FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
Blue - All Rise
___________
THERE are various musical anniversaries…
that make me feel really old. Blue’s hit, All Rise, was released twenty years ago! I recall when the song came out. At the time, where was a wave of boybands around that each offered their own thing. Whilst some were generic and lacked identity, we had something a bit different in Blue (Antony Costa, Duncan James, Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe). To be fair, they were not too different from the usual boyband crop. They had a bit of personality and cool that definitely made their songs stronger than a lot of the competition. I think that many of their songs get labelled as being ‘guilty pleasures’. Whilst not all of their tracks match the level of All Rise, there are some good cuts in their catalogue. I especially like All Rise. Not only does it have a catchy chorus and a clever lyrical angle. The guys supply great vocals, and there is a terrific, polished production sound. It is no surprise that the song was a success. I don’t think you really hear Pop/R&B tracks like All Rise anymore. We have boybands, though the music they perform has changed and evolved - K-Pop is more dominant and popular when it comes to girl groups and boybands. Because of that, maybe some feel Blue’s All Rise is a bit outdated or unfamiliar. I definitely feel it is a lot stronger than a guilty pleasure (not that I think any song can be called such). Before moving on, here is a little background to one of the big hits of 2001:
“All Rise" is a song by British boy band Blue. It was released in 21 May 2001 as the lead single from their debut album of the same name. "All Rise" was co-written and produced by Norwegian production team Stargate, who went on to produce several of Blue's biggest hits from 2001 to 2003. The song contains elements from the theme from The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975), composed by Bent Fabricius-Bjerre. Stargate previously used the sample in their production of "Not for the Dough" (1999) by Norwegian hip hop group Multicyde.
The song became a hit worldwide and helped the group break the charts in Europe and Oceania. It peaked at number four in the United Kingdom, number three in Australia, number one in New Zealand, and number 15 in Ireland. The song has received a Gold certification for sales of over 400,000 copies in the UK and also went Gold in New Zealand. In Australia, the song received a Platinum certification for sales exceeding 70,000 copies. The band performed the song during the first series of The Big Reunion in 2013”.
I feel 2001 was a particular strong year for tracks. There was a lot of Pop/R&B crossover, and a strong continuation of the quality and consistency we saw in the ‘90s. If you have overlooked Blue or feel that all boybands are not worth investigating, I would suggest people check out All Rise. Taken from the debut album of the same name, All Rise is a smash. Despite the fact the album received some mixed reviews, there are other tracks on the album that are worthy of study. In their review, this is what AllMusic said:
“Blue were not the average boy band. Yes there were four of them, standing there in a line, looking good and singing, note singing, not playing any musical instruments. But the foursome of Duncan James, Antony Costa, Simon Webbe, and Lee Ryan actually did appear to have talent. This is not to say that other boy bands didn't have that in abundance, but there was something about Blue's songs that marked them as different. For a start there was the production, which was slick and creamy smooth. Soulful in a way that harked back to the Temptations or the Four Tops, and they weren't boy bands were they? Secondly regarding soul, the vocals were sung as if there was some real feeling, and that maybe is what separated Blue from their peers. Having arrived seemingly from nowhere in the summer of 2001 with the hit "All Rise" that pop radio couldn't stop playing, and hitting number one with both the follow-ups "Too Close," which was a cover of the little heard (in the U.K.) track by Next and "If You Come Back."
After three successful singles came the debut album All Rise, which hardly surprisingly entered the chart very high at number two. What was surprising was that after the fourth single, "Fly By" was released, the album went one place better and topped the chart six months after its initial release. The lads had street cred, too, and Webbe broke into the occasional rap on the tracks "Fly By" and "Back to You." "Bounce" does exactly what one would think it should, it bounces on the offbeat, and "Girl I'll Never Understand," "Back Someday," and "Best in Me," the three tracks that close the album, are slow R&B ballads, while it would have been nice to end on a high. However, for all the Westlife and Boyzone ballads and good looks since the late '90s, Blue may be not really that different from the American prototypes *NSync and Backstreet Boys after all: attitude yes, different yes, but something new, not really”.
I am not a huge fan of boybands, though I do like the big hits from the best of the bunch. All Rise is a hugely memorable and singalong song where Blue show plenty of attitude, quality and harmony! Although the song boasts a fair few songwriters (Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Hallgeir Rustan, Simon Webbe and Daniel Stephens), the band very much make it their own. Blue released their fifth studio album, Colours, in 2015. I am not sure what the future holds. Whilst other boybands from the 1990s and 2000s have gone their own way, Blue are still together. Twenty years after its release, All Rise still stands up and has plenty of punch. Rather than it being a guilty pleasure, All Rise is…
AN awesome track.