I’ve read it. I recommend it. Amazon link at end of this post.
Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party
Blurb:
Using the arrival of the Spice Girls as a jumping-off point, this fascinating new narrative will explore, celebrate and contextualise the thus-far-uncharted period of British pop that flourished between 1996 and 2006. A double-denim-loving time before the glare of social media and the accession of streaming.
The bastions of ’00s pop – armed with buoyant, immaculately crafted, carefree anthems – provided entertainment, escapism and fun for millions. It was a heady, chorus-heavy decade – populated by the likes of Steps, S Club 7, Blue, 5ive, Mis-Teeq, Hear’Say, Busted, Girls Aloud, McFly, Craig David and Atomic Kitten, among countless others – yet the music was often dismissed as inauthentic, juvenile, not ‘worthy’ enough: ultimately, a ‘guilty pleasure’.
Now, music writer Michael Cragg aims to redress that balance. Using the oral-history format, Cragg goes beneath the surface of the bubblegum exterior, speaking to hundred’s of the key players about the reality of their experiences.
Compiled from interviews with popstars, songwriters, producers, choreographers, magazine editors, record-company executives, TV moguls and more, this is a complete behind-the-scenes history of the last great movement in British pop – a technicolour turning-point ripe for re-evaluation, documented here in astonishing, honest and eye-opening detail.
Bought, thanks. I’ve been interested in reading this since I heard the author interviewed on a podcast.
Thanks, L. Bought and on my virtual bedside pile
Love books like this – the recent Bob Stanley and Will Hodgkinson are also worth checking out
Sounds like the music: a bag o’ shite!
Anything 21st century seems recent to me, but as I read those names I realise that it definitely was a definable period of pop music and had some great moments. At least three Spice Girls songs were completely brilliant and most bands mentioned had a total monster of a choon to their name.
In this video, boy band Blue look like they are modelling the “Streetz!” selection of young people’s clothing at C&A and the stool-bothering, the u-huhs and auto-tuning make it start a little samey…but the song quickly gets to the chorus and you realise that this is a great song. Peppered with clever lyrics, it’s a birrova classic.
You sad bastards…
You better hope one of us doesn’t draw your name in
this year’s Secret Satan
I am very dull.
Absolutely loved this book so would also heartily recommend.