6 October 1995
Hearing, or overhearing, ‘Fairground’ by Simply Red on the radio back in 1995, our first reaction would have been to recognise the pounding drum sample from ‘Give It Up’ by The Good Men, which itself had been an airplay-bossing hit a couple of years before that. We may not have known that ‘Give It Up’ itself was also built on a sample – of ‘Fanfarra (Cabua-Le-Le)’, a track written and played by Brazilian singer and percussionist Carlinhos Brown for a 1992 album by Sérgio Mendes. Paul Simon had used South American percussion extensively for his 1990 album The Rhythm Of The Saints; Phil Collins would do the same for his 1996 album Dance Into The Light. I offer this essential context just in case a young person hearing ‘Fairground’ for the first time thinks there was any degree of innovation or originality in this or any Simply Red single. I admit that it would have sounded innovative and original if your only listening was Simply Red singles, in which case you have other problems.
The Brazilian snippet is so clinically extracted and then transplanted that it loses all of its vibrancy and colour; I thought it was just a techno drum beat out of a box. Mick Hucknall doesn’t have any vibrancy to add: ‘Fairground’ is just the same old Simply Red with those drumbeat samples plastered on like go-faster stripes. It’s not much of a song. He skims the bland, wishy-washy verses, starting with the worryingly aimless “Driving down an endless road”, just to get to his big, blaring vocal in the chorus, accompanied by further layers of himself. This is grand if you like Mick Hucknall’s voice, in which case you have even more problems than before.
One of the limitations of number one single status is that it doesn’t really paint an accurate picture of the wider music soundscape. Simply Red’s 1992 album Stars bestrode daytime radio playlists like a colossus; songs from it were inescapable. Yet there were no chart-topping hits from it. A big reason for this was probably that the Simply Red fanbase had already bought the album for their cars and living rooms, and so could leave the singles charts to the boybands of their children. ‘Fairground’ was the first new Simply Red release after the success of Stars, so it had the cachet of ‘event release’, plus it was played on radio for weeks ahead of actually being in the shops. It only stayed at number one in Ireland for a week, which suggests it didn’t find a lasting place in our hearts. We’re moving into the era of new singles becoming stunt releases: promoted well in advance, going straight in at number one for a week, then falling down the charts like a stone. This will become more apparent in the ’00s, when record companies are pretty much gaming the charts to match their promotional calendars. Perhaps ‘Fairground’ was at the vanguard of pop music after all.
