A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Liberty X

One of these days, I’m going to understand the point of somebody covering a song with the intention of making it sound as close as possible to the original. Surely if you’re doing a cover version, you want to leave your mark on it, you know, stamp your personality on it - bit tricky if you’re Gareth Gates though, after all he didn’t exactly cover himself with glory when he demolished Suspicious Minds, did he? Anyway, here’s another cover version that’s pleasant enough but will end up completely forgotten in a few weeks, while the original will remain regarded as a classic. It happened when they did the Mantronix song and it’ll happen with this one too, you mark my words. If you think I’m being a bit harsh on Liberty X… I am. It’s true, though. The tune could’ve been recorded in 1982, that’s how dated it sounds and, to be honest, anybody with half a singing voice or the Cheeky Girls could have done the vocal duties here. I suppose I may as well mention this single’s been done for Children In Need – see, there’s me saying how unnecessary this song is and now I’ve left you with a moral dilemma. Tell you what, I’ll leave you to decide whether you’re going to buy it now or not. Look on the bright side, it’s not even close to being anywhere near as dire as Band Aid 20 was.

PIECES OF A DREAM

Anastacia

I’ve always wondered how anyone can do a Greatest Hits after only three albums – surely if you’re averaging four singles per album, that’s twelve tracks maximum, therefore it’s a singles collection. Calling it a Greatest Hits implies that the worst singles were quietly forgotten about when the tracklisting was sorted out, but no, they’re all there and in chronological order too (which is how all Best Ofs and singles compilations should be). And... that’s yet another moan out of the way. I tell you, sometimes it’s hard work being me. So anyway, there’s this bloke, right, and apparently he reviews singles… the piano introduction is not overly encouraging, sounds to me like we’ve got a slowie on our hands here. Then La Newkirk drops by to sing along and brings a drummer with her who plays as though his drumkit will explode if he hits it too hard. So far, so very downbeat, but there’s always the feeling that once the chorus kicks in, so will the rest of the band and sure enough, there they are, guitars and all. Even the drummer sounds as though he’s defused his drumkit. However, for someone who (certainly in her early singles at least) has a worrying gift being able to hit three or four different notes whilst singing a one-syllable word, she holds herself back admirably here – other singers would be using this song for a heavy session of vocal gymnastics (stand up Ms Carey), but Anastacia clearly thinks this song is more important than saying to her fans “Listen to what I can do”. We know what she can do, so does she, there’s no point doing it for every single or you risk overkill and thank Heavens she hasn’t. The song itself may not be particularly special, but I’m not joking when I say this could have been so much worse than it is. That’s very nearly a recommendation, but not quite.

ONE WAY TICKET

The Darkness

Cheerful eighties-retro heavy metal that could’ve come straight off their first album, that sums up the Darkness’ first single in nearly two years. When they first emerged in 2003, quite frankly the music world needed cheering up, there was that much rubbish coming out, but nowadays things are looking decidedly better. Now, they may be doing almost exactly the same sort of music today that they were doing then (pity, I’d have preferred a slight change of direction), but there’s still no other band around that sound like they’re always having a party in the recording studio so, until someone else comes along, there’s still a place for the Darkness. Just a shame this song has an “I waited how long for this?” feel to it.