Music / The Corrs

The Corrs. Left to right - Caroline, Jim, Andrea and Sharon

She's never gonna be like the one before,
She read it in her stars that there's something more,
No matter what it takes, no matter how she breaks,
She'll be the Queen of Hollywood..

"Queen of Hollywood"

The Corrs are an Irish folk/pop/soft rock band, consisting of four siblings (in age order: Jim, Sharon, Caroline and Andrea) from Dundalk. Formed in 1990, they achieved major commercial success in 1995 and continued touring, recording and releasing popular albums for ten years before going on hiatus in 2005 to allow all four members time out to get married, have children, raise families and work on solo projects. After some doubt as to whether they'd ever reunite, the band announced they were working on a new album, which was released in late 2015.

Members:

• Andrea (lead vocals, tin whistle)
• Sharon (violin, vocals)
• Caroline (drums, piano, bodhrán, vocals)
• Jim (guitar, piano, vocals).

Discography:

• Forgiven, Not Forgotten (1995)
• Corrs Live (1996)
• Talk On Corners (1997)
• Two songs for the original soundtrack of Warner Bros. animated feature Quest for Camelot, with Andrea giving the singing voice of the female lead, Kayley. (1998)
• The Corrs Unplugged (1999)
• In Blue (2000)
• Best of The Corrs (2001)
• VH1 Presents: The Corrs, Live in Dublin (2002)
• Borrowed Heaven (2004)
• Home (2005)
• Dreams: The Ultimate Corrs Collection (2006)
• The Works (2007)
• Original Album Series (2011)
• White Light (2015)
• Jupiter Calling (2017)

Tropes used by the band include:

• Age-Progression Song: "Queen of Hollywood".
• Album Title Drop: Most albums are titled for a song on the album or a lyric from it.
  • Forgiven not Forgotten is named after the title track, as are Borrowed Heaven and White Light.
  • Talk on Corners is named from a lyric in the song "Queen of Hollywood".
  "And her friends they talk on corners, they could never comprehend."
  • In Blue takes its title from a lyric from "Give me a Reason".
  "It's not romantic here in blue, swimming, swimming in blue..."
  • Jupiter Calling takes its title from a lyric in "SOS".
  "Or jupiter calling, can you hear them cry?"
  • Home is the exception as it was named because the band were going "home" to their Irish musical roots on the album.
• Alliterative Name: Caroline Corr.
• Award-Bait Song: "Looking Through Your Eyes" from Quest for Camelot has all the characteristics, although another song from the movie, "The Prayer", was the one that got a Golden Globe.
• Band of Relatives: All four members are siblings.
• Ballad of a Sex Worker: Somebody For Someone can be interpreted as a heavily-metaphored song about a sex worker and a person observing her.
• Be Yourself: "Irresistible", "Would You Be Happier?".
• Book Ends: A lot of their music videos begin and end in the same manner.
• Boxed Set: The Original Album Series, released in 2011. Contains the five studio albums.
• Break-Up Song: "Don't Say You Love Me" and "Long Night" are a more traditional straight examples. "Give Me A Reason" overlaps this with What the Hell, Hero?, while "I Never Loved You Anyway" is basically a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Brutal Honesty: "I Never Loved You Anyway" is an extremely blunt Break-Up Song.
• Clip Show: The band usually shows their tours in alternative music videos ("Runaway", "Long Night", "Goodbye").
• Color Motif: Something black, blue or/and gold are always present in their music videos.
• Cool Shades: Jim is rarely without shades in the music videos.
• Cover Version: They covered Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" and "When The Stars Go Blue" that they performed with Bono from U2. Other less well known covers include R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts", "Ruby Tuesday" and "All I Have To Do Is Dream" among others.
• Dance of Romance: The climatic scene of the music video for "One Night" happens in a ball.
• A Day in the Limelight: Both Sharon and Caroline are the lead vocals in the song "No Frontiers".
• Dogged Nice Guy: "What Can I Do?" seems to be the female version of this.
• Dramatic Shattering: Jim throws a chair out of a window in the music video for "Give Me A Reason".
• Due to the Dead: "Angel" is dedicated to their late mother who passed away when they were recording their (at the time) newest album.
• Family Title: The band's name is actually their real surname.
• Follow Your Heart: Practically every single one of their love songs. Their Signature Song, "Runaway", is perhaps the taker.
  "I would runaway with you..."
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Andrea is Melancholic, Jim is Choleric, Sharon is Leukine, Caroline is Sanguine.
• Greatest Hits Album: As you can see above, they have three from a discography of five albums. Although once you start adding the high quality live albums and unplugged albums (and the oddly great tracks hidden away on B-sides or bonus discs) which have their own specific songs it looks far more reasonable. A buyer also gets more value for money from each subsequent release. The first was made after their third album was released and has eighteen songs. The second Dreams contained twenty-one songs and was released after their fourth and fifth albums were released as well as several unplugged and live albums. The Works was released as a three CD set with fifty-six tracks.
• Genki Girl: Onstage, Andrea is known for boundless energy - Jim revealed her nickname to be Danger Dizzy.
• Genre Roulette: Their discography ranges from pure pop, folk rock, folk pop, instrumental folk tunes, soft rock and combinations of all.
• Grief Song: Borrowed Heaven was made after their mother's death, and it shows: while "Angel" and "Goodbye" may sound upbeat, they are actually this.
• Growing Up Sucks: The song "So Young" is an upbeat and optimistic take on this trope.
• Happily Married: All three sisters. Jim? Not so much.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Going with the metaphors in ''Somebody For Someone", there is this line:
  And he sees in her an angel, in the cruelest of worlds.
• Hypocritical Humor: "Would You be Happier?" is a song about being yourself. The music video for it shows the group selling out.
• Intercourse with You: "Only When I Sleep" is about fantasizing about someone.
• "I Want" Song:"What Can I Do", "On My Father's Wings" from Quest for Camelot.
• Little Black Dress: The girls, Andrea especially, are fond of wearing this in the promotional materials, concerts and music videos.
• Live Album: They have two.
• New Sound Album: Each of their albums skirt a line from pop to pop-folk, pop-rock and folk. To what extent can differ drastically:
  • Forgiven, Not Forgotten, is a roughly fifty-fifty split between instrumental folk and pop-rock.
  • Talk On Corners only has a single instrumental track ("Paddy McCarthy") and the rest are pop. This lead to the BBC radio reclassifying them from Folk to Pop, moving them to a more popular radio station, starting their rise to fame.
  • In Blue is the major exception, the biggest change being "Breathless" and "No More Cry" being pop-rock. It became their first success in the United States.
  • Borrowed Heaven had a more edgy, guitar based sound than In Blue, with some of the songs like "Confidence" being rock than pop-rock, and they once again only included one instrumental song.
  • Home, is comprised almost completely of folk songs, and includes a pair of songs sung in Irish. It also brought back the instrumental songs.
• The One Guy: Jim.
• One True Love: "Runaway", "All The Love In The World", "Kiss Of Life".
• Orbital Shot: In the "So Young" music video.
• Power Glows: The group has some sort of "chi" surrounding them in the "Irresistible" music video.
• Radio Song: "Radio".
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Aside from her beautiful singing voice, Andrea is known for her pretty face, pale skin and jet-black hair. Both Sharon and Caroline count too, but they tend to dye their hair in a lighter hue.
• Rearrange the Song: Two songs from their Unplugged session were rerecorded for their future albums: "Radio" (unplugged version, In Blue version) and "Old Town" (unplugged version, Home version).
  • Also, the three biggest singles during the Talk On Corners era got remixed almost completely in 1998. "So Young" got an electronic overhaul, "What Can I Do" eschewed the original doo-wop influence in favor of a heavier beat and edgier guitar riffs, and "Runaway" from 1995 inverted all that by removing the David Foster-overproduced instrumentation and substituting a more stripped back acoustic rhythm section. The last two songs even had a lush orchestral string backing not present in the original.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "I Never Loved You Anyway" is a pretty snarky one to an ex-lover.

• Scenery Porn: The music video for "What Can I Do?" beautifully highlights the New Zealand area it was shot at.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Inverted. All three of the girls perform the vocals and backups, and are all good enough singers that they could all perform lead vocals if they had too.
• Sex Equals Love: Heavily implied in the music video for "One Night".
• Sexy Silhouette: The girls in the "Breathless" music video.
• Signature Style: They tend to shoot their music videos in Sepia.
• Step Up to the Microphone: And do, on several occasions. (You have to try quite hard to hear Jim, though; he does occasionally get a noticeable vocal part, particularly on "No Good For Me".)
• The Tease: Andrea in the "Breathless" music video.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Caroline appears more of a grown-up Shorttank in the music videos and in concerts, though she can still be really feminine too.
• Trash the Set:
  • The "Give Me A Reason" video shows Jim throwing a chair out of a window.
  • The music video for "Summer Sunshine" shows the band/siblings gradually destroying an old house where a couple sneaked in (presumably to have sex).
  • The "Would You Be Happier?" music video parodies the stereotypical rock music videos where they destroy their guitars (and everything else).
• Unplugged Version: The group never shied away from live or acoustic performances, with Andrea's crystal clear perfect voice the highlight, with Caroline & Sharon creating a harmony even as they all play their instruments with exceptional skill, some of these acoustic performances are reminiscent of lo-fi exemplars like "the Mountain Goats" and there are a lot of fans of the group who prefer the acoustic & unplugged versions to the highly produced studio versions.
  • A limited edition release of In Blue came with a bonus disc featuring acoustic versions of many of the songs on the album.
  • The Corrs Unplugged was part of the MTV Unplugged series.
  • The single release for Long Night includes an acoustic version for it and Hideaway. While the originals are still quite sombre, stripping away the synthetic, modern production values increases the depth of feelings, with Andrea's vocals having a touch of quiet desperation & helplessness that is absent from the album versions.
• White Stallion: Shows up in the music video for "Give Me A Reason" during some of Andrea's scenes.
• Woman Scorned: "I Never Loved You Anyway" can basically be interpreted as a very blunt and bitter Break-Up Song.

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