Just four more entries to come from 2002 this week - including our first meeting with one of the bands that'll come to define this very thread - before we get into 2003 next week. To that end, it's just the one entry today, and up next, another double-a-side awaits...

 

1ST DECEMBER 2002

 

Atomic Kitten - "The Last Goodbye / Be With You"

Official UK Chart peak: #2

 

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They say that every rule has an exception. And my 'fan of Atomic Kitten before they had the majority of their success' rule is no exception. Yes, they had some truly naff moments once Jenny Frost was a part of their number - two of which we've already met in 'Eternal Flame' and 'It's OK', and another two that we'll meet over the course of 2003.

 

For whilst 'Be With You', a then brand new song not featuring on their chart topping second album 'Feels So Good' was an attempt, albeit a muted one, to recapture their disco-tastic Katona era years but sounding more like a Kylie cast-off (ironic then, that Ms Minogue had a hand in co-writing the title track of that album), 'The Last Goodbye', the main anchor of this double sided release was well. Well I find it impossible to not love this.

 

 

It's always a dangerous area when popstars release more 'serious' efforts. Usually they're the most dreary crap imaginable, and nowhere near as exciting as their usual uptempo efforts. But for reasons I shall attempt to explain as best as I can, the Kittens showing off their more serious side paid dividends - probably for the first time in their career since 'Whole Again'. For starters, this was the only point in their back catalogue where they seemed to acknowledge their Liverpudllian roots.

 

It opens on this dreamy, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' type riff that underpins the whole song. And, I say this probably more so in light of her tragic death at the time of writing, it comes coupled with lyrics that are more dramatic and sombre in tone a la Cilla Black at her peak (cf. with 'Anyone Who Had a Heart', which they'd coincidentally cover for a 2008 tribute album). It's hard to tell whether it's a parting shot to a doomed relationship or a dying loved one ('If you had another night to give / I would have another night to live / But you're never gonna see me cry, the last goodbye'), but its ambiguity is part of its charm.

 

 

And then there's the video (above) itself. I think I recall reading an interview with the video's director at the time that they wanted it to be like a 'visual love letter' to the Kittens' home city, making it look like a moving painting of sorts and focussing in on key landmarks - the Docks, the Cavern Club etc. The focus is less on the girls and more on the backdrops around them.

 

Combine all those elements together and 'The Last Goodbye' is just an absolute dream of a single (Liz in particular really shines vocally here, I feel) that would have done well enough on its own - in fact, were it not for them running into Daniel Bedingfield, it would've given the Kittens an unusual record of topping the charts twice in back to back years. In 2003 we'll see them continue on their success - but, due to several factors, not for much longer.

Edited August 13, 20159 yr by ThePensmith

Both are gorgeous :wub: :wub: :wub:

8TH DECEMBER 2002

 

The Cheeky Girls - "The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)"

Official UK Chart peak: #2

 

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TLC - "Girl Talk"

Official UK Chart peak: #30

 

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A week now where we meet a case of the bizarre – and the tragic. Let’s get the bizarre out the way first though, as we meet two Transylvanian twins scarier than Dracula, Gabriela and Monica Irmia, otherwise known as The Cheeky Girls. One of the downsides of doing this thread – and the criteria which I set myself right at the start – was the potential for meeting some of the thread’s more awful moments but who have the right to be included here under the criteria set thus.

 

The Transylvanian twins, along with their mother (their manager and songwriter, no less) arrived in the UK sometime in early 2002, and instantly began trying to make a name for themselves – firstly on the short lived Channel 4 ‘fashion’ answer to the ‘Pop Idol’ phenomenon in ‘Model Behaviour’, and then on the new series of ITV’s ‘Popstars’ which (as we’ll come onto with our next entry) was to be called ‘Popstars: The Rivals’.

 

 

They performed an acapella of this number, leaving the judges stunned – but not necessarily in the way they’d hoped for, and had the nation in fits of laughter, albeit fleeting. Someone at Telstar Records’ dance division Multiply however, saw a prime opportunity to capitalize on this, and the Cheekies were quickly signed for a one single deal. Such was the unprecedented success of this song though – only Eminem, Blue with Elton John and the act we’ll meet next kept it quite rightly from being a number one – that it stayed inside the top 5 for just over a month, and ended up selling over 2 million copies worldwide.

 

‘The Cheeky Song’ was something I couldn’t abide at the time, however, nor can I now. But, you may be wondering, how is this any different than Las Ketchup we met earlier on? Well, that had a tune and a bit of a quirky and European wit about it. And without wishing to sound like a UKIP candidate on a soapbox, this tuneless, terrible monstrosity would act as the perfect persuasion for the UK to abandon EU relations even now. It had stretched what had given everybody a laugh for 10 seconds on TV way beyond a joke. And shockingly, as we get into 2003 there is more of this to come.

 

 

Back in the sane world further down the chart that week, we make our second and final visit to the ladies who kicked off this thread – TLC. Regrettably though, we do so under very sad circumstances. As we mentioned when we last saw them, the end of the ‘Fan-Mail’ campaign had seen them take a break off to solo careers of varying success – their foremost rapper Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes having been the most successful by far (in the UK at least), duetting with Melanie C on her chart topping ‘Never Be the Same Again’, as well as scoring an instant top 20 hit with ‘The Block Party’ in October of the previous year.

 

TLC finally reconvened to record what was to be their comeback album, ‘3D’, at the end of that year, working with – amongst others – Pharrell Williams and N*E*R*D, Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Richard X. The record was nearing completion by the following June, when Lisa was then tragically killed in a car crash in Honduras whilst filming a documentary for MTV, aged just 30 years old. With the R&B and hip hop worlds already mourning the shock death of Aaliyah in a plane crash just a matter of months prior to this, it sent shock waves throughout their camp as tributes poured in.

 

Chilli and T-Boz bravely agreed to finish up what was left of recording though, and ‘3D’ finally came out in November of that year, with the sassy and witty ‘Girl Talk’ leading off as the first single. Even though chart wise it didn’t perform as well as it should have done – something being released in the pre-Christmas rush probably put paid to – it is still a fitting tribute and swan song to a group of ladies whose legacy continues to live on today in many of the acts we’re still yet to meet and some we’ve already met. Both they and Lisa went out in style and the memory of what they were really good at will never be forgotten.

Edited August 13, 20159 yr by ThePensmith

And so to the final entry of 2002, and the one you've all been waiting for...2003 reviews kick off from next Tuesday, thanks for all your feedback so far peeps!

 

22ND DECEMBER 2002

 

Girls Aloud - "Sound of the Underground"

Official UK Chart peak: #1

 

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Thus far, this thread has been untouched (The Cheeky Girls excluded) by the hand of what was, at this point in the 00s, fast becoming the go-to place, rightly or wrongly, for finding and discovering new pop talent: reality TV. Here though, is where this thread loses its TV talent show virginity properly as we make the first of 22 visits to a group of ladies, who, little did they know, were to go on to become one of the biggest British girl groups of the 21st century.

 

Back at the start of 2001, when Sugababes still had all their original members and Atomic Kitten had been riding high with ‘Whole Again’, ITV aired the fly-on-the-wall docusoap ‘Popstars’. Over 13 weeks, it followed the making of a new pop band from auditions right through to the release of their first single, with judges Paul Adam, ‘Nasty’ Nigel Lythgoe and Nicki Chapman picking five lucky hopefuls to become Hear’Say, who went on to steal Girl Thing’s ‘save the day’ thunder as their debut single ‘Pure & Simple’ went rocketing up to number 1 and becoming one of the fastest selling debut releases ever in UK chart history.

 

Inter-band tensions, member departures and dwindling chart positions/media support however, meant that by the time we came to this point in the thread they no longer existed. Their supposedly far less luckier ‘losers’, Liberty X, however, were prospering and eventually went on to enjoy a five year career which took in ten top 20 hits – as well as their iconic BRIT award winning chart topper from this year, ‘Just a Little’. When producers at Granada came to reconvene for production on a second series of ‘Popstars’, they’d of course been inspired by this chart rivalry that had unfolded after the cameras had finished rolling the night Hear’Say had got to number one.

 

Hence why, for the second series, the show became known as ‘Popstars: The Rivals’. It was to be much like the first series, but this time with several twists. Firstly, the show would be creating not one but two new groups – a boyband, and a girl group, who would release singles simultaneously and battle it out for the Christmas number one. In another twist, two of the show’s new judging panel – 80's hitmaker and Bananarama's right hand man, Pete Waterman, and Irish boyband svengali Louis Walsh - would be engaged in role reversal mentoring the boys (Pete) and the girls (Louis) once the two bands were formed.

 

And, unlike with the first series of Popstars, the final 10 sets of girls and boys would be singing live in weekly shows right up until the end of November to secure their place in the respective bands – and the public would be choosing who would get into the bands via telephone votes. By this point in 2002, and with Hear’Say’s catastrophic fall from grace, many had been announcing the death of pop and many fingers were being pointed at reality TV as the sole cause of this. We’d also become quite acquainted with the fact that, thus far, winners of reality TV shows had put out some right old cheese for their first releases – sugary, bland ‘victory lap’ power ballads that even Westlife would have turned down on the grounds of decent taste.

 

 

Also, as had been proved with ‘Pop Idol’ where Will, Gareth and Darius were the last three standing, the majority of the public who voted in these kind of shows were young teenage girls and women. It thus seemed to all a dead cert that the boyband formed on ‘Popstars: The Rivals’ – sorry, “vocal harmony group” – One True Voice, would convert the voting public to the buying public when the singles from the two bands hit the shops. But that was before 30th November 2002. And after that night, when Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh and Sarah Harding were formed as the show’s girl group, Girls Aloud, everything changed.

 

The newly formed girls’ record label, Polydor, who had also been home to Hear’Say in their rollercoaster 18 months together, had learnt from the mistakes they’d made with them and knew that what the public were after this time was something new (pun intended), different and exciting from not just a girl group, but also a pop act generally. Colin Barlow, head of A&R at their label, scouted down a demo of a song that Brian Higgins and Xenomania, who’d taken Sugababes to the top of the charts that summer with ‘Round Round’, had saved for his production house's own girl group project, Orchid.

 

I can remember very clearly, even to this day, where I was when I first heard ‘Sound of the Underground’. A group of girls on my school bus in my sister’s year, who watched ‘Popstars: The Rivals’ religiously every week (and were massive Blue and Westlife fans) had been loudly proclaiming to anyone who’d listen that One True Voice were going to get the Christmas number one. So it was quite amusing to watch their faces fall as my local radio station aired the first play of Girls Aloud’s single and the realization suddenly crept in, as it did with myself, that the war had been won, and that the girls were suddenly the ones to beat.

 

Three and a half of minutes of glossy, sexy and catchy drum’n’bass-in-yer-face surf guitar fed disco pop, and a celebration of partying and having a good time, ‘Sound of the Underground’ was universally received well, even from more serious publications and DJs - Jo Whiley and The Guardian amongst them - who were first annoyed, and then relieved that finally, reality TV wasn’t quite the evil final nail in pop’s coffin and that it had finally produced something with potential way beyond the confines of the show the girls were being launched from.

 

Promoted with a combative ‘Buy Girls – Bye Boys’ advertising campaign and heavy airplay on TV and radio, come Christmas week, Girls Aloud had not only annihilated One True Voice’s lame Bee Gees cover ‘Sacred Trust’ by three copies to one with total first week sales of over 200,000 copies, but also broke three unique records: being the quickest any band had gone from being formed to getting a number one, having a Christmas number one with their debut single, and becoming the first British all girl group to make their chart debut at number one. As 2002 drew to a close, the outlook was that a new generation of girl power was about to change British pop forever – and, even with many detractors and odds against them on their journey ahead, Girls Aloud were on their way to the top league and the nation’s hearts.

'Sound of the Underground' is such an absolute classic debut single, kicking of an amazing career (save for the covers). Best girl group of all-time in my opinion, shame they never cracked anywhere outside of Britain and Ireland.

2003

 

2ND FEBRUARY 2003

 

t.A.T.u - "All The Things She Said"

Official UK Chart peak: #1

 

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And so into the fourth year of the thread we now embark. The first three years of the 21st century, you'll have noticed, started with an appearance from TLC, and two consecutive ones from Mis-Teeq - both generally R&B oriented groups. Here's where things begin to mix up though, as the 2003 section of this thread opens on the complete opposite of those two acts altogether.

 

One thing that had become abundantly turned to by record companies in the post-Spice pop landscape was that of controversy and the tried and tested formula that if in doubt, 'sex and/or shock sells'. Hence why, at the end of 2002, the newly 'Dirrty' Christina Aguilera had vamped to the top of the charts, and why earlier on in the year, Neighbours' very own fiance hogging vamp Felicity 'Flick' Scully - aka Holly Valance - had also zipped to number one with 'Kiss Kiss' in a video where some strategic lighting had made it look like she was wearing very little indeed.

 

Something far more shocking was brewing in Russia in late 2002 though. The creation of Russian record producer Ivan Shapanlov, teenagers Julia Volkova and Lena Katina - otherwise known as t.A.T.u - had had a small amount of native success before the legendary Trevor Horn, himself no stranger to producing controversial records, having helmed the chart topping success of Frankie Goes to Hollywood in the mid 80's, was employed to bolster their debut Russian set into their first English language album '200 K/mH in the Wrong Lane' - on which was this, their debut single, 'All The Things She Said'.

 

 

My first sight of t.A.T.u was over the Christmas break of 2002 when I was round a friend's the day after Boxing Day and THAT video for the single was aired on The Box. Not long after, as the new year dawned, radio airplay had begun to pick up, as had media coverage. Given its content of the video and the song lyrics - and the fact of the ensuing furore it would cause (Richard & Judy in particular were volleying heavily for Polydor to abandon its UK release - I don't think I need to tell you why), and given that the then 14 year old me was in the thrust of sprouting hormones by the second, you'd think that I would have easily lapped it up.

 

The trouble is that I've always been of the belief that a bit of controversy is all well and good providing the music spoke for itself regardless. And 'All The Things She Said' even then left me cold. In common with a lot of t.A.T.u's records (fortunately for me, there are only two more of theirs after this to meet between now and 2005) it was all a bit shrill, out of tune and unpleasant on the ear musically, even with Mr Horn's production hand behind it. Yet somehow, in amongst all the hype surrounding them, the press, TV and radio at large had rather got carried away with that hype and were all of the idea that this was the future of pop as we knew it, when it was quite apparent they were only ever destined for two/three hit wonder-dom.

 

We'd touched briefly on this earlier when we encountered the intense publicity and hype campaign generated by Simon Cowell for Girl Thing. And whilst chart wise things ended a bit more successfully for t.A.T.u - a four week reign at number one here in the UK, and pretty much everywhere else around the world suggests I was probably in the minority with my views on this release - the trouble is is that when you build up such an intense cloud of hype, and particularly for a track so controversial in nature as 'All The Things She Said', anything else after that makes that level of hype and subsequent success hard to maintain, and a backlash, as we'll see, is almost certainly inevitable.

16TH FEBRUARY 2003

 

Appleton - "Don't Worry"

Official UK Chart peak: #5

 

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Compared to t.A.T.u, the press dramas surrounding Natalie and Nicole Appleton suddenly seemed a lot less threatening a proposition than they had at the time of their first release as a duo six months before. Still, they'd heeded their record company's advice to wait until the new year dawned to get their album out following the backlash from their tell-all autobiography 'Together', and also to avoid the pre-Christmas rush where it would have probably had a tougher time trying to get noticed.

 

With the book fallout largely forgotten, this time they were keen to let the music do the talking, hence why airplay for 'Don't Worry', their second single, was unanimously stronger than it had been even for 'Fantasy', and probably contributed to them scoring their second consecutive top 5 hit - and 10th top 10 hit overall since debuting at #4 with All Saints on 'I Know Where It's At' back in 1997.

 

It's fair to say I became a bit of a stan of Appleton's around the time of this release. On the week 'Don't Worry' was released, BBC Three had just launched, and on its launch night, the sisters premiered their pilot for an Osbournes style fly on the wall documentary series (which sadly never went further), following their career and family lives titled 'Appleton on Appleton'. I watched it and loved it, and subsequently bought the single along with their debut album whilst on half term two weeks later (now renamed from it's original title of 'Aloud' after their newly signed labelmates Girls Aloud arrived on the scene to its new title, 'Everything's Eventual', the name of Natalie's favourite Stephen King novel, no less).

 

 

Common consensus post-All Saints and post-book backlash dictated that the Appletons were rather hard work. If they were, I didn't see much of this in action at all and felt it was, as is often the case with the press and certain public figures even now, all a bit of a card trick to make it seem like they were, and it's fair to say their documentary warmed them to me in a way that perhaps not even the big pop reality shows had managed by this point. If you have an hour free I'd recommend looking it up on YouTube. If for nothing else, to see Liam Gallagher tear arsing around Liam Howlett's Essex country pile on a quad bike.

 

Taking that factor out the equation though, 'Don't Worry' is one of my all time favourite songs and, morbid though this may sound, is the song (or at least one of them) that I want played at my funeral. Whilst it doesn't possess the same bells & whistles in-yer-face sauciness of 'Fantasy', its simplicity in both melody, lyric, vocal performance and orchestration combines to become the great strength of this lush single. It'll be summer of that year by the time we meet Nat and Nic again - but, unfortunately, things will be looking slightly less rosy than they were at this time.

Apologies for no entries on Thursday just gone peeps...fortunately I've got some time off this week so to make up for it there'll be triple posts a-go-go. Let's get our next hits out the way first though, starting with our first visit of 2003 to Keisha, Mutya and Heidi and a return for one of the 80's best loved lady bands...

 

16TH MARCH 2003

 

Sugababes - "Shape"

Official UK Chart peak: #11

 

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The Bangles - "Something That You Said"

Official UK Chart peak: #38

 

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So, just how do you follow up a year where you were resurrected from the brink of the pop dumper via two critically acclaimed number one singles, over half a million album sales and a new found status as the ones to beat in the girl group realm? Well, Sugababes v2.0's answer to that problem was simple - just keep it up without a totter of a heel or a bat of an eyelash, as was their now renowned way.

 

February had already been an exciting and busy month for them, as they took home their first ever BRIT award for 'Best Dance Act' and stole the show with an explosive performance of 'Freak Like Me', as well as heading out on the road for their first theatre tour. After the tour finished came the release of their second album's fourth and final top 20 hit.

 

 

Although just missing out on a top 10 debut, 'Shape', a rewritten cover of Sting's 1993 hit 'Shape of my Heart', the chorus of which was interpolated into the main crux of the song (and also partly used on Craig David's own collaboration with the man himself, 'Rise & Fall', which peaked at #2 a month later), received good airplay on music channels and radio alike and was a fond favourite in their live sets in the years that followed.

 

It's a good effort, but certainly the weakest effort from this incarnation of the girls that we've encountered so far. Perhaps it was therefore, a wise move to make this the last release off the album, and it was after another round of promo in Europe and the Far East - as well as making history that summer by becoming the first girl group to ever play the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury - that they headed back to the studio to begin work on a follow up - the first offering from which, we'll meet a bit later...

 

Also back this week after 13 years away were a band who I'm sure I'd have been writing about a lot if this were an 80's thread. Second only to Bananarama in the girl group stakes of success from the decade that bought us shoulderpads, perms and hair rock, The Bangles had, as we've mentioned already, gained public reconnaissance when Atomic Kitten covered 'Eternal Flame' and taken it to the top of the charts in 2001, prompting a platinum selling repack of their greatest hits to be released.

 

 

Lead Bangle Susanna Hoffs actually had a small hand in writing one of the Kittens' singles that we'll be meeting shortly, ahead of that though came their own comeback single 'Something That You Said'. Considering they'd been away for over two decades by this point following their acrimonious 1990 split, this was a big achievement for them to go top 40 all those years later, however small a position they landed. The song itself is a pleasant little guitar based pop number - not unlike the sort of thing Sheryl Crow was excellent at once upon a time, and the video is really sweet as well with a good storyline.

Edited August 27, 20159 yr by ThePensmith

23RD MARCH 2003

 

Mis-Teeq - "Scandalous"

Official UK Chart peak: #2

 

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Back on the promo campaign trail in the spring of 2003 were the Mis-Teeq ladies, and, having quietly finished their previous album campaign with two fairly nondescript covers, they were determined to come firing back on all cylinders with the first single from their second album 'Eye Candy'. Perhaps aware that the stock value of their original trade, UK garage, had fallen off a cliff since their last single (see the break up of both Artful Dodger and So Solid Crew, featuring Alesha's very own fiancee MC Harvey, who's own solo effort 'Get Up and Move' had flopped the previous September), they knew they had to mix it up a bit this time as well.

 

Fortunately, Norwegian pop production titans StarGate were on hand again (they'd also been behind 'One Night Stand' and a lot of the tracks on 'Lickin' on Both Sides') for 'Scandalous', which despite a relatively short chart run of 8 weeks obtained massive airplay and critical praise all throughout the year - resulting in a BRIT nomination for 'Best Single' the following February - and quickly became the single that they're still probably most known for.

 

 

It's not hard to see why. Lusty, menacing and slightly playful, 'Scandalous' is the sound of a girl group who were coming back and meaning business, even in a market that was still up for grabs between two, maybe three other contemporaries. And around the time of this single, it did seem like at one point it could be theirs for the taking. Alesha's never sounded her best MC'ing wise as she does here, same likewise for Sabrina's vocal delivery.

 

So it was just their rotten luck that they ran into Gareth Gates' lame but good hearted Comic Relief shindig with the Kumars, thus being unable to better the #2 peak of their previous biggest hit 'All I Want'. On a happier note though, it was also this single that took the ladies to America, where it featured as the lead song from the soundtrack to the Halle Berry film 'Catwoman', peaking inside the top 40 of the Billboard charts.

Edited August 25, 20159 yr by ThePensmith

Scanadalous is an absolute classic!

I'm on page 2 at the moment. Absolutely loving your reviews so far Pensmith! It's nice to see so much detail and effort put into this. :D I've learnt a lot already - especially about Girl Thing. I may need to watch the Big Reunion to hear all of the groups' full stories and the controversies surrounding them.

A great write up for Girls Aloud! :wub:

 

I have a similar story... the girls in my class were loving One True Voice and were convinced they'd get to #1 - even after both tracks had been heard! I confidently declared that Girls Aloud would get the #1, and I was scoffed at. When we returned from Christmas break I made a point of saying "I told you so", lol. :P

 

I remember when I first heard the song too. It was on one of the Digital radio channels, and I caught it towards the beginning of the song. I was quite taken aback by it because it sounded nothing like I'd anticipated. Compared to the vast majority of early 00s music it sounded so different and fresh. (Even 13 years later I don't think it sounds particularly dated!)

 

It was such a deserved victory. The fact that they were given a song like 'Sound of the Underground' for their debut still seems a bit crazy now... it just totally goes against the "winners' single" blueprint.

 

~~

 

I remember hearing 'All The Thing She Said' in the summer of 2002. I was on holiday with my parents in Greece and saw it on a music channel (I think it was MTV Germany). It really caught my attention - obviously the video played a factor (it shocked me at the time, ha) but more importantly I loved the song, it seemed very edgy to me at the time. It stayed on my mind for a while, and I wondered when it'd get a UK release, if at all. When it eventually arrived here, I wasn't at all surprised that it caused a huge controversy, or indeed the fact that it became a massive hit! Obviously the way the group were presented was a gimmick, but underneath that I thought it was a great song.

 

~~

 

By the way, 'It's OK!' is actually one of my favourite Atomic Kitten songs. :kink:

Okay finally caught up!

 

I echo the comments about 'Sound of the Underground' - it remains the best "coronation song" from a reality TV act in my opinion. I was only 8 when GA were formed so I wasn't aware of the odds being firmly against them at the beginning of their career but I remember hearing their next single ThePensmith is going to write about and I became a big fan at that point.

 

I remember seeing the video of 'All the Things She Said' on the music channels so much around the time it was released. As soon as I'd hear that "dream sequence"-effect I'd change the channel. It was only when I gave the song a chance that I fell in love with it. Cynical marketing ploy aside, I really thought it was an imaginative pop song especially for that time. It was also only when I got older that I understood the music video. I used to think "why were they trapped for the whole video and then were suddenly able to walk free??" (:lol:) but then I began to realise it was all a metaphor.

Just found this..... very interesting. Looking forward to reading it in full.

Thanks for all your feedback and comments peeps, glad you're all enjoying it! I'll try to reply to you all individually today...

 

30TH MARCH 2003

 

Lemonescent - "Help Me Mama"

Official UK Chart peak: #36

 

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And from writing at length on the last four posts, we now encounter an act which, even with my encyclopaedic girl group knowledge, I have no recollection of whatsoever, so this is going to be very interesting. And by interesting, I mean fairly short and to the point and heavily borrowing from a Wikipedia article.

 

The brainchild of former Johnny Hates Jazz songwriter and member Iain MacDonald, Nikki, Lisa, Sarah and Shonagh - aka Lemonescent, possibly the WORST name for a girl group we've encountered thus far in this thread - were formed in early 2002 and were signed to independent label Supertone Records, pitched as a kind of Scots own brand Atomic Kitten.

 

 

Over the course of the year they released two singles that bombed, with 'Beautiful' tanking at #70 in June and follow up 'Swing My Hips (Sex Dance)' faring little better at #48 in October, but, perhaps not surprisingly, both zipped into the top 20 of the Scottish charts. This, their third single, was a top 5 hit there but just scraped into become their first nationwide top 40 hit.

 

The record itself is absolute cack - dare I say the most hatefully dire thing we've encountered in this thread thus far since the Supersister nightmares of 2000/2001. The fact it charted higher in their native Scotland suggests that being a pile of cack mattered not to their patriotic home crowd, a fact that'll repeat itself when we encounter their next two entries...

8TH DECEMBER 2002

 

The Cheeky Girls - "The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)"

Official UK Chart peak: #2

 

http://s15.postimg.org/z8dn70sbf/R_886383_1259190271_jpeg.jpg

 

TLC - "Girl Talk"

Official UK Chart peak: #30

 

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A week now where we meet a case of the bizarre – and the tragic. Let’s get the bizarre out the way first though, as we meet two Transylvanian twins scarier than Dracula, Gabriela and Monica Irmia, otherwise known as The Cheeky Girls. One of the downsides of doing this thread – and the criteria which I set myself right at the start – was the potential for meeting some of the thread’s more awful moments but who have the right to be included here under the criteria set thus.

 

The Transylvanian twins, along with their mother (their manager and songwriter, no less) arrived in the UK sometime in early 2002, and instantly began trying to make a name for themselves – firstly on the short lived Channel 4 ‘fashion’ answer to the ‘Pop Idol’ phenomenon in ‘Model Behaviour’, and then on the new series of ITV’s ‘Popstars’ which (as we’ll come onto with our next entry) was to be called ‘Popstars: The Rivals’.

 

 

They performed an acapella of this number, leaving the judges stunned – but not necessarily in the way they’d hoped for, and had the nation in fits of laughter, albeit fleeting. Someone at Telstar Records’ dance division Multiply however, saw a prime opportunity to capitalize on this, and the Cheekies were quickly signed for a one single deal. Such was the unprecedented success of this song though – only Eminem, Blue with Elton John and the act we’ll meet next kept it quite rightly from being a number one – that it stayed inside the top 5 for just over a month, and ended up selling over 2 million copies worldwide.

 

‘The Cheeky Song’ was something I couldn’t abide at the time, however, nor can I now. But, you may be wondering, how is this any different than Las Ketchup we met earlier on? Well, that had a tune and a bit of a quirky and European wit about it. And without wishing to sound like a UKIP candidate on a soapbox, this tuneless, terrible monstrosity would act as the perfect persuasion for the UK to abandon EU relations even now. It had stretched what had given everybody a laugh for 10 seconds on TV way beyond a joke. And shockingly, as we get into 2003 there is more of this to come.

 

 

Back in the sane world further down the chart that week, we make our second and final visit to the ladies who kicked off this thread – TLC. Regrettably though, we do so under very sad circumstances. As we mentioned when we last saw them, the end of the ‘Fan-Mail’ campaign had seen them take a break off to solo careers of varying success – their foremost rapper Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes having been the most successful by far (in the UK at least), duetting with Melanie C on her chart topping ‘Never Be the Same Again’, as well as scoring an instant top 20 hit with ‘The Block Party’ in October of the previous year.

 

TLC finally reconvened to record what was to be their comeback album, ‘3D’, at the end of that year, working with – amongst others – Pharrell Williams and N*E*R*D, Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Richard X. The record was nearing completion by the following June, when Lisa was then tragically killed in a car crash in Honduras whilst filming a documentary for MTV, aged just 30 years old. With the R&B and hip hop worlds already mourning the shock death of Aaliyah in a plane crash just a matter of months prior to this, it sent shock waves throughout their camp as tributes poured in.

 

Chilli and T-Boz bravely agreed to finish up what was left of recording though, and ‘3D’ finally came out in November of that year, with the sassy and witty ‘Girl Talk’ leading off as the first single. Even though chart wise it didn’t perform as well as it should have done – something being released in the pre-Christmas rush probably put paid to – it is still a fitting tribute and swan song to a group of ladies whose legacy continues to live on today in many of the acts we’re still yet to meet and some we’ve already met. Both they and Lisa went out in style and the memory of what they were really good at will never be forgotten.

 

Completely disagree with you on this one. "Cheeky Song" was a great deal of fun and much more memorable than the dreary barrel scraping "Girl Talk"

 

6TH APRIL 2003

 

Atomic Kitten - "Love Doesn't Have to Hurt"

Official UK Chart peak: #4

 

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Remember when we met the Kittens' cover of 'Eternal Flame' earlier on how I said 2001 had sparked a bit of an 80's revival? Well, said revival saw the band behind that very song - The Bangles - get back together to release a new greatest hits and do the 'Here & Now' tour with Bananarama, Limahl et al. On the promo circuit for said tour, they recorded an appearance for an 80's special of TOTP2, the retrospective sister show of 'Top of the Pops'.

 

For old time's sake, they performed 'Eternal Flame', and Susanna Hoffs was said to be astonished that the mostly young, teenage audience were singing along to every word when most of them hadn't been old enough to remember it originally, not aware of course, that the Kittens had just topped the chart in the UK with their version of it. Once informed of this, she tracked them down and offered her and the Bangles' producer (also the writer of another girl group cover we'll meet later in this thread), Billy Steinberg's services for their next album.

 

 

'Love Doesn't Have to Hurt' was the end result, and was picked a year and a bit later as the fourth and final single off the 'Feels So Good' album. Sadly though, far from being a bouncy jaunt a la 'Walk Like an Egyptian' (which Kittens v1.0 would, I feel, have nailed), this was a bit like a half hearted and not as good 'Manic Monday', and for some bizarre reason has Jenny doing lead vocals. Not to knock the girl, but this single is ultimate proof of what it was she bought to the Kittens, and vocals were not it.

 

Almost as bland as 'It's OK', it's a mystery how this ended up being another top 5 hit when really, low top 10 was about all it deserved. As with Sugababes v2.0, it would be the last we'd hear of the girls for six months in this thread whilst they attempted to not only break America ('The Tide is High' was picked as the lead song from the 'Lizzie McGuire' movie), but also extensively toured the Far East and Australia, and record their third album. New mum Natasha was back in their fold by this point but, as we'll come to see, was buckling under the pressure...

I'm on page 2 at the moment. Absolutely loving your reviews so far Pensmith! It's nice to see so much detail and effort put into this. :D I've learnt a lot already - especially about Girl Thing. I may need to watch the Big Reunion to hear all of the groups' full stories and the controversies surrounding them.

 

Thanks very much :) And you should definitely watch 'The Big Reunion'. I think both series are up in full anyway on YouTube but they are fascinating viewing in regards to 90s and 00s era pop music generally!

A great write up for Girls Aloud! :wub:

 

I have a similar story... the girls in my class were loving One True Voice and were convinced they'd get to #1 - even after both tracks had been heard! I confidently declared that Girls Aloud would get the #1, and I was scoffed at. When we returned from Christmas break I made a point of saying "I told you so", lol. :P

 

I remember when I first heard the song too. It was on one of the Digital radio channels, and I caught it towards the beginning of the song. I was quite taken aback by it because it sounded nothing like I'd anticipated. Compared to the vast majority of early 00s music it sounded so different and fresh. (Even 13 years later I don't think it sounds particularly dated!)

 

It was such a deserved victory. The fact that they were given a song like 'Sound of the Underground' for their debut still seems a bit crazy now... it just totally goes against the "winners' single" blueprint.

 

It's interesting, really, isn't it? You'd never get - as we'll see much later in this thread - Simon Cowell giving any act, let alone a girl group a song like 'Sound of the Underground'. Then again, I suppose there is still this year's X Factor to prove me wrong...

 

I totally agree with you re: it not dating. It's timeless and still sounds just as good as it did then. Something that holds true of a lot of their singles we're still to meet!

 

Thanks very much :) And you should definitely watch 'The Big Reunion'. I think both series are up in full anyway on YouTube but they are fascinating viewing in regards to 90s and 00s era pop music generally!

 

I will do! I think I watched some of the first series but didn't remember to watch the second one. :lol:

 

I think it's at this point in the thread where it begins to get really interesting for me personally. By April 2003, I would be 9 so I can remember these releases (bar Lemonescent who I've never ever heard of). A certain British R&B quartet should be making a brief appearance soon. :dance: