Boyzone - 'Love You Anyway'
There's one thing that bothers me about Boyzone reforming. Assuming that the UK's most successful boybands of the 1990s are set to reform in something vaguely resembling chronological order, since Take That and Boyzone have already done it, that means Westlife are next. And they haven't even split up yet. At this rate, they'll never go away.
Anyway, that's a worry for another time. Having recently taken on reviewing duties for the NKOTB comeback single, I appear to have been designated the official ChartBlog reviewer for boyband resurrections. Hey, it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.
What's impressive about Boyzone's return is that they're not just trying to repeat what worked for them 14 years ago (14 years! Suddenly I feel so old), they've actually made a decent stab at coming up with something that sounds modern and relevant and like it belongs in today's charts on its own merit. There's something very Mark Ronson-esque about the intro, for example - indeed, slow the tempo by a few beats per minute and remove about 20% of the jollity and I suspect you'd have the introduction to 'Back to Black'.
Actually, it's not that hard to get a deju vu while listening to this song - listening to the chorus, I found myself humming Aztec Camera's 'Somewhere In My Heart', and I'm still trying to place where I recognise the verse melody from. This isn't necessarily a problem - a lot of pop music is derivative, and this is more drawing inspiration from other songs than it is outright ripping them off, so I'm happy to let it slide.
The main gripes are the fact that the vocals are very Ronan-centric - we all know he can sing, but it would be nice to give the others a chance to take the lead in this brave new world - and the fact that the chorus doesn't scan very well and feels rather clumsy ("it's unbelievably hard to love you/but I love you anyway"). Normally a failure to create a strong chorus would earn an instant black mark from me, but I'm inclined to make an exception here, because they've got a good tune behind them, it's just the lyrics that are at fault. I think that way round is an acceptable accident; certainly better than having great lyrics attached to a cruddy tune.
All in all, I have to say I'm fairly impressed. It's not really something I'd listen to voluntarily, but it's engaging and catchy and isn't just trading on former glories, so well done, Boyz.
Download: Out now
CD Released: September 29th
(Steve Perkins)
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