This month I thought it would be interesting to look at music in a different way. I was listening to a song the other day and I thought to myself ‘if this was the first song I had heard of this band would I like them and be a fan or listen to more of their tracks?’

So, for this month, I thought it would be interesting to look at a number of different bands and whether certain songs, if i had heard them first would of pulled me in to want to listen to more of that bands music. Now, that is not to say that any of the songs are bad, it is all personal opinion, but it was just a little thing that stuck in my brain and I wanted to explore. Each week, I will be exploring a different genre and looking at different tracks at different times in the musicians career to discuss the impact it would of had on me. This week we are looking at the genre of pop music and just a few bands.

5ive

Got The Feelin’

I was very young when 5ive came on the scene, about 6 or 7 and I remember that I instantly liked their songs, they were catchy, they had dance routines and most importantly they were a boyband, I was a big fan of those. There are a lot of songs that I could of put as tracks that really attracted me to the band but I felt this one was the one of them that really stood out for me. I cannot remember how I first discovered this track but it is a song that I vividly remember the music video and the dance routine. I absolutely loved it and it became instantly one of my favourite tracks. Even now I can still remember the dance routines off by heart. It is one of those songs that was so different to everything else at the time and also incredibly catchy. Even now when I think about it, the track takes me back to certain memories and makes me smile. I am sure it if tracks like this that made me fall in love with 5ive and want to listen to every song that they release.

Shangri-La

I recently discovered that 5ive are still making new music, I knew that they were touring but I did not realise that they were still creating something modern. I heard some of their music the other day and whilst their newer songs still have the ‘dirty’ pop bass that their older music had, I cannot connect with it. Maybe it is because there is a saturation of music these days that it does not feel striking, or maybe it is because I don’t find it very special. I am not sure. Now, I know it is probably unfair to compare a song that is modern to a track that was released in the heightened pop era, but to me, I do not feel it would of been a song that would of stood out to me even when I was a kid.

S Club 7

Bring It All Back

When was growing up, there was a television show called Miami 7, this featured the pop band S Club 7 and each week it would see them trying to break America with a new single every week. Bring It All Back was something that I fell in love with right from the start because it was the opening titles track and had a really catchy dance routine (at that age, you always looked for a dance in the nineties / early noughties). I loved this track and I knew the dance routine inside out. I think it was one of my favourite songs of the band as it was so different to other pop tracks that were around at the time.

You

This was a single that was released near the later part of the bands career, it was a song that was catchy and when you heard it you would sing along but I don’t think if I had heard this first I would of been a fan of the band. I don’t know why but I think the high pitched chorus and the fact that the verses were not as catchy as their older tracks means that I do not think I would of connected with the band as much as I did when I heard the other track.

Blue

All Rise

I became a huge fan of Blue right from the first single, compared to the other boybands that were around in the United Kingdom, they were just so different. I was a few years away from turning into a teenager and it felt like a more of a matured pop song intertwined with r’n’b and that is why it stood out to me.

King Of The World

When this track came out, I enjoyed it, I felt that it had a good old school feel to it and a really catchy chorus. The thing that was disappointing though was that the album was full of covers. There was hardly any original tracks on it and that was something that I never expected Blue to do. If this was the first track that I had heard of the boyband, I really do not think that I would of been a fan, I think I would of enjoyed that one song but the album would of really let me down.

….and sometimes it goes the other way

Sometimes you are not a fan of a musicians songs until you hear one track a lot later that changes your perspective.

Ed Sheeran

The A Team

I had a friend ts University that was really good friends with Ed Sheeran and he kept telling me that I need to listen to his album because he is going to be huge. I remember the first time that I heard The A Team and I couldn’t stand it, there were quite a few musicians with a guitar when Ed came out commercially that I just couldn’t connect and it was a song that I just did not like. I honestly believed that I would not like his music. To be fair I ended up finding a few of his early songs ok but I found it very hard to connect to, especially this track.

Sing

I think this is the first song that I can say I truly liked by Ed Sheeran, I had heard his previous album and enjoyed the odd song that wasn’t the A Team but I would say that this track is the first one that I felt I could connect with his music. I know that it is produced by Pharrell Williams and that is probably why, but I like the style of it and the way that pop music beats are intertwined into the acoustic guitar sound.

Sam Smith

Stay With Me

When I first heard Sam Smith, I could not stand their sound, I think it was because there was a lot of solo singers that had released slow songs as their style. I deliberately avoided their music as when I first heard this track I realised it was a similar style. I only started listening to their music a couple of years later and I now like this track but when it was released it was one that I could not enjoy. If there wasn’t so many slow songs in fashion at the time, I think Sam Smith would of initially had a bigger impression on me.

I’m Not The Only One

To be honest, I think the first time that I appreciated Sam’s voice was when I heard them feature on Naughty Boys track La La La. It was a long time until I decided to try their solo music, I read that Chris Messina from the Mindy Project appeared in the video for I’m Not The Only One so I decided one day to watch it. From watching that video the track grew on me and now I really like it and always keep an eye on Sam Smith’s new releases and listen to a lot of them.

More next week…