Ghasts, Prepare To Be Flabbered...
This video here, dear ChartBloggerers, represents a musical hand-brake-turn as violent and incomprehensible as it would be if OneRepublic duetted with Slipknot, or the Killers went reggae.
Boyzone are back. This we know. For some of us, this is amazing, exciting news on a par with the reunion of Take That. For others (hello!) it's exactly what you would expect to happen after Take That got back together and did so well.
After all, didn't Boyzone ALWAYS let Take That break the new ground for them and then came along afterwards to cash in? Isn't this their default position?
Not that this isn't meant as a particularly harsh accusation. And compared to Westlife, Boyzone are musical innovators on a par with Beethoven, but it's still true.
So, having got back together, surely the reunion song is going to be Yet Another Blimming Ballad, and very probably one about people breaking up over some silly nonsense, and then realising that they just can't live without each other. Art imitating life, that kind of thing, right?
Nu-uh! While the lyrics of this song could loosely be interpreted as being about the members of the band and their sometimes rocky relationship with each other, under no circumstances can the song itself be considered to be a ballad.
The fact that it isn't a banging dance choon or a operatic rock epic or a scuzzy indie bumble or a super-minimal, bass-heavy rap track is neither here nor there. It's not a ballad.
That's right. Boyzone have released a song, and it is not a ballad.
Boyzone, pop balladeers, releasers of ballads, ballad-makers to the stars, have branched out into not-ballad territory. It is like suddenly discovering that black is left. It is like raising a cup of tea to your lips, only to discover that it is, in fact, leprosy. It is like waiting for ages for a bus, and then two jaguars steal your lunch.
I don't know of another way to say this which adequately covers the scale of shock such news has generated, truth be told. Oh wait, here we go...
Anyone else want to have a go?
Comment number 1.
At 13th Sep 2008, XxlivsxX wrote:what about that one they did for comic relief? that wasn't a ballad
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Comment number 2.
At 13th Sep 2008, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Good point, but it was for Comic Relief. You can't judge Girls Aloud or the Sugababes on 'Walk This Way' (thankfully), so you can't judge Boyzone on their charity singles either.
It might sound like a new rule I've just made up in order for my theory to still work, but I'm sticking with it.
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Comment number 3.
At 16th Sep 2008, Kim-ley wrote:While not being a ballad, it's not quite completely up-tempo either...sort of in the middle. There's no way to slow dance to it, but you can't just grab your friends and dance as a group to it either. Hmmm...
And anyway, did Ronan (I think that's his name) do all the singing before they broke up? There's 4 other guys there and I'm sure some of them sing well.
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