2002-2003 - Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity

As the chart single suffered a near-catastrophic collapse – sales plunged by 32% between 2002 and 2003 – ITV inflicted upon the nation the twin horrors of Pop Idol and Popstars – the Rivals. Naturally I watched neither but it was impossible to ignore them. TV promos, poster campaigns, tabloid headlines, … When you commute to work across London there was simply no escape.

At the start of 2002, posh boy Will Young was up against spiky-haired teenager Gareth Gates for the chance to win Pop Idol. According to Wikipedia, Will’s supporters included Noel Gallagher, while Gareth could count on Francis Rossi. Really?! What about me? Well, given that I had walked right past both protagonists on my way into Broadcasting House without recognising them, I could hardly claim sufficient knowledge to pledge allegiance to either. History records that Will emerged victorious in a massive public vote. His version of an old Westlife track ‘Evergreen’, doubled with ‘Anything is Possible’, promptly sold a million in a week. Presumably nobody else bought anything.

The runner-up Gareth didn’t exactly fade from the public eye. He followed Young’s opener with another sure-fire winner ‘Unchained Melody’ and the two acts ended up spending fourteen weeks at number one between them, including an EP duet in the autumn. By this time, even I was in a position to offer an informed opinion. Will, like me, is a graduate of Exeter University, so on that basis alone, he had the edge. Musically, both had rather tame, almost feminine voices a la Gately, but this seemed to represent the changing taste of the record-buying public. A taste, it’s fair to say, I didn’t share. It’s not that all the songs were bad, just mind-numbingly vanilla. Oh, for a double-scoop of banana and lemon sorbet! To his credit, however, Will Young’s 2003 effort ‘Leave Right Now’ was at the very least mint choc chip. The brilliantly-choreographed, if slightly disturbing, single-shot video was particularly memorable.

Even the losers got in on the act. Third-placer Darius Danesh also went to number one with the pleasant ’Colour Blind’ while the second ‘Pop Stars’ formation, Liberty X, hit the top briefly with ‘A Little Bit More’. At least this had something more seductive, and is one of the few so-called ‘reality TV’ songs which remains listenable.

The 2002 Christmas number one was ‘Sound of the Underground’ by the next Cowell/ITV victorious combo Girls Aloud. Not a typical bland ballad but I still wish it had never been allowed overground. It also set the Spice Girls wannabes on the road to massive, but unfathomable success throughout the decade.

They were deposed by a rarity: a song not only performed by a TV talent show winner but also written by him! The Beeb, recognising the need to get involved with the genre, had launched their Fame Academy series. The eventual winner was young Scot David Sneddon. I recall one Thursday afternoon hearing umpteen repetitions of his piano-led ‘Stop Living the Lie’ during the course of a Personal Effectiveness training course deep in the bowels of Television Centre. It sounded as if Sneddon was rehearsing assiduously for a TOTP performance. The song was pleasant enough, but on constant hearing it was annoyingly intrusive. As for the course, my personal category was identified as ‘CI’: methodical, perfectionist, team player and slow decision-maker. I didn’t need a test to tell me that. As for Mr Sneddon, he quickly stopped living the life. Having defeated more than 30,000 fame-hungry hopefuls, he decided that fame wasn’t for him and quit performing in favour of being a professional songwriter. Good luck to him. 

I occasionally had to pop into Television Centre for other reasons. When I did, I tended to venture to, I think, the second floor and pop into the studio viewing galleries. You never knew what rehearsal or recording might be in progress. A Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon diversion was sometimes rewarded with a few minutes watching TOTP. Often there was nothing happening at all but I do remember one week witnessing a performance by the engaging Jamelia of her new hit ‘Superstar’; it may well have been this one. I was quite impressed by her personality on the studio floor, too, and not just her legs.

Talking of legs, I’d be lying if I denied noticing the shapely limbs of Beyonce. Let’s be honest, viewers of the video for ‘Crazy in Love’ were expected to notice. Blimey! Where did she come from? Well, Destiny’s Child. Obviously. But I hadn’t paid much attention to them. Beyonce wasn’t even the first of that R’n’B trio to have a UK Number one. That prize had been claimed by Kelly Rowland (‘Dilemma’). 

In the meantime, a temporary gap in the British girl group market was amply filled by The Sugababes. With a clear nod to The Spice Girls (sugar…spice…), the name was truly dreadful, but in my humble opinion, their music was far from it. They had a so-so start but, by 2002, Heidi Range had joined Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena and their more varied approach to pop was paying dividends. It wasn’t that I really loved any of their singles but, for consistent high quality, they were hard to beat. Great ballads like ‘Stronger’ and ‘Too Into You’ were mixed with chart-topping fare like ‘Hole in the Head’ and ‘Round Round’. Nevertheless, my fave was, by the narrowest of margins, ‘Freak Like Me’. Built around that artfully atmospheric synth lick from ‘Are Friends Electric?’ it’s a sultry sexy song that grabs you by any part of the body you can imagine, including the ears. Unlike most of their songs, the band members weren’t amongst the many writing credits but it knocked most of the other 2002 number ones into freaking cocked hats.

For all their excellence on CD, I have it on good authority, supported by the evidence of any number of YouTube recordings, that the Sugababes were terrible live. Keisha always looks so bored. Nevertheless, more than a decade later, ignoring the hilarious frequency of line-up changes (the latest one is all-male – I jest!), they remain one of the most successful girl groups in UK history.

There was a good deal more charisma, sex appeal and eye-popping hip action going on in one second of any performance by Shakira than anything the ‘Babes or even Beyonce could manage. The Colombian queen of Latin rhythm blew me away on ‘Whenever Wherever’. The inclusion of Andean pipes and charanga gave the record a rare exoticism, Shakira’s voice and movement provided the pure eroticism. Deprived of a number one by Will Young’s debut, it took her from being a mere superstar of the Spanish-speaking world to a global icon. Intelligent, creative, philanthropic and apparently a jolly nice woman as well, Shakira must be one of the few women who could marry a Barcelona and Spain footballer (Gerard Pique) and be more famous than he is. I don’t hear much of her new music these days but, as arguably the best record of 2002, ‘Whenever Wherever’ must be one of the most joyfully infectious three-and-a-bit minutes of dance-pop ever made.

Ex-Spice Girl Emma had dropped the Bunton as her material also embraced her inner Latina. Clearly keen to shed her cute and fluffy ‘Baby’ image, all her videos seemed hell-bent on showing as much thigh and cleavage as possible but the music was unflinchingly carefree pop with a Sixties vibe. Before she dared to cover ‘Down Town’ Emma enjoyed herself with a Bunton bossanova in ‘Maybe’. I quite enjoyed it, too, probably the last of the listenable post-Spice solo singles from any of the quintet.

However, if it’s genuine Latin beat you wanted, Las Ketchup were the real deal. From Andalusia, the family group’s ‘Asereje’ was simultaneously annoying and adorable. I do find it embarrassing that it had to be re-branded ‘The Ketchup Song’ for the UK market. There were no references in the lyrics to ketchup or indeed any other condiment, so why the crass change? When I hear it, I am transported back to the very un-Latin environment of Thailand during the water-throwing carnival of Chiang Mai’s Songkran the following April. I have a clear recollection of its toe-tapping tune emanating from either a ‘pick-up’ or café just before I was drenched by a bunch of bucket-wielding Aussies who felt I was fair game. As it happened, everyone was fair game during the three-day New Year festival. At least it was only water, and not ketchup…

Hip-hop duo Outkast were very much 'in'. I was never an aficionado then, in October 2003, along came ‘Hey Ya!’ which defied any logic when it came to explaining why I liked it, or indeed any attempts at categorisation. Even now I feel compelled by some primeval urge to join in with the ‘clap-clap’ and ‘Hey Ya’ chorus. Can’t help it. Sorry! 

Also in the process of broadening their hip-hop horizons were The Black Eyed Peas. I’d certainly never heard of them until they released the lament for the apparent absence of good feeling and social justice, ‘Where is the Love?’ Although selling barely 600,000 copies in 2003, it was the year’s best-seller here and topped the charts for six weeks in September and October. Even I could pick out the heartfelt rap lyrics of will.i.am et al, and the sentiment struck a chord with many others, too. That it was a hip-hop-pop crossover was important; it wouldn’t have had the same impact globally had it been sung by will.r.young!

Where is the Love? An apt question to ask, given the final collapse of my relationship with Kim. The move from my flat to our larger house in Atridge Chase in February 2002 had merely postponed the inevitable. The first post-split show I went to on my own was a concert at the Palladium on Sunday 14^th December by one of my favourite bands Saint Etienne. I mentioned this in the 1993 section, but given my emotional state, this one-off gig ten years later has a special status in my musical life. Scheduled just before Christmas there was a real party atmosphere which I definitely craved at the time. The performance of all their hits culminated in 'Join Our Club' and the seasonal ‘I Was Born on Christmas Day’. Perfect.

Another track which stirred the by now dormant dance divo in me was ‘Move Your Feet’ by Danish duo Junior Senior. It wasn’t particularly clever. In fact, it was naively repetitively with a sequence of three distinct sections repeated throughout the three minutes. Yet it somehow came together. I saw them on various TV shows, always singing, if not playing, live, and they always succeeded in creating a vibe which made you smile as well as move your feet.

I’m not 100% certain but I think I saw them on the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage in 2003. That same weekend I was also introduced by two other bands hitherto beyond my ken. Although also from Scandinavia, Royksopp were a completely different kettle of herring, being distinctly electronic. Once you survive the onslaught of all those random electronic bursts at the start, ‘Eple’ (Norwegian for apple, apparently) settles into a wonderful groove of synths, drum machine and bass. Even in the rolling meadows of Somerset, it somehow works. On the back of ‘Eple' I’ve sought out other tracks, and it’s a shame that no others made the UK Top 20. They were just born twenty years too late. The Glasto coverage also introduced me to the London acoustic duo, Turin Brakes. I love their alt-folk harmonies on ‘Painkiller’ which reached number five. They shifted a fair few albums, sold out their local Brixton Academy, supported David Gray amongst others, but have never quite achieved headliner status.

One of the most successful bands of this period was Busted. Posh, tall Charlie, spiky James and annoyingly perma-gurning Matt were ever-present, their first eight singles all making the top three inside two years. I quickly tired of their well-practised knees-together leaps while thrashing guitars, but the songs were actually quite listenable. The likes of Good Charlotte and Blink-182 were too heavy for me, but the Essex boys knew how to write a tune which could shine from beneath the rock guitar.

‘What I Go to School For’ was an entertaining debut, ‘Sleeping with the Light On’ and ‘3am’ were nicely-crafted ballads but their trip back to the future for ‘Year 3000’ is my favourite. The lyrics were throwaway nonsense but I was amused by their tongue-in-cheek reference to their rivals in the lines:-

“He took me to the future in the flux thing
And I saw everything
Boy bands, and another one, and another one
……And another one”

The second album was more grown-up but I didn’t like the singles as much. Shows how mature I was! Charlie fancied himself as a hard rocker and split up the band at their peak. The 17 year-old who had been deprived by the record label of a place in the line-up had the last laugh. Tom Fletcher – for it was he - proceeded to lead Busted’s natural progeny McFly to even greater success in the next few years. At least there was a satisfying conclusion to the story of both bands when a decade later they joined forces to tour and record briefly as McBusted. 

American rock was entering a purple patch, too. Actually, REM’s Michael Stipe was in a blue patch. The band seemed to be on our screens quite a lot around that time, and the lead singer always seemed to sport across his eyes a band of blue as a kind of painted bandana. Why? Only he will know. But REM were back on form with songs like ‘Bad Day’ and I am prepared to forgive Stipe any of his weird idiosyncrasies.

REM were being challenged as top international rock combo by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They weren’t new kids on the block either but I hadn’t really appreciated their music prior to the release of ‘Zephyr Song’ and ‘By the Way’. Canadians Nickelback were more old-school while The White Stripes, on the other hand, did offer something new. Amidst the media debate over whether Jack and Meg White were married or siblings (actually the former, and he took her surname), their brand of raw bluesy rock was earning rave reviews. Jack’s earthy voice had echoes of Jack Bruce or Robert Plant, while his guitar playing also boasted a dramatic simplicity, amply backed by Meg’s no-nonsense drums. It was all wrapped up in a consistent production of red, black and white. So far, so tedious. However, when I first heard the bass intro for ‘Seven Nation Army’, I recognised something better than most. The video of ever-morphing triangles genuinely made me feel physically sick (!) but it was a really exciting record to listen to. And, of course, the riff lives on in football grounds, with the cries of ‘Oh, Santi Cazorla’ and variations thereof.

Another duo who made an even bigger splash was TaTu. It wasn’t that they were the first Russians to reach number one in the UK. Instead, the teenage girls Yuliya Volkova and Len Katina aroused the typical middle-class, low-intelligence indignation of the Daily Mail and Sun by daring to kiss each other in the dramatic video of ‘All the Things She Said’. Of course, the whole lesbian schoolgirl controversy (both were decidedly heterosexual) was all a manipulative marketing ploy, which worked spectacularly well. Cutting through that crap, the record itself – produced by our own Trevor Horn - was brilliant, and topped charts around the world. Russia cashed in on TaTu’s European popularity by having them sing their Eurovision entry a few months later. Unusually for this era, I actually watched the BBC broadcast that year and, must confess that, while coming third, their live performance in Riga sounded terrible. They fared rather better than the UK entry. Jemini’s ‘Cry Baby’ which utterly deserved the dubious achievement of our first ever ‘nul points’ total. 

Britain did have some pleasant pop-rock singles, of course. Travis were back on form with ‘Reoffender’ and I even liked Mark Owen’s mature solo single, ‘Four-Minute Warning’. Top DJ/producer Paul Oakenfold joined the gang of Ibiza’s finest releasing their own albums, and his 2002 rap-assisted ‘Starry-Eyed Surprise’ possessed a super summer vibe. Admittedly, it owed much to a sample of the gentle guitar riff from Harry Nilsson’s ‘Ev’rybody’s Talkin’ that I always loved. So beloved of Terry Wogan, Katie Melua took Mike Batt’s saccharine ballad ‘Closest Thing to Crazy’ into the top ten at Christmas. I just adored her dark curls.

There were few love songs in the entire decade which could match the power of Dido’s ‘White Flag’. Her second album Life For Rent beat even No Angel by selling more than 2 million in one calendar year, and this was the stunning lead single. It followed the same successful formula of sweet, breathy vocals, perfect multi-layered production and memorable melody, and became Dido’s highest-placed single. It took the Black Eyed Peas to keep this classic off the top spot but ‘White Flag’ was certainly one of my top two records of 2003. 

Around this time, ‘Girl Power’ seemed to be replaced by ‘Girrrl Power,’ the ‘I’ being optional! Duplicated ‘r’s appeared for no logical reason, too. Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirrty’ is a case in point. Avril Lavigne did at least adhere to the English language conventions in her excellent debut, ‘Complicated’. However, she lost my respect when her single ‘Sk8er Boi’ came out. Text spelling was now in the mainstream and the world would never be the same again. Pink was the epitome of the new brand of ballsy women with attitude but I had yet to hear any music by her which appealed.

This was a relatively fallow period for Britney Spears but her ‘ex’ and fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumnus, Justin Timberlake happily filled the gap. His music wasn’t always my brew but if they had an X Factor competition in 2003, JT would win. With a further apprenticeship in N-SYNC behind him he had it all: good looks, a decent voice, a modicum of acting talent and dance moves that would give Wacko Jacko a run for his money. For all his upbeat singles like ‘Rock Your Body’, it’s the sad R’n’B slowie ‘Cry Me A River’ – based on his Britney break-up - which made the biggest impression on me then, and still has the ability to haunt.

The whole R’n’B genre was spreading its tentacles far and wide, even clasping Eminem to its burgeoning bosom. In December 2002, he topped the chart with another high-quality single, ‘Lose Yourself’. Taken from the soundtrack to his Eight Mile movie, in which Em had the tough task of portraying a young rapper trying to make his way in a tough world, it was a typically emotional monologue topped and tailed by tinkly piano. His more humorous ‘WIthout Me’ was the bigger hit here, but ‘Lose Yourself’ is for me up there with the best. Who can argue with the philosophical opening lines?

“Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

Yo”

Yo, indeed. 

Marshall Bruce Mathers III was a polar opposite to that of Curtis James Jackson III. They had quite a bit in common: apart from both being ‘Third’s, they were Americans, successful rappers with backing posses. Yet they were so different in looks. Eminem’s skinny white boy was a million miles from 50 Cent’s mean, moody, muscular image. ‘Fiddy Cent’ wore his drug-dealing past and bullet scars like badges of pride. To me he just looked a right dumb plank of wood, albeit with biceps bigger than my chest. He did alright for himself, but proved incapable of holding on to his huge fortune. Back to half a dollar then….

While 50 Cent’s over-serious, precious lady’s man shtick made me laugh, another star was making a career out of a white comic character who did his utmost not just to imitate his black role models but to be black. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G started life on Channel 4’s Eleven O’Clock Show, appearing in hilarious short films with unsuspecting real people. It was only a matter of time before the character moved into Da Movies and the music charts. I didn’t hear ‘Me Julie’ much on the radio, despite it reaching number two. Not surprising given the frequent references to knobbin’ and shaggin’. “Me Julie, I love you from my head down to my goolies” was one of the cleaner lines.

At least he gave me something to laugh at, The same went for a new British band by the name of The Darkness. Were they for real?! How did Justin Hawkins arrive at their musical mission? Did they, like me on many occasions at the Beeb, have an awayday brainstorm to identify gaps in the market? Seventies-style heavy rock?  Tick. Sparkly catsuits as in Queen? Tick. Choruses delivered in funny falsetto? Tick. Referencing their background in the mean streets of Suffolk? Tick! All they needed to do was write a few decent tunes. I still can’t believe the public bought into it.

Apparently they even had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal! I really didn’t like ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’, and was appalled at the prospect of their ‘Christmas Time single topping the chart. It didn’t. Instead of pseudo-glam rock, the festive number one slot unexpectedly went to the glum rock of Michael Andrews and Gary Jules’ cover of ‘Mad World’. Yet The Darkness sold well over a million copies of their debut album Permission to Land. Another album followed, then the band imploded under Hawkins’ alleged abuse of alcohol and cocaine. Their story had all the ingredients of a spoof rockumentary a la Spinal Tap. Joke music, joke image, joke descent into rehab. All that was missing was an exploding drummer and a undersized Stonehenge at the Brits. I’m sorry but, even in 2018, I am still waiting for the true tale to emerge.