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Liam Carey reviews
Spin (Limited Edition)
Columbia/Sony
- Year: 2002
- Rating: 8/10
- Cat. No: 505319-7
Track listing:
- CD 1:
- 1. Strange Relationship
2. Insatiable
3. Heart Attack
4. I Miss You
5. Creepin’ Up On You
6. Dirty
7. Crush (1980 Me)
8. Good Enough
9. I Can’t Ever Get Enough Of You
10. Like It Or Not
11. What You Like
12. Spin
CD 2:
- 1. I Wish U Heaven
2. Can’t Help Falling In Love
3. Dirty (Acousitc Version Live From Taipei)
4. Insatiable (Acousitc Version Live From Taipei)
5. Strange Relationship (Acousitc Version Live From Taipei)
6. I Miss You (Acousitc Version Live From Taipei)
7. Good Enough (Acousitc Version Live From Taipei)
In a dismal year for mainstream pop music, and male solo acts in particular (Daniel Bedingfield? don’t go there, please), Darren Hayes has emerged to take on the mantle of Last Remaining Traditional Popstar. Once the lead vocalist in Aussie duo Savage Garden, Hayes dissolved the partnership somewhat acrimoniously to embark on a career of his own. Spin shares many of the qualities that earned Savage Garden a clutch of UK Top 10 singles and a brace of enduring albums (1997’s eponymous debut and 1999’s Affirmation), while adding the glossy, airbrushed stylings of new collaborator Walter “Mariah Carey” Alansieff.
What sets Darren Hayes apart from the average modern popstar is not only his now-distinctive voice – a vulnerable, almost feminine coo that erupts into quivering falsetto – but the prevailing sensitivity in his quirky personal approach. Despite the often generic Alansieff-created backdrops, Hayes continues to write with an appealing candour and unconventional use of lyrics, as evidenced on Savage Garden songs such as Two Beds And A Coffee Machine, To The Moon And Back, Affirmation, their introductory smash I Want You, and repeated here on Like It Or Not, Spin and Crush (1980 Me). The latter, especially, is a whirlwind of reminiscence set to a pulsating, infectious slice of vividly recreated 80s disco-pop…. Hayes looking back affectionately at his youth by namechecking Simon Le Bon, Miami Vice and a host of other icons from the era.
Crush (1980 Me) is in fact the album’s highlight, Hayes freeing himself from the shackles of bland, homogenised love songs that threaten to drown Spin at times; I Miss You, Good Enough, Creepin’ Up On You and Dirty all suffer from too much Alansieff & co. and not enough Darren Hayes in their unimaginitive arrangements and cliche-ridden lyrics. Hayes’ exquisite vocals, of course, still squeeze some emotion from these dull paeans to luurve. On the hit single Insatiable, he even manages to elevate a fairly routine ballad of passionate declaration into something almost sublime.
This edition of the album comes six months after the original release, and just in time for the lucrative Christmas market. Fans of Hayes’ music should not be surprised, since both Savage Garden albums were given the “stick it out again with a bonus CD” treatment well into their lifespans. Yes, it’s cynical marketing, but of some consolation are the improved sleeve design and liner notes, plus unreleased interpretations of I Wish U Heaven (by Prince) and the old Elvis chestnut Can’t Help Falling In Love, more recently exhumed by UB40 on the extra disc.
Everything else is unchanged. In the absence of a decent, popular Michael Jackson album (Heart Attack comes on like Jacko in his heyday), or indeed of any competition whatsoever from Hayes’ over-emoting, dispiritingly derivative peers, Spin stands as the pinnacle of current pop, slick but still full of idiosyncratic touches.
Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2002. E-mail Liam Carey
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.