Songoftheday 5/18/21 - A few questions that I need to know how you could ever hurt me so? I need to know what I've done wrong and how long it's been going on...
"Never Ever" - All Saints
from the album All Saints (1997)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song of the day comes from the half-British/half Canadian female vocal group All Saints, who had broken through the American Top-40 in the spring of 1998 with "I Know Where It's At". For their follow-up single, he foursome went with a ballad, "Never Ever", penned by member Shaznay Lewis along with Sean Mather and Robert Jazayeri. Beginning rather strangely as just a vocal over a beat with no music, the song is written from the perspective of someone whose relationship is ending (as was Shaznay when she wrote this), although in the middle of the usual bitter sendoffs are repeated lyrics like this moronic example:
Flexing vocabulary runs right through me
The alphabet runs right from A to Z
The alphabet runs right from A to Z
Um, wut? Anyway the breathy spoken-word intro, which has absolutely no emotion in it, and pseudo-gospel verses caught people's attention, and All Saints found themselves with their biggest international success...
"Never Ever" was by far All Saints' biggest American success, reaching the top ten in August of 1998. Internationally, the single was their first #1 in the UK, as well as going to the top in Australia and New Zealand. It also made the top ten in Ireland (#2), Sweden (#3), Denmark (#3), Hungary (#3), France (#4), the Netherlnads (#4), Belgium (#4F/#16W), Switzerland (#4), Iceland (#4), Norway (#6), Canada (#7), Austria (#7), and Italy (#9).
Despite the big success of "Never Ever" in the States, the group would never (ever) show on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart again. Meanwhile, in the UK and elsewhere, they just kept on going, scoring two more #1's from their debut alone with the double-sided cover package of "Under The Bridge" and "Lady Marmalade" followed by "Bootie Call". A final single from their first album, "War Of Nerves", peaked at #7 in their British base.
All Saints returned in 2000 with their second album, Saints & Sinners, which was led off by the single "Pure Shores", which landed the group another #1 hit in Britain. However, despite being used in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach, not only did the song get any notice in the States, the album wasn't even released here. I mean, the album was recorded in the States with producer William Orbit, who just helmed Madonna's comeback album Ray Of Light. It was followed by yet another British chart-topper, "Black Coffee". A third offering, "All Hooked Up", made it to #7, while the Saints & Sinners album was their first and only #1 set in the UK.
That high didn't last long, as the group basically imploded shortly after, with all four members going their separate ways, and all reached the British top ten apart from the group. Shaznay went to #8 in 2004 with "Never Felt Like This Before", while Melanie Blatt reached #6 as the featured singer on the Artful Dodger's "TwentyFourSeven" in 2001. Meanwhile, sisters Natalie and Nicole Appleton recorded together, doing the best of all of them, scoring two top ten hits with "Fantasy" at #2 in 2002 and "Don't Worry" at #5 a year later.
In 2006, the group reunited for a new album, Studio 1. Lead single "Rock Steady" did quite well, cresting at #3, but after the subsequent singles tanked they shut down the act again until a decade later, when a second reunion record, Red Flag, went all the way to #3 on the British albums sales chart. Their most recent album, Testament, was released in 2018, and climbed to #15 in Britain.
(4/10)
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Next up, performing live in Australia in 1997...
The group performed "Never Ever" at the BRIT Awards in 1998, where they won trophies for both Single and Video of the Year...
This is their reunion performance in 2016 at the Proms In The Park which paired them with an orchestra...
and lastly, in 2020, Take That's Gary Barlow got the girls back together for a quarantine performance of the song...
Up tomorrow: Puff protege is at the mirror, perhaps.
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