Sigh. The charts do like to bring us down to earth. Straight after Arctic Monkeys’ lightning bolt of a debut, here come Westlife…
You Raise Me Up, by Westlife (their 13th of fourteen #1s)
2 weeks, from 30th October – 13th November 2005
2004 was the one year in eight, between 1999 and 2006, in which Westlife didn’t have an autumnal #1. Like clockwork, October or November saw the lead from a new Westlife album, to be released ahead of the Christmas shopping period. In 2004 they had recorded a ‘rat pack’ inspired album – the heinously titled ‘Allow Us to Be Frank’ – which had no singles and only made #3. But it provided a convenient line in the sand, and meant that when the boys returned a year later, they were a fully-fledged man band. This was also their first #1 as a four-piece, with Brian McFadden having quit the year before.
Allow me to be frank. ‘You Raise Me Up’ is not my cup of tea. To quote Miss Jean Brodie: ‘For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing that they like.’ There have been many versions of it recorded over the years, and I’ve listened to several of them for this post, trying to find one I could stomach. I haven’t managed. It is cloying, it is overwrought, it is pompous, whoever is singing. Every version has a mournful Celtic accompaniment that makes it sound like a reject from the ‘Braveheart’ soundtrack. It sounds like a hymn, but it isn’t. I don’t like that. I don’t like feeling as if I’m being tricked into listening to religious music. It should nail its colours to the mast (or the cross, as it were) and let us know, with a label that reads ‘Secular Guidance: Religious Content’, or something.
One thing that surprises me about ‘You Raise Me Up’ is that it was only written in 2001. I’d have assumed it was much older. It had grown in infamy, from the original by Norwegian-Irish band Secret Garden, through Josh Groban’s well-known cover. Prior to Westlife, another Irish icon in Daniel O’Donnell had had the biggest British hit with it, making #22 in 2003. I wouldn’t say Westlife’s version is any better or worse than the others, but it makes me look back fondly towards the days of ‘If I Let You Go’, and ‘My Love’. Even their cover of ‘Mandy’ was palatable compared to this hard, lumpy stodge.
And yet, ‘You Raise Me Up’ was the first Westlife single to spend more than a week on top for five years, since their equally crappy cover of ‘Against All Odds’ with Mariah Carey. Had Arctic Monkeys released a week later, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against this juggernaut, which sold 1.5 times what ‘I Bet You Look Good…’ had in its first week. Even their second week sales were higher. It currently stands as Westlife’s third highest-seller, which is an admittedly impressive feat for a boyband, sorry manband, on their sixth studio album.
It would also have been the perfect way to bid them adieu. But alas, we have one final Westlife chart-topper to get through. Another MOR cover. Next autumn, obviously.
Westlife’s version of this song was a big hit in Australia here, got to #3, and I remember hearing it a lot on the radio and in retail shops the mid-2000s. I remember at the time there were a decent amount of vocal groups who were “man bands” with four or five handsome white men in their 20s/30s with beards or who looked older than the R&B, hip hop, pop rock and pop punk/emo pop artists who were big and aimed at teenagers and kids, and who looked like they were aimed at women in their late-20s-50s. Adult contemporary I guess. I actually didn’t hear the Groban version of the song until many years later.
I don’t hate Westlife’s version. It’s okay. Maybe it’s the nostalgia and also having been to Catholic school in primary and high-school (this sounds a lot like Christian Contemporary Music lol). As a kid, I actually thought it was a Christian song and God was raising the person up. And that key change, always love an over the top key change, as well as a gospel choir. Groban’s version is a bit better (to paraphase Obi-Wan Kenobi, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time), but it’s not the type of song I’ll ever wish to hear often. A bit too overwrought for my liking Just as we finished the Oasis era, looks like we’re so close to closing out the Westlife era.