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Michael Cragg’s very first book, Reach For The Stars, is a narrative history that’s like a Meet Me In The Bathroom for anybody who ever held up a banner stating ‘POINT YOUR ERECTION IN MY DIRECTION’ in front of a chart-topping act at an arena, or camped outside a house wishing for a look of their heroes going out for a pint of milk. Charting the years from when the Spice Girls initially piped up, through to the supremacy of X-Factor and the death of Smash Hits, Top Of The Pops, CD:UK, Popworld and – thank god – the fan-fleecing 2CD single racket. It was a ten-year reign of a few of the best popular song ever made prior to the genuine sadface boohoo troubadours got here and sapped all the pleasure out of whatever.
You may be the sort who responds to the concern ‘where do you stand on Blue?’ with ‘their throats’, or you may be the type who has actually invested a number of years chained exterior Universal requiring a reissue of Rachel Stevens’ 2 solo albums on vinyl. Whatever your take on popular song, Reach For The Stars is for you. The has a hard time, needs and success of the acts showcased in this tome are often traumatic, typically amusing and worthwhile of an entire brand-new level of your regard.
Cast your mind back to February 1996, when Take That initially said ‘That’s it, we’re off!’ and both East 17 and Eternal had actually gone a bit adult, leaving the coast clear for the syrupy mumpop of Boyzone; there was a job for a concrete popmania to yell at. Britpop had actually gone sour and end up being controlled by hod providers in parkas while Blur, Elastica, Suede and Pulp were everything about to start drug routines, and anybody with the capability to hold a guitar properly up was unexpectedly midweek number 6. It was gloomy, it was dull, it was TFI Friday with unique visitors Sleeper.
Fortunately, something was developing in a semi in Maidenhead, inhabited by 5 girls who’d responded to the call for a “streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated” quintet of 18–23-year-olds to end up being a “choreographed, singing/dancing, all-female pop act for a recording deal”. Cocking a snoot at the concept that “girls don’t buy music by girls”, the Spice Girls barreled into pop with ‘Wannabe’ in July 1996, and within 6 months were basically the most significant act upon the world. Initially Smash Hits weren’t that troubled by them (the embolisms) therefore it was delegated Top Of The Pops publication to cleave them to their bosom and, as a bonus offer, summon the legends that were Posh, Sporty, Scary, Baby and Ginger.
What followed from that cultural reset was the clamour for contending labels and management business to prepare their own moneymakers, with pitches like ‘Spice Girls but boys’ (5ive), ‘Spice Girls but a line-dancing mixed-gender operation’ (Steps), ‘Spice Girls but with their own TV show and a couple of extra members’ (S Club 7). It was a wild time when UK pop was the dominant force and got its act together.
You see, pop music is very important. And for a generation or more who’d ended up being consumed and besotted by a conveyer belt of precision-built popsters, this was their/your entry-point. Yet behind the perma-grinning gloss and choreography, it was likewise an age of sexism, exploitation, homophobia, bullying, bigotry and mental disorder and a savage landscape where if you ‘only’ entered at number 3, you were en path to The Dumper.
In Cragg’s great book, which you’ll discover difficult not to wolf down in one sitting, you’ll discover yourself warming to acts who you’d formerly stayed away from at Our Price and sympathising with a harsh work where a non-consecutive 48-hours off in one year was thought about a high-end.
Take 5ive. 5ive were, um, 5 lads who were thrown up in a shared house that entered into such a state that even the cleaners worked with by the record business declined to enter it. A bunged-together rough-n-tumble set-up that expert cocktip Russell Brand really auditioned for. Pretty much introduced as a Neighbours From Hell headache, they affected the charts with their slick R&B-shone pop, even making inroads in the American market, and at one point had Simon Cowell providing to purchase songwriter Max Martin a Mercedes for them to have ‘…Baby One More Time’, just for 5ive to state it was “fucking wank” in front of Martin, who somewhat insulted, huffed off and said, “I’ve got this other girl who is going to sing it”.
Oh, and the work, interband fist battles and bullying got a lot that youngest member Sean – who’d signed up with as a sweet-natured 15-year-old – had a breakdown. When requiring a long time off, he was changed by a cardboard cut-out. Things got so bad – backstage tears, different vehicles, you call it – after numerous 5ive-rs had actually pissed off many individuals in the market, everybody included with them swore ‘never again’.
Even S Club 7, a band not likely to be puzzled with Fat White Family at any time quickly, had their share of drug arrests (translation: the 3 kids were nicked for sharing a spliff). The tale of an inebriated Bradley being taken out of a bar with some cans to put down the lead vocal for ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’, just to head back to the club an hour later on, is the sort of hardcore most bands imagine.
How about Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton struggling with post-natal anxiety, and back on trip after an emergency situation C-section. “When you have a C-section you have six weeks’ downtime and back into light exercise, but with me I was back on stage in heels doing full-on dance routines”. Their handlers didn’t offer a shit – the help at that time was to “put them on Prozac and everything will be fine”.
Howsabout Sugababes, actual children when they got together as a far cooler, less directional Spice. Unarsed by choreography or tie-ins with crisps makers, Mutya (15), Keisha (15) and Siobhan (16) were at first more of a vital success, prior to a nationwide service-style call-up began to safeguard the ‘brand’ that went on to score 6 primary songs consisting of stone-cold classics such as ‘Freak Like Me’, ‘About You Now’ and ‘Push The Button’, and each of the members winding up being changed prior to they lastly develop back into the origibabes once again.
What about the predicament of Mis-Teeq – a real competitor to end up being a UK Destiny’s Child just for their label to declare bankruptcy and fuck them over? He might look like a joke now, however Craig David was the most significant break-out popstar of 2000, and yet was not just snubbed by the Brits, however dealt with decreasing returns when he ‘went American’ which, integrated with being lampooned by comedy-for-cunts token Leigh Francis in blackface, quickly put paid to his profession and he was back in his closet.
How about Hear’Say’s Kym Marsh being informed on nationwide tv that she’s too fat for pop? Or members of Blue and Atomic Kitten struggling with PTSD after experiencing the airplanes fly into the World Trade Center while they were both in New York recording a video? Honestly, who’d be a pop star.
Don’t panic however, you’ll still believe Louis Walsh is a little a charmless wanker. For after spending the last 3 months of 2002 on prime-time television picking a lady band on Popstars: The Rivals, Walsh immediately buggered off when Girls Aloud were revealed triumphant.
From that minute they were tossed into a life with no genuine order aside from showing up when a car got here. The Aloud were delegated look after themselves – residing in a substance of accommodation where things like ‘paying bills’ and ‘owning a hoover’ were alien to what was efficiently a lot of kids, and it was delegated Kimberley to take the reins with a clipboard detailing the band’s every relocation.
Girls Aloud remained in truth the last fantastic pop group – shedding their starts with a selection of stupendous songs, primarily helmed by Xenomania who tossed whatever at them, cut-and-shutting littles tunes together to produce magic and including littles New Order, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and synthpop recommendations. Their undoubtedly fantastic run of hits – ‘The Show’, ‘Biology’, ‘Love Machine’, ‘Call The Shots’, ‘The Promise’, ‘Untouchable’, and so on. – saw them ‘accepted’ by the dominating – urgh – ‘proper’ music brigade, and their crossover into National Treasure status was protected when Cheryl ended up being a judge on The X Factor.
Nicola, Kimberley, Cheryl, Nadine and the late Sarah were renowned – the last fantastic band of them all. Quite honestly Nicola declining the OXO Tower menu in favour of consuming a bag of Nik Naks she had in her purse is much more punk than Sleaford Mods will ever be.
In truth, that was the death knell to all of it. Popstars, Pop Idol and The X Factor integrated the 21st-century twin evils of reality tv and Have Your Say culture and laid bare the system of popular song. Rather than present the ended up item to the general public, the audiences were now bought potential pop stars’ lives the minute they left your house and participated in an audition. And through selective modifying and an encouraging media, a gladiatorial element was generated through the audiences’ obvious ownership of these individuals’s professions. It’s almost enough to make you pity Steve Brookstein.
Reach For The Stars, then, it’s a stupendous brick of a book. You’ll laugh (a lot). You might even sob. You may even feel forced to knock up a Spotify playlist. And, if you’re like me, you’ll likewise truly wish to discover what ‘Birthday’, Richard X and Hannah Robinson’s ode to anal sex sung by Frankie from The Saturdays, seems like.
