14 January 1994
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Who subjects East 17’s ‘It’s Alright’ to any sort of rigorous analysis? You can’t fault it for energy; once the beat kicks in there’s a tidal wave of bounce and verve. Nor can you fault it for sincerity; however anodyne or vague it may seem as a pop hook, we all need someone at some point in our lives to tell us that things will be alright, though whether that needs to be 80 times in four minutes and forty-five seconds, as here, is debatable. Still, no one’s coming to ‘It’s Alright’ for the songwriting, are they?
Well, perhaps one person is. Tony Mortimer, at 23 already a little older than the boy band norm, is certainly positioning himself here as the Gary Barlow of East 17, hence the serious-songwriter piano ballad first verse. Commendable ambition, for sure, though Mortimer’s mid-section rap is as ill-advised as his bandmates’ hats. Nonetheless, Brian Harvey is able to carry that balladry with his modest vocal powers, and the other two lads do whatever it is they do. Overall, despite have more oomph and clout than most Take That records to this point, ‘It’s Alright’ is less a song and more just the sound a boy band makes roaming free in the wild. That said, anyone being snarky about East 17 and Mortimer’s songwriting aspirations in early 1994 would find themselves eating their words for Christmas dinner.
