Dustin & Joe Dolan – ‘Good Looking Woman’

21 November 1997

Joe Dolan here becomes the only act to have an Irish number one single in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Surprisingly, since it was something of a signature song for him, the original ‘Good Looking Woman’ wasn’t one of Joe’s previous five Irish chart-toppers, only peaking at number four in 1970. Now that we have the factoids out of the way, any song with an opening line of “When God created a woman for me” is dubious stuff. ‘Good Looking Woman’ is just an up-tempo hip-swinging iteration of the same male-gaze objectification and commodification of women as ‘The Lady In Red’. You wouldn’t want to get any of this on your clean white suit.

Having a children’s TV character duet on this regurgitation of the sexist old trophy-totty trope is icky enough, and that’s without you having to see the video for this, available online elsewhere, with unfortunate shots of Dustin checking out Amanda Byram from a low angle. But then, of course, it’s Dustin, so we know quality control was never a consideration anyway. As with the Geldof ‘Rat Trap’ duet, the jokes here are still that Dustin is singing on a record but can’t sing, and that he’s being cheeky to a celebrity. Oh, and don’t forget the stage Dub-isms! You Dublin folk really have strange taste in the music you buy, such as this.