The other day I heard a Shania Twain song on the radio it was trundling on reasonably nicely when a lot of Irish instrumentation appeared on it. I was a bit surprised by this and I was idly thinking to myself she must have some familial connection with the Irish contingent in the U.S.A., forgetting for the moment that she was originally a country singer and probably came from Texas, where I didn't think there were many Irish.
However when the song finished the radio announcer informed us that this was the latest song from The Corrs. Oh...... that was odd. I'd never noticed any similarity between them before. But the more I thought about these two artists the more I began to think of other similarities. They both had alarmingly good looking singers and had both started out with strong traditional leanings but who had pretty much dropped them as world wide success occurred. They also both started off well with about a trio of really good songs which then declined into mediocrity. Also both these acts inhabited roughly the same musical territory due to the fact their music emanated from an old fashioned group, y'know the kind that contains real musicians. This, combined with their over ambitious desire for mega pop stardom, took them into the familiar territory of slick, well produced energy pop songs, which though reasonably catchy are ultimately soulless affairs..
Personally speaking of the two acts I prefer the The Corrs, simply because I've found they're songs to be better and also I'm a sucker for Irish and English traditional instrumentation, mind you, you hear precious much of that from them these days. ( I bet you when times get hard they will return to their roots pretending they never really had left them behind ) But from the point of view of musical integrity there's nothing to choose between them, their respective pop histories are equally tawdry. I mean my God did good ole' girl Shania drop her country background with unseemly haste. And The Corrs indecently soon after they had a hit with 'What can I do to make you love me', sold it to Lloyds bank to be played over and over in a commercial. Yuk ! I mean wait to the point when your pop career is over before you sell out.
The reality is I am living in the past when such things as 'musical integrity' meant something. We are now in a 'corporate age' and these act's atttitudes are reflecting that. And that's why every Corrs song about 1/2 to 3/4 way through starts going 'Diddly twiddly dee'' in the background. It's their brand logo, it's like a slice of wild celtishness surgically and precisely grafted onto a piece of engineered plastic pop and is probably the only distinquishing feature between Shania and the Corrs...... OK, well they're not that similar but you get the point and anyway it's pretty academic now, because it looks like ole' Shania's pop career is over and she's probably putting her cowgirl boots back on as I speak.
And another thing !
The Corrs ..... I bet you don't get too many of those dreaded tribute bands for The Corrs 'cause you don't get too many drop dead gorgeous singers who can play a mean tin whistle !
