Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party
- Thread starter Mvnl
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Mvnl
Staff member
Yeah enjoyed that, as well as a lot of other pieces that popped up.Though I know it's not the focus of the book I quite enjoyed Michael's stories about being a (closet) pop fan. For me it's kinda been the one part of my life where I never really tried to change myself but it still felt quite relatable.
I was awaiting today in hopes I could buy the ebook somewhere but I think I might have to get a physical copy too.
Just looking at the list of acts involved on the first few pages already has me drooling. Almost feels like this book was made exclusively for me.
I was awaiting today in hopes I could buy the ebook somewhere but I think I might have to get a physical copy too.
Just looking at the list of acts involved on the first few pages already has me drooling. Almost feels like this book was made exclusively for me.
Hoping mine arrives today!
I definitely related to trying to change my tastes - when I went to uni I started listening to people like Green Day, Jeff Buckley and Damien Rice! I remember choosing carefully which CDs I took to uni - and buying some just that would make me look good!
This was in 2004 so stuff like S Club and Hear'Say were just old rather than retro or acceptable guilty pleasures. I think I allowed myself to take Steps Gold but not the albums haha.
I worked at the uni radio station music team and wanted to work in the music industry so I wanted to be taken seriously! I remember going to an NME gig that was The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Futureheads and Bloc Party and wondering what the hell I was doing there. Also this was the time where pop (apart from Girls Aloud, who I was never that big on anyway) and dance was in a bit of a mess anyway. And all the clubs were R&B clubs so I got a bit into that stuff too.
I'd still try to sneak as much mainstream stuff on to the station playlist as possible though! I remember arguing for Madonna's Hung Up and the only person who backed me up was Greg James. But then someone threw the CD out of the window.
After uni, pop was coming back, and indie was going out of fashion again and I just embraced my inner teenybopper again.
Mvnl
Staff member
Yeah ignore what I just said. Though from very early on some of my first purchases were Aqua/Steps/Ace Of Base albums I definitely had my phases.. like when in 2000 I had a crush on a boy working at the local record store who was very much into R&B and suddenly I got into Destiny's Child and En Vogue?? (I mean, I still like them, so it wasn't as much pretending as it was being influenced, just like when I worked at a recordstore myself and we were only allowed to play 'store appropriate' music and suddenly I had a whole year of hearing little but Duffy & Amy MacDonald. I also kinda downplayed what kind of music I really liked to my coworkers, which in hindsight feels so stupid, but I was definitely already the odd one out as it was)
I also had multiple cases of 'putting another single/album on top of my pile just because I didn't feel I'd get away with buying just a Steps single', so yeah. But overall even when I was still closeted my taste and what I chose to listen to was very much POP. (Still aches to remember a 'friend' of mine listened to my walkman to check out what I was listening to only to go 'you can't listen to that, you're a boy!'. It was Steps' debut album. Did not exactly stop me though!)
I didn't know about this book, sounds interesting! Good start and end points, when you think Spice Girls were 1996 and TOTP finally went off-air (in its weekly version) in 2006. That era was mainstream pop's last hurrah.
Mvnl
Staff member
Yeah, apart from going with a 10 year period (or 11?) he definitely went with 'when X Factor took over and Smash Hits/TOTP/the likes ended' as the ending point.
Going by my own point where I wanted to start my Now collection the arrival of the Spice Girls definitely feels like the start of that whole 'pop era'. When I've done my own occasional playlist of late 90s/00s pop there's somehow mentally a border after 2004 (?) with Sugababes/Girls Aloud being the last ones standing after that. Though I guess Liberty X was still around too and I'm probably overlooking people, but somehow after 2004 it becomes less nostalgic and a bit more 'that was just a few year ago'?
Of course it's not like there hasn't been plenty of pop since, not without a level of mainstream success either, but the era covered by this book definitely feels like a time capsule of very different times.
Does anyone know if the book got any pictures?
It's on Apple Books and Amazon's Kindle as an ebook!
Mvnl
Staff member
Will check apple books again (I tried the store in my iTunes but it didn't show up?)
Amazon is not ideal cause I don't have a kindle and neither does my ipad support the app
I don't have a kindle either but always read those in my MacBook just fine.
Mvnl
Staff member
Yeah I guess it doesn't help I have an outdated Ipad Mini second gen that works just about fine when I manually put epubs on it. Anything else.. is a challenge. (Now of course I could read it on my notebook, but in that case I think I might just go with the physical book for convenience)
Mvnl
Staff member
Well that explains the 500+ pages!
I might as well go with a physical copy since it costs the same as the ebook on amazon.nl.
Just not the biggest fan of hardcover books without artwork on the actual cover so was kinda hoping a paperback edition would follow. (Plus there's the thing with 9 out of 10 books I don't see the use in having a hard copy once I'm done reading)
Going by the preview chapter I read I'm glad he went with the interview format because the other bits are very... wordy.
(or just testing my limited attention span/english)
#justiceforoldieswithpooreyesight
I’m the same on the 2004 border. My club night One More Time covers 1995-2004. The only night I’ve yet to do is 2004 - I’ve yet to do prep on it but I’m just feeling meh to it.
At that point the money had fallen out of the music industry so pop acts just weren’t getting funded except for the big acts like Sugababes and Girls Aloud (Liberty X released Everybody Cries then got dropped). Indie had crawled back and rap was everywhere. Even dance music was struggling. Whilst the industry got its groove back, bubblegum/ manufactured pop never did. Pop had to have an edge or quirk rather than just be.
And by the time pop could be pop, the way we discovered music had changed. Instead of a few magazines/ radio stations/ tv shows where the majority of the public were exposed to the same music (and thus the release of a new Steps single was a big thing in music that week), there became so many outlets (not in itself a bad thing) that listening tastes became fragmented - think Cut To The Feeling by Carly. Outside of a gay clubs/ her fanbase does anyone know it?
Mvnl
Staff member
That's a neat 10 year window!
2004 still had V, Blue, the last bits of Atomic Kitten, Jamelia's Superstar (well over here it was a 2004 song), early Hilary Duff.. to me a lot of those songs won't feel out of place in a playlist with year 2000 singles, and somehow most songs after 2005 would. I guess it might also be an age thing cause just like some early 90s songs still feel 80s, it's not like there's a clear line in the mid 00s where a certain sound ended and another one started.
Itunes/ipods and more individual consumption probably plays its part though a lot of the early 00s pop I loved wasn't exactly all over the radio here either.
So glad I got into music during those golden years of pop music. The mid 00s, truly was the end of an era in that respect.
D
Deleted member 10466
I’ve really enjoyed the first two chapters on Spice and Solo Spice and found out a few tidbits I didn’t know.
Looking forward to diving into the rest.
Looking forward to diving into the rest.
Spice Girls, really did bring back pop for a whole new generation. And for that, am forever grateful.