Sunday, March 07, 2004
The Peter Andurance Test
Availiable now in all good record shops (and no doubt a few crappy ones) is The Very Best of Peter Andre, an album that has in no way been rush released to capitalise on the brief, pottasium in water-like, re-ignition of the flame of his fame. Peter only released two albums and this compliation is 18 tracks and 78 minutes long, so it strikes us that this is less a carefully selected collection of tunes and more his entire recorded works. It's certainly a lot of Andre for your money, perhaps too much, which is why we've taken it upon ourselves to listen to the entire album and tell you just how good the very best of Mr Andre actually is. We feel we should point out that even though we've done this and we also watch Top of the Pops each week, we're not masochists, we just do it so that you don't have to. Anyway, here's your track by track guide to this years most inessential album.- Mysterious Girl // This summer tinged piece of reggae-lite is still a fab smiley piece of music. Some people are claiming that this is only a hit because of the novelty value of it, but this is nonsense. Yes, it's a hit again thanks to I'm a Celebrity..., but it's number one because it's a damn good pop song and has a joyfulness which is missing from a lot of current pop. If it was purely down to novelty, surely The Jungle Boys would have been equally successful?
- Flava // Sounds a little bit like MN8's I've Got a Little Something For You, it's also rather fab. This has also been mocked for it's lack of 'authenticity', but who cares? Being 4 Real in pop is about as important as which hand you use to write with.
- Gimme Little Sign/ PS I'm Gonna Get To You // Without any overexageration or hyperbole (NOTE: Writer prone to both overexageration and hyperbole) this is one of the best pop songs we've ever heard; it's an upbeat horn driven slice of excellence that exudes genius like a snail exudes slime. It's let down by a sax solo, but other than that it's as close to perfection as can be found.
- All Night All Right // Starts well with a "Hey Badda Badda, Hey Badda Badda, Hey" bit, before disolving into a standard R&B number. It features a rap by Warren G which clearly took less time to write than it did to perform. *SKIP*
- To The Top // This is very Everybody (Backstreet's Back) by the Backstreet Boys esque. So it's therefore quite good, but mainly serves to remind you just how excellent Everybody (Backstreet's Back) by the Backstreet Boys is.
- Let's Get It On // In which Mr Andre gets sexual. To this end he opens the track by singing "We're moving and grooving and humping and pumping". Oh dear. *SKIP*
- Natural // We preferred S Club 7's version, mainly because it had a different beat, melody, lyric and was actually a good song. *SKIP*
- Rest of My Life // Aargh! A ballad! Run away, run away! *SKIP*
- I Feel You // Another ballad, which somehow manages to be even worse than the last. Peter asks "Why are you running away from my love?", the answer clearly being that the lady in question was so embarassed by the previous song that he wrote for her. *SKIP*
- Kiss The Girl // As featured in The Little Mermaid. This song features the line "Sha-la-la-la, My Oh My", but sounds nothing like you'd expect a song featuring that line to sound like. Instead it is another ballad, but this time it's of the mid-tempo variety, clearly marking himself out as a man of many and varied talents.
- The Tracks of my Tears // Cover of the Smokey Robinson song. During a boring night shift, we once spent the entire time thinking up puns based on this song, for example:- What exise duty does Smokey Robinson hate the most? The tax on his beer. Why won't Smokey Robinson tell his mates something embarassing? 'Cause he can't stand the cracks of his peers. Of all the instruments that Smokey Robinson is scared of, which one is he most afraid of? The sax of his fears. What does Smokey Robinson keep in his tool shed? The stacks of his shears. Etc. This has little to do with the version on this album, which is a poor performance of the original, but by publishing them on here, we now feel that those long hours weren't wasted.
- Lonely // Another sodding ballad. It can remain lonely as we don't plan on spending any more time with it. *SKIP*
- Best of Me // It's not a ballad! Hooray! We were actually hoping that this track would be really rubbish, so that we could say "Never has a track been so badly misnamed". As it is though, it's not the best, but compared to the last few tracks we've had to trawl through, it briefly seemed like it was one of the greatest songs ever written. Thankfully though, this passed.
- All About Us // This is teflon music, it passes straight through the ears without sticking to any part of the brain whatsoever.
- Funky Junky // This is not from the Trainspotting soundtrack. The chorus has the line "Let's do the funky junky", presumably this means that Peter wants to have sex with a foul smelling drug addict. Whatever rocks your boat, we guess.
- Only One // Calling a track Only One implies that it's going to be a unique piece of music, something unlike anything you've ever heard before. In this case, there's only one word that can be used to describe this - generic. *SKIP*
- Turn it Up // Peter once again turns his attention to the ladies, informing one such girl during the chorus "You got it going on, I wanna turn you on". Unfortunately for him, this offer is clearly turned down as he later casts his net a bit wider and tells us that "All the ladies got it going on", much in the manner of a drunk man in a dodgy provincal night club at the end of the night who's beginning to worry that he's going to be going home alone and is of the mindset that anyone will do as long as they're vaguely girl shaped.
- Get Down On It // This is a cover of the Kool and the Gang song and is virtually the same as the original but with a different singer. What's the point? *SKIP*
In other Andre-related news, Miss Bridgetta has asked that Bubbler Ranx gets included in the 117 Acest Things in the World... Ever!. Now, this list has been carefully worked out via scientific means, every item in it has been worked out well in advance involving a strcit measuring system and some boiling entrails. We can't just add items based on whims and who's briefly enjoying their time in the sun. But then, she did say please, so ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for Mr Ranx's number 12 position in the list.
Why is he ace? Partly because despite the fact that he's never done anything else apart from the rap on Mysterious Girl, people still remember him. Partly because he was clearly having the time of his life on Top of the Pops on Friday. But it's mainly because when he does the rap in the song and gets to the "I feel ten feet tall" line rather than doing what anyone else would have done to signify an increase in height, which would be to jump, he hunkers down instead, presumably to give the audience an idea of what it would be like to be a bit taller than they actually are. For that, and for the "shine like a looking glass" line, Mr Ranx fully deserves his place in the list.
