“Vanity Fair” (1997) – World Party * Written and produced by Karl Wallinger * LP: Egyptology * Label: Chrysalis
Welshman Karl Wallinger emerged from the Waterboys as a solo artist called World Party in the late ’80s. He sounded like a studio rock classicist with a voice only a few inflections shy of Mick Jagger and presented himself, in visuals and production, as a big fan of Prince’s Around the World in a Day. Most of the songs on his first two albums, Private Revolution and Goodbye Jumbo, had a save-the-planet theme, but by 1993’s Bang, the preoccupation had dematerialized. His fourth album, Egyptology (1997) contained his big meal ticket in a song called “She’s the One,” which had “sync me” written all over it in the placement-happy late ’90s, and indeed the WB Televison Network found an open snuggle-space for it in a 1998 first season episode of Dawson’s Creek. Singer Robbie Williams, a mega-star in the UK, then recorded a version that went #1 over there in 1999. As a whole, Egyptology survives that notoriety along with the TV stink and comes off now as an underappreciated pop artifact. Hear Wallinger’s feel for even non-classic pop-history detail on “Vanity Fair,” which starts out feeling like “Play with Fire” but sprinkles the chorus with flutes teasing on that recorder line in “Hitchin’ a Ride,” the 1970 record by British one-hit wonders Vanity Fair.