Pop Essays #46: Fierce, ‘Dayz Like That’

Howdy blog reading people! I had a bit of a break last week as I had a week off and wanted to make the most of it. But I’m back, as is Pop Essays. And this week we delve even further into the folder marked “turn of the century girl power”…

• Artist: Fierce
• Song: Dayz Like That
• Released: 03/05/1999
• Writers / Producers: Karl “K-Gee” Gordon / Michelle Escoffery / Ali Tennant
• Highest UK Chart Position: #11
• Chart Run: 11 – 20 – 32 – 42 – 63 – 95 – 87

At risk of this turning into a sentence that I find myself opening many a retro pop themed blog post with these days, those who’ve read the 1998, 1999 or 2000 series I did of The Story of Pop will know that, in the three years immediately following the imperial phase and global reign of the Spice Girls, the British music industry at large was breathlessly playing catch up (some more successfully than others), as the market for girl groups exploded in the white hot heat of the pure pop boom.

In 1999, it was not quite standing room only territory just yet, although the warning signs were there that it was on its way to that being the case. Which meant there was still room for a bit of relative experimentation on the formula. One such group who were straddling their take on the concept were Fierce.

In a time when Eternal had splintered into a duo after the problematic Bennett sisters, Fester and Ernie (a posthumous ta muchly for that description, Jazz Summers) unceremoniously fired Kellé Bryan by fax, and with Honeyz having sewn up the glamourpuss end of R&B pop usually associated with En Vogue (albeit whilst changing lineups like most people change their underwear), Chantel Alleyne, Aisha Peters and Sabrina Weathers were bought together by Colin Lester and Ian McAndrew at Wildstar Records.

It was the new division of Telstar Records – which had just made a success of soul diva Lutricia McNeal, and would soon be finding and breaking through a young teenage talent from Southampton, one Mr Craig David, no less – and had installed the girls, an all black female trio, to offer a cooler, grittier take on R&B and soul fed pop, that could appeal as much to say, listeners of Trevor Nelson’s Rhythm Nation show on Radio 1 as it would say, readers of Smash Hits.

After appearing on the roadshow tour for the latter outlet at the end of 1998, the punchy “Right Here, Right Now” was released as their debut single, seeing a low key release in the first week of January 1999, and which entered the top 40 at #25.

Interestingly though, in a time when the charts were beginning to become increasingly centric on six weeks of promotional build up and a massive first week sale, there was never any sense of it being a crushing disappointment. It was more of a soft landing release, laying down the foundations to build upon for their hoped for future success.

In that respect, “Dayz Like That” feels more like the song Fierce truly launched themselves with. It had shades of SWV about it, but we would also argue that it had a great sonic affinity with All Saints, who were probably the only other current act of that time that you could have imagined recording it.

Unsurprising then, that their original producer, Karl “K-Gee” Gordon, was at the helm of this single, along with Michelle Escoffery, who had worked with Hinda Hicks, and would find even more success working with Artful Dodger and having a big hand in writing “Just A Little” for Liberty X a few years later.

Lyrically, it’s a very girl power centred track, in which they coolly and firmly address a former lover who wants to stay friends but who has to learn to accept that there are boundaries that come with this that he has to respect. Sung almost entirely in a lower register, the speed sung-spoken bridge is a thing of beauty: “I can’t believe you’re back again / After all you put me through / And even though I’m still your friend / I don’t wanna be with you”.

The chorus reasserts their position nicely as well, and is one of those ones that lingers in your head for hours afterwards: “Do you remember when days were like that? / I was lovin’ you, in return you loved back / And now you’re telling me that you missed it / Betcha feel lonely, but it’s like that”.

The video, despite its apparent lack of a massive budget, actually does manage to come across as a convincingly street looking affair, with the girls singing and performing on a dimly lit basketball court, intercut with super 8 effect style segments where they brush off the advances of some of the hunky basketball players and flashbacks to earlier times with them that tie into the lyrics of the song.

“Dayz Like That” did perform much better than “Right Here, Right Now” did, entering 14 places higher at #11 and staying on the top 40 for the same length of time as their debut. However, #11 was a perilous chart position, one that suggested indifference. Just a few thousand more sales and it might have looked a lot better on the copy books at Wildstar Records, even for a #10 hit.

Twelve weeks later at the end of July, they tried again with the third single, “So Long”, which was another top 20 hit but this time, at the opposite end, debuting and peaking at #19, after which their album, also called Right Here, Right Now, entered and peaked at #27 before falling out the chart. It ultimately took them collaborating with the then nascent Stargate production team the following year, in February 2000, on a cover of Anita Baker’s 1986 hit “Sweet Love”, to take them into the top 10, hitting #3, thanks in part to championing from Trevor Nelson and Zoe Ball on their respective Radio 1 shows.

Over a year on from their debut, however, and it had crucially failed to move any albums for them, and by the summer of 2000, Fierce had quietly headed off to the great girl group dumper in the sky. It is perhaps the gingerly gingerly approach of their record label around how to market them in an increasingly overcrowded market that was their ultimate undoing. But it has to be said that, in comparison with their peers, “Dayz Like That” has matured more finely than some other B list girl groups of the turn of the millennium can boast.

Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.