I really wanted The Saturdays to do ‘Fool No More’ on their greatest hits tour, given it’s basically the OG Sats song since only Frankie and Rochelle sing on it nn.
I agree with Old Popjustice consensus that S Club 8's songs were far better than S Club 7 (who I never liked). Unfortunately at the time I was put off by them being kids which seems to be a common theme, but listening in 2021 they did have some absolute bangers.
I was just blasting out random Spotify-generated plastic 90s/00s pop on a car journey home (complete with over-the-top “singing” and lots of shoulder wiggling) and this was played…
Never knew it existed - Scooch (Natalie Powers) covering Bucks Fizz to the cheapest tackiest backing track ever? Yes please!
Well I did actually thanks. Fall apart, that is…last week was A LOT. Apologies for the slowdown in eliminations - hopefully normal service will resume now.
“…so just be honest and straight from the start”
We might have a slight problem with the ‘straight’ part there but go off Nat…
Notable achievements:
#5 in the UK in January 2000 (their first and only top 10 hit in their native country until ‘Flying The Flag (For You)’ was released 7 years later)
#1 in Japan leading to an appearance in the video game series ‘Dance Dance Revolution’
That age-old strategy of ‘the first single underperformed so let’s release the follow-up just after Christmas in the slowest sales period of the year and hope for the best’ was employed to maximum effect for Scooch’s sophomore single ‘More Than I Needed To Know’. And you know what, it worked! Ok, so sales of just over 20k meant it limped rather than leapt to #5 but hey…the group seemed happy with the chart position (cue cheesy photo op)
The slight upturn in the band’s fortunes could could also be attributed to an altogether more surprising source of promo.
NME (New Music Express) was a legendary British music magazine, achingly cool journalism (or wanted to appear that way) with an appetite for cutting-edge indie and championing the British rock scene. In January 2000, it reviewed ‘More Than I Needed To Know’, giving it 5 stars and making it their Single of the Issue. Here is the said review (read with caution):
So come on all you A&R boys! Snort that coke and grab your Biros and sign us Steps-klones up by the groaning truckload. Steps Lite! Uber-Steps! Steps 3000! Steps Pistols! Step-Un-Wulf! Yeah! Two gurlygurlies and two gurlyboys – ten weeks with a choreographer, ten days with a hairdresser, ten hours with a publicist, ten minutes with a producer and ten seconds with a songwriter and bosh! Bobsyerfackingunklefacker! Sorted! Top pop product aimed at the hearts, minds, reptile-brain stems and permanently soggy gussets of the hideous hordes of luvverly little ladies aged between six and 17 who actually buy 94.897 per cent of all records bought in the world and are thus responsible for the parlous state of pop as we know it. The bastards!
Except that this is brilliant! It’s like, hey, what if Steps didn’t eagerly suck pus from a maggot-infested and hideously noisome festering sore situated halfway between Satan’s spike-studded scrotal sac and his gnashing teeth-filled anal crack, hmmm? Then they’d sound exactly like Scooch. So step forward the sinister Svengalis lurking in the shadows behind this obviously (ugh) ‘manufactured’ so-called ‘band’. Oh no! It’s them! Mike Stock and Matt Aitken! Two-thirds of the evil triumvirate that gave us Kylie, Mel & Kim and Jason, too! The bastards! This deserves to be Number One for weeks and it probably will be because it is a joyously mindless romp through every Abba-esque cliche in existence delivered at a breakneck pace by a lass with massive blacksmith’s bellows for lungs and it rules, it rules like Ghengis Khan ruled – remorselessly, ruthlessly, frighteningly, tyrannically but absolutely irresistibly. Love it. Fear it. Worship it. Obey it. Or DIE!
Quite.
But it got people talking, got people buying a Scooch single, and ultimately led to the bop-filled debut album being released later that year so WE ALL WON.
Just don’t dwell too much on the “Satan’s spike-studded scrotal sac” imagery and do some jolly choreo instead hmmm?
Voters say:
(there’s a theme here - see if you can fathom it out…)
@Wezzo 11 Steps are my favourite pop band, but this is the song that out-steps Steps - a perfect triangulation of ABBA's soaring melancholy, that Steps high-energy dance beat, and that hook-packed chorus that enters your head and never leaves.
@Hudweiser 10 I'd go on record and say this is actually better than some Steps singles. Natalie Powers had such a great voice and the pre-chorus melody on this is frisson inducingly perfect.
@unnameable 10 Copying that ABBA-lite Steps songwriting to perfection.
@Ezz 10 One of the most gorgeous opening verses in pop. Definitely top tier mixed group material.
@Doodvid 10 Took me a long time to get on board with this (it reminded me of an over-earnest Nicki French track circa 1996) but eventually you just can’t help but cave in. I want a ‘Scoodle’ coat.
@iheartpoptarts 9 This rate has no shortage of stuff that sounds like Steps and I love it.
@DJHazey 7 Dull ballad at first but reveals itself as decent after a while.
The b-side which band-member David was very proud of:
Old Popjustice Forum says:
And I can only presume they mean James Blunt?
Surely James Blunt is the first only person that comes to mind when someone describes “that twat” in 2006?
Notable achievements:
Featured on the soundtrack of ‘Sliding Doors’
UK #1 single in 1998 and reached the Top 10 in many countries including Australia, Ireland, Hungary and Sweden
Final ballad standing in this rate
Elton John, Brand New Heavies, Olive, Jamiroquai, Dido, Dodgy…and Aqua?! How on earth did the bubblegum pop megastars scam their way onto the ‘Sliding Doors’ soundtrack alongside that selection of artists? I mean it also featured 1996 flop single ‘Have Fun Go Mad’ by Blair (heavily promoted in the teen mags at the time) so it’s fair to say it was an eclectic mix at best.
‘Turn Back Time’ was the curveball 3rd single release in the UK following the irrepressible and irresistible mega-hits ‘Barbie Girl’ and ‘Doctor Jones’ - not ‘Roses Are Red’, not ‘Happy Boys & Happy Girls’ (insert crying emoji) but ‘Turn Back Time’! As a pop-loving teen when this charted, to hear Lene and the gang on such a restrained, some might say hauntingly downtempo track at the peak of their technicolour world-domination phase was a surprise to say the least. Quite the whiplash moment, but it had the desired effect. Nay-sayers who dismissed Aqua as one-trick ponies had proof that there was much more substance to the group. The success of ‘Turn Back Time’ arguably gave Aqua the license to explore the genre in even greater depth on their second album ‘Aquarius’ with bombastic ballads such as ‘We Belong To The Sea’ and the glorious title track.
As it is, I always preferred Aqua’s melancholic minor hit ‘Good Morning Sunshine’ to this (hi sequel rate!) but the masterful ‘Turn Back Time’ is definitely worthy of the title of ‘Last Slowie Standing’ in this competition.
Voters say:
@saviodxl 10 I love playing this to haters that say they only make silly bubblegum songs and prove them wrong.
@berserkboi 10 Forever and always my favourite Aqua song! Will do terribly here probably but wow is this gorgeous <3
@Doodvid 8.5 What does “the bolt reminds me I was there” actually mean? (for a long time, I thought Lene was saying “boat”)
@Ezz 8 1990s Holborn tube station gives me major nostalgic flashbacks.
@DJHazey 6.3 Obviously never got into Aqua for ballads so this was overlooked and yet doesn't necessarily demand to be a discovery either.
@iheartpoptarts 4 That one Aqua song people who don’t even like Aqua think is “surprisingly good”.
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