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Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and if you’ve just read the title of today’s post, yes, we are indeed going there, for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’, as we revisit an oddball novelty which somehow stayed at the top of the UK Singles Chart for five weeks, because it fits my target to write up about a different piece of music every day! It’s not something that we tend to think very much about these days, but in 1995, having your single being prominently featured in an ad for Levi’s Jeans was almost a guaranteed number one hit for your name. This stroke of luck came for the Jas Mann-led Wolverhampton-based Alternative Rock band Babylon Zoo in those times, who flew straight to the top of the UK charts with ‘Spaceman’ in 1996. It was a massive hit, registering first-week sales of 383,000, thus becoming the best-selling UK single since The Beatles ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ from 1964, and as of 2013, it still remains to be the 79th best-selling single in UK history. It was a rock solid debut by all accounts, but it gained controversial opinions following its release because the tune was, as they say, not “as seen on TV” – or heard in this case. That’s because all of the kids who rushed down to the shops in its opening weekend soon found that the Levi’s advert only used the beginning and the end of the single, and not the trawling Grunge section that largely makes up the track’s duration. Their debut album, ‘The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes’ performed reasonably well when bolstered up by the power of the enormously commercially successful single, but their later releases failed to leave much of a mark in Pop music culture and, these days, Jas Mann is looking unrecognizable as the co-founder of Virgin Produced India, a film production company. 25 years later, is ‘Spaceman’ a misunderstood masterpiece – or a victim of its own hype? Let’s find out.

Due to the disappointment that it gave a chunk of Babylon Zoo’s potential fans upon their arrival, it’s not too bizzare to consider that ‘Spaceman’ has seldom been played on the radio ever since, and it joins the ranks of Sam Sparro and The Ting Ting’s in being a one-hit wonder that you never seem to hear anymore. It has been fondly remembered by some, however, and a Channel 4 poll taken by viewers in 2006 actually ranked it as #31 in a list of the 50 best singles by one-hit wonders, and the contemporary critics of the time actually didn’t pan it as harshly as you might predict. As for its sound, the beginning is created by the iconic opening that matches a high-pitched vocal sample that squeals to the tune of a funky Trip-Hop rhythm and a rolling drum machine pattern. The Techno riffs take a turn towards the more serious, though, and Jas Mann flips the switch. It soon becomes a moody undercurrent of Gary Numan-influenced Art Rock and Icy synth melodies, with more futuristic imagery being created by the squelching vocal samples that hides in the fray after the first chorus. Lyrics like “There’s a fire between us, so where is your God?” and “Electronic information, tampers with your soul” create some more bizzare space-themed visuals, while the energetic and heavily synthesized opening is replaced by electric alternative guitars and heavily metallic, near robotic vocals from Jas Mann, before we get a lurching outro that calls back to the opening, as we heard at the end of the Levi Jeans advert. To be fair, the very unique intro is a melodic thing of beauty, and there’s a few punchy hooks in the middle section of the track. Otherwise, this mostly plays out like one of those guilty pleasure film franchises, like Resident Evil or Escape Room, where you know the films themselves are a bit on the rubbish side, but you like them anyways because they provide solid dumb fun. The lyrics are absolute nonsense, lets get that out of the way first, with Mann spitting buzzwords like “fascist folks” and “intergalactic Christ” with no particular flair or substance. The chorus, although catchy, also lacks any particularly tangible lines that truly stick out and make me want to remember the vocals for years to come. All of this said, however, I think there is something undeniably charming about the off-kilter mixture of Bowie mannerisms and echoes of Numan that, although fail to elevate the track past its novelty sell-by date, manage to keep proceedings going at a nice pace and provide some bright appeal. To be absolutely fair to Babylon Zoo, I never found myself to be especially bored by this, for what that’s worth. It feels futuristic, funny and even a bit seductive in the process, although the pacing is off-balance and the track barely holds itself together coherently with the vastly different elements in play. On the whole, it’s not a masterpiece, but I also felt that it wasn’t truly a colossal disappointment like the media might have you believe at the time. It’s an enjoyable, but middle ground, tune.

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That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for joining me, and, this time, I’ve got a question for you: Did you buy Babylon Zoo’s ‘Spaceman’ in 1996 and where did you buy it? As for tomorrow, we’ll be taking a break away from the electronic-heavy music with something softer that comes from a Wigan-formed band who have earned national daytime airplay on Radio X in the UK. They are signed to Island Records, and they have been credited for helping to save Wigan’s football club.

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