— Mark Frith
A look at the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of April 13, 1994 gives an indication of how British artists were doing on the other side of the Atlantic. Starting down at the bottom, there's either I to I or 1 to 1 with "The Right Thing" which was taken from the Richard Curtis rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral. I have seen this movie many, many times over the years and I have no memory of this song. Perhaps it's "featured" in the closing credits as the names of various "key grips" are mentioned but I'd have to check on that. Also, I'm not completely sure this I to I group is even British though I'm inclined to include them anyway.
Moving up into the seventies we find James with "Laid". I thought it had been a hit earlier in the year and, given the amount of radio play it got at the time, I would've figured it did better than its modest sixty-one peak. Then, there's the Brand New Heavies who I'm a bit surprised to encounter on here. "Dream on, Dreamer" is a terrific song but it seems rather out of step with all that post-grunge, frat boy indie rock and formulaic R&B which dominated the US at the time. Rod Stewart is one step up on ver Heavies with a single and don't recall and have no interest in investigating. For spite.
Heading up the Top 60 is Morrissey with "The More You Ignore Me the Closer I Get" which surprised many by doing as well as it did. Juliet Roberts is a few spots higher than Moz, then there's Gabrielle's "Dreams", Rod the Bod and Sting in their horrible team up with Bryan Adams from some stupid movie and Phil Collins making a final push for relevancy before we get to the highest placing hit by a UK act. And look who it is: Eternal with "Stay" at number thirty-three. Yes, Mark Frith appears to be correct, the Americans were about to steal them away.
I think that makes ten UK singles on the Hot 100 that week. A tenth of the chart but nothing in the Top 30. The bulk of these are songs few in North America remember and some they probably weren't even aware of at the time. I personally have no memory of Eternal being on the charts in North America but I do recall the quartet appearing on MuchMusic, the Canadian equivalent to MTV. Easther, Kéllé, Louise and Vernie looked delighted to be living their lives as they answered the VJs questions. What I wasn't to know was that this interview was probably the only one they gave during their promotional trip across the Atlantic that didn't leave a sour taste in their mouths.
While the picture painted by longtime Hits writer Alex Kadis is of the foursome enjoying themselves on their first promotional tour of the US, the group would later admit that the Americans didn't quite know what to make of them. Being a multi-racial vocal group, it was said that black radio stations tended to focus on their questions on Easther, Kéllé and Vernie while the white pop stations would zero in on Louise. Hard to imagine this happening to Hootie & The Blowfish around the same time. This schism isn't discussed by Kadis and indeed it seems like music industry types described in the piece treated them respectfully and didn't even seem surprised by their unusual black-white dynamic. But this sunny account contrasts with that of Q's Robert Yates which has less of the faint whiff of PR spin to it.
Mark Frith had already made an Eternal record his Best New Single at the start of 1994 and he's even more impressed with "Just a Step from Heaven". Admitting it is more of a grower than their previous hits, he nevertheless feels it has "the best of both" in one cracking song. I can't agree. It's a perfectly fine third single from their Always and Forever album but it doesn't come close to "Stay" or "Save Our Love" — and this isn't a knock against it. There's plenty to dig in this one but the effortless pop hooks just aren't present to the same extent. The first two hits had videos but didn't even need them; in the case of "Just a Step..." it's the promo that is the biggest take away.
With the outlook on their promotional jaunt being mostly positive, it must have seemed like the British were indeed about to "los[e] them to America". Yet, the encouraging chart performance of "Stay" wouldn't be repeated even by the equally wonderful "Save Our Love". The video for "Just a Step from Heaven" had the glitzy US production values but it did little to aid their cause Stateside. No doubt appearing on MTV and Arsenio Hall and Entertainment Tonight and at the Soul Train Awards did the them a world of good but they were as good as forgotten by the time they got back to Britain.
The real legacy of their trip to America was that it proved to be the first step towards Louise's departure just a year later. In turn, this would lead to the now trio Eternal becoming a boring and predictable R&B act while Louise proved to be out of her depth as a pop diva. They all did pretty well for themselves but there was always the feeling that they had been better off as a foursome. The group's manager Denis Ingoldsby predicted four potentially great solo careers for his charges ("You see, we've already got our Madonna in Louise," the pop svengali told Q. "Vernie can be Anita Baker, Kéllé can be Janet Jackson, Easther can be Whitney.") but the emphasis — especially at what was still a very early stage — should have been on continuing to focus on what made Eternal special. Even a rum old thing like "Just a Step from Heaven" was quite brilliant in the context of the '94 pop charts. They had plenty to work with whether America cared to know or not.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Crash Test Dummies: "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"
Conventional wisdom states that everyone loved the global breakthrough smash for Crash Test Dummies up until the point that they suddenly didn't. Reviews were positive and it was played to death on radio stations all over the place. Then, it began appearing on Worst Songs Ever and Most Annoying Hits lists. (The Dummies would even pop up on Worst Bands of All-Time surveys which had clearly been put together by people who never bothered listening to anything else they ever recorded) Yet, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" had its detractors even from its earliest days. Frith is none too impressed by it ("being a Grandad is all about this" reckons the same bloke who one gave his seal of approval to old farts in waiting River City People) and it proved to be only a modest hit in their native Canada where their countrymen had far more time for fellow God Shuffled His Feet singles "Swimming in Your Ocean" and the masterful "Afternoons and Coffeespoons". As far as it stood with me, I found it to be a lesser "Superman's Song", the group's Canadian Top 5 hit from the summer of 1991. They proved they could make novelty songs sound poignant but they weren't up to repeating the trick.
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