Part Nine in an occasional series of songs I should hate but don't.



Yep, you read that right. Girl Thing. Not Hear'say. Definitely not Hear'say. Anyone remember Girl Thing? Part of the post-Spice explosion of girl groups that flopped, alongside Girls@Play, Supersister and Bellefire. Still nothing? They did a song called 'Last One Standing' which (snigger) proclaimed that of all the girls groups they'd be the last ones standing. No? Their second single had a chorus that went "Whoop whoop" like annoying people do in clubs. Anything? One of them had pink hair. Oh well. All you need to know is that this was their finest moment, and it was stolen from them. Stolen. I'm here to put the record straight.

The reason I'm even able to discuss this is all thanks to a job I was going for back in the dim and distant past. In the twilight days of my time at uni, I applied for a prodiction position working on Smash Hits radio. Oh yes! So, keen on making the impression that I knew 5ive from my S Club 7, I immersed myself in the pop pantheon. I poured over Smash Hits and glued myself to The Box for as many hours as I could stand. I didn't get the job, but it changed me forever. I'd already long had an appreciation for cheese. Uni club nights had taken care of that. And I had an ironic appreciation of pop that started at the end of school when I was worried that I was becoming a bit too anal about music, which explains how B*witched's back catalogue remains in my CD collection. But this was much worse even than that. I actually started to care.

So, to our heroes Girl Thing. They bombed, I'm afraid, to put it politely. Their first single did modestly, the second embarrassingly. They joined the legion of pop acts that never made it. These are almost always my favourite pop artists, because they're the most interesting. What's interesting about Westlife? Nothing. See? Anyway, the Girl Thing album was shelved in the UK, but it was, of course, released in Japan. Meanwhile, the pure maleavolent evil of Popstars was unfolding on ITV. Hear'say were assembled. I failed to give a monkeys. They released their anodyne and dull version of 'Pure and Simple'. Then I found out, shockingly, that it was second hand. Girl Thing had recorded their own much better version that I had never heard, as I hadn't been to Japan. Luckily someone had invented Napster and I got to listen to it. And it was so much better.

Here's why:

The vocals suit an all girl band much more than lads. And they haven't been electronically squished to death.

The production on the Girl Thing's version is much funkier, as if recorded live. Hear'say's has a bland rnb-lite vibe and sounds rushed. Because it was.

Girl Thing's version doesn't have annoying phone processed vocals in the breakdown, but they do have giggling before the chord change. You can't fake that kind of improvised genius.

Suzanne's hair extensions. What was she thinking?

And the clincher: Girl Thing's version fades out, like all good pop songs should. Hear'say's finishes on a vocal acapella, which blows, and was presumably done to prove they could sing, and to annoy DJs who then couldn't talk over the end.

All in all, Girl Thing's version not only sounded better at the time, but it has aged significantly better than Hear'say's. There's no denying that 'Pure & Simple' is a great pop song, catchier than chicken pox and better than anything any talent show monkey has released since (with the honorable exception of Girls Aloud, of course). Just a shame that Girl Thing never got to release their version and do what Atomic Kitten managed with 'Whole Again'. Pop history could've been very different. Well, a bit different anyway...

# posted by Del : 10:28 PM