35. JLS – The Club Is Alive

1 week at #1 (entered 17^th July): 01-07-09-16-23-32-39-53-63-81

Kept off #1: None

EOY #87

oops I forgot a song. 36 number ones it is.

I chose to make it not quite as easy as filling up the bottom slots with charity singles and talent show covers. So even though it’s a second order relation to that sphere, ‘The Club Is Alive’ can have the dubious honour of being the lowest… original song on this list. Though considering it steals the central pitch behind its lyrics from The Sound Of Music, that itself is in question.

JLS, or as I can never resist calling them by their full name, Jack The Lad Swing, enter 2010 as quite possibly the most famous current act from the X Factor, in the short window they had as the UK’s premier boyband before Simon Cowell utilised his dark powers to create one that pandered even more to teenage girls. As detailed in the 2009 thread, they’d hit #1 with their first two singles, two fine if unremarkable songs that filled a decent radio friendly niche. ‘One Shot’, the third single released in early 2010, fell short as a post-album single, and so it was swiftly off to the US to record a follow-up album. This single was also bundled with their previous hits for American release as an EP so they could have an easy soft launch in the US, which went nowhere.

While I suppose JLS were never meant to have long careers, I think the low quality of this sophomore single really started hastening their decline. ‘The Club Is Alive’ is really bad. It’s overloaded with autotune, and not in a fun, artsy way, more as if it were mere seconds away from exploding into a high-pitched insect whine. There are parts of it where genuinely it feels like they recorded it with a defect in the sound equipment and didn’t care enough to fix it up.

Not that it would make any difference if the production was well handled, because the most damning thing about this song is the dull, lifeless way they approach the lyrics and particularly the chorus hook. The club is not alive, I do not feel from listening to this that it has ever been alive, and why are a band marketed at such a young audience talking about a girl in the club turning them on, anyway? I know I’m not expecting a high bar from either club songs or boy band crooners, but the lyrics here are godawful dreck for even that type of song. ‘Shorties all around but I’m focused on you’? ‘You could be the DJ, I could be the dancefloor’? It’s lifeless and I suspect indicative of them sniffing around a failed attempt at breaking the US.

I’m obviously not a fan of this style of music, but there were hits around this time that managed to get the dancehall RnB right, and standing right next to those, JLS’ offering feels incredibly limp. It’s a bad effort for the genre, it’s a bad effort for even them, every other one of their singles is at least better than this, and mercifully it didn’t trouble the charts for long, dropping quickly off the top spot and selling nearly nothing afterwards, it sold 84,000 in its week at #1 and despite having nearly half the year after that, only made it to 241,000 by year’s end.  

Was a horrible idea to rip off The Sound Of Music for a club banger anyway.

TCIA is definitely on the weaker side of JLS singles probably their worst number 1, would I put it as second worst of 2010, probably not id say at least 3 or 4 places higher

Another Trash #1. This is going well so far!

I remember TCIA freefalling on iTunes throughout its first week and it actually seeming like a possibility that they might miss the top spot by Sunday. In the end they were comfortably ahead IIRC. The song was a complete miss in my book. Horrible auto tune, horrible sample, horrible lyrics.

"The Club Is Alive" is really awful. JLS had only one good song - Beat Again!

34. The X Factor Finalists 2010 – Heroes

2 weeks at #1 (entered 28^th November): 01-01-07-14-22-47-91

Kept off #1: Ellie Goulding – Your Song

#60 EOY

Look I’m not exactly making myself a connoisseur of X Factor finalists getting together and doing a vacuous charity single for charity that leaves no cultural impact, but, of the charity singles from the years they did it, I think ‘Heroes’ has to be the worst. Herbs and Jim covered what this is right at the start of their respective threads, but for the avoidance of doubt, this is Simon Cowell’s vanity project desiring yet more goes at the top spot in the name of charity while simultaneously getting attention for his TV show.

‘Heroes’ is almost completely a retread of the 2008 version which returns the charity this song raises money to the Help The Heroes charity, which helps injured military personnel and, while it’s not something I’d ever donate to, it serves a purpose for those with a connection to the military.

2008’s ‘Hero’, I think was an appropriate choice of song, an inspirational if unremarkable ballad that fits thematically with the charity. David Bowie’s “Heroes” is a very different matter. It’s a far more complex song that, while I don’t think I’m entirely equipped to give a critical breakdown and analysis of its lyrics, I wouldn’t say taking it at face value and doing a karaoke cover of it is anywhere close to contributing to Bowie’s vision of the song nor does it really fit with the charity’s mission and to be honest, I’m somewhat surprised he ever signed off on it. I suppose it is one of his most covered songs regardless and the average person wouldn’t see anything wrong with it at face value, which to be honest turns me against this even more – as a representation of the vacuous copying mainstream culture that X Factor was at this time.

I do have to admit that this year, back in 2010, I was actually really into the show, I had somehow missed watching previous series but for two seasons, in 2010, and in 2011, I briefly started enjoying it – there was a set of charismatic contestants, competition stakes were high, there were good guests on the live shows and honestly, it was fine television. If more obviously problematic and capitalistic looking back. Again, I got tired of the show quickly, but I did watch and enjoy the 2010 TV show for what it was. More on that later.

Even then I didn't like this charity single though.

This version features, with mismatched vocals and clearly inexperienced singers all around, the first chart appearance of One Direction and all its members, Rebecca Ferguson, Cher Lloyd, and other miscellaneous personalities, and while I don’t feel mean enough to single out anyone for any particular lines (poor Wagner was FORCED into this), there’s a lot of variable quality here and it has even less musical merit in comparison to its original than the previous 2 singles did –  unless one were to want their version of “Heroes” to come with breathy oversinging and bad harmonies.

It kept off Ellie Goulding’s cover of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ from the top, goodness, the UK charts really were addicted to covers of classic pop songs from the 70s and 80s this year, though that at least is a competent version.

It’s just amateurish, even compared to previous years. Two weeks at #1 is a comparative eternity in 2010 that it did not deserve, but again, it plummeted and never regained any relevance ever again. Hopefully this post about it is the first time anyone has ever thought about it since 2011 started.

Heroes made a bucket load for charity i guess if trying to find a positive

Other than that its just such a shame one of the best covers of a song ever was denied a number 1 by one of the worst covers of a song ever

Id even go as far as saying Ellies version is better than Eltons and his is fantastic too

Not the worst X Factor ensemble for me but still nothing great. Probably be a couple of places higher but that's about it.

Ellie's cover of 'Your Song' is lovely.

12 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

Heroes made a bucket load for charity i guess if trying to find a positive

Other than that its just such a shame one of the best covers of a song ever was denied a number 1 by one of the worst covers of a song ever

Id even go as far as saying Ellies version is better than Eltons and his is fantastic too

I think the better songs always stall at number 2 unfortunately.

Edited Thursday at 21:182 days by Charlielargepotatoes

Heroes (the cover) is a turd and I agree - the worst XF cast charity track which says a lot.

X Factor was undoubtedly at its popularity peak this year but I found the cast pretty weak considering. It wasn’t quite 2007/2009 level crap but there were quite a few gimmicky acts in the live shows (Jedward effect?) and a lot of favouritism regardless of performance (Katie, Cher). Then the last-minute semi-final sing off engineered to get Cher to the final…! 💀

And two more total horrors!

A lot of JLS' material was pretty mediocre but that one was absolutely terrible, the autotune makes it very unlistenable and the Sound of Music sample is a baffling choice. I remember despairing at it going to number 1, but it's descent down the charts was quite funny.

I heard that version of Heroes before the original, so I actually thought at the time that this actually sounds OK compared to the other Finalist charity singles, however having heard and become more familiar with the original, that swiftly turned around. I agree it's probably the most insulting in terms of completely misrepresenting one of the most complex and iconic ballads of all time into a pro-veterans song. I'm really surprised he signed off on it, although I guess it would've been bad PR. Was a very entertaining series though, although certainly the peak looking back, the weekly dramas and fix scandals did start to get a bit old.

No arguments with that bottom 3, I'd rank them all below everything in the 2009 list. Shout For England was all kinds of wrong, and as I wrote in the 2009 thread, 'The Club Is Alive' was just awful - it definitely hastened the decline for JLS as you said. The X Factor Finalists singles were all pretty cynical exercises, but in musical terms they got worse as they went on (and 2011's is worse still).

11 minutes ago, Scene said:

Heroes (the cover) is a turd and I agree - the worst XF cast charity track which says a lot.

X Factor was undoubtedly at its popularity peak this year but I found the cast pretty weak considering. It wasn’t quite 2007/2009 level crap but there were quite a few gimmicky acts in the live shows (Jedward effect?) and a lot of favouritism regardless of performance (Katie, Cher). Then the last-minute semi-final sing off engineered to get Cher to the final…! 💀

2007 had the iconic Same difference though 🤔

3 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

2007 had the iconic Same difference though 🤔

That doesn’t begin to compensate for the rest (bar Rhydian).

'The Club is Alive' sampling The Sound of Music I cringed at at the time. But yeah JLS have better dance-R&B-pop later on in their career, 'Eyes Wide Shut' for example and 'She Makes Me Wanna' was a decent #1.

Ok... So listening to 'Shout' again and I really don't hate it 🫣 I'd listen to that over 'Three Lions' any day of the week!

'The Club Is Alive' is still occasionally listen to this day oops. It sounds cheap, but it's very fun to listen to. I don't like their ballads at all though.

I'm a bit of a sucker for the electropop sound that was big around that time though, and I think I liked most of what was charting!

'Heroes' is a complete horror though.

Edited Thursday at 20:502 days by Juranamo

Two more poor songs, JLS’s worst single is real barrel scraping. Heroes is a criminal level cover version.

'The Club is Alive' is a total abomination, I was so annoyed when that got to #1.

Although I do sometimes quote "you could be the DJ, I could be the dancefloor, you could get up on me"

I'd never actually heard that JLS song until just now. It's pretty bad. I think I'd place it in the same spot as well.

3 truly abysmal number 1s so far. There really was some trash at the top in 2010.