Robson & Jerome: oh you've gotta be kidding me...

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It had to happen.

In their supremely blank readings of well-known popular standards, did the Singing Squaddies nudge closer to the forgotten heart of pop than anyone else? Was their denial of number one status to "Common People" and "Wonderwall" indicative of a rationalist approach to pop which over the years has been repeatedly demonstrated as being more commercially successful than the Romanticist tactics of New Pop Mks I and II and Britpop, and yet has exposed the essential lie of permanence at the bottom of pop, in that they sold more records than any other artist in the Britain of 1995 but have now been forgotten, or written out of history?

Or was it simply stage one in Simon Cowell's wearisome world takeover plan?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:36 (nineteen years ago)

have now been forgotten

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:39 (nineteen years ago)

did their wartime stylings anticipate missy elliot '05, xtina '06, etc?

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:42 (nineteen years ago)

Their reading of "Up On The Roof," for instance, recalls a repose atop the Prudential Insurance building in Bromley rather than ascension to spiritual nirvana and true escape; thus the aesthetic gap between thought and expression narrows to a zero which even Lou Reed could not close.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:43 (nineteen years ago)

This might've got as many posts as the Puppini Sisters thread if this was 1996 and ILM existed then...

Robson & Jerome achieved aim#1 of Pop in making certain people feel good..comfortable...something at the time.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:46 (nineteen years ago)

'wonderwall' is just as retrograde, in a way.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:48 (nineteen years ago)

today, r&j would be feted by timbaland. he would call them 'robson and jerome' interchangeably.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:50 (nineteen years ago)

"Yeah, I really like that Robson N Jerome guy, man... we gotta get him in the studio, do a little something"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:51 (nineteen years ago)

but 'Wonderwall' is a more original composition.

did R&J's success in the charts affect their acting careers significantly? Green did a couple of dramas afterwards but nothing of note. Flynn played Tommy Cooper on stage, apparently very well! I don't suppose their ambitions really exceeded this sort of thing anyway.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:51 (nineteen years ago)

Jerome also played Bobby Charlton in that George Best movie.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:54 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's safe to say that without Robson & Jerome, Jamie Foxx would have never have had the idea to combine a succesful acting career with moves into singing.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:55 (nineteen years ago)

Green read Alan Shearer's autobiography on tape *shudder*.

― LC (Damian), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:55 (nineteen years ago)

Green did a couple of dramas afterwards but nothing of note.

iirc he had a sarah lancashire/ross kemp-style mega-contract at ITV... that resulted in some forgotten and ratings-wise disappointing star vehicles.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:57 (nineteen years ago)

It's those "certain people" who worry me. Was it purely the mum/granny demographic?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 09:58 (nineteen years ago)

exposed the essential lie of permanence at the bottom of pop

They demonstrated the permanence of getting a hit covering "Unchained Melody" though.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:00 (nineteen years ago)

i must get round to that.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:01 (nineteen years ago)

A number one for four different acts over the years.

The Goons' version was far and away the best but was withdrawn for some 35 years because of complaints from the composers.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:03 (nineteen years ago)

Was it purely the mum/granny demographic?

i would imagine so.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

Stock and Aitken produced the R&J records, so the project could be construed as their pre-emptive revenge on Britpop.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'm seeing as some James Blunt sort modern day R&J in as much as he too exploits the repressed militaristic yearnings of the mum/granny demographic. It's all surely a harbinger of the fascist state to come.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

carmodized

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:19 (nineteen years ago)

wait til Blunt does 'Mull Of Kintyre' for Children In Need or something.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:19 (nineteen years ago)

blunter has a slightly less mumsy demographic but yeah.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:20 (nineteen years ago)

You can rearrange that sentence yerselves.

x-post: I'd rather they were sodomized.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 10:20 (nineteen years ago)

Don't fucking do that again. For a minute I thought you were announcing they had a new album out. I hadn't seen this thread when I ranted against them on the puppini sisters one.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 11:22 (nineteen years ago)

You mind your manners when you come on my threads, lad.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 11:31 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry grandad.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

"Unchained Melody" might be my most hated song ever.

Can someone make a photoshop of Robeson & Jerome please?

― Son of Spam (noodle vague), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

i remembering being in italy in 96 i'm guessing and grabbing either an nme or melody maker and seeing robson and jerome poised at the top of the charts and thinking 'wtf is robson and jerome'. i still don't really know the answer to this question - i'm imagining some ac friendly blue eyed soul oldies update a la michael bolton/simply red or more recently taylor hicks? was the robson and jerome phenom attached to some larger phenom (i take it they were actors?)? did they seem genuinely huge or were they just a persistant steady annoyance? i knew they'd kept 'common people' out of the top slot, amazed/amused to find they did the same to 'wonderwall'.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

2 stars of a Soap about the Army doing minimum-effort covers of oldies - not all soul I don't think. Masterminded by Simon Cowell.

― Son of Spam (noodle vague), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

2 of the biggest selling albums of the 90s. Both sold over 2m each.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't they do a "Remember the Good Old Days Being Bombed by the Luftwaffe and Wanking Off GIs at the Pictures Bring Back the Birch" album for the Grandmas too?

― Son of Spam (noodle vague), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

I think that was Max Bygraves.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 07:09 (nineteen years ago)

Robson and Jerome were the spiritual heirs of Windsor Davies and Don Estelle. The reaction of overseas readers when Tom gets to "Whispering Grass" on Popular will be invigorating.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 07:10 (nineteen years ago)

Robson and Jerome not really waiting too long for a best of:

1 Robson & Jerome Robson & Jerome Nov 1995
1 Robson & Jerome Take Two Nov 1996
20 Robson & Jerome Happy Days - The Best Of Robson And Jerome Nov 1997

Didn't they do a "Remember the Good Old Days Being Bombed by the Luftwaffe and Wanking Off GIs at the Pictures Bring Back the Birch" album for the Grandmas too?

The double A side of "Unchained Melody" was a cover of "There'll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover" to tie in with the anniversary of 1945. They performed it at some big concert in London and all that kinda stuff iirc.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 08:17 (nineteen years ago)

R+J didn't only sell to mums and grannies, there was a very big teenage girl market for them too. I know this is true because I had two teenage younger sisters at the time, who bought all the records, as did their friends.

I have no idea why, though. Good songs, which were new and unknown to this audience, recorded, packaged and marketed in a way which wasn't offensive to them? Perhaps.

― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 08:38 (nineteen years ago)

I hadn't considered the D-Day/"We used to have an empire, you know?" implications of R&J before. Surely they were too "adult" to be sexually appealing to a young girl market?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

IIRC I mostly saw R&J records being bought by housewives in Tesco's (ditto Celine Dion's The Colour Of My Love).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 09:24 (nineteen years ago)

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