I'm OK, you're OK (Boyz II Men) (LP 148 - 149)

Boyz II Men Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya (CD - Universal, 2000) ***
Boyz II Men Full Circle (CD - Arista, 2002) ***

Genre: Soul

Places I remember: The Warehouse (Cambridge)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Colour Of Love (from Full Circle)




Gear costume: Beautiful Women

Active compensatory factors: These albums are okay. Nothing startling here like the first three albums but enough quality signature Boyz II Men moves to keep me interested.

Colour Of Love is a classic Boyz II Men chune, and, while the rest is pleasant, they were treading some well known terrain here.

And yet, and yet...those harmonies!!

Where do they all belong? Full Circle was the last album with the original members, as Michael McCary had to leave for health reasons. A covers album was their way back in as we will see in due course.

Doin' just fine (Boyz II Men) (LP 98 - 99)

Boyz II Men II (2for1 CD - Motown, 1994) ***
Boyz II Men Evolution (2for1 CD - Motown, 1997) ****

Genre: Soul

Places I remember: Originally I had II on cassette and Evolution was from the music shop at St Luke's Mall but this 2for1 package came from The Warehouse Hastings.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Harmony!




Gear costume: Some great ballads on both records - I'll Make Love To You/ On Bended Knee/ Water Runs Dry on II and Doin' Just Fine/ A Song For Mama/4 Seasons of Loneliness on Evolution.

Active compensatory factors: They kept me hanging on, long after the initial rush of End Of The Road. The first three albums all hold up!

II was the mega seller and it does contain some amazing stuff but some of the more up tempo material doesn't do it consistently for me.

Interestingly, Evolution is the one I return to the most - just a smooth-a-thon without peer. It formed the soundtrack for a lot of nights on duty at Mount Albert Grammar's School House hostel!

It's crammed with brilliant harmony, brilliant ballads, brilliant music - one great song after another . They even make a hugely over sentimental thing like a paean to mothers (A Song For Mama) sound amazing! It's a very impressive feat which they manage to sustain for 3/4 of the album, until Dear God proves a sentimental bridge too far.

Where do they all belong? Hard to sustain that amazing run and sure enough they struggled with label problems and health issues before coming up with fourth album Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya.

MotownPhilly (Boyz II Men) (LP 13)

Boyz II Men  CooleyHighHarmony  (CD - Motown, 1992) *** and a half

Genre:  Soul

Places I remember:  I had the cassette for years, which I bought in Nelson, and upgraded to CD from The Warehouse, Hastings.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: End of the Road is where the Boyz II Men story starts!

  

Gear costume:  Plenty of other high spots, but MotownPhilly tells the boyz story well and is catchy as all get out.

Active compensatory factors: This all started with a performance of End of the Road on (I think) The Rosie O'Donnell Show. I somehow caught the show (no YouTube remember) and sat transfixed by the smooth emotional delivery. A classic song - bam! Right there!

The harmonies and doo wop influences within this album's songs were what hooked me and kept me interested throughout their career.

Where do they all belong? I kind of link the first two albums together as I had them both on high rotate in the Purdmobile travelling around Nelson when the kids were young (a white van at that time to move the six of us). Good times!

After me kidz - Boyz to men, A B C...

Rubber soul man, rubber soul.

31 The Chi-lites, ‘Have You Seen Her?’; 32 Boyz II Men, ‘The End of the Road’

You’ve probably worked out by now that I’m not black; I didn’t grow up in Chicago or Philly or Detroit; I didn’t have parents who mistreated me or denied me love or who deserted me via divorce; I found my true love 25 years ago and we treat each other well. I have, therefore, very little background in which to identify with blues or soul music. I love the blues, though, and I love the expression of the human drama that makes up soul music, even though both forms talk about stuff I have no direct experience of.

Nick Hornby is right when he calls soul 'grown up' music. Soul troubles itself with the real things that happen to real people. Unlike my twin brother from another mother, I have never stratified my listening. I didn’t get to 1976 and move away from prog and heavy rock to embrace punk. Once that had run its course (three years at best) I didn’t then move onto soul and 'grown up' music. All of my eclectic listening has overlapped for the last 40 years. At the moment, while I type this, I am listening to Isis – a prog metal band from California. Also in the 5 CD disc changer is a soul collection, The Doves Kingdom Of Rust, a NZ sixties music compilation and Prince’s 1999. Pretty varied stuff. The soul compilation has a favourite track of mine by The Chi’lites that includes spoken word sections.

I’m a sucker for the spoken word section in a song. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the literary part of my brain or the fact that the singer suddenly breaks off from the reality of a song, steps forward, and actually speaks to me directly. The very first time I experienced this thrill was in the song Dance All Around The World by New Zealand’s Blerta.

They are not a group I know much about even now. Here is the sum total of my Blerta knowledge – Bruno Lawrence was their drummer at some stage, Beaver sung for them at some stage, they were a commune of some kind I think, and they put out at least one other single – Joy Joy (I know this because I own it). I also seem to have a vague recollection that they toured around in a bus, a la the Merry Pranksters.

When Dance All Around The World came out in the early seventies I responded to the hippy trippy message and that spoken section which culminates in the spine tingling (still) message that the guards and teachers threw open the castle gates and ‘danced out into the field’. The plummy voice, phased drums and guitar are the key triggers of my enjoyment.

The Chi-lites are a band that I know even less about. I don’t even know any of their other songs but I know I love Have You Seen Her? Somehow they tap into a universal soulful moment. The song has two spoken word sections and even STARTS with one. That's ballsy. These bits set the mood – all dark. She’s left him and, pathetically, he thinks he sees her around town but…nope – she’s gone, and he thought he had her in the palm of his hand. The organ backdrop and the interlocking voices make this a song I can hear innumerable times. Like the blues – it’s not a depressing song, even though the substance of the song is not a rosie picture. Miraculously the song never strays into self-parody.

It’s those voices, singing in harmony and trying to outdo each other that set it apart from all the other soul bands for me. There is something magical that happens when certain talented people who can sing, get together and harmonise. Take Crosby Stills and Nash, The Beach Boys, The Four Tops, The Beatles, The Hollies, The Byrds, The Temptations, The Jacksons, The Grateful Dead, and Boys II Men, for instance. Each has a distinctive sound from the sum of their parts.

Boys II Men are part of this rich musical history and, unlike me, were born in Philly (I think). I’m not sure but they must also have been well versed in gospel or street corner doo-wop or something. They must have been. When they sing End Of The Road they sell the song completely. I believe it. Not once, but every single time I hear it, and I hear it a lot. Again the song includes a really natural spoken word section. The last section where the band falls back and we get hand claps and voices has me singing along every time, at the top of my lungs. Something magical must be happening inside this music for me to identify so strongly. I don't really want to analyse it too much though. It's the spirit inside the music and it moves me. That's enough.