popstars

966. ‘Leave Right Now’, by Will Young

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Will Young and Gareth Gates’ final chart-toppers (of four each), neatly sum up their post Popstars careers.

Leave Right Now, by Will Young (his 4th and final #1)

2 weeks, 30th November – 14th December 2003

Gareth’s final #1 was a cheesy, charity affair for Comic Relief. He then went on to release more cheese, before going into musical theatre and reality TV. He’s made the most of limited resources, and is just about still active in the industry. Will Young’s final #1, meanwhile, was a much bolder statement of intent.

It starts off with a folksy, acoustic backing, allowing his voice to do all the work. Yes, it’s light, a little reedy. But the lyrics require vulnerability, and vulnerability is what Will Young’s voice brings. The song then grows, with strings and a backing band of real instruments, to a subtly orchestral climax, before ending on Young’s wavering voice once again, singing the title line. I think I better leave right now…

It’s grown-up, and real, compared to the hits from his first album. The themes are mature too, about unrequited love, and about knowing when you have to follow your head over your heart. One contemporary review made me chuckle, claiming it to be one of the most English songs ever, a ‘Brief Encounter’ for the 21st century, complete with Young’s posh vowels and quivering restraint. (Years later, Young revealed that he had re-recorded his vocals multiple times because record executives thought he sounded too ‘gay’.)

That restraint goes, briefly, in the middle eight, when he even allows himself a throaty rasp on the I wouldn’t know how to say, How good it feels seeing you today… line. But that is overshadowed by the catchy simplicity of the chorus, which I remember going viral by the standards of 2003. This was the first moment when it really became clear to the general public that a TV talent show contestant could have some musical chops, and some hopes at longevity.

Though it should also be said that ‘Leave Right Now’ wasn’t written by Young, and was still released under Simon Cowell’s supervision. In fact, he released five albums in total under his original contract, only leaving in 2012. Beyond his four #1s, he’s scored seven further UK Top 10s, and has never had any of his nine studio albums chart outside the Top 5. Will Young probably isn’t the best solo artist unearthed by a reality TV singing show, and he’s definitely not my favourite, but he was the first to show that there was life beyond the usual bland covers and the cheese.

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…

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!