Reality TV

927. ‘Just a Little’, by Liberty X

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Our 5th singing contest chart-topper in just over a year. The X Factor Age is well underway…

Just a Little, by Liberty X (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 19th – 26th May 2002

And of the five, this is definitely the best so far. I might go so far as to say that it remains one of the best. It’s upbeat, modern, and fun – a world away from Will Young and Gareth Gates’s syrupy attempts, and Hear’Say’s dated efforts. Its opening line – Sexy, Everything about you so sexy… really seemed to enter the public consciousness (or at least my school playground consciousness), while the chanted chorus enters the brain and remains there for some time.

Musically it’s nothing too out the box – in claiming it’s the ‘best’ reality TV #1 so far we have to remember how low the bar is – with lots of early-noughties pop touches, but keeping a great pop sensibility in the chorus and the middle-eight. It’s a bridge between S Club’s bubblegum and the Britney Spears’ classics of the era. And is it too much to suggest that Britney’s songwriters were listening when they came up with something that sounded quite similar, lyrically and melodically, to gimme just a little bit more… a few years later?

Liberty X were made up of contestants who had been rejected during the auditions for Popstars winners Hear’Say. It is perhaps this distance, and the fact that they were picked up by a record label not under the whip of Simon Cowell, which gave them the freedom to release something not beholden to reality TV schmaltz. Their first two singles, including their #5 debut ‘Thinking it Over’, had been released under the name Liberty, but after a legal challenge from a ‘90s R&B band of the same name they were forced to add the ‘X’. It did them no harm, as their first release as Liberty X brought them this huge smash, the 8th biggest seller of the year.

There’s an argument to be made for not winning TV singing contests if you want to have lasting musical success. Plenty of non-winners have gone on to massive popularity, One Direction being the ones that spring to mind first. Liberty X never managed 1D levels of success, but they were regulars in the British charts between 2001 and 2005, with eight Top 10 hits in that time, stats that Hear’Say could only dream of.

They split in 2006, after their third album bombed. They reformed a few times, and now exist with only the three female members. One of the two original male members, Kevin Simms, has been the lead vocalist for Wet Wet Wet since 2018. Imagine telling someone in 2002 that one of the token blokes in Liberty X would go on to become the new Marti Pellow…

922. ‘Unchained Melody’, by Gareth Gates

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The winner of Pop Idol gets knocked off number one… by the runner-up. Yes, roll your eyes, it’s an understandable reaction; but you’d better get used to this level of domination.

Unchained Melody, by Gareth Gates (his 1st of four #1s)

4 weeks, from 24th March – 21st April 2002

Gareth Gates had been the frontrunner for much of the first series of Pop Idol, and was the bookies’ favourite going into the final. But I’d say that the public chose the right winner on the night. Will Young has a memorable voice, one you can pick out of a crowd. Gates has the voice of a decent-enough pub karaoke singer.

Luckily for him, his debut single was ripped right from Simon Cowell’s karaoke playbook. ‘Unchained Melody’ is either an inspired choice – it had worked for Robson & Jerome, and if it ain’t broke – or the most mind-numbingly unimaginative one. Why did we need yet another cover of it, the third one to top the charts in less than twelve years? At least Will Young was given a couple of ‘originals’, even if they were very dull. Although if one thing’s clear after the age of X-Factor, it’s that Simon Cowell has a very limited, if indeed any, imagination.

At least the song is shuffled around a little, starting with the lonely rivers bit. It means it does catch the ears, at first. But as soon as the tune comes in properly, it dissolves into mush. Is this better or worse than the R&J version? Or is that question moot as long as you can put on the Righteous Brothers instead? There was of course another number one version, Jimmy Young’s 1955 hit, which was literally the melody from the movie ‘Unchained’. This record of four different chart-topping versions of a song still stands, though it has since been matched by two other tunes.

I will have to admit that this record, when I was sixteen, was the first time I had really encountered ‘Unchained Melody’. I’m sure I already knew it, but the radio airplay of this version really hammered the song home. And I did quite like this version… For a week or two, at most, I assure you.

What’s interesting to see is that, in truth, and unlike later singing contest series, it didn’t matter whether Gareth Gates or Will Young won the final. They both enjoyed the success of winners, matching one another hit for hit, at least for the first year or two of their careers. Gates was only seventeen when he made the final, and he had the now contractually obliged reality TV sob-story: a stammer that only went away when he sang. Though I don’t want to belittle a genuine affliction, it does amuse me that his oblivious parents gave him the possibly the worst name ever given to someone with a stammer.

921. ‘Anything Is Possible’ / ‘Evergreen’, by Will Young

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A year on from Hear’Say, we meet our second reality TV pop star. And there have been few bigger stars to come from reality TV than Will Young.

Anything Is Possible / Evergreen, by Will Young (his 1st of four #1s)

3 weeks, from 3rd – 24th March 2002

And unlike Hear’Say, whose auditions and journey to stardom were left in the hands of a trio of judges, Will Young won ‘Pop Idol’ after a public vote – the highest ever public vote across any of the subsequent singing contest formats. His debut single, both songs from which Young had performed in the live final, became the fastest selling single of all time, selling almost half a million copies in its first day, and 1.1 million by the end of its first week.

A landmark single, then. Which begs the all-important question. Is it any good? Well, no. Not really. ‘Anything Is Possible’ sets the lyrical template for winners singles, with lyrics about overcoming obstacles and never giving up. I’m flying high, Like the wind, Reaching the impossible, I’ll never doubt again… Blah, blah, blah.

Musically it is bland and predictable, and already dated, with the tempo and smooth beats of a mid-nineties ballad (the intro smacks of ‘2 Become 1’). It had been written to order in three hours by Cathy Dennis and Chris Braide, after Simon Cowell had enjoyed their work on S Club 7’s ‘Have You Ever’. I’m not sure I hear much of HYE in ‘Anything Is Possible’, and despite not giving that one much a write-up when it made #1, it is an infinitely better tune.

Strangely, despite ‘Anything Is Possible’ (I keep mistakenly typing ‘everything is ‘pissible’ – is there such a thing as a Freudian finger-slip?) being listed first, I only remember ‘Evergreen’ getting played at the time. And that’s fair, because it is the better song. It has a chorus that you actually remember, and a certain soaring quality to it. Maybe it wasn’t pushed as much due to the fact that it had appeared on Westlife’s most recent album. The boys in Westlife claimed it as one of the weakest songs on the LP, though maybe that was just sour grapes at Young having such a big hit with it.

It also has a Westlife-grade key change, and a huge final chorus. Will Young had just won a singing contest, and so he does obviously have a good, clear voice. It’s a voice you can instantly identify, though I find it a little nasal at times. He, inevitably, has gone on record multiple times to say how much he dislikes both of these songs, and how he will never perform them again without being paid lots and lots of money. To be fair, it would be hard to imagine one of Britain’s most famous gay men singing a line like you’re the only girl that I need…

Despite this marking the start of the X-Factor Age (I know he won ‘Pop Idol’, but it’s a catchier title), it’s hard to apportion much of the blame to Will Young, who has gone on to make some good pop music, to carve out a twenty-year career in the industry, and who seems like a nice guy. At the same time, the heart sinks to realise that this is the first of seven reality TV #1s we’ll meet in 2002 alone… Starting with the young lad with a stammer who finished narrowly behind Young, up next.

901. ‘The Way to Your Love’, by Hear’Say

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Every time I come across a #1 that I haven’t heard before I assume it will be the last such occasion. And I genuinely thought that I would have remembered something – a chorus, a line – from every 21st century chart-topper. But no, Hear’Say’s second number one has me stumped.

The Way to Your Love, by Hear’Say (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 1st – 8th July 2001

Though it makes sense that this was such a flash in the pan, and has been completely forgotten. The knock-off Max Martin production (Britney wouldn’t even have had this as an album track), the predictable chord progressions, lyrics like your heart is my home… It’s just so damn basic. If this is the best the year’s big new pop group can do for their second single then you start to fear for their longevity…

The two boys in the band, Noel and Danny, take more of a lead role here. And while I don’t want to be mean, I always thought they looked like two of the least likely pop group members ever. The three girls? Fine. I can see them as a sort of Atomic Kitten level girl group. But those two boys look more suited to refitting your kitchen. They can sing though – they all can sing, having gone through multiple audition rounds on ‘Popstars’ – and don’t let the side down.

Midway through, the song improves slightly, and morphs into a peppy Disney theme. A straight to VHS Disney movie, maybe. It’s still undeniably lame. And although this made number one, it did so on fairly low sales and went on to be the second lowest selling chart-topper of the year, ahead only of J-Lo’s January #1 ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’. Most tellingly, it sold but a tenth of ‘Pure and Simple’s total.

Hear’Say would release only one more single (the #4 hit ‘Everybody’) before the ‘Popstars’ winning line-up was ripped in two by Kym Marsh’s departure in January 2002, citing a rift in the group. She was quickly replaced, by backing dancer Johnny Shentall, for one final single. By then, public opinion against the group had turned, and they were being booed off stage and harassed at motorway service stations. They called it quits in October 2002, just twenty months after launching.

Of the five, Kym Marsh and Myleene Klass launched solo music careers (Marsh making #2 in 2003 with ‘Cry’ and Klass releasing two classical crossover albums) before moving into TV, acting and presenting. Suzanne Shaw went into stage and screen acting, as did Noel Sullivan, who I’m pretty sure I saw playing Danny in ‘Grease’ in the West End. Danny Foster is a wedding/pub singer. And to be honest, that all counts as a fairly successful end for a bunch of reality TV show contestants. Far sadder post-fame tales have been told…

893. ‘Pure and Simple’, by Hear’Say

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There is an argument to be made that this next number one is the single most important pop song of the twenty first century. Had the debut single from the winners of ‘Popstars’, a docu-competition in which a brand new group was formed in front of the viewing public’s very eyes, not been a huge, million-selling success, then think what we might have been spared…

Pure and Simple, by Hear’Say (their 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 18th March – 8th April 2001

It would be easy to claim that this is the moment in which pop music was irredeemably ruined, all credibility stripped from the process of making pop, and that from here on the charts were off to hell in a handcart… In fact, that would be too easy. Pop music has always been reliant on photogenic puppets singing other people’s songs. What reality TV did was to bring the tawdry process out into the open, and to give the public a say (not always a good idea…)

Though I didn’t realise, or had forgotten, that Hear’Say were not chosen by a public vote. No, the five winning ‘Popstars’ were chosen by a judging panel, and the series filmed more as a documentary than a competition. The final episode aired on the day that ‘Pure and Simple’ entered at number one, the fastest selling debut of all time, with the Radio One announcement seen as the culmination of their journey.

What of the song, then, that kicks off this brave new world? It’s… alright. I remember actually liking it at the time, aged fifteen; but it hasn’t quite stood the test of time for me. It’s got some nice touches, some soulful vocals, and an ear-catching chord progression. But it can’t escape the fact that it already sounds dated, more 1998 than 2001, and that it is in debt to at least three other recent songs.

It has the cheapness of Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’, while it is also reaching for (and missing) the sassiness of All Saints’ ‘Never Ever’. And it is a clear melodic rip-off of Oasis’ ‘All Around the World’ – a fact noted by Noel Gallagher, who wisely let it slide given the liberal amount of melody borrowing he had done in his time. It had originally been recorded, but not released, by short-lived girl group Girl Thing a couple of years earlier.

Having said all that, and with these shortcomings fully in mind, ‘Pure and Simple’ stands head and shoulders above pretty much every Pop Idol/Fame Academy/X Factor/you name it winner’s single that came after. It is a decent, upbeat pop song, with lyrics that allow it to exist beyond its talent show context, and not a maudlin ballad about overcoming obstacles, making your dreams come true, and earning Simon Cowell millions of pounds…

I was about to launch into a (short) potted history of Hear’Say’s post-‘Pure and Simple’ career before remembering that they bucked the odds and actually managed a second number one. Fair play to them. We’ll save the bio for next time. And we’ll have plenty of time to reflect on the reality TV era – perhaps the biggest pop ‘genre’ of the 21st century – over the course of the fifty-plus number ones it has generated. Not all of which are terrible (though many of course are), and a handful of which are pretty damn good!