Skip to content
Liam Carey reviews
Part Two
However, if good pop songs aren’t enough anymore, the failure of woeful girl band Lemonessence was all the horribly contrived, uninspired bandwagon-jumping venture ever deserved. The industry, despite its attempts to prove otherwise, still doesn’t have a clue how to tell its arse from its elbow. Without the helping hand of talent show tie-ins and various other entertainment-related gimmicks, its total lack of nous is left cruelly exposed. Devoid of anything resembling a clear vision, it fumbles through by slavishly copying what’s just been successful until the next fad comes along.
Everyone connected with this circus talks big, using arrogance to convince people that their “product” is the best creation ever, completely oblivious to the truth… that, since the Spice Girls resurrected the commercial clout of British music on a global scale, those in charge have overseen pop’s descent into its darkest era since the early 1970s. Great music still abounds, albeit pushed to the fringes like never before, but to the casual chart observer pop music appears to have regressed some 30 years back to a banal combination of hormonally-oriented (pre)teen fodder and patently naff dance records with little else to offer.
Endemic of this new pop order, a revamped Sugababes – shorn of the interesting-but-gawky redhead and augmented by a stunning blonde who was once in Atomic Kitten – changed their image from free-spirited young women with serious songwriting aspirations to a more orthodox outfit perfectly happy to raunch it up. A brace of UK number ones followed, although the Gary Numan-based Freak Like Me at least injected some quite awesome sonic power into the listless chart landscape.
Atomic Kitten themselves towed the line, shamelessly flaunting their FHM-lite sex appeal while parading some of the most insipid music of the year outside of the Pop Idol/Stars/Rivals universe. Even the once virginal S Club (reduced to 6 members) tried it on, but nobody was buying it.
As for S Club Juniors, don’t even go there. Paedophilia Pop became a recognised sub-genre, but thankfully the most obscene example – Strawberry Kisses by Australian totstar Nikki Wells – flopped in this country. A 12-year old girl extolling the virtues of oral sex during menstruation while prancing about to a jaunty sub-Britney backing was surely “One Step Too Far”.
Jennifer Lopez… uh, sorry… J.Lo (sic) reinvented herself as “Jenny From The Block” with a series of urban-ised remixes sprinkled with hefty doses of stereotypical rap, and summed up the seismic shift within pop and pop culture as a whole. Skinny, shiny torsos draped in skimpy outfits sing self-centred, passion-free nursery rhymes celebrating little else than the joys of sex and their own needs and physical prowess (and we’re not just talking about the women). Inhibitions have been lost along with quality control, as the rule of diminishing returns sees the daring innuendo and spliced beats of Janet Jackson, Aaliyah and TLC‘s recent work ground down into a brain-dead assemblage of humping and grunting.
Even more worryingly, traditional pop song structures and formats have been replaced by simplistic, playground-level chants or refrains, and highly unimaginative lyrical couplets. The less said about the laughable artist credits frequenting the release schedules, the better. Nelly & Kelly enjoyed one of the year’s biggest (and most bewildering) hits with the embarrassingly trite Dilemma, and the avalanche of “DJ W with X feat. Y and Z” hit makers continued to stretch both patience and credibility.
Yet, alongside these developments, the pop music of 2002 did have its moments. Darren Hayes, the ex-Savage Garden singer, emerged as a genuine star with his trio of slinky singles and an accomplished album in Spin. Julio Iglesias‘ son Enrique – previously no great shakes in terms of UK appeal, notched up two notable hits with the romantic UK #1 Hero and the spunky follow-up Escape.
That the quality did not extend to the rest of his album was merely to be expected, as neither Robbie Williams, Ronan Keating nor Daniel Bedingfield could muster up a consistent collection of songs on their respective efforts. Come the year’s end, Popstars and Pop Idol reject Darius provided a surprise glimmer of hope for the future with the underrated Rushes single and pop zeitgeist-shunning album Dive In.
If the boys’ struggle in 2002 was undeniable, the girls’ main plus points were the rejuvenated Kylie Minogue (who continued to ride the wave begun by Can’t Get You Out Of My Head with a further trio of Top 10 entries) and the arch cool of Sophie-Ellis Bextor, although the #16 peak for her second single of the year, Music Gets The Best Of Me, might be cause for concern. P!nk achieved a notable crossover with her Missundazstood album and major hit singles Get The Party Started, Just Like A Pill and Don’t Let Me Get Me, which moved away from the clichéd R’n’B-with-attitude stylings of 1999’s Can’t Take Me Home debut to place her as a sort of cross between Alanis Morissette and Eminem.
Westlife marched on relentlessly with one excellent pop single (World Of Our Own), one average self-penned track (Bop Bop Baby) and a return to the constipated balladry of their early releases with the wretched Unbreakable, before ending the year with a Greatest Hits set. Even the post-Steps duo H & Claire eventually came back to what they knew best by the close of 2002, forsaking their initial forays into a more contemporary sound by electing to once again ape golden era Abba with the epic All Out Of Love. There was even a posthumous Steps compilation, The Last Dance, a 2CD mish-mash of unreleased songs, B-sides and remixes. A full-blooded reunion may not even be off limits if the safety-above-all-else syndrome continues to afflict the industry, and once briefly-famous pop stars find the lure of their old life too irresistible.
Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2002. E-mail Liam Carey
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.