Sisters Doin' It For Themselves (Eternal: Greatest Hits - Eternal)

Member Name: stoffy

Product:	Eternal: Greatest Hits - Eternal
Date:	16/07/03 (232 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a couple of decent tracks

Disadvantages: mostly dated, those awful ballads...

Who girlband had the most Top 10 hits in the 1990’s? Spice Girls? All Saints? TLC? Nope. It was in fact Eternal, the band who went through more changes and facelifts than Joan Rivers...

Originally starting out in 1993 and marketed a soul/pop crossover act, the teenage quartet consisted of the Bennett sisters, Easther and Vernie, and Italia Conti stage-school friends Kelle Bryan and Louise Nurding.

After spawning 6 Top 20 hits from their debut album ‘Always and Forever’, they were rocked in 1995 by the departure of Nurding. There were rumours of possible racial issues coming to the fore, after she complained that her face was ‘blacked-up’ on the promotional material that Eternal produced in America in order to obtain play-listed status on Urban radio.

Having become the most recognisable of the group thanks to the tabloid media’s interest in her, she forged a successful solo career with hits such as ‘In Walked Love’ and ‘Naked’ and never looked back after leaving the band.

After Louise’s departure, and another string of Top 20 successes, they finally achieved a number one with ‘I Wanna Be The Only One’ in the late 1990’s, and then set about releasing their Greatest Hits compilation, constructed from their three studio albums.

Straddling many different genres, the band are at their best when tackling funky radio-friendly songs like ‘Stay’ and ‘Good Thing’, and their only chart-topper is pure pop perfection with BeBe Winans’s gospelly assistance giving the track an extra lift. Some of their earlier hits such as ‘Just A Step From Heaven’ also demonstrate that they were one of the first pop acts of the time to successfully incorporate RnB into their music without looking completely ridiculous.

However, amongst the wheat there is an awful lot of chaff. ‘So Good’ with its squea
ky samples and sax accompaniment is so cheesy it belongs on a deli, whilst ‘Power Of A Woman’ was their cynically contrived (and ultimately fruitless) attempt to crack the US market.

Another downside is the quality and quantity of sludgy ballads. The pedestrian ‘Oh Baby I’ was one of their bigger hits, although even that sounds full of vitality compared to ‘Someday’, the theme music to the Notre Dame cartoon, which would surely have made Quasimodo jump from the clock tower should he have had the misfortune to hear it… Similarly, ‘I Am Blessed’ is a comatosed religious affair that sits uncomfortably with the uptempo tracks.

Admittedly, the songs do show off that they were good singers, although the production is far too slick and dot-to-dot to really allow any of the songs to still sound good nowadays… Interestingly, Louise is omitted from the sleevenotes, which seems a little bit bitter considering she sings on half of the tracks.

Shortly after putting their back-catalogue on this disc, they imploded in spectacular style. Kelle Bryan departed the band in an Angela Lansbury-esque ‘did she jump or was she pushed?’ mystery, whilst the Bennett sisters carried on under the Eternal banner for another stab at success. Despite lots of publicity and a move towards a slinkier RnB look, their album failed to reach the Top 100 and was one of the most spectacular pop flops ever. In the 3 years since then, they have been quieter than a deaf mute in a library.

Of the others, Kelle had a brief solo hit with ‘Higher Than Heaven’, although has sadly been struck by illness and has faded out of the limelight. Louise’s limited voice has also brought diminishing returns in recent times, although the millionairess Mrs Redknapp will still go down in history as one of the most successful British female soloists of all time.

Despite their tremendous s
uccesses, Eternal have become one of the largely forgotten acts of the period. Whilst one or two of the songs stand out, the majority on offer here demonstrate that much of their output hasn’t aged well and that maybe is one that should be left on the shelf by anyone except nostalgia junkies...

Summary: