It looks as though this is going to become another of the great number two hits - kept off the top by the pantechnicon that is the Duffy industry, but I mustn't be too harsh on poor (man's) Amy since she also did the immense service of preventing Ironic Chad The Rockstar from joining the UK's number one annals of shame.
But "What's It Gonna Be?" is the best pop single of 2008 thus (limited) far and really ought to have become the latest and greatest Leicester-originated number one (in the fumbling footsteps of Engelbert, Showaddywaddy and Mark Morrison). "Bassline" some call it, though I call it a refreshing rekindling of the kind of (UK) Garage Pop which made the 1999-2001 number one slot a place fit to inhabit. Less jittery than T2's "Heartbreaker" - also a number two hit towards the end of last year - but no less hyperactive, "What's It Gonna Be?" reveals itself as the newest workable manifestation of girl group pop.
Its rhythmic thrust is the most persuasive in British pop since Basement Jaxx's "Romeo" - with which it shares a certain dark buoyancy which for this writer recalls 1974 late autumn Sunday afternoons, ATV, 4.40 and all that - and the pauses and solemnly jerky organ are derived directly from Jerry Dammers. Over the top (and why shouldn't they be over the top?) the Platinum girls squeal their joy at 500 mph (can we keep up? Should we be kept up?) about potential love and squander no time in getting their thousand syllables into 30 seconds to ensure that HE GETS THE MESSAGE.
The genius male interloper - come in, Aaron Evers - turns it into "Islands In The Stream" pinging at the wrong end of Alex Empire's pinball machine; genius because he is clearly singing a half tone out of key but THE FEELING IS MORE IMPORTANT and the PacMan ping pong springs before spring has a chance. Perhaps the best moment of all is the mid-song pause where the girls rap their proposal - "So take my hand, this is my plan" - which engenders a glee so seldom seen in today's straightbacked, shame-filled pseudo-pop.
As a song "What's It Gonna Be?"'s passage is logical and elevating, and structurally (as a song) could have been sung by the Crystals or the Caravelles in 1962 or by any girls any time since: "I just wanna talk to you and tell you how I feel every time I see your face baby this love is real I cannot let it go you know I'm all for you so WHAT WE GONNA DO?" all chanted in about a hundredth of the time it took me to type these words and isn't this the true rush of ecstasy, running down that avenue under a blue sky when you're fifteen because it is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD and life is beginning rather than ending (Duffy and Adele the inadvertent Colonel Redfern ciphers of IT CAN NEVER BE THIS GOOD AGAIN BY ORDER) and thus this record breathes and sups and lives better. Mercy!
But "What's It Gonna Be?" is the best pop single of 2008 thus (limited) far and really ought to have become the latest and greatest Leicester-originated number one (in the fumbling footsteps of Engelbert, Showaddywaddy and Mark Morrison). "Bassline" some call it, though I call it a refreshing rekindling of the kind of (UK) Garage Pop which made the 1999-2001 number one slot a place fit to inhabit. Less jittery than T2's "Heartbreaker" - also a number two hit towards the end of last year - but no less hyperactive, "What's It Gonna Be?" reveals itself as the newest workable manifestation of girl group pop.
Its rhythmic thrust is the most persuasive in British pop since Basement Jaxx's "Romeo" - with which it shares a certain dark buoyancy which for this writer recalls 1974 late autumn Sunday afternoons, ATV, 4.40 and all that - and the pauses and solemnly jerky organ are derived directly from Jerry Dammers. Over the top (and why shouldn't they be over the top?) the Platinum girls squeal their joy at 500 mph (can we keep up? Should we be kept up?) about potential love and squander no time in getting their thousand syllables into 30 seconds to ensure that HE GETS THE MESSAGE.
The genius male interloper - come in, Aaron Evers - turns it into "Islands In The Stream" pinging at the wrong end of Alex Empire's pinball machine; genius because he is clearly singing a half tone out of key but THE FEELING IS MORE IMPORTANT and the PacMan ping pong springs before spring has a chance. Perhaps the best moment of all is the mid-song pause where the girls rap their proposal - "So take my hand, this is my plan" - which engenders a glee so seldom seen in today's straightbacked, shame-filled pseudo-pop.
As a song "What's It Gonna Be?"'s passage is logical and elevating, and structurally (as a song) could have been sung by the Crystals or the Caravelles in 1962 or by any girls any time since: "I just wanna talk to you and tell you how I feel every time I see your face baby this love is real I cannot let it go you know I'm all for you so WHAT WE GONNA DO?" all chanted in about a hundredth of the time it took me to type these words and isn't this the true rush of ecstasy, running down that avenue under a blue sky when you're fifteen because it is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD and life is beginning rather than ending (Duffy and Adele the inadvertent Colonel Redfern ciphers of IT CAN NEVER BE THIS GOOD AGAIN BY ORDER) and thus this record breathes and sups and lives better. Mercy!
1 comments:
OMG that's so true, I'm totally imagining 'What's It Gonna Be?' as a Supremesy Motown song now and it REALLY WORKS.
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