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’
When we cast an eye over this week's new release schedule, it struck us that it felt a bit like the good old times again. You remember. The days when a multitude of well known pop acts would release singles on the same day, all hoping to race up to number one in an intense … Continue reading #SongoftheWeek: Boybanders Go Solo Special
It's fair to say this week has been a good one for 90s/00s pop geeks like myself. 20 years after the release of their debut album, all five members of legendary US boyband *NSYNC (JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone and yes, Justin Timberlake) were back together on Monday (30th April) for the unveiling of their … Continue reading #CrazyStupidPlaylist: *NSYNC
With TV shows like The X Factor and The Voice now the most commonplace location from which to launch a pop career via a TV show, it's easy to forget that back in the distant past, there was another way. Such was the case for the band we meet on today's DeLorean hop with the … Continue reading #BlastfromthePast: North and South
ARTIST: Blue SONG: Lonely This Christmas ALBUM: Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word (2002, Innocent/Virgin) Originally recorded for one of the first ever BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge sessions all the way back at the start of their career in 2001, Antony, Duncan, Lee and Simon gave a soulful, stripped back take on Mud's … Continue reading Christmas Song Advent Calendar 2017: Day 15
So. You may remember last week I launched a World Cup of Girl Groups - which the Spice Girls comprehensively won after over a thousand votes were cast - in honour of Richard Osman's brilliant new book The World Cup of Everything. Such was the success of this, that we felt it only fair the boybands got … Continue reading World Cup of Boybands
Alex's Blog (still Crazy, still Stupid)... 