1 December 1995
Just as East 17 did the previous year, Boyzone had the first and last Irish number one of 1995. (‘Love Me For A Reason’ re-took the number one spot at the start of the year.) That’s where the similarity ends. Anyone with a passing acquaintance of the Boyzone oeuvre will know that they certainly had no ‘Stay Another Day’ in them. Also, ‘So Good’ had shown how up-tempo original material was way, way outside their skillset. So, it’s back to schmaltzy, insipid cover versions of ’70s ballads.
You could quibble that callow young Ronan Keating is hardly suited to singing the words of a worldly-wise father to his inexperienced son, but that’d be crediting the Boyzone operation with putting thought into this. Clearly the song choice logic here was: any well-known middle-of-the-road ’70s slowie will do. Ronan skims the lyrics, Stephen does his cute-one pout, the other three look moody, a producer plays cheap keyboards, and that’s all there is. At least it’s short.
Take That and East 17 each had one genuinely good self-penned ballad, plenty of other energetic hits, and personality. By comparison to those two and literally every other boyband, Boyzone were a laughably bland and shallow proposition. It’s not the five lads’ fault. I’ve given up being surprised or even mildly annoyed by the lazy cynicism that was clearly behind all this. In the UK at the same time, Simon Cowell was hawking the paper-thin ’50s nostalgia of Robson and Jerome; this rather than Take That or East 17 is the more appropriate comparison for Louis Walsh’s Boyzone and their craven ’70s nostalgia. Happy Christmas 1995.
