The quiet standard-bearers for
Scottish Pop, Wet Wet Wet secretly became massive without the acclaim lavished on contrymen Runrig and Deacon Blue. Their debut in 1987, '
Wishing I Was Lucky'- a bitter depiction of unemployment married to punchy Pop Soul- punctured the UK Top 10 and, aided by the toothsome grin of Marti Pellow, established the Wets as teen favourites. Their summer anthem '
Sweet Little Mystery' and the dreamy ballad 'Angel Eyes' were also hits from the UK No.1 Popped In Souled Out (1987).
In 1988, they won a BRIT award for Best Newcomer and a UK No.1 with a cover of The Beatles' 'With A Little Help From My Friends' from children's charity album Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father. However, critical wounds and discomfort with their Pop persona prompted them to force the release of The Memphis Sessions (1988)- a collaboration with veteran producer Willie Mitchell which pre-dated Popped In, but had been withdrawn by their label, Phonogram. Its authentic and raw Soul sound presaged the direction of Holding Back The River (1989) and a commercial dive.
With 1992 'Goodnight Girl', a UK No.1, the Wets returned to the limelight. Covers album Cloak And Dagger (1992) came with High On The Happy Side and recast the band as arena-sized adult sophiscates- hence monster sales for 1993's Live At The Albert Hall and End Of Part One (Their Greatest Hits.
But all of this paled beside a fifteen-week stay at UK No.1 by their 1994 cover of The Troggs' 'Love Is All Around'. From the movie Four Weddings And A Funeral, its mind-boggling residency ended only when the band ordered its deletion, one week shy of Bryan Adams' 1991 chart run record.
Their next album, Picture This (1994), topped the UK chart and spawned the hits 'Julia Says', 'Don't Want To Forgive Me Now', 'Somewhere, Somehow' and 'She's All On My Mind'. Their platinum Wet Wet Wet 10 (1997) marked a decade in the charts, but proved enough for drummer Tom Cunningham, who left in December that year.