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DANIEL BEDINGFIELD - "Never Gonna Leave Your Side" (Patreon)

Published:
2019-12-31 00:58:31
Imported:
2026-06
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(#957, 2nd August 2003)

To make one Westlife-esque ballad may be regarded as a misfortune. To make two looks like… a bad mistake, as it turned out. Songwriting cameos aside, this is the last we see of Daniel Bedingfield, and it’s hard to argue he wasn’t the partial author of his own misfortune. The absurdly extended promotional cycle for his debut album didn’t help - 18 months after “Gotta Get Thru This”, and this isn’t even the final single lifted from it. But more damaging was the shift in image from a jack-of-all-genres bedroom pop savant to just another balladeer.

When Bedingfield did come back with new material - “Nothing Hurts Like Love” in 2004 - it was more soulful and more imaginative than this. But by then, as we’ll see, the market for broad-based ballads was shifting, becoming more industrialised as a reality TV production line settled into place.

“Never Gonna Leave Your Side”, like “If You’re Not The One”, falls between stools, squeezing its author’s idiosyncrasies into the ballad mode like a man putting on a badly-fitting tuxedo, while leaving just enough of his individuality intact for the song to feel a touch off. Bedingfield, as ever, is awkwardly earnest, his song a rubbing together of romance and neediness, the verses’ pile-up of bereft metaphors aligning oddly with the chorus’ pledges of devotion. On “Gotta Get Through This”, Bedingfield’s neurosis played as refreshing, unusual frankness; on “If You’re Not The One” his self-abasement was at least uncomfortably sincere. But here the novelty’s worn off - my main response to this is rolled eyes and a muttered “for God’s sake man, move on!”. He couldn’t, so the public did.

3 out of 10

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Comments

ThePensmith

That this even did get to number one was on virtue of both one of the quietest release schedules all that year and driest spells of weather - this came out just as Britain was scorching in a well timed holiday heatwave that wouldn't be meterologically bettered until fifteen years later. Of that week's chart, there were only six other new entries, and this only shifted 36,500 to top the chart - one of the lowest totals of that year. This is essentially 'Hero' redux (the Enrique one) we're dealing with here. Forgettable and limp. Really I remain unsympathetic to what happened with Daniel's career hereafter. He was enough of a talent that he could have returned to the style that had got him to success in the first place. But his response to the label essentially asking for 'If You're Not The One' over and over - c.f. Innocent Records saying post-'Whole Again' with Atomic Kitten that they now had a formula, and I quote from Andy McCluskey, of 'Whole Again, Whole Again, and more f***ing Whole Again' - was to become this supposedly 'mad' character, to the point that he was a target for ridicule. Simon and Miquita on Popworld absolutely roasted him at every opportunity thereafter. He ultimately lost direction musically trying to 'rebel' against all that, hence his career on Polydor ended on a single that failed to make the top 40, and why his sister - who we meet one Popular year hence - is better remembered, although as we'll discuss she wasn't exactly good at keeping momentum or direction either. It must run in the family. 1 for this. One song that I remember better from this time - it was top 3 for much of that summer - was 'No Letting Go' from reggae singer Wayne Wonder. One of three singles that utilised the 'Diwali riddim' drum loop also popularised on Sean Paul's 'Get Busy' and a #2 watch on the next bunny, but even now when it comes on in the summer it puts me in a good mood.