Da Playaz Vs Clea - We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off (Upside)
UK release date: 17 October 2005
Clea were the band formed from the ashes of Popstars The Rival - the show that produced Girls Aloud, Javine Hylton and, erm, One True Voice. Clea consisted of the girls (minus Javine) who failed to get into Girls Aloud and produced two moderately successful singles (one of which, Download It, was actually really very good) before apparently disappearing. Now they're back, minus original member Chloe, with this cover of one of the cheesiest disco hits of the '80s.
This is apparently one of five cover versions of the old Jermaine Stewart song to be produced this year, and is a pretty faithful re-recording. Yet the question just screams out: "Why?". If people want to hear the song, they'll just buy the original - there's absolutely nothing even vaguely interesting about Clea's version: it's completely without any passion or soul, the vocals sound like they've been phoned in and the generic production by Da Playaz is very uninspiring. Not discounting the fact that for Clea to come back with a cover version means that their record company can't be too confident in whatever original material has been written for them.
In fact, this almost does the impossible in making Atomic Kitten's infamous cover versions sound good. If Clea are going to rival Sugababes or Girls Aloud as the girl band of the moment then they're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this.
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