#22: A Girl Like You : Edwyn Collins (Setanta Records, ZOP 003, 1995)
A Girl Like You had been a hit all over Europe in late 94/early 95, but as was mentioned two weeks ago in this series, it had stalled at #42 in the UK in November 1994.
Sometimes, a bit of good fortune can make all the difference, and for Edwyn Collins it came, unwittingly, in the shape of Chris Evans, a UK TV presenter who, in April 1995, returned to his first love, being a Radio DJ, when he was given the job of helming the UK’s most listened to programme, the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show.
There’s a lot of people who severely dislike Evans, and with good reason. But one of the things he did on his return to radio was insist that he be given a free rein on the show, including playing songs that were among his favourites and weren’t necessarily chart hits. He loved A Girl Like You, and it was played on his show a few times from the outset. It created a new level of interest but some six months after its initial release via the Expressly Yours EP, it wasn’t all that easy to find as the EP had already gone through the bargain bucket stage and was now, almost literally, indie landfill.
Setanta did what any sensible record company would, and reissued it, this time on one CD and as a 7″ single. On 11 June 1995, A Girl Like You entered the UK singles charts at #13. It would remain in the Top 75 for 17 weeks, all the way through to late September, peaking at #4 in mid-July. It was, without question, one of the defining songs of the summer and seemed to be blaring out of radios on a constant basis. Out of the blue, Edwyn had become an overnight star, with many of those who were buying the single quite, if not totally, unaware of his past career as a member of Orange Juice.
Remember that so-called ban from Top of The Pops that had seemingly been imposed after the second Rip It Up performance in 1985? Ha, ha……
Even better was that Setanta gave a second push to its parent album, and on 22 July 1995, as A Girl Like You was sitting in the Top 5, Gorgeous George came in at #8, and went on to steadily sell enough copies to hang around the album chart for nine weeks.
The only thing is that all the available songs for b-sides had been used up on the EP back in November 1994, and with the 2 x CDs that had formed If You Could Love Me. The only ‘new’ bit of music came via track two on the CD:-
mp3: Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me (acoustic version)
Quite a bit shorter than the studio version, it is very much the Unplugged version. Or a busker’s version if you prefer. Edwyn and his acoustic guitar…and it’s rather lovely.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 