"Stop!" is a song by English singer-songwriter
Sam Brown from her
debut studio album of the same name (1988). It was released in May 1988 by
A&M, and written by Brown,
Gregg Sutton and
Bruce Brody. "Stop!" reached number 52 on the
UK Singles Chart when it was first released. Following its re-release on 23 January 1989, the song peaked at number four, becoming Brown's highest-charting single, and spending 12 weeks on the chart. Additionally, "Stop!" topped the charts in Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway, while reaching the top five in Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Ireland and Switzerland. The song was featured in the soundtrack to the 1992 film ''
Bitter Moon''.
Critical reception
Pan-European magazine ''
Music & Media
''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later m ...
'' named "Stop!" Single of the Week, complimenting "an impressive new talent whose striking debut single leaves us with no doubts about her future." They added that "her commanding vocals fare well in this emotional and powerful
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
, suitable for all types of radio formats." Adrian Thrills from ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' commented, "Fair stab at an atmospheric ''pop noir'' ballad, 'Stop!' comes complete with another orchestral quartet, a tinkling ivory and some strained, pained vocals. Mildly startling, if a little studied. A
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
even helps to re-create a smokily authentic '60s feel as the melodrama slowly unfolds, but the strings are the thing." Upon the 1989 re-release, Betty Page from ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper published between 1954 and 1991, aimed at pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after ''New Musical Express'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK Album ...
'' wrote, "Second time lucky, please, for Sam's powerful
R&B-ish ballad (out first time last year) from her cruelly overlooked
debut LP. It's a barnstormer of a vocal performance — gutsy but strangely vulnerable at the same time. What a woman. She's made it big in Europe already, so it's about time you lot out there woke up to her considerable talents."
David Cavanagh of ''
Sounds'' described the song as "absolutely corking" and "solid gold". He added, "Sam's obviously a sucker for
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, was a British singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano voice, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop mus ...
and is equipped with a startlingly good voice."
Track listings
* UK CD single
#"Stop!" (edit)
#"Blue Soldier"
* UK 7-inch single
:A. "Stop!" (edit)
:B. "Blue Soldier"
* UK 12-inch single
:A1. "Stop!" (album version)
:A2. "Poor Frank"
:B1. "Blue Soldier"
:B2. "Bones"
Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''
Stop!''
*
Sam Brown –
lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
;
string arrangements
The string section of an orchestra is composed of bowed instruments belonging to the violin family. It normally consists of first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. It is the most numerous group in the standard orchestra. In ...
*
Jakko Jakszyk –
guitar
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
*
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Richard Harrison (born May 28, 1963) is an English musician. He is best known for playing with the progressive rock bands Porcupine Tree (2002–2010; 2021–present), King Crimson (2008, and 2014–2021) and The Pineapple Thief (2016� ...
–
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
*Ed Poole –
bass guitar
The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...
*Kevin Malpass –
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
; string arrangements
*
Bob Andrews – Hammond organ solo
*
Andy Price
Andy Price is a British television and film composer. He has scored more than 50 films for television and more than 25 productions for theatres around the country, including the Bristol Old Vic, National Youth Theatre and the RSC.
Price has comp ...
– 1st
violin
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
*Mark Walton – 2nd violin
*Kate Musker –
viola
The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...
*Peter Esswood –
cello
The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
*
Vicki Brown
Vicki Brown (23 August 1940 – 16 June 1991) was an English pop, rock and contemporary classical singer. She was a member of both The Vernons Girls and The Breakaways and was the first wife of fellow singer and musician Joe Brown and mothe ...
–
backing vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...
*
Margo Buchanan
Margo Buchanan is a Scottish singer-songwriter, composer, musician, and recording artist. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Buchanan is best known for her work as a session backing vocalist.
Early years
Margo Buchanan was born in Lanark, ...
– backing vocals
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
Jamelia version
English singer
Jamelia
Jamelia Niela Davis (born 11 January 1981) is a British singer, actress and television personality. Her three studio albums each peaked inside the Top 40 and they spawned eight top-10 singles. In addition, Jamelia has won four MOBO Awards, a Q ...
covered "Stop!" after the makers of the 2004 film ''
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason'' approached her to record it to illustrate an integral part of the film. Jamelia instantly accepted the offer and explained how much she was a fan of the character and of
the first film
''The First Film'' is a 2015 British documentary film about cinema pioneer Louis Le Prince, made by David Nicholas Wilkinson. It argues the case that Le Prince, rather than the Lumière brothers, was the true inventor of moving pictures, making ...
. The exclamation mark at the end of the title was dropped for the Jamelia release.
"Stop" was released as a
double A-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of vinyl records and cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a single usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or ...
with the song "
DJ" on 1 November 2004. The single peaked at number nine on the UK Singles Chart and became Jamelia's fourth consecutive top-10 entry, spending 12 weeks on the chart. It also became her fourth consecutive top-40 single in Australia, peaking at number 37.
The formats of "DJ" and "Stop" received a staggered release. On 1 November 2004, the two-track CD one was released along with the "DJ" CD release. Due to time constraints, the "Stop" music video (directed by Alex Hemming) could not be added in time to make the 1 November release date and so the CD two was released a week later on 8 November 2004. This was also the first
DVD single
A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to promote the sale of m ...
release from Jamelia. The single release also contained a cover of
Wham!
Wham! were an English pop duo formed in Bushey in 1981 consisting of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They were one of the most successful pop acts during the 1980s, selling more than 30 million certified records worldwide from 1982 to ...
's "
Last Christmas
"Last Christmas" is a song by British pop duo Wham!. Written and produced by George Michael, it was released on 3 December 1984 via CBS Records internationally and as a double A-side via Epic Records with " Everything She Wants" in several Eur ...
".
Track listings
* UK CD1 and European CD single
# "
DJ"
# "Stop"
* UK CD2
# "DJ"
# "Stop"
# "
Last Christmas
"Last Christmas" is a song by British pop duo Wham!. Written and produced by George Michael, it was released on 3 December 1984 via CBS Records internationally and as a double A-side via Epic Records with " Everything She Wants" in several Eur ...
"
# "Stop" (video)
* Australian CD single
# "DJ"
# "Stop"
# "Last Christmas"
Charts
All entries charted as "DJ" / "Stop" unless otherwise noted.
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Other versions
*It was covered by Polish singer
Edyta Górniak
Edyta Anna Górniak (; born 14 November 1972) is a Polish pop singer. Górniak started as a musical theatre actress in 1990. She performed in the most popular musical in Polish history, the Tony Award-nominated ''Metro (musical), Metro''. Some ...
in 1989, at age 16, when she gave her first public appearance on a Polish television talent show of which she won.
*It was covered by
blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre, genre and form of rock music, rock and blues music that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electri ...
er
Joe Bonamassa
Joseph Leonard Bonamassa ( ; born May 8, 1977) is an American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. He started his career at age twelve, when he opened for B.B. King. Since 2000, Bonamassa has released fifteen solo albums through his inde ...
in 2009, who recorded a seven-minute version of the song for inclusion on his album ''
The Ballad of John Henry''.
*It was covered by Norwegian singer
Ane Brun
Ane Brun (; born Ane Brunvoll on 10 March 1976) is a Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist of Sami people, Sami origin who sings primarily in English. Since 2003, she has released eleven studio albums, six live albums, five compilations, o ...
in 2005, whom released a version (as a duet with Liv Widell) on her album ''
Duets''.
*It was covered by Icelandic singer
Hafdís Huld, whom recorded an
a cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
version which was used for a pan-European TV commercial for
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to simply as Mercedes and occasionally as Benz, is a German automotive brand that was founded in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz Group, established in 2019) is based in Stuttgart, ...
in the summer of 2008. A fully instrumented version was released as a single in Iceland on 24 October 2008 with a full iTunes release on 24 November via Red Grape.
*It was covered by Vietnamese singer
Mỹ Tâm
Phan Thị Mỹ Tâm (born 16 January 1981 in Da Nang), commonly known as Mỹ Tâm, is a Vietnamese singer and songwriter. She is one of the most successful Vietnamese singers for two decades (2000s and 2010s), the most popular Vietnamese ...
on her album ''10 Years Anniversary Liveshow 2011: Mỹ Tâm Melodies of time''
*It was covered by
Paul Dempsey
Paul Anthony Dempsey (born 25 May 1976) is an Australian musician. He is best known as the lead singer, guitarist and principal lyricist of rock group Something for Kate. Dempsey released his debut solo album, '' Everything Is True'', on 20 A ...
, frontman of the Australian group
Something for Kate
Something for Kate are an Australian alternative rock band, which formed in 1994 with Paul Dempsey on lead vocals and guitar, and Clint Hyndman on drums. They were joined in 1998 by Stephanie Ashworth on bass guitar and backing vocals. The gro ...
, as a bonus track on the deluxe version of the band's 2012 album ''
Leave Your Soul to Science''.
*It was covered by Italian singer
Andrea Faustini in week 7 of the live show on ''
The X Factor
''The X Factor'' is a television music competition franchise created by British producer Simon Cowell and his company Syco Entertainment. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for '' Pop Idol'' (2001–200 ...
'' 2014 after ending up in the bottom two with Stevi Ritchie.
*It was covered by Four of Diamonds in the six chair challenge on ''The X Factor'' 2016.
*It was covered by Nikita Dzhigurda in the voice of Whitney Houston on "Pikabu" 2019 specially for Makhmud.
References
{{Authority control
1980s ballads
1988 songs
1988 singles
2004 singles
A&M Records singles
Blue-eyed soul songs
Contemporary R&B ballads
Dutch Top 40 number-one singles
Jamelia songs
Number-one singles in Iceland
Number-one singles in Norway
Parlophone singles
Sam Brown (singer) songs
Songs written by Gregg Sutton
Soul ballads
Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles
Songs written by Sam Brown (singer)