Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here...) (Polydor)
UK release date: 3 October 2005
This is the third single to be released from Ms Stevens' forthcoming album and true to form, I Said Never Again is straight from the 'Classic Pop Stencil' that someone seems to have loaned to Stevens while Girls Aloud don't need it.
It's not a massive step on from her last few efforts, and this could easily nestle next to Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, pretending to have been written in the same fifteen minutes. She might well say never again, but this obviously doesn't apply to the kind of singles she puts out.
The single finds Stevens belting out innuendo over the top of a classy glam pop backing track which manages to borrow from Adam And The Ants circa Kings Of The Wild Frontier. She's probably supposed to sound a little bit glam rock, but her vocals have always been too clean to sit alongside the likes of Suzi Quatro. Still, there's plenty of room for dirt in her lyrics, which seem to be about "seeing" a boyfriend having split up with him. Lyrics like "I let you in the back door" or "rough love is so deceiving" are straight from the Carry On book of filth, and are sure to have more than a few teenage boys hot under the collar. Nurse! The screens...