been all that partying. Its one-eyebrow-raised sultriness may be less effective than it was in 1997, when All Saints were pitting their underdog coolness against the behemoth that was the Spice Girls, but it’s worn well. GTĭespite an intro – “A few questions that I need to know…” – that induces exasperation in lovers of the English language, Never Ever is one of the best girl-group songs of its time. ![]() The music is wonderfully simpatico, all hushed acoustic guitar, aching harmonica and lowering cellos. “I just want to die without you,” sobs the boy with “bubblegum on his shoes”, and he does indeed sound utterly bereft. GMĪdams’s insistence on singing about his seemingly endless playground crushes can get more than a little wearing, but this – like most of the Heartbreaker album – sounds suspiciously like the real deal. ![]() This mesmerising loop of swelling melody and harmonies beats anything on Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks for harsh truths about broken marriage, especially when Agnetha Fältskog wails in punch-drunk resignation: “The judges will decide/ The likes of me abide.” Björn Ulvaeus resolutely denied that it was about Agnetha’s and his 1979 divorce. ![]() ![]() The enormous success of Mamma Mia! as a feelgood karaoke movie obscures the acute insights Abba brought to the art of the break-up song. Despite the universal “blueprint that says boy meets girl”, former music journo Martin Fry is struggling in his quest to find love’s “real McCoy”, and contends, in his angsty croon, that tears are not enough to prove that a girl’s emotions are genuine. Whether in its original, spare funk version or the orchestrated Trevor Horn take that appeared on the classic The Lexicon of Love album, this debut single provided a fine showcase for the sophisticated romanticism of the Sheffield popsters.
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