Before first Simon Cowell and then the Internet meant anyone could be a star, there was a period when stars needed to be moulded and sculpted. In the sixties we had The Beatles and The Monkees; in the seventies there was Gary Glitter and Bay City Rollers. In 1988, a magazine set up to promote popstars launched its own awards show.
Youtube is a repository of old broadcasts of the shows and I parked myself in front of them for a few days and lapped up kid-targeted pop music from the 1990s. It was the period between the final Stock Aitken and Waterman single release in 1994 and the first act to have won a show with Simon Cowell involved in the production.
Teen-targeted pop has existed since the term ‘teen-ager’ was invented. We’ve gone from the Fab Four to the Bangtan Seven. BTS are seven Koreans who sing and dance and also quote philosophy. Girl groups, meanwhile, have gone on a journey from Motown conveyor belt to the surprisingly durable Little Mix, who were put together from four solo entrants in 2011. Two of them are now mothers and are moving to a stage in their lives which is incompatible with endless arena tours.
In my list of bands who made teen-targeted pop, I draw on Smash Hits magazine and radio playlists of the time, but I must discount the following acts in order to fit in as many great unheralded acts as possible.
- The stable of SAW/PWL acts: Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Sonia, Mel & Kim, Rick Astley, Sybil, Scooch and of course Steps. Stock-Aitken-Waterman is a genre of its own
- The Spice Girls and S Club 7 were both managed by Simon Fuller who also came up with the Idol concept. In any case, the latter had an unfair advantage as the various TV series (Miami 7, LA 7) were plastered over kids’ TV. S Club Juniors were also on TV.
- Hear’Say, Liberty X, Girls Aloud, Phixx and One True Voice all starred on Popstars are were effectively A&R-ed on TV; ie we saw the usually hidden stage of putting a band together
- Ditto Pop Idol winners and runners-up: Darius, Gareth Gates, Will Young, Michelle McManus and of course Rik Waller
- Ditto Fame Academy contestants: David Sneddon, Alex Parks, Ainslie Henderson, Lemar, Sinead Quinn
- Ditto soap stars who turned into popstars: Martine McCutcheon and Adam Rickitt (respectively stars of Eastenders and Coronation Street) both fall foul of this rule, as do Robson & Jerome, who were managed by Simon Cowell.
- So were Five, who released a 2022 album as a three-piece but still under the name Five. There’s a contemporary dance remix of Keep On Movin to pique your interest.
- Mero, a duo from Scotland, and girl band Girl Thing were both also Cowell projects.
- Zig n Zag were also A&r’ed by Simon Cowell and appeared on The Big Breakfast, so they’re not on the list. Nor, alas, are Cowell band Ultimate Kaos, whose lead singer was nine and who has since starred in the Michael Jackson jukebox musical show Thriller Live.
- Last of all, PJ & Duncan were on Byker Grove and became Ant & Dec.
One important codicil: Louis Walsh’s stable of artists, for whom Cowell worked behind the scenes, are exempt, because it wasn’t Cowell controlling their career.
Second codicil: When a member of a band goes solo, (s)he will be part of his/her band’s entry.
So let’s go back back BACK to the time when floppy fringes and ambiguous sexuality were the order of the day. It’s the Smash Hits Pop Top 40, full of groups which dominated the late 1990s and early 2000s!! In true Radio 1 Official Chart style, I’ll go from 40 down to 1, but before I do, here are some honourable mentions who sit just outside the Top 40 but were all over the charts in the Smash Hits Era: Bellefire, Tina Cousins, Femail, Hepburn, Charlotte Church, MN8, Worlds Apart and little Justin.
You can hear every track in full in this Spotify playlist.
40 Lolly – Viva La Radio. Lolly is a lady called Anna Kumble from Birmingham whose father was born in India. Her cover of Mickey was excellent but the album was, even for a child, a bit of hard work. Her debut single, pushed by Smash Hits magazine, was a hymn to DJs and the radio, with the most direct chorus shouting ‘Viva, Viva, Viva La Radio’. It was the first of five top 20 hits. In 2018 she put out her first single since 2000 called Stay Young and Beautiful; in the interim she has presented TV shows and been a fixture of pantomime. She is now a mum of two.
39 V – Hip to Hip. Another boyband in the traditional New Kids on the Block sense, V opened up for Busted in 2004 with songs like Blood, Sweat and Tears and the excellent Hip to Hip (‘ch-cheek to cheek). Ballad You Stood Up was the final single, released after vocalist Jack was sacked. V’s album flopped and they split in 2005. One of the band became a manager, another became MC at McFly’s live shows and one became a drummer in indie band Little Comets. The other two were photographers and Kevin was the boyfriend of Mark from Westlife in the 2000s.
38 Fierce – Dayz Like That. In 2000 there was a big push for girl bands in the mould of Destiny’s Child. The album Right Here Right Now gave Fierce four hits: the excellent title track, the terrific Dayz Like That (Dayz!!!!) and the ballad So Long, which reminds me of a young En Vogue. They got into the top three with Sweet Love 2K, a garage-pop mix of the Anita Baker classic. They toured with Another Level and Whitney Houston, which means they must have a great set of anecdotes. Member Aisha Peters is now a vocal coach and singer of her own stuff, who put out an EP in 2018. Sabrina Weathers boasts of ‘hanging out with the Sultan of Brunei’ on her online acting CV.
37 Kavana – Will You Wait For Me. Perfect for the pages of a magazine aimed at 11-year-olds, Kavana was 99% good looks and 1% good voice. This song is streets ahead via his Spotify streams and is painfully of its time: ‘time will pass me by…but I know I’ll make it through if you wait for me…in heaven’ is the chorus, sung like a well-trained pop starlet. It’s as if I’ll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy has been watered down, but the sentiment is still strong and I am sure it helped some listeners at the time, even though it only charted at number 29.
36 BBMak – Back Here. This song, co-written with the great Phil Thornally (who had a worldwide hit with Torn by Natalie Imbruglia) actually topped the US Adult Contemporary chart in 2000. That’s a radio station format that may be called Now That’s What I Call Mum. It’s so gentle and alluring with its MOR guitars and lyric about not being able to let go and being ‘so wrong’.
35 D-Side – Invisible. Managed by the same lady who guided other acts in this Top 40 to success, such as Let Loose and B*Witched, six became four became five in a tough beginning for this Irish band who opened for both Blue and Westlife. This song, co-written by Desmond ‘Livin La Vida Loca’ Child, was also a hit for American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken, and would not get out of the writers room today: ‘If I was invisible, I could watch you in your room’ was a product of its time.
34 Point Break – Stand Tough. A trio featuring two contemporaries of Ant & Dec who acted in Byker Grove, I loved their album Apocadelic which featured Stand Tough, a top 10 hit with a punchy chorus and a pop-rock arrangement with a brooding acoustic guitar intro. Linkin Park may have been taking notes.
33 EYC – The Way You Work It. As with Backstreet Boys, this trio were more successful in the UK than in the USA. Two of them were dancers who boogied behind New Kids on the Block. Their debut album Express Yourself Clearly brought them five Top 40 hits in the hiphop-adjacent pop style that Take That started their career doing. Indeed, tracks had space for dance breaks which would have made them an energetic live act.
32 Kele Le Roc – My Love. East London girl Kele had two big hits of her own but is probably best known for singing the vocals on Romeo, the great Basement Jaxx tune with the Bollywood-themed video. Fun fact: My Love was co-written by Robbie Nevil, who recorded the great freestyle pop tune C’est La Vie.
31 Let Loose – Crazy For You. There’s nothing that they can do, caught by the look in a lady’s eyes. The euphoric Crazy For You was one of the many songs to be held off the top spot by Love Is All Around in its 15-week stay at number one.
30 Samantha Mumba – Gotta Tell You. Samantha was an Irish Britney who sang pop songs written by Swedes, even replicating how Britney sang the word ‘me’ as ‘may’. She also recorded Divine’s US number one hit Lately. Samantha returned to prominence when she danced on ice in 2008. One of the women from How Clean Is Your House outlasted her, but did Aggie ever release a certified bop in 2000?!
29 Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten. Daniel’s sister had some huge American hits including the title track of her album Unwritten, which was the theme to an MTV reality show I didn’t watch. ‘Live your life with arms wide open/ Today is where your book begins’ is basically the American Deam. Fun fact: the song was co-written with New Radicals songwriter Danielle Brisebois.
28 Bad Boys Inc – Don’t Talk About Love. Superproducer Ian Levine formed his own version of Take That/Boyzone/New Kids on the Block in 1993. Their debut album included six Top 40 hits including their funky debut Don’t Talk About Love. The week it hit number 19 in August 1993, the only other manufactured pop act in the Top 20 were Take That, whose song Pray had just hit number one. Songs by Madonna, Billy Joel and UB40 make up a weird Top 20 topped by Queen’s late singer Freddie Mercury. No wonder the British music industry pivoted to tweens in 1994.
27 Precious – Say It Again. A fine Eurovision entry which came fifth and includes a patented Eurovision key change (up a step). It was written by Paul Varney, a guy signed up as a staff songwriter by Simon Cowell who also had a hit cover as a performer with a version of Instant Replay as Yell! Precious, meanwhile, have nothing to do with Cowell. They included Jenny Frost, who replaced Kerry Katona in Atomic Kitten after her first band’s album stiffed.
26 Amy Studt – Misfit. She has now disowned her pop persona but back at the turn of the century Amy had success as a sort of Charli XCX figure who was ‘just a little girl’. Not many popstars aimed at tweens and teens could get ‘superficial’ into a chorus but Amy did. Fun fact: Karen Poole, who with sister Shelley recorded as Alisha’s Attic, co-wrote this slice of pop magic which would fit snugly alongside Avril Lavigne’s early work in a Back to the 2000s playlist.
25 Shola Ama – You’re The One I Love. Spotted singing on an underground platform, Shola signed a deal at 16 and was all over the radio with her cover of You Might Need Somebody. Possessing a smooth voice with lots of character, as evidenced on the funky opening track to her debut album Much Love, Shola deserved a longer career.
24 Alisha’s Attic – The Incidentals. Aha, it’s Karen Poole’s band! The sisters’ dad was Brian Poole, a successful singer in the 1960s, so they had a way in, but you need good songs and Alisha’s Attic had plenty. I Am I Feel was their first big hit but this one, full of odd chords and spoke-sung lyrics, remains brilliant.
23 Honeyz – End of the Line. Written by Paul Begaud, who wrote the theme song for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, this breakup song is very of its time with a triple-time swaying beat and a lightly feminist verse (‘I deserve some damn respect’). I don’t know why Little Mix didn’t think to cover it, since it is a girl band classic.
22 Jamelia – Superstar. Another song which was all over Heart 106.2 at the time, it was originally a number one in Denmark for their local popstar Christine Milton. The UK version uses the same backing track but replaces Christine’s vocals with those of Brummie singer Jamelia who feels ‘some connection to the things you do’ but doesn’t know what attracts her to the guy. Interestingly, some of the lyrics are rewritten: the chorus is changed up from the original’s ‘some kind of choreographer’ to ‘all eyes on you no matter where you are’; a lyric in the second verse removes a line about a ‘cross fader’ to replace it with ‘bad boys on their best behaviour’.
21 Blazin Squad – Love on the Line. This ten-piece rapping boyband turned the idea of So Solid Crew into something more marketable. A song about phone sex which is 99% Freak Me by Another Level, the lyric ‘Call me baby, we can get hot’ is not a line to be sung by pre-pubescent girls. Still, the song has silky groove and is a fine third effort following their number one cover of Tha Crossroads and a tune called Flip Reverse, which is filth.
20 N-Tyce – Hey DJ! (Play That Song). This London quartet had four top 20 hits starting with this one. It’s nothing TLC and All Saints didn’t already do, and they stand as an example of what happens when record labels flood the market with the same product. The album even had interludes like US r’n’b albums, but fans saved their money and bought the real thing, not the copycat.
19 Damage – So What If I. Best known for one of their members marrying Baby Spice, Damage were the JLS of their day. They had 11 hits, four of them Top 10, including a cover of the Eric Clapton ballad Wonderful Tonight. So What If I was written by Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, who have been responsible for much of post-Smash Hits era pop as well as a song very high up in this chart, which suits its title.
18 911 – Party People…Friday Night. Lee, Spike and Jimmy were another trio of hot stuff perfect for A3 posters on tweenage walls. Inoffensive, nice of voice and hair, 911 took Dr Hook’s A Little Bit More (‘when you think I’ve loved you all I can, I’m gonna love you a little bit more’) to number one, though their cover of Private Number is far better. Like Bad Boys Inc, Boyzone and Take That, two of the band were dancers and indeed they recruited Boyzone’s early manager to shape their career. Turned down by all and sundry, 911 formed their own imprint and eventually signed to Virgin Records, who laughed all the way to the bank. Fun fact: Party People…Friday Night, which fits in nicely on a playlist next to the music of S Club 7, was written with Eliot Kennedy, whose most-loved composition is When You’re Gone and who wrote a musical with Gary Barlow.
17 Mis-Teeq – Scandalous. Best known for giving the world Alesha Dixon, Mis-Teeq brought the club sound to the pop charts with brilliant anthems like this one. It’s a sex jam (‘Just get it up…a sone-night stand just ain’t enough’) driven by an air-siren hook and production from renowned duo Stargate. What a title for a song about the love the girls have for a tattooed ‘roughneck’ who gets Alesha ‘trembling like a little baby girl’.
16 Busted – Year 3000. Having exhausted every permutation of sexy boy/girl dancing and singing, someone had a bright idea to add guitars to the mix. Thus Busted were born, originally a quartet but marketed as a trio after Tom Fletcher’s face didn’t fit. Tom was in the room for this fun song where ‘triple-breasted women swim around town totally naked’; the Jonas Brothers version changed this line so American missed out on the image! Still their finest moment, two of the band (James and Charlie) are solo musicians while Matt Willis, who won I’m A Celebrity in 2006, is using his theatre school training on the UK tour of the musical Waitress.
15 Billie – Honey to the Bee. Talking of theatrical stars, is there a career as brilliant as Billie Piper’s? Bursting into people’s lives at 15, she had a string of hits in the late 1990s including this sweet piece of pop music. Since her pop career, she has acted onstage and on screen, having been recruited for the Russell T Davies reboot of Doctor Who and writing her own TV drama I Hate Suzie. In the midst of that, she married and divorced Chris Evans and was married to Laurence Fox, who fathered her kids. A campaign by Radio 1 breakfast host Chris Moyles to get Honey to the Bee back into the charts worked and it found a new audience in 2007 when recurrent downloads (ie those of tracks not physically available in shops) could enter the Top 40.
14 Louise – 2 Faced. The white member of Eternal, unsurprisingly, was the first to launch a solo career. Though she was not part of the band when the group had a number one in 1997, 12 chart hits including the excellent 2 Faced (‘first you recognise me, then you criticise me…Stop your bitching!’) and a marriage to brilliant footballer Jamie Redknapp more than make up for it. Smash Hits wasn’t the only magazine Louise was in at the time.
13 Atomic Kitten – Whole Again. Who would have thought that three spunky girls who had an early hit with the chorus ‘see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!’ would make one of the best pop songs of the era? Brought back by England football fans in 2018, Whole Again is a reminiscin’ song where the girls still pine for their man who ‘still turns me on’ but ‘for now I’ll have to wait’. Fun fact: it’s written by Andy McCluskey and Stuart Kershaw of OMD, who must get a nice PRS cheque for their work.
12 Daniel Bedingfield – Gotta Get Thru This. Louis Theroux borrowed the song’s title for his memoir, which is testament to the power of the track which the bedroom producer took to number one in 2001. The addictive three-note riff that runs throughout the chorus was paired with a percussive vocal line and lyrics about heartbreak and ‘love pouring like the rain’. He had success with ballads like If You’re Not The One but this will always be his biggest hit.
11 Peter Andre – Flava. Mysterious Girl was the one that came back into the charts during his renaissance, but Flava was a number one hit for the man with the oily abs. It’s another Wayne Hector composition with an insistent hook (‘party all night, party all day’), in which Peter hears there’s ‘a jam that’s goin’ on’. More likely he heard This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan and wanted to rewrite it as closely as possible without being sued.
10 Another Level – From The Heart. Freak Me was a cover, so I’ve gone for the wedding ballad From The Heart, written by the phenomenal Diane Warren for the film Notting Hill.
9 A1 – Make It Good. The quartet who revived Take On Me are back together as a four, though their 20th year celebrations were hit hard by the pandemic. Their underrated third album Make It Good featured self-penned acoustic pop-rock songs (one of which was written with Chesney Hawkes!!) which moved them beyond identikit Smash Hits pop.
8 B*Witched – C’est La Vie. Riverdance in bubblegum form, and the first hit for a quartet featuring not one but two sisters of Shane from Boyzone. The bridge (‘gotta let me in’) references the Three Little Pigs, and there’s a key change.
7 East 17 – Stay Another Day. A song written by Tony Mortimer about his late brother, this chimes every Christmastime as an evergreen tune. Amid moody pop songs like House of Love and Deep, with covers like If You Ever and West End Girls, East 17 were from the same guy who brought you Bros and Pet Shop Boys, the recently deceased Tom Watkins.
6 All Saints – Pure Shores. All four members had solo careers (duo Appleton and solo acts Shaznay and Mel Blatt) but their five chart-toppers made them a huge force in the Smash Hits era. Like Little Mix, they were of many skin tones; like Little Mix, they were constantly on the radio. I Know Where It’s At was a fine first single, while Never Ever sounded like nothing else. Bootie Call and Black Coffee had great arrangements but Pure Shores, produced by Madonna’s pal William Orbit, remains stunning. Fun fact: Prince collaborator and former fiancée Suzannah Melvoin also has writing credits.
5 McFly – All About You. Like Take That, McFly benefitted from having the songwriter(s) in the band rather than flown in. Tom Fletcher has since become a celebrity dad and author, but after he was kicked out of Busted he helped McFly become the thinking person’s pop band. The song written for his wife Gio is by far and away his best, and the fact that he donated proceeds to the Children In Need appeal made him one the UK’s youngest national treasures. Back together after a successful reunion tour, McFly released new music in 2020 and this year play outdoor venues in the UK and head to Brazil too!
4 Blue – All Rise. Their debut single is their best, though props to their Eurovision entry I Can from 2011. In an era of manicured popstars – Sylvia Patterson describes the likes of Britney and Beyonce as ‘more hologram than human’ – Blue at least deigned to have fun. Each member has had solo success, with Simon from Blue’s catalogue being my favourite.
3 Westlife – Flying Without Wings. I wonder if the members of Westlife are allergic to stools. ‘Stand up for the key change’ became a gimmick – can you tell Louis Walsh is their manager? – and though I prefer their Swedish pop bangers (Bad Girls, When You’re Looking Like That), it’s the ballads that will make them famous when they are all grey and on the Noughties revival circuit with Atomic Kitten and Blue. And Boyzone.
2 Boyzone – Picture of You. So many hits to choose from and I’ve gone for the poppy one on the Bean soundtrack. Post Wham and Bros, and pre Backstreet Boys and the various idols of the 2000s, it was Take That and Boyzone who captured the most hearts. It was hardly Blur vs Oasis, but the choice was there if you wanted it. The biggest Irish pop band of all time were formed as a Take That copycat act, whose Irish TV debut witnessed six dancers who ‘have no talent whatsoever’ according to host Gay Byrne. It is incredible that those chaps flailing around to Clubhouse’s Light My Fire went on to dominate the charts between 1994 and 2000. Three of them went solo while even Keith & Shane covered Girl You Know It’s True. Poor Stephen Gately passed away and Ronan Keating wakes up millions of people on Magic.
1 Take That – Never Forget. In the absence of S Club 7, Girls Aloud, Spice Girls, Will Young and Robson & Jerome from this list, Take That are top of the Smash Hits Pops. They were by far the biggest band of the era even though they lost a member in 1995 and split in 1996 (remember the helpline?). Their manager was a Svengali who will probably launch a lawsuit if I say anything bad about him. Howard and Jason danced, although Howard took the vocal on Never Forget, which is like Ringo singing Yellow Submarine. The three vocalists had impressive solo careers: Mark Owen released the most interesting songs in Four Minute Warning and Clementine, and Robbie Williams did pretty well out of it too even if he has now slipped into Heritage Act territory and will be singing Angels until he finally croaks. The band’s secret weapon, of course, was chubby variety entertainer Gary Barlow, who spent the pandemic playing gigs from his home as part of the Crooner Sessions and is heading to the London stage for an autobiographical show later in 2022. I could have gone for Back For Good but whenever I’ve seen Take That play Wembley Stadium, this one always gets the biggest cheer.
Hear all 40 songs in this Spotify playlist.
If you want to hear my maximal Smash Hits Pop song, head here.