The first thing that hits your ears with our next number one is the pre-set drumbeat, and synthy organs. It sounds cheap. And ‘cheap’ sets the perfect tone for one of the new millennium’s biggest ballads, and one of its biggest girl groups.
Whole Again, by Atomic Kitten (their 1st of three #1s)
4 weeks, from 4th February – 4th March 2001
If the Spice Girls were the group you’d like to have hung out with, and All Saints were the group you were terrified of running into in the corridor; Atomic Kitten were the group that would happily nick you a packet of fags from the Spar as long as you let them keep a couple. Kerry, Liz, and Tash, three likely scouse lasses.
If that sounds a bit snobby; I don’t mean it to. I imagine it was a big part of their appeal, and their success. They genuinely looked like girls from your school. They weren’t the best singers, they weren’t glamour models, and the production on their songs was largely cheap and largely cheerful. You could argue that they were to pop music what Limp Bizkit, the act they knocked off top spot, were to rock. (Though both acts, I will argue, do have brilliant names.)
I will also contest that ‘Whole Again’ is a great pop ballad, with an almost cynically heart-tugging chord progression, and a retro feel (especially in the spoken word middle-eight). If it had had a bit more money thrown at it, if it had come within five hundred metres of an actual musical instrument, and been sung by someone like Gabrielle, it would be regarded as a true classic. But it is let down by not having all of the above, and is now just a nostalgic classic, and not a song you hear all that often anymore. (Unless of course when it’s being re-written in tribute to Gareth Southgate…)
Yet, it managed to become huge. It stayed at number one for a full month, the longest stay of the millennium so far, increasing in sales for each of those four weeks. It became the 2000’s 13th highest-selling single, and Britain’s 4th biggest girl group single of all time, behind ‘Wannabe’, ‘2 Become 1’, and ‘Never Ever’. And maybe this success was exactly because it sounds so of its time: the ballad that came along in the right place, at the right time, and will forever be rooted in the winter of 2000-2001.
I actually remember hearing ‘Whole Again’ for the first time, probably the week before it went to number one. We were snowed in from school, and I saw the video on GMTV or something. And I remember thinking that it sounded like a massive hit. (I also remember the first time I heard one other #1 from 2001, and it is one of the three songs from this year to outsell ‘Whole Again’…)
This was actually Atomic Kitten’s last roll of the dice, as they were on the verge of being dropped from their record label and consigned to the girl group dustbin had ‘Whole Again’ not been a hit. Adding to their difficulties was the fact that Kerry Katona had quit the group a couple of weeks before this was released, and her parts hastily re-recorded by replacement Jenny Frost.
Still, it mattered not. The record was huge, launching Atomic Kitten Mk II, and bringing about several years’ worth of hits, including two more number ones that we we’ll get to in due course. Without giving too much away, both those chart-toppers are fairly crap, but I would argue for the quality of their earlier Mk I hits, ‘See Ya’ and ‘I Want Your Love’: catchy and experimental, the kooky brainchildren of OMD’s Andy McCluskey and Stuart Kershaw, who had created the group.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Oh, this song! I definitely know this one. I didn’t recognise it at first but that chorus I definitely know 1000%. It was a #2 hit in Australia and if you’re an Aussie you’ll still hear this played down under. I worked in retail in the late-2010s/early-2020s and you’d hear this played a lot. I really like this song. Nothing groundbreaking or particularly impressive, but it’s short, simple, catchy, not annoying on repeated listens.
From the music video attached, this might be the first group that visually look like a 2000s group and not a late-90s look.
I absolutely hated this. Kerry Katona is a human car crash lurching from one disaster to another and the others are just instantly forgettable. Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus and Ms Jackson by OutKast, two far superior records, were kept at number 2 by this dirge. The main issue with people like Katona is that, unlike Joplin, Winehouse or Houston, her musical talent didn’t overshadow her substance abuse, probably because, along with the rest of the ‘kittens’, she had none. Given that their other chart toppers were inferior copies of songs from artists who were actually good, what’s not to hate?
How can you say that about Kerry ‘That’s why mums go to Iceland’ Katona?? She’s an icon… In all seriousness, her leaving the group marked a shift from their first few zany, poppy and pretty good singles (from the OMD guys) to the fairly bland covers that followed. I’m sure that was more a coincidence than it was to do with Kerry being the creative force behind the Kitten, but still. Also, thinking back to when she and Brian from Westlife were the celeb couple du jour makes me yearn for simpler times…
it’s a generational thing again, I was only a couple of years younger than you are now when this was number one, my simpler times belong to Adam Ant and Frankie, but yes, before social media and it’s accompanying nasties the world was a nicer place. Some drag queens did a spoof on this years back with the main hook changed to she’s been snorting coke again. It was better than the original 😂
This one was ubiquitous, and it holds up pretty well. Helps that it’s low key, just kind of glides along on the cheap beat.
It’s a bit of singalong fun, cheap n cheerful and anything Andy McLusky is involved in gets a free pass from me – OMD were struggling by this time and he was trying to sell songs to big stars like Britney in the 00’s – and ended up doing them on OMD albums instead, which worked out well as OMD in the 21st century have been terrific and are still touring like mad with old and new material, the new stuff compares well. Is it Atomic Kitten’s best record? No. That’s the fab ELO rewrite Be With You, almost as good as Last Train To London that one, or the fun Big Country theme sampling I Want Your Love – they don’t ruin one of the most exciting film themes of all time, though obviously the original inspirational instrumental Jerome Moross is the best.
Whole Again I ruined for myself by being unable to not hear a rude lyric rewrite of the key line. I couldnt possibly repeat it but just drop the “w” to get the idea….eek!
Haha yes I remember singing a ‘w’ less, rude version in school at the time.
I think ‘I Want Your Love’ is great, and wish that version of AK had been the really succesful one. It’s a shame they’re largely remembered for this, and the bland covers that came later.
I’ve heard of them but never saw or heard them…seeing them is pretty cool!