00s pop music

926. ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’, by Ronan Keating

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Instead of writing a proper intro for this next number one, I’d like you to instead picture me letting out a long, world-weary sigh…

If Tomorrow Never Comes, by Ronan Keating (his 3rd and final solo #1)

1 week, from 12th – 19th May 2002

For we have to, once again, grapple with the cultural contributions of Ronan Keating. With Groanin’ Ronan’s admittedly admirable dedication to releasing dull music. Not bad music. Not offensive. Not ugly. Just… dull. But at least his reign of blandness comes to an end here.

‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’ is a nice enough, country-tinged ballad. It had originally been a hit for King of Country Garth Brooks in 1989, whose version I prefer. I do wish Keating’s producers hadn’t dialled back the yee-haw. They presumably thought that a British audience couldn’t cope with too much Nashville-style production. And they were probably right, though it leads to a very characterless record.

Lyrically it’s a twist on the idea of a dead loved one. The singer is not singing about a fear of their lover dying; but is questioning how their lover would feel if they were the one to suddenly perish. Which is an interesting, if slightly self-centred, take on the theme. In the staggeringly bad video, Keating falls, in cringey slo-mo, in front of a car. At the same time, his still-sleeping girlfriend grips her bedsheets in terror (thought to me this could easily be confused with orgasmic pleasure). See Ronan, you assume she’ll be racked with grief, but maybe she’ll quickly move on to someone who hasn’t made it his life’s mission to inflict on mankind the most boring songs imaginable.

Having said that, I did give his first two solo number ones a decent write-up. ‘When You Say Nothing at All’ is a cover of a much better late-eighties country ballad than this, while ‘Life Is a Rollercoaster’ is a minor millennial classic. But of the nine chart-toppers he enjoyed, both solo and as a part of Boyzone, between 1996 and 2002, the majority have been boring. Plus, he helped Louis Walsh create Westlife, so he technically has fourteen more #1s of dubious quality to answer for.

Ronan may be leaving top spot alone, but he still enjoyed several more years of UK hits, including covers of ‘We’ve Got Tonight’ (with Lulu), ‘Father and Son’ (with Cat Stevens himself), and Goo Goo Dolls’ ‘Iris’. Again, I let out a long old sigh. Groanin’ Ronan Keating covering ‘Iris’ feels as grimly inevitable as societal collapse brought on by the climate crisis. I don’t want to come over all Carrie Bradshaw, yet I can’t help but wonder… Did he really ever enjoy his recording career? Did he actually arrive at the studio every day, ready to lay down vocals for yet another plodding cover, and think ‘this is the life’…?

925. ‘Kiss Kiss’, by Holly Valance

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Two raunchy pop records trade places at the top of the charts. At first glance they’re pretty similar tunes, sung by women, all about getting jiggy… But therein lies the mystery of music. What makes the Sugababes sound, to my ears, sublime, but this next #1 ridiculous?

Kiss Kiss, by Holly Valance (her 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 5th – 12th May 2002

I mean ridiculous in the best possible way, though: trashy, catchy, OTT. It also has a distinctly Middle Eastern feel, with Arabian strings and flourishes not usually found in Western pop. It had originally been released, under the title ‘Şimarık’ by Turkish star Tarkan, in 1997, before being turned into ‘Kiss Kiss’ by Greek-American singer Stella Soleil in 2001. This extended journey to becoming a British hit had left Holly Valance with pretty distinctive debut hit on her hands.

Given how love and lust has inspired so much of the pop canon, it’s mildly surprising that this is the first number one single to use the classic kissing sound as a hook. The song title doesn’t feature in the lyrics, instead it’s represented, over and over, by either a mwah or a kissing-your-granny-on-the-cheek kind of sound. It’s very camp. But as good as the Arabian strings and the kissing are, my favourite part is the break, where the strings and the kisses are chopped up and topped off with a heavily vocoded aw yeah. My biggest complaint though, is that the ending is all set up to end on a big smacker… yet doesn’t.

Holly Valance had been familiar to Brits for a few of years as Flick Scully in ‘Neighbours’. (As an avid Ramsey Street aficionado through the late-nineties and most of the noughties, it’s my personal favourite ‘Neighbours’ era.) And in the tradition of Kylie, Jason, Natalie Imbruglia and Stefan Dennis, the pop career was never far away. This record actually puts ‘Neighbours’ clear of ‘Eastenders’ as the most successful soap on the singles chart, by three (Kylie, Jason, Holly Valance) to two (Nick Berry, Martine McCutcheon). However, we could also accept Wendy Richards, who featured at #1 in 1962, albeit many years before she started playing Pauline Fowler in Albert Square, to make it a tie.

Flick may have been helped to the top of the charts by the video in which she appeared naked but for some accurately applied strip-lighting. It’s a classic ‘the nice girl you thought you knew is all grown up’ move. And, hey, sex sells. I can confirm it was quite the hot topic in the school playground at the time. In fact, the boy I was in love with, aged sixteen, was obsessed with Holly Valance. It’s taken me until today, listening to this trashy classic of its time, to make my peace with her. I’m less willing to endorse Holly’s post-pop career. Her Wiki page now lists her as singer, model, right-wing activist…

Like I said at the start, Sugababes gave us pop to stand the test of time. Holly Valance gave us pop that stands the test of its three and a half minute run-time. But both are great in their own ways. Valance also struggled to have the longevity of the Sugababes, but scored two further Top 3 hits from her debut album, ‘Kiss Kiss’ being followed by ‘Down Boy’ and ‘Naughty Girl’ (I’m noticing a theme…)

924. ‘Freak Like Me’, by Sugababes

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Back in my post on All Saints’ ‘Pure Shores’, I crowned the ‘00s as the decade of the girl group. All Saints, as great as they were, were a bit of a false start (and they were technically a ‘90s group, anyway) but we’re finally off and away. Forget Destiny’s Child, forget Atomic Kitten. The two greatest girl groups of the decade (of all time?) score their first #1s in 2002, starting with…

Freak Like Me, by Sugababes (their 1st of six #1s)

1 week, from 28th April – 5th May 2002

No more covers of ‘Eternal Flame’, or songs about well you’re ‘surviving’. The Sugababes grab a sample from Tubeway Army and have their wicked way with it, whipping it into a whirlpool of echo, churn and industrial synths, while singing about how they want it every which way with a bad boy. This is what I want from my girl groups. Filth!

I wanna freak in the morning, freak in the evening… I need a roughneck brother who can satisfy me… The lyrics are nothing revolutionary, even if they are a world away from the kid-friendly Spice Girls. Though the Spiceys are there in spirit, in terms of their Girl Power message. This is girl group pop for the 21st century, in which the women are in charge, and parading their men around like dogs, apparently. Come on and I’ll take you around the hood, On a gangsta lead…

As fresh as All Saints’ hits sounded, I don’t think we’ve heard anything like this on top of the charts before. I’m going to use the word ‘original’, despite the fact that the Gary Numan sample is so front and centre. And despite the fact that the song itself is a cover of a US #2 hit from 1995, by Adina Howard, which itself samples and interpolates snatches from Sly & the Family Stone and Bootsy Collins. DJ Richard X had created a mash-up of Howard’s version and ‘Are “Friends” Electric’, but couldn’t secure Howard’s permission to use her vocals. Instead, he turned to desperate-for-a-hit Sugababes, who had been dropped by their label following an underperforming debut album, and who had lost founding member Siobhán Donaghy a few months earlier. For what it’s worth, Gary Numan claims that this song is better than his original.

So, a girl group. A DJ. A bootleg mash-up. Is this the #1 which officially announces the ‘00s as up and running? I probably claimed the same thing when Hear’Say became the first reality TV winning group, but I much prefer this version of the noughties. This reminds me of university, of the decade’s indie revival where pop and guitars collided, of the hits to come, of the days when I’d go out four nights a week… (nowadays, four nights a year is more likely…)

How much my coming-of-age influences my opinion of this record, and pretty much every #1 between now and 2008, is a good point to raise. But also, it’s a pointless question. Music is memory. The charts are one way of recording the soundtrack to our lives. Had I been born a decade earlier and I might have dismissed this as a gimmicky nothing, but I hope not. I hope the quality of this record can exist beyond my nostalgia.

Like Atomic Kitten with ‘Whole Again’, Sugababes were in danger of being consigned to the dustbin had ‘Freak Like Me’ not been a hit. Thankfully it was, and it set the MK II (and III, and IV) versions of the group up for sixteen further Top 10 hits between now and 2010, five more of which will make #1. And, as good as this record is, I think at least one of their later chart-toppers is better.

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.

920. ‘World of Our Own’, by Westlife

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I approach this next number one nervously, slightly creeped out, as if I’ve come across a talking cat, or a dog that can walk on two legs… A Westlife #1 that… isn’t… a ballad?

World of Our Own, by Westlife (their 10th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, from 24th February – 3rd March 2002

This uncanny feeling is perhaps unjustified, as they had topped the charts with ‘Uptown Girl’ just a year earlier. But that was a cover, for charity. This is an original, with no ulterior motive. You can imagine them looking up at Louis Walsh when he suggested this upbeat song, half hopeful, half terrified that he was playing a nasty trick on them. A sort of musical Ramsey Bolton – Reek scenario.

But lo, it wasn’t a trick. They were allowed to not only record this peppy track, but release it as a single and name their third album after it! It is nothing revolutionary, nothing special even, other than the fact that it is not a ballad. It is still ballad-adjacent, with a chest-thumping chorus, and a crashing key change (of course), but it’s up-tempo and generally likeable.

I find the vocals on this record a little shouty though, but that’s probably just the lads’ excitement at getting to record it, or rustiness from singing tear-jerker after tear-jerker. It has the wide-eyed exuberance of contemporary Christian music, and the shouty sincerity of mid-career Elton John.

And it led to Westlife reaching double figures, in terms of chart-toppers. Alongside Elvis, the Beatles, Cliff (and the Shadows), and Madonna, you’d have to say that Westlife look hopelessly out of place. They benefitted massively from the high chart turnover at the turn of the century, and only three of their ten #1s so far have spent more than a week on top. ‘World of Our Own’ was another case of their management cleverly choosing the right day to release, squeezing its week between Enrique Iglesias’s mega-hit and the biggest-selling song of the decade. At the same time, it did sell over 100k to make number one, so clearly the fanbase remained undiminished.

They have four chart-toppers left to come, spread out over close to five years. Perhaps we should use this post to mark the end of Westlife’s imperial phase (or reign of terror). Or maybe I’m just being snide because the ultimate Westlife non-ballad – the banging ‘When You’re Looking Like That’ – was never released as a single in the UK.

919. ‘Hero’, by Enrique Iglesias

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I press play on our next number one, and I start to feel the bile rising the second Enrique Iglesias whispers: Let me be your hero…

Hero, by Enrique Iglesias (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 27th January – 24th February 2002

I’ve never liked this song, right from the time it was spending an interminable month on top of the charts. There may be external reasons for this hate, which we’ll get to shortly, but even before those external reasons came along I thought this was overwrought garbage. It feels like a leftover nineties power-ballad; even though it isn’t a power-ballad, at least not until the final chorus. Beef it up a bit, though, and it’s ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi. And there are few worse insults than that, in my book.

For most of its runtime, ‘Hero’ is a Spanish-guitar tinged love song. Enrique delivers it in a tremulous, hiccupping manner he must have thought would make him sound overcome with emotion, but to me it sounds like he’s gagging over the words, like a cat hacking up a big hairball. Though to be fair, gagging is the reasonable response to this bilge.

The best bit is the understated Latin guitar solo, which is not a sound we hear very often on top of the charts. Note that it is also the bit where Enrique shuts up. The funny thing is, I quite like some of his songs. He tended to be pretty listenable, and fun, when he kept things upbeat. ‘Hero’ though, remains his signature song, for English-speakers at least.

I remember the video quite well too, and Enrique cavorting with Jennifer Love-Hewitt before being beaten to death by Mickey Rourke. He had a habit of casting beautiful women in his videos, with tennis player Anna Kournikova appearing in the follow-up ‘Escape’. To be fair, they’ve been in a relationship ever since, which will have ruined Enrique’s chances of equalling his father’s body count (over 3000, apparently). But, they do here become the first father and son to top the UK charts, Julio having made it twenty years earlier with ‘Begin the Beguine’.

The other reason why I can’t stand ‘Hero’, and which may be clouding my judgement of an undoubtedly popular song, is that it will forever remind me of the death of a school friend. He died suddenly, when we were nineteen, and this played as we left the funeral service. Thing is, there is no way he would have chosen this song for his funeral. He’d probably never once thought about what song he’d want played at his funeral. What nineteen-year-old would? It was clearly just a CD of mood-appropriate music owned by the crematorium. (The other song I remember playing was Aerosmith’s ‘Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’, another one I now cannot stand). I think that’s incredibly sad, having a song you don’t like played at your funeral. Better to have silence. Ever since, though I’ve not made an official list, I’ve dropped regular hints to those who listen that I’d like certain songs played at my funeral. I won’t say what they are here, not wanting to tempt fate, but rest assured if Enrique Iglesias’s ‘Hero’ is played, whoever is responsible will be getting haunted, mercilessly.

916. ‘Somethin’ Stupid’, by Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman

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If someone stopped me in the street and demanded an answer to the question: ‘Does Nicole Kidman have a UK number one single to her name?’, chances are I’d panic and say ‘no’. The existence of this record always passes me by…

Somethin’ Stupid, by Robbie Williams (his 5th of seven #1s) & Nicole Kidman

3 weeks, from 16th December 2001 – 6th January 2002

Yet Nicky K does have a number one, and not just any old number one: a Christmas number one. Why did this happen? It seems incongruous now, looking back, but there must have been a reason for this combo, which we can explore in a bit.

First, though, the song. And it’s a pretty faithful cover of the Frank ‘n’ Nancy classic. A bit more of a bossa nova beat, perhaps, while I don’t personally think it suits Robbie’s voice very well. It’s not that he can’t compete with Sinatra – who wasn’t an amazing singer – more that this song forces a restraint on him that doesn’t work. Kidman, meanwhile, is fine, purring her way through, though I’m not sure you’d ever work out that it was her unless told. They harmonise well, however, it has to be said.

It is far, far from the worst musical crime to be committed at Christmas. The worst accusation you could level at this record is that it’s underwhelming, and fairly superfluous while the original still exists. But we’ve been saying that a lot recently, about covers of golden-oldies which have made #1. And hey, unlike the original, at least Robbie and Nicole aren’t blood relations…

This was the lead single from Robbie’s ‘Swing When You’re Winning’ album of jazz and swing standards, which kicked off a good decade-long resurgence for the genre. Think Rod Stewart’s Great American Songbooks, and endless ‘Big Band Weeks’ on X-Factor. But why Nicole Kidman? There were rumours that she and Robbie may have been an item, but it’s probably as simple as her having starred in the year’s big musical hit ‘Moulin Rouge’, and also having charted earlier in the year with ‘Come What May’, in which she duetted with co-star Ewan McGregor.

And so we come to the end of 2001. Suddenly we’re two whole years into the twenty-first century! And only twenty-three years away from the present day… It’s all getting a bit close. What to make of 2001: a chart odyssey? It hasn’t been a classic year for chart-toppers, if we’re honest. The few classics have been padded out with lots of cheap and cheerful cheese, and it’s felt like a step down from the cool highs of the Year 2000. Heading into 2002 I’m not sure things are going to improve, as we’re about to go into Reality TV overdrive…

915. ‘Gotta Get Thru This’, by Daniel Bedingfield

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After working our way through several UK garage #1s, of varying quality, we arrive at the ultimate early-noughties garage anthem…

Gotta Get Thru This, by Daniel Bedingfield (his 1st of three #1s)

2 weeks, from 2nd – 16th December 2001 / 1 week, from 6th – 13th January 2002 (3 weeks total)

That feels like a controversial statement, because garage is a genre of the streets, for young, black kids; whereas Daniel Bedingfield always seemed very white and very middle-class. And he isn’t even British! He’s a Kiwi. Maybe the fact that I’m classing this as the ‘ultimate early-noughties garage anthem’ shows how middle-aged and middle-class I am…

But that’s fine, because it’s a good song. And it still, surprisingly, feels fresh. It blends the garage beats with some nice dance touches, and a big pop sensibility. It’s not confronting, it’s not annoying – unlike some earlier garage chart-toppers – but it doesn’t lose its credibility. (Though, the spelling of ‘through’ as ‘thru’ in the title does come off as trying a little too hard to be ‘with it’.)

My main complaint with 2-step, garage songs is that the beat can be too light, too lacking in oomph. Bedingfield recorded this in his bedroom, using a mic and his PC, and pressed a few early copies which he sent out to DJs. For the label release, D’N’D Productions helped with remixing, and I’m not sure how responsible they were for the beefed up, poppier feel that this has compared to the earlier garage #1s.

‘Gotta Get Thru This’ is also refreshingly short, coming in at well under three minutes, which is another thing that makes it feel very modern. At 2:42, it is the shortest #1 since Robson & Jerome’s ‘I Believe’. And if we (happily) ignore that record’s existence, it is the shortest, semi-relevant chart-topper since Kylie’s ‘Tears on My Pillow’ twelve years before.

Perhaps another aspect of my reluctance to crown Daniel Bedingfield as champion of UK garage is that this record, his debut, wasn’t totally representative of his ‘sound’. His two further number ones are a lot more middle-of-the-road, a lot more mum-friendly (though this is certainly as mum-friendly as garage ever got). He released an impressive six singles – in a variety of genres – from his first album, across almost two years, and five of them made the Top 10.

Another noteworthy thing here is that when ‘Gotta Get Thru This’ returned to the top in the second week of January 2002, it did so with the lowest-ever sales for a number one single (around 25,500 copies). That was a sign of things to come, as the CD-single boom came to a rapid end, and is a record that will be ‘bettered’ by thirteen further #1s between now and 2008, when downloads eventually started to overtake physical sales.

914. ‘Have You Ever’, by S Club 7

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Our third pop ballad in a row… Bear with us, as this is the last ballad for a (short) while at least…

Have You Ever, by S Club 7 (their 4th and final #1)

1 week, from 25th November – 2nd December 2001

After the success of ‘Never Had a Dream Come True’ a year ago, making #1 and raising lots of money for Children in Need, it makes sense that S Club would have another crack at it. It also feels a little cynical, if you’ll allow: as if they were padding out their chart-topping stats with songs that aren’t remembered as well as some of their other hits.

Compared to the previous two pop ballads, I’d plonk this in the middle. It’s fresher, more modern, less of a slog than Westlife’s ‘Queen of My Heart’; but it doesn’t have the energy of Blue’s ‘If You Come Back’. Musically it is quite similar to the Blue ballad, though, with a skittish R&B beat and a powerhouse vocal performance from Jo O’Meara. I never realised at the time how much she dominated many of S Club’s singles, to the extent that you have to wonder why they needed six other members…

This record also suffers from being the ‘follow-up’ to ‘Never Had a Dream Come True’, which I think is the better ballad, and to ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’, which is one of the decade’s great pop songs. ‘Have You Ever’ feels like an afterthought to both these records. And can I take a moment to bemoan song titles that are questions, but don’t have a question mark? This is far from the first example…

Though S Club 7’s two Children in Need singles topped the charts, and sold a surprisingly identical number of copies in debuting at #1, ‘Never Had a Dream Come True’ was the year 2000’s 9th biggest seller, while ‘Have You Ever’ was 2001’s 21st biggest. Which feels about right. Apparently, though, this song holds the record for the number of voices used in a single recording, as when the band performed the song live for CIN, they were joined by six school choirs via video link, and 3610 other schools on tape, plus spin off group S Club Juniors (two of whom we’ll meet as chart-toppers down the line).

S Club 7 released one further single before Paul Cattermole quit, and they became plain old S Club. The band split in 2003, having managed the impressive feat of charting in the Top 5 with all eleven of their singles. Their post-split careers were a mixed bag of solo success (Rachel Stevens), racism scandals (O’Meara) and student union tours (Bradley McIntosh), while Cattermole declared bankruptcy and Hannah Spearritt claimed to have been made homeless. They reformed in 2023, but Cattermole sadly died of heart failure a few weeks later, aged just forty-six. They are still touring, though, and are currently an S Club 5, with Spearritt having opted out of the comeback. And I’d say that for people of my vintage, no matter how cool they thought they were (or think they still are…), at least one or two S Club tunes hold a place in their hearts.