This Delicate Rate We've Made: The Darren Hayes / Savage Garden Rate - WINNER announced

What will win this rate?

  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .
jtm

jtm

So to bridge us over while we wait for the votes to come in, I‘ll do a spotlight on some of the b-sides and demos (might help with rating them) and also on some songs Darren wrote but didn‘t sing himself. We‘ll start with one of those tomorrow, but it‘s not the (semi-)famous one.
 
jtm

jtm

Around 2008, Darren was asked to write songs for artists on Simon Cowell's label. He most notably wrote with Carl Falk and once again with Walter Afanasieff, whom he already knew from 'Affirmation' and 'Spin'. At some point during that process, Darren realized that he was actually writing songs for himself. A lot of the output from those sessions then ended up becoming his fourth solo album 'Secret Codes and Battleships'.

Just by looking at the amount of songs released during the 'Battleships' era as album tracks, bonus tracks and b-sides you can already guess that this seems to have been a very productive time. But that's really only part of it. Apparently there's five completed tracks sitting in Darren's vault we haven't even heard. And there's the demos. While some of the songs written for other artists ended up on Darren's album ('Black Out the Sun' was supposed to be a Leona Lewis song), others were never recorded (among them songs for Westlife and Kylie Minogue, both of which are a part of this rate and something we'll get to later). Or they took a while to find their way to the right artist.

Enter Lisa Lois. She's the winner of the second season of the Dutch version of X Factor. After releasing her debut album in 2009 to some success, it took a while to get the second album going. In 2013, she was finally recording that album called 'Breaking Away' and she ended up with a song originally written years earlier by Darren, Justin Parker (of Lana Del Rey 'Video Games', 'Ride', 'National Anthem' fame) and Lauren Pritchard (who since made it big with Panic At the Disco's 'High Hopes'). Unlike some of the other leftovers, this hadn't surfaced as a demo before, but you wouldn't even have to look at the credits to notice that it undeniably carries Darren's handwriting in the lyrics and melody.

Here's 'Cover Up':

 
berserkboi

berserkboi

He/Him
jtm

jtm

Ok, I've put the Cub Sports song, the We Are Smug album and the Savage Garden b-sides in the optional section. I quite like I Don't Care, She and This Side of Me, but I think those b-sides are probably the least essential part of Darren's discography.

This brings the number of songs in the rate down slightly while still leaving the door open for those songs to be included if they receive a fair number of votes.
 
jtm

jtm

'Cover Up' was not the only song written with Carl Falk that was never officially recorded by Darren but ended up with another act. The second, and I guess most famous one (especially around here), is 'No More Tears On The Dancefloor'. The song ended up being recorded by not only one act but two and even was a single for one of them.

First up are Anders | Fahrenkrog, a pop duo consisting of Thomas Anders of Modern Talking fame and Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, mostly known as the producer of the Nena hit '99 Red Balloons'. They got their hands on the song first and included it on their 2011 album 'Two', releasing it as the second single after the album release. I haven't heard any of their other songs, but interestingly most online reviews for the album specifically mentioned and praised this song.

Here's the full album version:


And the single / video edit which misses the bridge but adds the joy of watching whatever this music video is supposed to be:


Six years later, a British band called Steps, famous for a fantastic run of singles in the early 2000's as well as having pop royalty HRH Lisa Scott-Lee as a member, were looking for new songs for a comeback album. Singer H apparently wrote Darren a message on Twitter, asking if he had something for them to record. Turns out he did - 'No More Tears On The Dancefloor'. Steps included it on their album and even named the album itself after it.

Here's the Steps version:


There's also various live versions in terrible quality on YouTube. Instead of those I wanted to link Darren's demo, which I know is around somewhere, but not on YouTube it seems.

Steps fan that I am I have to say that I like the production of the Anders version a bit more. But that's probably because it's the version I knew first.
 
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