This number one marks the beginning, and the end, of two eras. It is the last chart-topper from ‘the Golden Era of Boybands’ (1989-2002). It is also the start of a strange late-career run for Elton John, in which he will be remixed, duet with dead rappers, and commit atrocities in the name of charity…
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, by Blue (their 3rd and final #1) ft. Elton John (his 5th of ten #1s)
1 week, 15th – 22nd December 2002
Compared to some of those records to come, I like this take on Elton’s 1976 #11 hit. It’s true enough to the original, with Elton’s piano coming through loud and clear, and keeps the Parisian sidewalk feel of the solo (swapping the accordion for a harmonica), with enough modern dressing for it to fit in and be a 21st century success. Starting songs with a vinyl crackle was apparently very hot in late 2002.
I will say that the addition of a modern R&B drumbeat, and a slightly faster tempo, means that this version is far less desolate than the original, and therefore loses some of its emotional heft. And I will also say that it is interesting to contrast the polished, technically very good, boyband voices of Blue with Elton’s gruff authenticity, and to wonder how far Reg Dwight might have got had he auditioned in front of Simon Cowell and the other ‘Pop Idol’ judges…
So, I like this, and liked it at the time, but I’m not sure deep down if it’s really much good. Is it just working with good source material? Is it given credibility thanks to Elton performing on it? I suppose it’s not much different to him and George Michael doing ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ a decade earlier.
Like I said, this is it for boybands at the top of the charts, for a while anyway. Busted and McFly will dominate the next few years, but for my money they were boys in a band rather than ‘boybands’. It’s an important distinction! Therefore this is the end of a lineage that started with NKOTB thirteen years earlier, past Take That’s slow climb to credibility, Boyzone’s dullness, 5ive’s fun, Westlife’s relentlessness… I make it twelve boybands in total, with around forty chart-toppers, totals that could increase depending on how we class Boyz II Men, Hanson, and Blazin’ Squad. Disparage them if you will, but they were pretty much the sound of the charts for an entire generation.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Blue are still dropping good records, see current Beautiful Spiritual nicking the sound of Space’s 1977 Magic Fly synth masterpiece, or previous upbeat goodie One Last Time. They can still sing! Both those tracks are better than this cover, which was neither Elton at his best nor Blue at their best – the original Elton was in his peak era when he was genuinely a great vocalist as well as songwriter (though never a major fave of mine Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, but it had a sad wistful appeal) – by 2002 his voice had dropped following vocal operations and was never the same again, it’s a very clear dividing line for me, and I miss the young Elton singing. Not his fault obviously, as he continues to stay with his finger on the musical pulse he rates, less so on his albums.
Now that you mention it, that annoying fake vinyl crackling trend of the late 90’s and 00’s really got on my tits. It was all over the place needlessly added to CD’s and digital recordings to try and get some sort of vinyl-era street-cred, or maybe to try and stop modern tracks sounding so clinical – either way it was very annoying, and pointless as we still have vinyl for anyone wanting ticks and scratches to listen to! Granted it seemed dead and buried in 2002…..
Yes, maybe this is not just an era defining record for Elton, or for boybands, but also for fake vinyl crackling sounds at the start of records… Can’t think of many after this.
Oh I used to think it was a radio thing where they added white noise and fake vinyl/cassette sounds to intros to make you buy the CD – Texas, Mary J Blige and other faves like that for example – as opposed to taping off the radio with my fab new minidisc. That was a format that was perfect – recorded perfectly from any source and you could move the tracks around and do all sorts with it, so of course it needed to be killed off asap and downloading pushed up the priority list. Just my theory there….! 🙂
It’s not a patch on the original, but it’s okay. I don’t hate it. None of the boys in Blue can match Elton’s vocals on the original. Sir Elton in his prime was one of rock/pop’s best singers.
I’m a bit glad we’re out of the boy band golden age. I don’t hate boy bands and several boy bands I quite like and have made some incredible pop music (“I Want It That Way” is a terrific song and the Backstreet Boys made many great songs), but it’s been getting a bit too much. Too many bland ballads especially. The girl groups like the Sugababes and later to appear Girls Aloud are proving to be far more interesting. I always considered a boy band to be manufactured and put together and have a carefully put together image like The Monkees, BTS, or N*SYNC or One Direction, but there are boy bands who come together organically (The Osmonds, Bay City Rollers and The Jackson 5 and I guess maybe you could count 5 Seconds of Summer a boy band though they’re more a pop rock band). You once called Boyz II Men and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers a boy band, but I would never consider them as such. They’re more vocal groups to me. I dunno really how to define a boy band properly. I thought the manufactured part was the critical aspect and also being very popular with women, but now I’m not so sure. What separates a boy band from just boys in a band? The Beatles aren’t a boy band yet they had a boy band audience in the early days. Even The Rolling Stones, Herman’s Hermits, The Dave Clark Five and The Beach Boys had many female fans.
Elton John is an interesting one. He’s a Top 50 artist for me of all time. His early-to-mid-70s run is pretty immaculate IMO. Even several of his late-70s/early-80s despite being a drop off in quality I still consider most of them pretty good. Then from like the mid-80s to the late-80s, he basically started churning out bland pop rock with good songs being few and far between, and then in the 90s he basically became an adult contemporary artist and became so much more boring and uninteresting. But then, starting the 2000s, Elton John and Bernie Taupin started actually making really good albums again. I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything Elton has done since 2000, at least in terms of albums. He stopped chasing hits and concentrated on making good music and it’s been artistically satisfying as a fan. He returned to his 70s sound with more organic production and it’s been fantastic. I do respect Elton for making a genuine and concentrated effort keeping up with modern music when a lot of artists his age don’t listen to anything that was made after they are like 40 (he even knows more indie/underground artists, not just mainstream popstars), and I like him featuring on younger artists songs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it really does not work.
I see ‘boy band’ as a genre as much as anything, and as being particular to the late 80s and onwards. They have to have a pop/soft R&B sound. Plus ballads. And dance routines! And if they play their own instruments and write (the majority of) their own songs then they’re not, but also that rule is flexible (i.e. Gary Barlow writing most of Take That’s hits). The term was first used by Lou Perlman, after seeing NKOTB, so I think it makes sense to see them as the first boy band. Anything before that (Osmonds, Monkees, Bay City Rollers) is a predecessor rather than a boy band. I mentioned Boyz II Men and Hanson in the post but I don’t think they’re boybands – Hanson played their own instruments and Boyz II Men were too ‘grown up’. I could entertain arguments for Blazin Squad but I’m not sure… They were too loose, and had too many members (also, a boy band should ideally have 3-5 members, though I know some K-Pop boybands break this rule…) Writing this blog has apparently made me an expert on identifying boy bands.