In terms of Stock, Aitken and Waterman's eighties output, I have to confess a soft spot for Bananarama's 1987 hit 'Love In The First Degree'. The light touch and sparkling ascending chorus has always appealed in the way the best pop always does, and the girl's vocals stay on the right side of playful. I guess it must have appealed to SAW too because 'Too Many Broken Hearts' is more or less the same song recycled, albeit with some minor tinkering.Sure, the vocal is scored in a lower key and some of the bars have been re-arranged back to front, giving it a more downbeat feel, but it's all there in essence and it had the curious effect of making the song sound out of date almost as soon as it was recorded. Donovan is concerned about the prolificy of broken hearts and dreams that have been 'broken in two' (which makes a change from them being shattered I guess), but he gives no insight into this observation nor makes any suggestion as to what he or the listener are meant to feel or do about it. For all the emotion he injects, Donovan may as well be singing 'Tch, raining again'.
But as he doesn't sound all that fretful, I'll not fret too much over it either. Suffice it to say that 'Too Many Broken Hearts' is a most tedious pot of well stewed tea that does not sparkle in any way whatsoever and only really exists to give the vest wearing Donovan something to prance about to in the video. But the little girls seemed to understand, and that's all that matters with stuff like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment