MONDEO POP TALKING POINT OF THE DAY: The Wet Wet Wet thread

I can remember... five of these.

3 Wet Wet Wet If I Never See You Again Mar 1997
4 Wet Wet Wet Yesterday Aug 1997

particularly intriguing.

no idea what these are.

Marti Pellow's heroin addiction: the dark heart of Mondeo Pop?

YO. Why is this not a poll?

would need ysi links.

YO. Why is this not a poll?

-- acrobat, Wednesday, 5 September 2007 12:42 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This is the discussion thread, the poll thread comes a week later once we've covered all the bases

I think I know both the ones you've picked out.
Yesterday is a cover of the beatles tune made weird cos Pellow sings it with a grin.

xp

If Run DMC are the Beatles of rap, are Wet Wet Wet the Beatles of Mondeo Pop?

number 4, in the summer of beatley 'be here now' mania (also out that month: 'sexy sadie' by radiohead), and yet somehow it didn't register.

xpost

i'm assuming 'i feel fine' is also a beatles cover.

marti pellow was once on the cover of 'loaded'.

Talking about pissing out of busses.

If you take Goodnight Girl out of the quation they sure had a long dry patch mid career.

1 Wet Wet Wet With A Little Help From My Friends May 1988 Notes
6 Wet Wet Wet Sweet Surrender Sep 1989
19 Wet Wet Wet Broke Away Dec 1989
31 Wet Wet Wet Hold Back The River Mar 1990
30 Wet Wet Wet Stay With Me Heartache / I Feel Fine Aug 1990
37 Wet Wet Wet Make It Tonight Sep 1991

hard to imagine a modern act not getting dropped for that kind of performance.

Check the album chart!

oic good point

Angel Eyes is the one where he burps at the beginning.

Sick of leaving in the morning
With the night you gave away (BELCH)

They later changed their name to Wet Wet Wet, a title they took from the Scritti Politti song, "Gettin, havin' and holdin'".

wiki also says they are touring in december and have a new album ready. i think dom should interview them.

i can remember Lip Service and Julia Says far far too well

the best thing they did was to delete LIAA just short of four months at the top

buying/sponsoring/whatever Clydebank was nice too i suppose

Dunno if Bizarre would go for it.

xp

1 Wet Wet Wet Popped In Souled Out Oct 1987
3 Wet Wet Wet The Memphis Sessions Nov 1988
2 Wet Wet Wet Holding Back The River Nov 1989
1 Wet Wet Wet High On The Happy Side Feb 1992
10 Wet Wet Wet with The WREN Orchestra Live At The Royal Albert Hall May 1993
4 Wet Wet Wet End Of Part One (Their Greatest Hits) Nov 1993
1 Wet Wet Wet End Of Part One (Their Greatest Hits) (re-entry) Apr 1994
1 Wet Wet Wet Picture This Apr 1995
2 Wet Wet Wet 10 Apr 1997
13 Wet Wet Wet The Greatest Hits Nov 2004

everyhit doesn't give the length they spent on the chart though.

From what I remember, Wet Wet Wet songs spent a _long_ time on the charts, I think their stereotypical "mum" fans weren't buying them week one.

polyhex turns up only one song outside top 40:
02/11/1991 Wet Wet Wet Put The Light On 56 {56}-63->2

so they did surprisingly well really

Is "Cold Cold Heart" the Hank Williams' song, I wonder? Would be a pretty Glasgow (or Clydebank) song to do

Sadly not, but this is some classy artwork:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/Cold_Cold_Heart.jpg

There chart stats sort of remined me of Shaggy in they'll go quiet then have a massive hit every few years then dissapear into the lower reaches of the 30 again. I wonder if they could have a no 1 these days?

I think if the wind was in the right direction, it was a quiet week, and they got themselves a sound that could appeal to early 20s nu-AORists, sure.

Marti Pellow's image/visage won Stars In Their Eyes (Grand Final) Twice!

1994: John Finch
1996: Paul Doody

Hmmm, that maybe asking a bit Dom. I really don't think Pellow could sell Coldplay / Keane type stuff, it just wouldn't work. That's a thought that sort of post U2 post Oasis stuff has kinda killed Mondeo Pop I reckon. If that is what you mean by nu-AOR.

I was thinking it'd be half nu-AOR sales, half Iron Maiden/Marillion "fans never give up on them" sales.

Talking about Coldplay, Kanye really should have got Marti P on "Graduation" rather than Chris Martin.

Maybe another hallmark of Mondeo Pop is that it doesn't break in America?

Del Amitri were big on the college circuit in the States, weren't they? Or at least circa "Roll To Me" they were.

if only we could find some american rock critic types who remember the mid '90s huh?

i think WWW could get to number one, if they really wanted to.

i don't think the beautiful south could.

no.

I don't think any Mondeo Pop act other than WWW could. Maybe if Eric Prydz remixed "King of Rock and Roll" Prefab Sprout could.

Gonna get all Sick Mouthy here but was Mondeo Pop the first casualty of Dynamic Range Compression? Mondeo Pop was on the whole rather light but when you compress that sort of sound it doesn't quite work. Way back in 2002 a woman who I knew who had produced records for 911 (?!) pointed out to me that the acoustics guitars on contempoary records by Mark Owen and Darius had been compressed to such a degree you couldn't hear the actual strumming. I guess it just took a few years to filter into mainstream rock by which point it had taken it's first scalp with Mondeo Pop.

To alter the words of a famous Killers track..

I have a Mondeo but I'm not a Mondeo Popper...

(It doesn't scan as well tho)

I think "Sweet Little Mystery" and "Wishing I Was Lucky" were so Local-FM Radio-ubiquitous for about 5 years that they could sustain long chart dry patches.

I wonder if you'd see a similar pattern for Simply Red and Tina Turner?

np: goodnight girl

^^^ can't lie, heart fm hit me hard with this one last nite

thank god i'm not alone. i claim not to believe in guilty pleasures but this is a hard one to fess up to in public.

word. those smooth harmonies on the intro are hard to deny, and then it's already too late.

6 Wet Wet Wet Wishing I Was Lucky Apr 1987

^ don't mind this one tbh

5 Wet Wet Wet Sweet Little Mystery Jul 1987

still like this, however..

4 Wet Wet Wet Yesterday Aug 1997

.. always reminded me of the comedy version The Beatles did on one of their Christmas singles.

Apparently, Marti Pellow has left Wet Wet Wet again. I'm surprised, because I'm struggling to remember them ever reforming!?

they reformed in the early 2000s, having googled it seems like it was 2004. they brought an album out in 2007.

i had completely forgotten that they were essentially extant as a band because i guess they might have played some gigs subsequently but that was it. not exactly something you'd have to quit to focus on other endeavors but the bold marti is an enigmatic figure