Wanna touch your hand and explode like a star.........

Daylight-demo by Paul Mahos & New Life Crisis Very rare original
Daylight in Your Eyes-unreleased by Victoria Faiella Unreleased 'female' original
Daylight In Your Eyes by No Angels The smash hit single
Daylight In Your Eyes-swing version by No Angels Big band version from their Swing album
Daylight In Your Eyes-unplugged by No Angels On their unplugged album
Daylight In Your Eyes by Audiosmog Supposedly ironic cover that is quite brilliant!
Daylight-Tony Moran Mix by Paul Mahos & New Life Crisis Ultra rare remix of the demo

Seeing as its girlband season over at one of my all time fav blogs, dontstopthepop, I thought it prescient to cover one of the biggest tracks by a girlband ever recorded outside of the UK. Only the thing is, the song was originally recorded by a man whose version sounds like naughties answer to George Michael. The singer in question is called Paul Mahos. His version simply called Daylight was recorded with his band and sounds far more macho than its other editions. He whispers the lyrics like he's reading the most erotic prose to a nineteen year old svelte songstress from Norway called Inrala whilst doing unimaginable things with his fingers.

The bridge is completely different to the other versions and as you'll hear Mahos does this George Michael-esq callback that hasnt been heard since GM's Prejudice days. Brilliant! The original might be more macho than its sisters but its no less poppier or discotastic. It has never been properly released and remains a highly sought-after demo...

The real PopEatsPop "moment" comes when the track evolved from a male tale of seduction to a post-feminist post-Spice Girls anthem. The writers of the song gave it one Victoria Faella. Heard of her? Thought not. Victoria was born and raised in New York City and has earned her pop music stripes by working as a backing vocalist for Enrique Iglesias, Alanis Morissette, Lenny Kravitz, Jewel, Robbie Williams, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Donna Summer. In 2000 she was signed to Sony/Epic and recorded the Drama LP. It featured Daylight and Even When I Sleeping which was recently covered by Marie Wilson and Leonardo's Bride. However Drama was shelved for reasons unknown. When Victoria was ready to release Daylight through an new Sony imprint a year later the song had been put aside for the Popstars project some three months before the auditions had even begun! Her career was dumped before it was even given the green light because of industry and nothing more. Still shes got a myspace going with new music so all is not lost. She's also appeared in hit show The Soprano's and stars in the Billy Joel musical.

As you will hear Victoria's version is no different to No Angels edition and I think is pretty safe to say the band simply sung over the instrumental. Moreover, I know i might be stepping on eggshells here but Victoria's vocals appear to remain on the finished No Angels track. Shockingly, I hear very little difference to Victoria's version and the No Angels mix. Could the No Angels version just be a remix of Victoria's unreleased 2000 edition? Controversy! Judge for yourself though...

Anyone who follows pop should know who No Angels are. But did they know that they launched their careers on a cover? Well thats nothing spectacularly new specially when were talking about tv bands where songs are pretty much like used condoms. I wont take that analogy any further than ones mind should do. However what marks out this episode is the fact that Daylight In Your Eyes by No Angels sounded so fresh, so them and so unique. Pick at the skin and one finds that song was originally by a boy and then wound up on a stalled LP already one year old by the time the German Popstar band recorded it.

The song under the guise of No Angels has gone on to be the most successful song by a European product of Popstars with sales over the million mark. It can also claim to be the most global song of any tv pop product. When it was released in February 2001 not even the makers of the band nor probably the girls themselves would have expected Daylight In Your Eyes to do go to no.1 in Europe, Brazil, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Argentina and Switzerland. Going by world charts alone then Daylight In Your Eyes is the biggest single by a girlband since the glory days of Bewitched and Spice Girls. No Angels did release the song in other markets including the UK, New Zealand, U.S and France but commercial success wasnt as huge as it was in Germany. Daylight sold over one million records and became the most successful single of the year in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The German rock band Audiosmog decided to do a rock-ironic cover of the song but rather than being post-pop it actually isnt as bad one might presume. When the macho lads hit the chorus the song really takes off and their version is quite glorious. The rockers probably had no idea that despite their buckets of sarcasm they were actually doing a song that was meant to be sung by men and originally by a rock act. Which of course makes their seemingly comic cover quite brilliant!

So today to get you out of your Christmas blues PopEatsPop offers the rare demo by Paul Mahos, the unreleased "female" original by Victoria, the No Angels smash hit and the Audiosmog cover. Also included are versions of the song by No Angels including the swing interpretation and the unplugged performance. Now I don't mean to brag but not only have you got the original and Victoria cover which are ultra rare in themselves....but also included is the Tony Moran remix of Paul Mahos' Daylight. I think this is too rare to describe so enjoy!