31 August 2002
I’ve given you fair notice by now that this trip through the ’00s Irish number ones will not be, contrary to what we thought we remembered, an extended Xenomania victory parade. We’ve already seen Six score two number ones, more than either Girls Aloud or the Sugababes will manage, and now here are Atomic Kitten with their second Irish chart-topper. Does this somehow devalue the brilliant ’00s pop bangers of GA and the Sugababes, or the superlative Xenomania catalogue? Of course not. It just makes my task more of a drudge, though I get some consolation from dragging you down with me.
‘Whole Again’ was dreary, their cover of former Irish number one ‘Eternal Flame’ was dreary, and despite the inbuilt groove of the song and the charm bequeathed by its heretofore best-known version by Blondie, this iteration of ‘The Tide Is High’ is dreary too. How do team Atomic Kitten do it? I suppose it’s the legacy of Boyzone: trot out diluted versions of well-known hits, keep the overheads cheap, and assume correctly that generic blandness plus familiarity will result in radio airplay, roaring singalongs by boozy parties overhearing this above the din of a crowded bar, and the CD single bought, no questions asked.
And not just the familiarity of ‘The Tide Is High’: Atomic Kitten’s take has an exceedingly similar electro-country beat and walking-to-camera video to Madonna’s ‘Don’t Tell Me’ from the year before. But lest you think no green shoots of innovation sprout here at all, and if you’d forgotten why there’s a floating ‘(Get The Feeling)’ in the title, this version adds some new Saturday-night-out lines to the mid-section. And don’t forget the key change! Job done: Atomic Kitten now have as many Irish number ones as Six, Bart Simpson, and Chris De Burgh.
