During the course of this year I aim to upload a song every day for your consideration as to whether they were good enough and sufficiently commercial to have become UK Top 20 singles. Many different genres will be represented, so if this particular one’s not your preferred style then hopefully it won’t be too long before you find one that is.
For those songs that are interesting enough for you to give them a proper listen, please press “like” if you think it could have been a hit, and “dislike” if you don’t, in the hope that we get enough votes to obtain a balanced overview. Also, if leaving a critical comment please try to take into account the year of original release - most of the songs that I'll be uploading are decades old so it wouldn’t be surprising if some sound dated now.
Today’s choice is You Never Change by Mike & The Mechanics which is a bit of an unusual one. It was first released in 1995 on the “Another Cup Of Coffee” CD single which was the group’s third hit from the “Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” album, but don’t waste your time looking for “You Never Change” on that album cause you won’t find it. It’s a non-album track, and usually anything in that category is deemed to be a sub-standard track left off the album for that reason, and you’ll find that B-sides of 60s and 70s singles in particular are littered with them. However there is absolutely nothing wrong with this number, in fact it’s a belter, and you can only assume that its omission from “Beggar ….” was simply because it didn’t fit in with the mood of that collection. It’s a beautiful power ballad, superbly sung (as always!) by Paul Carrack who must be one of the most under-rated vocalists of all time as far as general public perception is concerned. People rave about great black soul singers like Otis Redding, Ray Charles & Smokey Robinson, and rightly so, but somehow white soul singers don’t generate the same reverence, and I would argue that Mr. Carrack is the equal of many of them.
This is an audio only upload, but if you would prefer to watch the official video before deciding on its hit potential then you can view that here.
Hopefully you’ll drop by again tomorrow for something completely different!