Remembrance Tuesday: Ana Ann - Ride

What with yesterday being a Bank Holiday in the UK, this week's Remembrance Monday comes, controversially, not on a Monday, but on a Tuesday. To be honest the whole thing is usually, via the magic of the internet, pre-recorded anyway, so it's not like this couldn't have been posted yesterday.

ANYWAY

This song is awful. Ana Ann, pictured right, in a rather fetching bin liner and string combo, could not sing. In fact, such is the implausibility of 'We Ride''s utter shitness, you might, on first listen, think it could be one of those hilarious record industry jokes played out at the public's expense, like Vanilla (whose 'No Way, No Way' was actually quite good), Scouting For Girls or Bono. In reality Ana Ann was dealing in much more Luigi Masi-ish territory - 'i', as they say, 'e', she was being bankrolled by her dad.

So yes, 'We Ride' was absolutely terrible. Have a listen for yourself:

Yes, that is the real song, and yes, that is the real video. It went into the charts like a bullet at Number 24 in February 2002, suggesting that less money was being spent on 'production' so-called 'values', and more on, well, 'hyping the charts' (perhaps).

Ana Ann was signed to LL Records, a company set up by her family, and of which she was the artist on whom the most focus was placed - basically she was the only one they had. By the time 'We Ride' had got itself onto music video channels, olden days internet people had already smelt a rat. "in her box talk (An interview given to video channel The Box) SHE SAID her family invested Money into her to buy her own record company!!! and She's the main act signed to it [sic, sic, sic etc]". Clearly, such revelations didn't stop her in her ascent to the dizzy heights of the Top 25, but perhaps, if you'll allow for some slightly unrealistic projection, were responsible, in part, for the pulling of the scheduled second single, 'I Apologise'. After that mysteriously disappeared, Ana did too.

But fear not! In early 2004 she returned, with the "Official UNICEF Song" 'Children Of The World'. Quite a coup for UNICEF, yes? Well, no. UNICEF had no knowledge of the song whatsoever. On the other hand, Ana had managed to twist David Beckham's arm into appearing in its video, so that was quite a coup for her, right? Well, again, no. Beckham (and it was the real one this time) had no idea that archive footage of him was being used in the clip, and told LL Records to remove him from the video. Oh dear, yes? Yes. 'Children Of The World' made Number 44 and that really was it for Ana Ann in the UK.

She was more popular abroad (apparently), and while her eventual album 'Cosmopolitana' failed to receive a UK release, it did appear in Germany. Seven years lather, though, little evidence of this remains, even in mainland Europe. There's still a horrendous official website, whose Flash interface is probably to be expected given that its last update was in 2006, and a similarly neglected MySpace page that reveals/makes the outlandish claim that "she has graduated from the London Guildhall with a major in International Relations and Modern languages as one of the youngest graduates in the history of this university (19 years old!)". So that's quite nice for her.