We wake up, post-Chemical Brothers, with a bit of a headache. Bleary-eyed, we reach for the play button on our next #1… And it’s one hell of a comedown.
Words, by Boyzone (their 1st of six #1s)
1 week, from 13th – 20th October 1996
Not for the first time this year, a boyband reaches for the Bee Gees songbook. ‘Words’ was one of the Gibb Brothers’ first chart hits, their third record to reach the Top 10 back in 1968. The original is a very much a late-sixties ballad, drenched in strings and heavy piano chords, but it doesn’t feel overblown, with Barry Gibb’s voice right out at the front of the mix. Boyzone’s producers decide to up the drama, up the rolling drums and the layered vocal tracks, and drag a full extra minute out of the song.
It’s a bit stodgy, a bit lumpy. On their cover of ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, Take That stripped things back, and I was also a bit sniffy about it, so maybe I’m just picky. Or maybe it’s just very hard to do justice to a Bee Gees original. This take on ‘Words’ isn’t terrible (and Boyzone have some real crimes against pop to come), but that’s because the quality of the source material shines through.
One thing I do find particularly annoying about this is Ronan Keating, Boyzone’s main man, on lead vocals. He just has an annoying voice, like he’s constantly trying to add gravitas to each and every syllable rather than just singing the damn song. Alas, it’s a voice that we’ll have to get used to on top of the charts for the time being.
For all the fuss I made about Take That as the boyband of the ‘90s, for folks of my age group they were just a little too old. No, it was Boyzone that the girls in my Primary 6 class were obsessed with. To this day I remain conditioned to hate them, after getting into trouble for sending a classmate into floods of tears just because I told her how terrible they were…
But honestly, they weren’t a patch on Take That, who had some genuinely good pop songs, many of them originals. Boyzone relied too heavily on bland covers, that cynically targeted both the tweens and their mums. ‘Words’ was the group’s first number one but their sixth Top 5 hit, and they’d already had their wicked way with the Osmonds’ ‘Love Me for a Reason’, and Cat Stevens’ ‘Father and Son’.
Robson & Jerome gave us our introduction to the chart crimes of Simon Cowell, while Boyzone were managed by his henchman in the vanilla-isation of ‘90s and ‘00s pop, Louis Walsh. Not that Boyzone were the only Irish five-piece that Walsh unleashed on the world, but we’ll try not to think about them until we have to….
The UK Number Ones Blog 
As an Irishman, I fully concur. Boyzone were much worse than Take That.
Quite right. No room for patriotism when it comes to terrible music!
Truly abysmal, like everything else Groanin’ Ronan has done. He has massacred more good songs than just about anyone.
Groanin Ronan : ) He does sing like he’s in constant pain, doesn’t he?
With a look on his face to complete the image 🤣
Boyzone just existed. They were bland, not hateable but just totally dispensable. ‘Words’ was for me the second-best Bee Gees ballad ever (nothing could surpass the severely undercharting ‘To Love Somebody’) and Boyzone did just a Poundland version. And as for the Take That comparisons, they never came within a mile of anything as good as ‘Patience’ or ‘Shine’.
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Well, Take That in the 1990s “never came within a mile of anything as good as ‘Patience’ or ‘Shine’ either.”
Almost as though people need time to develop the talent to justify their stardom?
Boyzone and the other two Irish bands that followed were one of the main reasons I’m I lost interest in the charts in the late 90’s. The big boy band when I was in primary school were the Bay City Rollers, and whilst no one could claim they were musical greats songs like Shang A Lang weren’t bland in the way Bzone’s entire output was. When you think of the great names in popular music who won’t feature on a blog like this at all the fact that Groanin’ Ronan ( best comment ever on here!) and his henchmen have 6 number ones, their vile female equivalents will have 4 and the successors to their shitty little throne will nearly equal Elvis and the Beatles, and it’s no wonder many of us Gen Xers think late 90’s and 2000’s music is the worst era of all. Groanin’ is a regular One Show presenter now, and no more interesting or charismatic than he was when he was murdering 70’s ballads all those years ago. Vile
Can I play Devil’s Advocate…? Yes Boyzone and Westlife are largely terrible, and the fact that the latter are up there with Madonna, Cliff and Elvis is hard to swallow. But they racked up so many #1s because of the period they were releasing in, when the #1 changed almost every week. So actually, when we reach 99-00, despite Westlife having something like 8 number ones in that time, it won’t feel like they dominate because there will be so much in-between. And the high turnover actually allows some pretty cool rock and dance #1s to sneak in too, among the boyband ballads and the cheesy pop. Hang in there, stay with me, and I hope to change your mind, even slightly… Maybe even convince you that ‘Rollercoaster’ is a minor classic…. Oh, and Elvis had a few stinkers making up his total of #1s (Wooden Heart, anyone?) PS I had no idea Ronan was on the One Show now… He doesn’t break in to song at the end of each programme, a la Cilla Black, does he…?
Hi
thankfully he doesn’t sing anymore. He’s actually carved out quite a niche as a TV regular over here now, one of a rolling rota of one show presenters along with Martin Kemp’s son and a couple of ex footballers. He also stands in on other magazine type shows a lot to cover presenter leave. He’s slightly less annoying than when he was younger but equally bland. Regarding the noughties, I’d hit 30 by then so it may be just the usual “today’s music not as good’ thing that comes with age, which meant I celebrated the resurgence of Kylie, Madonna and Take That during that period as the return of ‘proper’ artists, wheat among the chaff! As for the Rollercoaster girl group, I loathed them so much that it was almost visceral, they’d be down with Mr Blobby and Shaddup You Face if I was rating number ones. Maybe it’s the type of music they ‘sang’ as I thought a lot of Girls Aloud’s records were very good ( although none of their best made number one)
Oh Girls Aloud were leagues above B*Witched, and above almost every other pop act from the time. Their run of singles was almost flawless, even if they did, as you say, not make it as high as they should have on the charts.
Damn. And I usually had a high tolerance for these type of syrupy overcloying pop ballads. I really like the Bee Gees but I don’t really care for “Words” (I think the hook of the song is weak compared to their other songs from that era). But at least their version is not as annoying as whatever this is. So bland. So banal. So vanilla. It’s not offensive or anything, but it’s so forgettable.
The Bee Gees were fab and their back catalogue is wonderful and under-appreciated for the longest time thanks to the Fever years backlash – but cover versions tell a story, and that story is the songs were great. Words was never one of my fave Bee Gees songs of the late 60’s – Massachussets, World, I Started A Joke, First Of May, Daved By The Bell, Gotta Get A Message To You, To Love Somebody were all better records – but it was still great compared to this bland cover. Boyzone had a few decent tracks, and much like Westlife they were the upbeat songs, the ballads were pretty much dreadful. And there will be at least one Boyzone lead vocal that wasn’t Ronan, the sadly late other bandmember had a pure crystal tone, but you can do all that when it pops up!
And I 100% support the Rollercoaster remark (but not if you mean B*Witched, gasp), Life Is A Rollercoaster is a brilliant song and production courtesy of the fab Gregg “New Radicals” Alexander and Ronan was never better, though he was way way worse many times. Everybody enjoys a Greggs’ now and then! Sorry if I have stolen that terrible reference bad joke in advance (at least for UK folk, whoosh-over-the-head in the States I expect) 🙂
We were on a 2 song streak… well this one…why not just listen to the original. They don’t add much to it.
I’m curious…which decade so far got the most views for you?
Good question – I was looking at this just the other day. It’s the 70s… by far. Then the 80s. The 90s hasn’t had time to catch up, yet, and the 50s was so long ago (both in terms of the songs, and this blog). The interesting thing is that the 60s posts are so far behind, and don’t pick up as many casual views as the 70s and 80s… Not sure why…
That is odd! I say that because so many people know the 60s songs…could it be that you picked up more readers? With me…usually the 60s give me the most views….of course that would be Beatles, Stones, Who, and Kinks.
It’s never the songs you think… I feel that there’s so much out there on the Beatles and Stones etc that my little blog posts get lost in the noise… Whereas Boney M or Shakin Stevens get me higher up the search results!
That does happen to me…you know what my number 1 post ever is? The Seventies Burger King Commercial…it’s crazy…(Hold the Pickle Hold the Lettuce)… every single day I still get 5-20 views on it. I think I have lik 18,000 views on it….it just keeps going….it’s insane.
I doubt anyone from the UK would know it.
And that’s probably because there’s not much else out there on it… Whenever someone googles to see if they remember it, then your site pops up!
Yes it is the first site lol….the most popular ones are not the big ones because of what you just said.
Amazing that 5-20 people a day randomly think of that advert 🙂
It took me 5 minutes to write…little did I know.
Just checked, and my most viewed post ever is Status Quo’s Top 10 biggest hits… Got to love the Quo!
That totally makes sense in the UK.
Glad you reminded me of them…that is one band that I only posted one thing on…and you know the American hit but I like their music now that I’ve heard it.
You should post a few more of their songs. They’re very much in your wheelhouse
I will! I’ve already started the Oasis song you posted a few weeks ago…Don’t Look Back in Anger…but I’ll hit Status Quo as well…as you have seen my blog…I’m always searching for more that I like that Americans don’t know as much about.
sorry…not 18…10,000…still that is crazy for a stupid commercial
Re lack of comments on 1960’s posts
I’ve read your entire blog but personally I’m more likely to read, comment on posts between mid 70’s to late 90’s as that was my ‘era’ ( 10 in 1976, 33 in 1999. Most people probably gravitate towards the popular music of their teens and twenties and someone who was a teenager in the sixties would be in their 70’s now and probably not someone who peruses blogs! Just a thought
Yes you may well have a point. For some reason the 50s seems like the days of Ancient Rome, while the 60s feels modern. And yet the people who actually lived through it are all 70+ by now…
Also interesting is that it’s often the least interesting songs that get the most traction. Post a classic, and nobody says anything because what is there to say…? It’s a good song. But my recent Boyzone post was one of my most ‘visited’ of the past few weeks, and every comment was negative : )
it’s a lot more fun to dis Boyzone than praise ABBA or the Beatles