WHY ISN’T ABLE MABEL HAVING MORE HITS?
Mabel
About Last Night…
Out now ★★★★★
Tears For Fears
Waddesdon Manor, Bucks Touring until July 26 ★★★★★
In the world of pop, the singles chart plays God. It giveth and it taketh away, and it moves in mysterious ways. Recently it made Running Up That Hill Kate Bush’s first No1 single since Wuthering Heights, 44 years ago. That was the chart at its best, bringing the nation together.
Sometimes, though, it is baffling. Look at Mabel, the dance-pop singer who is the daughter of Neneh Cherry and the producer Cameron McVey. It’s almost unheard of for one pop star to beget another, and it only happened because Mabel is a class act, both charismatic and relatable.
The chart treated her well at first, bestowing a few Top 20 hits followed by the big one, Don’t Call Me Up, which reached No3 in 2019. Mabel, it seemed, was a regular – but then the wind changed.
The three advance singles from her second album peaked at 19, 45 and 88.
Ah well, you may say, it’s the difficult second album. But About Last Night… is bursting with songs that feel like hits.
Let Them Know, the first single, is a delicious mix of disco and dancehall. Let Love Go, the latest, is classic soul with a club twist. Mabel is getting better while achieving worse results.
Maybe it’s because the new songs depict a big night out, not the depression she has talked about falling into after being overworked. Today’s teenagers positively want to hear about the bad times, a subject they know too much about themselves.
Maybe it’s because the caravan moved on to Dua Lipa, who has similar gifts plus more relish for the limelight.
Maybe Mabel’s fans, who were mostly 14 when I saw her play in Liverpool before lockdown, are now 16 and spreading their wings.
Maybe, just maybe, they’ve been waiting for the album.
If so, they will find it consistently exhilarating.
Tears For Fears fell silent for years and years, but their stock rose as their heyday, the 1980s, was rehabilitated. Finally, in February, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith released their first new album since 2004 – the tuneful, soulful, largely delightful The Tipping Point.
At Waddesdon Manor, a chateau in the Chilterns, they have a majestic setting, but they dish up a curate’s egg. Alison Moyet, their superior support act, goes down with Covid, to be replaced by the The Brand New Heavies, who bring more energy than quality. TFF are the other way around: plenty of great songs, played rather plainly.
Orzabal and Smith come across more like two solo artists than a team. I had just seen The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park, a riveting show that ran on Mick Jagger’s superhuman vigour and his musical rapport with Keith Richards.
Perhaps TFF’s problem is that they’ve only been together for 40 years.