Right Now

by

Atomic Kitten

Edit

Most American audiences may have gotten a taste of British pop trio Atomic Kitten when their song "See Ya" ended up on the Bring It On soundtrack and figured, hiss!, it's a hairball! Let me say first off that "See Ya" is an okay song but one listen to the rest of Right Now, their debut, and you'll discover 24 carat catnip.

The kitty treats, er... tracks, are a real meow mix here. AK must have grown up on old school disco, especially with the opening of the title track, "Turn Me On", and "Do What You Want". There's even some of that funky wicka-wacka sound present that starts off the "Theme From Shaft" inside. However, the influence of the Spice Girls sound is also clearly present here, with a few more bells, whistles, whooshes, and other funky sounds added so as not to make them a me-too version of Spice.

Feature tracks? "I Want Your Love" shows that Steps doesn't have the monopoly in putting countrified touches on songs like "5 6 7 8". That's due to the orchestra string sample of "Big Country" interspersed throughout the song in contrast to the hee-haw guitars on Steps' tune.

And now, the centerpiece of the album, namely the gorgeous heartfelt ballad "Whole Again", replete with its gospel-like chorus. A running time of 3:03 adds to its radio-friendliness. Small wonder this song purred for 3 weeks at the top of the UK singles chart. They were singing this for what their 27 lives were worth. This song reminds me of Chicago's "Look Away", which had a similar theme.

"Get Real" and "Hippy" shows their R&B side, a la All Saints.

The closer, "Strangers", about the telltales signs of a breakup, has some Chinese music sampled and string arrangements. To which Confucius say, "Listening to Atomic Kitten is like having tummy scratched. Very refreshing and fun."

I hope they get a well-deserved push in the U.S., because when it comes to pop music, Atomic Kitten are the cat's meow. So, meow! And meow! And... meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow! meow!