I'd Rather Jack with The Reynolds Girls

[luisam]

Golden oldies, Rolling Stones - they didn't want them back because they would rather have jacked than listen to Fleetwood Mac...

 

Ah....what is there to say about The Reynolds Girls that hasn't been said already? Quite a lot actually! 18-year-old Linda Reynolds and her 16-year-old sister Aisling burst into the pop charts in 1989 with 'I'd Rather Jack', their one-hit-wonder. The sisters signed to the PWL record label after giving Pete Waterman a demo tape. Their single was produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW). The song spent twelve weeks in the charts - peaking at No.8 - and earned the girls their small but perfectly formed place in pop history.

 

By the way, the term "jack" comes from Chicago house slang and recalls the act of frenetically dancing to a house beat.

 

You can watch the original video, posted on May, 2010 and after 8 years, has got just about 36,500 views.  

 

 

Shortly afterwards the girls parted company with their famous hitmakers and a follow-up song 'Get Real' failed to chart. The girls may have rapidly returned to obscurity, however, just like that wine stain from the party you had as a teenager, their memory refuses to fade and 'I'd Rather Jack' sounds as fresh today as it first did back in 1989.

 

If you listened this song in the late '80s, whether you love them or hate them, it's unlikely that you've forgotten The Reynolds Girls. They may still be hoisted up by some as the text-book example of everything that is wrong with manufactured pop but for three and a half minutes back in 1989 they brightened up the charts with their stripey leggings and shiney red tops and for this we salute them.

 

"I'd Rather Jack" started out as a response to music critics who ignored the younger pop acts in the UK at the time, and to radio DJs who continued to play older bands on their playlists rather than Stock, Aitken and Waterman songs. It was also a response to a perceived snub at the Brit Awards, where SAW acts lost out to more "mature" acts such as Enya and Steve Winwood.

 

Linda was fond of telling awful jokes, and liked INXS (although not Michael Hutchence’s 1989 look - “His new haircut isn’t very nice” she said). She had previously worked as a hairdresser.

 

Both girls hated being asked if they really hated Fleetwood Mac. Linda said at the time: “I think they’re quite good at what they do really. They just suited the idea of the song, mainly because their name rhymes with jack.”

 

After the two disappeared from the music scene it was reported in later years through several websites that one of the Reynolds girls may have died during childbirth, but that story would turn out to be false. Both girls are still alive, both happily married with Aisling the mother of two young boys, and Linda the mother of one boy and twin girls.

 

Actually, there is a ”remake” of their musical video from 2007, Reynolds Girls Reunion 2007,  using the soundtrack and “flashbacks” from the original video, with 44,087 views currently. Considering that about 19 years had passed by, they were in quite a good physical condition.

 

 

In a public poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2003, "I'd Rather Jack" was voted number 91 in a list of the 100 Worst Pop Records of All Time. In a documentary about PWL that aired in 2012, the people interviewed admitted that the single was indeed a tongue-in-cheek response to the critics, and in part did ruin the siblings' career after they'd recorded it.

 

Have fun reading the lyrics:

 

All we wanna do is have a good time then you went and took our house away
No-one ever asked for our opinion no, we don't get a say
AM, FM, all that jazz We'd rather sing along with Yazz
What happened to the radio? They never play the songs we know
Golden oldies, Rolling Stones, we don't want them back
I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac
No heavy metal, rock'n'roll, music from the past
I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac

Can't they see that every generation has music for its own identity?
But why the DJ on the radio station is always more than twice the age of me?
Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits that's not our music, it's out of date
Demographic stereo they never play the songs we know
Golden oldies, Rolling Stones, we don't want them back
I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac
No heavy metal, rock'n'roll, music from the past
I'd rather jack than Fleetwood Mac

 

Fact is that after about 28 years that “I’d Rather Jack” was released,  people still love The Stones, Dire Straits, Fleetwood and golden oldies whilst The Reynolds Girls are by now long forgotten. Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones play real musical instruments and write their own material and don't get other people to write their songs or just dance around looking like desperate wannabes who have no real talent.