90s pop stars9/24/2023 ![]() Mental health is now centre stage, and there is at last slightly less objectification. There’s no Top of the Pops for them to appear on, no Smash Hits magazine to feature them. Acts today are neither quite as DayGlo nor as recognisable. Photograph: Entertainment Pictures/AlamyĬragg’s central thesis is that, essentially, they don’t make pop like they used to. ‘Their impact was immense’: Spice Girls in 1998. “One of the girls who auditioned was quite deep and spiritual, and said it hurt her soul to sing that song,” Steps’ Claire Richards says. There’d been a misunderstanding, it later emerged: Blur were her favourite band, not Blue, the “r” and the “e” so perilously close on a keyboard.Īccording to producer Pete Waterman, the proudly cheesy Steps were supposed to be “Abba on speed”, a claim to which Abba might well take offence: their debut single, 5, 6, 7, 8, was ostensibly a nursery rhyme based around line-dancing. ![]() When they met, however, she wrinkled her nose, and turned promptly on her heel. ![]() “I felt the creation was a hideously cheap effort in exploitation,” says Shirley Manson of the rock act Garbage, before relenting later, realising just “how much of an influence they were”.Įlsewhere, 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”.įellow boy band Blue, meanwhile, were tickled to find themselves the favourite band of fashion designer Donatella Versace, who flew them out to Milan on her private jet. Their impact was immense, though not everyone was initially swayed. Of course, the Spice Girls’ contribution to 90s pop culture has already been pored over endlessly, but it’s a story that bears retelling. “Bless her.” It’s revealed that Russell Brand once auditioned for the boy band 5ive, but has denied it ever since “She just wasn’t there,” co-member Geri Halliwell says of the Wannabe studio sessions. We learn, for example, that even in the early stages of the Spice Girls, Victoria Adams was far more interested in shopping for clothes than she was in recording vocals. You don’t so much read it as inhale it.Ī lot of it, like the music itself, seems throwaway, the stuff of gossip. ![]() But Cragg mostly pulls off an admirable balancing act, because his book’s a hoot. I slept in a car in LA while I was making my first album, she told the Independent.Reach for the Stars takes the form of an oral history, which allows its vast cast of band members, producers and other key figures of the time to provide their own personal testaments, often at great length more than once over the course of its 500+ pages does the line between the exhaustive and the exhausting seem a fine one. "During my journey I was staying at people's houses. After being kicked out without warning, LeToya, only 18, revealed she slept in her car for a time. "Stop throwing shade at me and Beyonce when the truth is that you're pissed off at Mathew," the author claims Kelly Rowland said to LeToya and LaTavia concerning their manager. Randy Taraborrelli writes in his book, "Becoming Beyoncé" (via RadarOnline). "They had questions about the money they were earning, and they felt they were not getting enough attention both on record and on stage," author J. The two were kicked out of the group after asking for new management. The ladies were longtime childhood friends and recorded two records together, but LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett soon began claiming unfair treatment, including unequal pay and favoritism toward Beyoncé. The original foursome broke out onto the music scene in 1997 with their hit single, "No, No, No," and they swiftly became known for their recurring theme of female empowerment.
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