Hello and welcome to this week's Pop Essays, your weekly series where we bring new light to those forgotten pop gems of years gone by. This week: anyone fancy a British invasion of America? Then read on... Artist: BBMak Song: Back Here Release Date: 16/08/1999 (Original) / 12/02/2001 (Reissue) Writers: Christian Burns / Mark Barry … Continue reading Pop Essays #8: BBMak, ‘Back Here’
Firstly a happy new year to you all, albeit one that seems to be starting suspiciously just as the last one did globally speaking. But no matter, I'm a firm believer, in the words of D:Ream, that things can only get better. Especially as today, I write both my first blog post of 2021 and … Continue reading Pop Essays #1: Ultra, ‘Rescue Me’
15th November 2010. That was the last time, almost 10 years to the day, that McFly last released a full studio album. Said album - Above the Noise - is probably still up there with Spice Girls' Forever and The Human League's Crash as a potentially brilliant but wonkily executed tap into an unexpected territory … Continue reading #CrazyStupidAlbum: McFly (@mcflymusic) – ‘Young Dumb Thrills’
It's Thursday, and midday, and time once again for another revisitation of another poptastic nugget of the UK singles chart from Y2K with The Story of Pop: 2000. This week: one of the 00s biggest boybands cover an 80s classic and claim their first chart topper... Founded by the same management team behind Steps, A1 … Continue reading The Story of Pop: 2000 (Chapter 36)
Needing a trip back to a time when the UK singles chart was chock-a-block with pop and a new number one every week? Then you have come to the right place, for you're just in time for this week's edition of The Story of Pop: 2000, our week-by-week retelling of this altogether crazy time for … Continue reading The Story of Pop: 2000 (Chapter 30)
It's funny how much has changed in ten years. Not least of all The X Factor. Once the cornerstone and an unmissable powerhouse of Saturday night entertainment on ITV, pulling in 16m viewers at its peak, it actually once did what it said on the tin and produced stars. Nowadays, it's a pitiful and irrelevant … Continue reading JLS: a retrospective piece on the 10th anniversary of their debut album
Offering up the sights and sounds from the turn of the Millennium hit parade, this is The Story of Pop: 1999. And ladies, you may want to steady yourselves, for this week we have one of the world's biggest boybands of all time... It's only when I come to write a new one of these … Continue reading The Story of Pop: 1999 (Chapter 19)
Time for that part of the week where we bring you the movers and shakers from the year that bought us Y2K bug fever, a solar eclipse and a whole lot of mad musical goings on - it's The Story Of Pop: 1999. This week - another chart topper, and a long overdue one for … Continue reading The Story of Pop: 1999 (Chapter 3)
On the eve of their 30th anniversary since formation, I have to say it. Take That are the best boyband ever. Don't agree with me? It's OK, BTS and Phixx fans the land over. I can understand your protestations you're hurling from behind your screens right now. But I must tell you categorically that you … Continue reading Take That are the best boyband ever. Discuss.
ARTIST: Backstreet Boys SONG: Chances SO ALEX, WHY IS THIS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK? Ask us to compile a list of our all time favourite boybands, and it's safe to say the US titans of the genre, Backstreet Boys, figure highly on our list. Just listing their previous hits alone - "I Want It … Continue reading #SongoftheWeek: Backstreet Boys – ‘Chances’
