2000-01 - How could I forget that I had given her an extra key?

And so to the 2000s. Just as the total solar eclipse of 11^th August 1999 had failed to signal the destruction of humankind, the doom-mongering descendants of Nostradamus were similarly disappointed as the world didn’t end at the stroke of midnight of 31^st December. People may have partied like it was 1999 but they just kept going. Whether it was all a big hoax or the people had reason to embrace the IT crowd, but neither did the ‘Millennium Bug’ bring the planet’s computers to a sudden halt, crippling microwaves and multinational banks alike. On the other hand, a few rough hands were dealt: foot and mouth disease, a fuel crisis manufactured by the right-wing Countryside Alliance, severe flooding and the 9/11 terror attacks. I even contracted chicken pox.

Music seemed to be at rock bottom, too. With a record 43 number one singles, the once-lauded achievement was surely irrevocably devalued. Things had come to a pretty poor juncture for me to declare Bob the Builder’s Christmas hit ‘Can We Fix It?’ one of my favourites of the year. On 13^th April 2000 I noted in the diary: “I always wondered at what age I’d lose interest in chart music. The answer is 38!”

Well, that assertion proved premature but back then, there were precious few top 20 entries that appealed to me. 2001 wasn’t a whole lot better but at least the charts had a bit more stability, allowing me to get more closely acquainted with a lot of the high-fliers.

Boybands and girl groups were possibly at their zenith. The Westlife conveyor belt of mum-friendly ballads continued to chug along remorselessly, A1 enjoyed an unfathomable run of top-tenners, 5ive (no ‘F’!) benefited from some help from Queen and along came Blue.

Keen to follow the success of The Backstreet Boys, the quartet ventured not into pop but definite R’n’B territory. Their biggest hit in 2001 was ‘Too Close’ but it’s ‘All Rise’ which was surely their highpoint. Lee Ryan and Duncan James may have had the girls swooning, Antony Costa providing the Robbie-ish tomfoolery but it was Simon Webbe who was surely the soul and voice of the band. They did have some credibility as talented singers in the UK but it was six thousand miles away where I recall my favourite performance of that song: by a young Thai group in a Chiang Mai open-air restaurant!

As for the females of the species, The Spice Girls survived the break for all their members’ (and Geri Halliwell’s) solo efforts to record a new album. They, too, took the R’n’B route, which quickly killed them off. The single ‘Holler’ reached the top – their ninth number one - was well received by the critics but failed to take their young fans with them. It sounded awful to me, too.

It wasn’t the end for Scary, Baby, Posh or Sporty, though. Mel B stuck with the American vibe, Emma Bunton sang some pleasant poppy songs, Mel C mixed things up nicely with ballads, dance and soul while Victoria….well, Victoria married David Beckham. Actually, her collaboration with Truesteppers and Dane Bowers, ‘Out of Your Mind’ did generate some media interest in August 2000. It was hyped as part of a battle with Spiller’s vastly superior ‘Groovejet’, which introduced Sophie Ellis-Bexter. Posh lost but, in her current guise as fashion designer and celebrity darling, she has won the war hands-down.

On the female side, Liverpudlians Atomic Kitten enjoyed a very successful start to the third millennium. I couldn’t stand ‘em. Nevertheless, their fifth single ‘Whole Again’ was indubitably one of those irritatingly perfect pop songs, like ‘No Matter What’ or ‘Earth Song’, selling a million but making me reach for the Off button. Somehow, they had several other top-tenners, led by a lame cover of ‘Eternal Flame’.  

I hadn’t been a fan of All Saints, either. Yet in February 2001, they released ‘Pure Shores’, a winning collaboration between Shaznay Lewis and that man William Orbit. I loved the trippy vibe from the first bar. I also quite liked the quartet’s seemingly random dancing, at odds with the over-rehearsed routines with which I had become so familiar. Watch their live TOTP performance: their shamble-chic swaying, the excellent voice of Mel Blatt and the harmonies of the Appleton sisters. Shaznay wasn’t the best singer but hers was the songwriting talent.

No wonder Madonna was fuming Orbit gave the song to the Anglo-Canadians and not her. The similar ‘Black Coffee’ gave us more gorgeous ‘dream pop’ harmonies and also went to number one. After this and ‘Pure Shores’, I could almost forgive All Saints for the more popular ‘Never Ever’. Almost.

It wasn’t just the single-sex groups bringing in the punters. Steps staggered on before splitting up in 2001. By then, the baton was well and truly passed to Simon Fuller’s new creation, S Club 7. Created for children’s TV, they weren’t exactly The Monkees. For starters, the Sixties funsters didn’t have Rachel Stevens swinging her hips to I’m a Believer! I must admit I never watched a minute of their BBC series, and their early singles left me cold. ‘Bring it All Back’ and ‘Reach’ were perfect pop anthems for seven year-olds and their ballads were pale shadows of The Spice Girls. Then in April 2001, from nowhere, came ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’.

Unusually, the boring Jo O’Meara was relegated to second lead, ceding the verses to Bradley McIntosh. There were real instruments, it was grown-up, the rhythm was utterly infectious and what an intro! Besides its Best Single Brit award, it achieved the rare accolade of being a ‘split’ number one. Its two weeks at the top were divided by Geri Halliwell’s awful ‘It’s Raining Men’. No longer could I dismiss the group as dumb child fodder; they had a record it was OK to like.

Lee Cattermole’s departure the following year meant the ‘7’ had to be discarded and in the middle of a live performance in 2003, the remainder of the band also called time. In the meantime, the brand extended to a bunch of genuine youngsters called S Club Juniors, later re-named S Club 8. That was the final straw. Britain was all S-Clubbed out.

As a solo artist, Robbie Williams had conquered the nation’s affections in a way that Gary Barlow had so surprisingly failed to do. For several years, you knew summer was over and the autumn leaves were about to fall when the new Robbie album came out. Youngsters ran to the shops to buy the CD to wrap for their Mums’ Christmas prezzy, and there were usually attention-grabbing singles assailing the number one spot, too.

2000 and 2001 weren’t years for his best songs. However, I will concede that ‘Rock DJ’ was a decent stomper with a controversial video, the uncut version definitely not for the squeamish! Then, when the 2001 album turned out to be a vanity project, Swing When You’re Winning, satisfying Robbie’s inner Rat Pack desires, I felt the bubble had burst.

There was only one hit single, a faithful for-Christmas reprise with Nicole Kidman of the sumptuous Sinatra duet ‘Somethin’ Stupid. Robbie had a decent voice, no question. Yet he surely couldn’t compare himself with Frank Sinatra, could he?! I remember watching with Mum and Dad the TV Albert Hall ‘special’, with Mr W posturing in classic chilled suit and casually unfastened ‘dickie-bow’. They also recognised he wasn’t a bad singer. Yet Mum couldn’t escape her classroom instincts for spotting a troublemaker. She simply could not get away from her observation of the cheeky persona as being a sure sign of a ghastly child to teach! In the event, ‘Swing When You’re Winning’ proved me wrong by being one of Robbie’s most successful albums. Moreover, the show DVD went on to be one of Europe’s biggest sellers of all time. Back then, the man could walk on water.

At the start of the millennium, I didn’t attend any West End musicals, but did watch a few films featuring prominent soundtracks. In November 2001, Kim and I saw Baz Luhrmann’s screen musical, Moulin Rouge. It garnered great media reviews but I considered it “overblown and over-rated”. A few female friends loved the romantic lead Ewan McGregor, but I wonder what would have happened had Leonardo di Caprio got the part for which he auditioned. Roles were reversed in the Danny Boyle adventure-drama The Beach, which we went to see in February 2000. Unlike Moulin Rouge, this did boast a cracking soundtrack and one which actually complemented the film. Indeed, perhaps apart from the Thai scenery, the music was probably the best thing about it.

‘Pure Shores’ was an obvious choice: shores…beach….duh! However, the top track must have been ‘Porcelain’ by Moby. To me, the tinkling piano represented a gentle subtropical stream while the four-chord string progression played backwards gave it a soothing yet mysterious backdrop. This proved perfect for a film about a stoner backpacker community, at first so idyllic, yet about to fracture so horribly.  Even the title suggests something beautiful yet brittle, again fundamentally fitting for the storyline. I didn’t really register Moby’s own downbeat introspective lyrics, so stunning was the production. The album from whence it came, Play, was an unexpectedly huge hit, albeit not a source of successful singles. Instead, all the tracks were licensed to the advertising industry. Ever the creative producer and musician, Moby has never been away, but I doubt ‘Porcelain’ could be surpassed as an electronic ambient dreamscape.

Checking back through my diary I was surprised to find that this wasn’t my favourite song of 2001. Instead it was the Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Ocean Spray’. These days, it wouldn’t even have been my favourite Welsh release!

That would have been a toss-up between ‘Have a Nice Day’ and ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, both by The Stereophonics, who were at the peak of their popularity. The Manics may have given Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and the 2000s a memorable launch with the rollicking ‘Masses Against the Classes’, but the ‘Phonics won on sales. Kelly Jones’ voice was ideal to deliver a fabulously faithful cover of the wistful 1971 Rod Stewart track. However, the easy rhythm of ‘Have a Nice Day’ more snugly fitted my mood at the time.

Mellow male melancholy was big in Britain. Travis followed their 1999 conquests with the sumptuous ‘Sing’. The subtle banjo, chimes and guitar made for a captivating sound as good as anything else they have done. I could say the same for ‘Yellow’ by the then little known band called Coldplay. Their debut album Parachutes sold a million but the floaty ballad was the only single from it that I liked.

The simple video was also a winner, although I don’t understand why it had to be filmed – and lip-synched - at double speed before being played at half-speed. That’s why, as he strolls along Studland Bay beneath the stars, some of boyish Chris Martin’s mannerisms don’t quite look right. Apparently ‘Yellow’ remains a crowd-pleaser in their concerts and I recall seeing their first Glasto appearance on the telly. As usual, I failed miserably to predict their longevity and incredible global superstardom.

David Gray’s White Ladder was another album which crept up through the cracks and took the UK by storm. I considered his top-five single ‘Babylon’ one of the best in 2000, although it was sometimes difficult to ignore his infuriatingly persistent head-shaking as he sang. It didn’t matter whether he was playing guitar or piano, ‘old noddy’ was at it constantly. Never mind. There weren’t any other solo blokes singing their own songs so the Mancunian stood out from the crowd. I’m not sure why he hasn’t maintained that early momentum. It’s not as if there’s no longer any appetite for introspective young men strumming to ballads. Maybe Ed Sheeran et al should be grateful for the trail blazed by David Gray a decade earlier.

It was a fruitful period for Will Smith, too. Shrugging off the Fresh Prince persona, his old-school amiable pop rap, sampling the likes of Sister Sledge (‘Getting Jiggy Wit It’) and Stevie Wonder (‘Wild Wild West’) was always on the radio. And yet the baton was about to be passed to a new brand of hip-hop in the form of Eminem. A successful white rapper? Surely not? And yet in 1999-2001, the former Marshall Mathers III apparently created a sub-genre all of his own.

I didn’t particularly like ‘My Name Is’ but in 2000’s entertaining ’The Real Slim Shady’, Eminem lambasts Will himself, as well as a host of other contemporary celebs. Somehow, his cheeky alter ego seems to get away with it. His biggest hit over here is probably ‘Stan’ and, ‘Neneh Cherry’s ‘Man Child’ excepted, must be my top hip-hop song of all time. The tale of a crazed fan who ends up killing his pregnant girlfriend, blaming Eminem for his actions, gave Mr Mathers full rein to spit out more vitriolic rhymes, this time as part of a character other than himself. Yet would the song have been so memorable without the guitar intro and the airy-fairy verse sung by the woman who in the video played the ill-fated girlfriend of Stan?

Not long afterwards, I discovered her name was Dido. Well, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, to be precise. A year later, she had cornered the international market for female-perspective romantic angst. A few tracks had been used in films and TV dramas a few years earlier and her album No Angel had a curious history. Recorded and released in the USA in 1999, then a year later in Europe, it didn’t exactly set the world afire until her contribution to ‘Stan’ raised her profile several notches.

I don’t think Dido’s voice is anything special but the gentle melodies were consistently exceptional. I came to recognise that ‘bit from Stan’ in ‘Thank You’, a clear example of a song where the chorus fails to lift the verse. It went to number three, ahead of the superior ‘Here With Me’ and my preferred track, ‘Hunter’. As for the album itself, it has since sold a barely credible 21 million copies around the world, 3 million of which came in the UK alone. By the end of 2001, there was no avoiding Ms Armstrong or her magnificent mellow music.

In 2000 Britney Spears followed ‘One More Time’ with two further classy chart-toppers, ‘Oops I Did it Again’ and the grown-up ballad ‘Born to Make You Happy’. Billie became Billie Piper and tried to become the Brit Britney on the forgettable ‘Day and Night’. Her music career seemed to wither once she became Mrs Chris Evans at just eighteen. I wrote her off as just another ephemeral starlet, yet now she boasts a deserved reputation as one of our top TV and stage actresses. Good on her!

The Corrs continued their run of success with the US-friendly timeless light rock of ‘Breathless’ but I preferred the similar ‘Sitting Down Here’ by young Norwegian songstress Lene Marlin. Already big in her own country, this pleasant ditty brought her briefly to my attention but this was her first and last top-tenner in the UK. Meanwhile, a singer I’d thought I’d heard the last of made a stunning return to the charts.

Kylie’s time had surely been and gone, along with the Stock-Aitken-Waterman ‘Hit Factory’ era a decade earlier. Yet, on my 39^th birthday in 2000, Ms Minogue and her gold hotpants were propelled to the summit in ‘Spinning Around’. This was Kylie reinvented for the 21^st century dance generation and I was seriously surprised how well it worked. More hits followed, including the less-than impressive ‘Kids’ with the besotted Robbie Williams, but then the following September, she only goes and releases ‘I Can’t Get You Out of My Head’.

Wow! Where did that come from? And since when had flamboyant Mud guitarist Rob Davies been a songwriter? His robotic bassline, the ‘la-la-la’ hook, Cathy Dennis’ melody and lyrics and that miraculously and maddeningly stable white costume in the video not only made the single an instant classic but have gone down in pop history. I was delighted to find that Kylie was suddenly ‘cool’. Her second career as dance diva was to last longer than her first incarnation as ‘pop princess’ although it wasn’t really my cup of tea. 

For all the success of ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ it was only the third biggest-selling single of 2001. Top of the list was another song I wouldn’t have expected to have loved had it simply been described to me: ‘It Wasn’t Me’. I had never understood a word uttered by Shaggy. With apologies to all Jamaican patois singers, all his lyrics sound like “lubba-lubba-lubba”. And yet, aided by Rikrok’s character narration, his tongue-in-cheek humour and advice to deny everything despite being caught in flagrate delicto with an unnamed lady by saying – intelligibly – “It wasn’t me” made me warm to him. The song had a strange structure, rather repetitive, but I still adore it: a rare dash of humour amidst a welter of rather dour dance and R’n’B.

It wasn’t the only record to make me smile. The Bloodhound Gang’s ‘Bad Touch’ could easily have been just a bad-taste paeon to sex had it not been for a fun electro-beat and creatively descriptive lyrics like

“You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”.

Daft but delightful! The same goes for the charming slice of teen grunge rock ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus. The full-blooded modern punk by the likes of Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot left me cold, but this sweet love story and its powerful chorus was oddly enjoyable. Doesn’t the moment when the girl approaches the boy with those precious Iron Maiden tickets tug at the heartstrings? Or is it just me? At least the tale gives hope to all the geeks and losers that we can actually get the girl.The band must have had fun with it, too, as witnessed by their live interaction with the TOTP audience.

I hadn’t been completely deserted by US dance, though. However, it was hard to single out shining examples in 2000-01. I’d say my favourites were Jakatta’s ‘American Dream’ and Roger Sanchez’s ‘Another Chance’. Both featured a rather monotonous beat and few, if any, discernible lyrics, but then you could say that about any dance anthem. I guess that’s the point. However, both had something different about them. The former had that short chill zone in the middle, while I loved the cool chords in ‘Another Chance’. Sanchez is another of those yawnworthy superstar DJs of the Ibiza club circuit but I’ll let him off for producing this memorable mix of samples.

Around this time, new niche ‘urban’ musical categories were traversing the Atlantic and moving into our mainstream. Grime, Dubstep,…. They all sounded the same to me. However, in those early 2000s, another entered my vocabulary. Garage was no longer just somewhere you kept your car safe; it was a genre popular enough to top the UK chart. Acts like So Solid Crew and their offshoot Oxide and Neutrino didn’t float my boat but Southampton teenager Craig David possessed enough charisma and, more importantly, tunes to keep me listening. It was his voice on The Artful Dodger’s ‘Re-Rewind’ in 1999. Craig David was Oliver Twist, and he was the new kid on the Garage block. In 2000, along came ‘Fill Me In’, another rather boring blend of British R’n’B and hip-hop but I liked the groove in ‘Seven Days’; It was more Blue than Blues. 

‘Walking Away’ was a reasonable ballad, too, and his debut album Born to Do It went multi-platinum. Undoubtedly intelligent, young Craig could occasionally come across as a bit of a knob. However, he didn’t deserve to become such a laughing stock, mercilessly mocked on ‘Bo Selecta!’ by the perennially unfunny Leigh Francis, aka Avid Merrion. Credit to him for making such a successful comeback in 2015-16, proving his position as one of Britain’s most award-laden black acts of all time.

While Craig David was the latest in a long line of talented singer-songwriters, 2001 was year zero in the modern era of artists created by television. Of course, TV talent shows were nothing new, but when Simon Cowell’s new ITV Saturday night show Popstars assembled Hear’Say, the die was cast for a twenty-first century assembly line of stars, so lucrative for SyCo and ITV.

I wouldn’t mind so much if the music was any good. However, they all seemed to be lowest common denominator ballads. ‘Pure and Simple’ was in the ‘Whole Again’ mould but the three girls-two boys line-up was more S Club 7 for the ITV audience. The group didn’t last very long, but Coronation Street’s Kym Marsh, Suzanne Shaw and the classically-trained pianist-turned-model Myleene Klass haven’t done too badly since then.

On the other hand, Hear’Say’s swift success demonstrated the potential of such a light entertainment template. Popstars begat Pop Idol which in turn begat X Factor. Producer Simon Cowell was laughing all the way to the bank but musical creativity threatened to go gurgling down the toilet...