Joined in 2023 
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Claire I remember Pete Waterman going crazy and causing a real stink because if it wasn’t us who should have won, Five were in that category, Cleopatra. It was all the new pop of the time. No one could believe it. Late 90s and early 2000s British pop music gets an on-trend reappraisal in this entertaining, meticulous read, subtitled Fame, Fallout and Pop's Final Party. If you're in your thirties, this is probably the music in the charts when you were growing up, so there is a definite nostalgia market for this book. It's not exactly light reading, however, going deep into the music industry of the era, with just as many interviews with songwriters, journalists and A & R people as with the pop stars themselves. The format is an oral history, with an impressive array of contributors and occasional commentary from the author to link the themes together. The author looks at what made certain bands successful and what it was really like to be a pop songwriter, or to be a pop star with a relentless schedule and little protection from media scrutiny. What surprised me was how nearly all of the bands featured were kids themselves, really, often under eighteen when they first started out. To me, at the time, they looked like adults and I never realised how young they were. If you're interested in pop history, I recommend this new book which explores in fascinating detail the dizzy, competitive and lost world of 'manufactured' nineties and noughties pop.' -- Neil Tennant, Pet Shop Boys
Michael Cragg
About the Author: Michael Cragg has been writing about pop music for over a decade and has interviewed everyone from Lady Gaga to Lorde, via Little Mix, Shawn Mendes, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Britney Spears. He has written for outlets including Vogue, The Guardian, GQ, BBC, The Observer, Popjustice, Dazed and Billboard. During his three years as contributing editor at The Guardian's Guide! newsletter, he interviewed '00s pop luminaries such as Steps, Emma Bunton and Nadine Coyle. He also edits the independent biannual music magazine BEAT. Scott J was breakdancing, which is hilarious because he went on to really not like fame and stuff like that. Everyone was standing in a semi-circle and J was in the middle doing head-spins. Mercury made his last public appearance to collect the award for outstanding contribution to British music alongside his Queen bandmates. Looking gaunt, his only words were: “Thank you … goodnight.” He died just under two years later.Prepare to be left open mouthed...some of the finest secrets from the pop-music landscape of those heady times.' -- Heat Mark Beaumont (writer for Melody Maker and NME) It was the first show of strength of the internet because the Brits were the establishment stronghold and here was Belle and Sebastian using the weight of their fanbase to break the stranglehold of pop. I think it was the first high-profile example of the internet being used to shift culture. Neil Tennant (!) Reach For The Stars, my debut book, was released in March 2023. An oral history of UK pop between 1996 and 2006, it features over 100 interviews with the great and good of that vibrant pop period, including popstars, producers, songwriters, video directors, PRs, journalists, etc etc and so forth. People seemed to like it, which is nice… Beyond the stories of fame, fortune and turning up to the CD:UK studios still pissed from the night before, Reach… finds itself in some pretty dark places. The music industry was far less monitored than it is now, with conversations about mental health, racism and misogyny barely audible within the four walls of the music industry, let alone in the tabloids. Why was everyone 16? I swear all these bands (Steps, Spice Girls, Westlife, etc) were two decades or more older than me, not barely a few years. Seriously, even Geri Halliwell is only 12 years older than me!
stars from the Spice Girls to On cloud nineties! When music stars from the Spice Girls to
When reading this book, you're likely to vanish down a YouTube wormhole, revisiting forgotten gems or favourite songs from the likes of A1, Billie Piper, Sugababes and Steps, or discovering that the music of certain groups still sounds awful more than twenty years later (Atomic Kitten...) I should note that it's not exhaustive, which is OK as the book is long enough without going into even further detail. The focus is on Britain, with occasional references to Irish groups popular in Britain, but not much context outside of this, or else we would certainly be hearing about Aqua, who were massively popular. Perhaps the British band Scooch could have had a mention, as they did moderately well in the early 2000s. I would've appreciated a little more about B*Witched, as the way I remember it, they were almost as popular as the Spice Girls. Regarding the Spices, the chapter would've have more appeal if I hadn't recently read Melanie C's memoir, which more or less covers the same territory. Sean Conlon I saw Abz at my audition. He had some sunglasses on and looked a little bit like how Peter Andre used to dress. He really stood out from the whole queue. Elsewhere, it’s revealed that Russell Brand once auditioned for the boy band 5ive, but has denied it ever since, “which is funny”, says member Scott Robinson, “because he’s done some dodgy things in his career, and auditioning for 5ive isn’t the worst”.Reach for the Stars takes a delightful look at British pop music from the years 1996 to 2006. It was a more innocent time, before the dawn of the internet - radio, Top of the Pops and magazines like Smash Hits were the main ways teenagers learned about their favourite bands. CD singles sold in vast amounts and reaching the number one position in the weekly charts was still a meaningful and much-coveted achievement. Despite enjoying this book my reason for rating this book 3 out of 5 is because at times it felt that if you weren't a band that the author personally liked then you weren't featured or not featured very much, so bands which were very successful like All Saints barely get mentioned in comparison to bands who arguably had less success such as Triple 8 who are featured a lot. Potentially this is because some of their members were contributors to the book. There were also a few disparaging remarks about Westlife so I assume the author isn't a fan of theirs which is fine but they were one of the most successful bands of that period so to skim over them doesn't really give an accurate picture. I enjoyed the last section on the rise of programmes like Pop Idol, Popstars etc and the artists that they created but there was only one passing reference to Fame Academy which was also popular at the time.
Reach for the Stars by Michael Cragg - Signed Edition Reach for the Stars by Michael Cragg - Signed Edition
The definition of a “golden age” is elastic and is usually defined by whatever was going on when you were between the ages of 12 and 22. I promise you there is just as much amazing pop music being made right now. You just might not be able to truly perceive it, because your fully developed prefrontal cortex is in the way.
Halaman
Most of the acts Cragg covers straddle the years either side of the millennium, and many burst through in 1998: Steps were a five-piece made up of would-be children’s TV presenters with a yen to sound like a Home Counties Abba; the laddy Five were launched on the TV show Neighbours from Hell; the charismatic, 15-year-old Sylvia Young student Billie Piper went straight in at No 1 with Because We Want To, a single that was pure Grange Hill ; Irish four-piece B*witched were formed with the terrible idea of marrying the Spice Girls’ brightness and energy to another contemporary craze, Michael Flatley’s Riverdance. Such was the appetite for bubblicious teen pop that B*witched scored four consecutive No 1s in a matter of seven months. Beneath the shiny exterior is the treatment of S Club 7 as chattels or the racism suffered by Jamelia and Mis-Teeq Nobody buys books. No one's going to read this. No one's going to read these sorts of things. They just don't.' -- Louis Walsh Ritchie They wanted a band with edge and that’s what they bloody well got. We’re all very strong characters so eventually there’s going to be those eruptions. We were young, we didn’t have that level of maturity.
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