578 Hello Bros - When Will I Be Famous ?

Chart  entered : 6  December  1987

Chart  peak : 2

Number  of  hits : 11

Here  we  have  the  last  act  to  have  the  majority  of  their  hits  in  the  eighties.Bros  to  me  are  a  big  turning  point  in  pop, an  old  model  of  pop  management  reasserting  itself  after  the  disruption  of  punk. Since  1977,  pop  teens  had  picked  the  best  looking  acts   to  follow  from  among  a  pool  of   talented  artists  who  wrote  their  own  material  and  had  an  appeal  to  a  far  wider  audience- Sting, Adam  Ant, Duran  Duran, Wham ,A-ha. It  looked  like  we'd  dispensed  with  the  need  for grubby  figures  like  Tam  Paton  feeding  them  pap like  Bay City  Rollers. That's  not  to  say  Bros  were completely  talentless  but  they  were  compromised  in  a  way  that  those  immediate  predecessors  were  not. When  I  made  this  point  on  Popular, Tom  Ewing  wasn't  having  it , seeing  the  trap  for  his  beloved  Spice  Girls,  but  I  still think  it's  valid.

Bros  were  formed  around  1983   by  three  school  mates, the  non-identical  twins   Matt  and  Luke  Goss  and  Craig  Logan  as  a  junior  soul  band. I  presume  there  were  other  members  as  Matt  just  sang , Craig  played  bass  and  Luke  the  drums. They  signed  for  CBS  in  1987. They  were  heavily  styled   with  Matt  and  Luke  made  up  to  look  identical. Most  contentiously  they  claimed  to  write  their  own  material  but  the  credit  "The  Brothers"  was  registered  with  the  Performing  Rights  Society  as  a  nomme  du  disque  for  their  producer  Nicky  Graham  , a  43  year  old  keyboard  player  who'd  been  a  Spider  from  Mars  back  in  1972. They  shared  a  manager  with  The  Pet  Shop  Boys, Tom  Watkins , who  also  had  a  hand  in  the  writing.

Their  first  single  "I  Owe  You  Nothing"  was  released  in  September 1987. "I  Owe  You  Nothing "  is  a  horrible  confection. The  revenge  lyrics  are  mundane, the  chorus  hook  is  mediocre  and  the  decent  qualities  to  Matt's  voice  are  overshadowed  by  grating  attempts  to  sound  like  Michael  Jackson  with  his  grunts  and  whoops. The  music  is  a  listless  funk  pop,  like  an  updated  Kajagoogoo,  with  a  horrible  Fairlight  brass  sound  blaring  away  over  the  top. Graham  and  Watkins  pulled  off  a  scam  and  got  it  some  club  play  with  an  anonymous  white  label  remix  but  that  didn't  mean  chart  success  until  it  was  re-released  in  the  summer  of  1988  when  sad  to  report, it  got  to  number  one.

"When  Will  I  Be  Famous ? "  is  undoubtedly  a  better  song, the  hook  is  more  appealing  , it  has  more  melodic  bits  and  that  sudden  key  change  springs  a  nifty  surprise. The  song  is  basically  a  less  tragic  take  on  Hot  Chocolate's  Emma   with  the  girl, voiced  by  session  singer  Dee  Lewis ( another  plus )  impatient  rather  than  desperate  and  the  narrator  less  sympathetic  than  Errol  Brown. The  Jackson-isms  and  tinny  production  are  still  present  to  stop  anyone  getting  too  enthusiastic  about  the  record  but  it  is , to  damn  with  faint  praise, probably  their  best  record.

It  originally  peaked  at  its  entry  position  of  62  but , re-promoted  with  a  picture  disc,  it  started  climbing  back  up  the  chart  in  the  post-Christmas  lull. Simon  Bates  stuck  his  neck  out  for  them  by  playing  the  song  when  it  wasn't  on  the  playlist and  they  were  away.