Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party: A Times Summer Read 2023

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To have a number one, to be on Top of the Pops, to have artists I was a fan of be fans of my music, it Using the oral-history format, Cragg goes beneath the surface of the bubblegum exterior, speaking to hundred's of the key players about the reality of their experiences. Compiled from interviews with popstars, songwriters, producers, choreographers, magazine editors, record-company executives, TV moguls and more, this is a complete behind-the-scenes history of the last great movement in British pop - a technicolour turning-point ripe for re-evaluation, documented here in astonishing, honest and eye-opening detail. The late nineties to early noughties was the golden era of TV talent shows making sudden pop stars of ordinary people, writes Natasha Wynarczyk. Vivid moments in your life reduced to long forgotten anecdotes. Historical events reduced to kitsch. And things that you had considered appalling have now been reappraised as cultural milestones by people two decades younger than you.

Reach for the Stars: The perils of being a 90s pop star Reach for the Stars: The perils of being a 90s pop star

The book attempts to chart the mainstream pop industry from the days of the Spice Girls through to The XFactor and it features lots of interviews from many of the main players within these bands and the music industry at the time. I particularly enjoyed the sections where the production of the music was discussed as this was new information that I hadn't seen elsewhere and it gave a great insight in to the production of the music and featured interviews with people such as the Xenomania team. I was very much buying pop music through a lot of this era, so it was fascinating to read the story behind the music, as told by (most of) the people who were there. The majority of this book takes the form of quotes from the people involved - with comments and context from the author inserted where necessary. Michael Cragg is a music writer, who works (or has worked) for a lot of major UK publications - so if he hasn't interviewed the people specifically for this book, he has interviews that he's done with them in the past that he can draw on. So you have four of the five Spice Girls (you can guess which one isn't in this) and members from pretty much every band that is mentioned. As a young person at the time that a lot of this was happening, I found it really interesting to read about what was going on behind the scenes and the press coverage and see how that affected my perception of the various bands and band members involved. And of course the other thing that's really fascinating is how the spotlight of fame affected the people in the bands. Many of them were very young when they joined the bands - and you get to see an array of different ways that fame - or being in a band can mess your life up. But in the early stages of this period, a lot of it was going on behind closed doors - as the book hurtles towards the mid 00s, you see the arrival of TV talent shows and people learning how to be in a band whilst on camera and making their mistakes in public. I was moving into my teenage years when the Spice Girls started, and so Iwas trying to work out who Iwas. But Iwas also trying to sort of hide who Iwas, and it was too revealing to talk about pop music. It was too revealing to say that you were afan of Girls Aloud, even, when they first started. And so Iwouldn’t.” Even at uni, Cragg would pretend to like Radiohead (“I kind of did… for abit”), while he was working out his sexuality and identity. ​ “I didn’t really talk about [pop music] – Ididn’t say that Iliked it.” I had absolutely no doubt we were going to make it. We found out Simon Cowell was a big deal in the industry, drove up to London really early and jumped out on him singing Wannabe along to our tape. Rather than accept that two competing ideas can both offer up positives and negatives, the pop vs indie debate became a war. Frankly, in book-form at least, it feels like the indie side has had its say. Part of why I wanted to do this book…was to add some extra weight to a hugely important period of UK music that often felt ignored in the stream of chin-stroking think pieces on Britpop, the post-Strokes UK indie resurgence or the post-MySpace Arctic Monkeys chatter.Beyond the stories of fame, fortune and turning up to the CD:UK studios still pissed from the night before, Reach… finds itself in some pretty dark places. The music industry was far less monitored than it is now, with conversations about mental health, racism and misogyny barely audible within the four walls of the music industry, let alone in the tabloids. If you watched The Big Reunion on television a few years ago (or any similar programmes) or read any of the many official band books from the late 90's and early 2000's then you probably won't learn anything new from this book. That's not to say that it isn't still an interesting read but most of the interview pieces with band members are taken from past interviews or books that are already published. Claire I remember Pete Waterman going crazy and causing a real stink because if it wasn’t us who should have won, Five were in that category, Cleopatra. It was all the new pop of the time. No one could believe it.

Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s… Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s…

It was extremely hard on us and our families. They were equally thrust into the spotlight with no idea of how to deal with any of it. We were told we were the fattest band in pop countless times so we made a point of eating numerous bars of chocolate and fast food in defiance. We had a No1 and were the most famous band in the country but we were all pretty broke and I was still paying off my student debt.I will happily devour music books of all sorts as I am fascinated by the music industry and am a music obsessive. The Spice Girls (with whom the book starts) were unavoidable at the time despite my best efforts. I was more interested in indie and the death throes of britpop at the time. And if I wasn’t going to give Spice Girls the time of day, then Steps and S Club 7 had no chance.

Reach for the Stars By Michael Cragg | Used | 9781788707244 Reach for the Stars By Michael Cragg | Used | 9781788707244

An outstanding catalogue of oral testimonies from major and minor players in UK pop in the decade before the financial crash.' -- New Statesman Adele’s acceptance speech for best album (for 21) was cut off to fit in a live performance from Blur (whose frontman Damon Albarn would, years later, accuse her of being “insecure”). Adele flipped the bird to “the suits, not the fans”, and ITV apologised. The central thesis of this book is that this period was a golden age for pure pop (slippery as that term is) before many of its platforms like TOTP collapsed, competition shows obliterated the landscape, and social media drove expectations of performative authenticity. But I have my doubts—for a lot of reasons, but I’ll limit myself to two. Firstly, the current Y2K pop boom is a classic example of how nostalgia warps our perspective. Between the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud, quite a bit of this music doesn’t hold up. Secondly, Cragg understandably wanted to limit the scope of this book to the UK but in doing so he’s made 2006 look like the end of the line. The UK is no longer at the forefront of innovation in pop and that is regrettable but not because we were left without stuff to listen to. You simply cannot mourn 2006 as the death of big silly pop artifice when Katy Perry and Lady Gaga were just around the corner. We think of pop in eras because it’s neat and to a point it can be done but in reality it is a continuum. The market was becoming increasingly globalised, and we were not able to compete at that level. All of this shiny, happy, factory-formed pop was catnip to critics who saw music loved by children, girls, gay men, and large amounts of the population, as inferior. Something to be grown out of." Ritchie They wanted a band with edge and that’s what they bloody well got. We’re all very strong characters so eventually there’s going to be those eruptions. We were young, we didn’t have that level of maturity.I went to an event for this book where Michael Cragg interviewed Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud - and it was absolutely fascinating (and sort of horrifying) to hear her talking about her own experiences, now she has the benefit of distance (and I suspect some counselling/therapy) to analyse what was going on and how it affected her. She also talked about how the era of the adverts in the stage, open auditions and TV talent shows provided a gateway for people without connections in the industry to get their big breaks - even if they didn't have the advice and support that they needed to navigate the world that they found themselves in - and that the pendulum has now swung the other way and that music is the poorer for it. This book tells the story of one of music's best, and least appreciated, periods through the voices of the people who were there. The author speaks to everyone imaginable in British pop in the noughties and let's them tell their own side of events we all think we know. I LOVED this book! It tells the ‘story’ of British pop music from 96-06 starting with the explosion of the spice girls in 1996. As someone who was 10 in 96 and an avid pop fan throughout the late 90s this was a brilliant read. Lots of insight from producers, band members, journalists (eg smash hits, totp magazine( it flows right up to the emergence of pop idol, X factor etc and how that changed the world of pop music , as does streaming and the closure of high st record stores. Pete Waterman Had I heard of them before? No. Had anyone? No. Did I care? No. I felt sorry for Steps. Formed in May 1997, Five, AKA Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, J Brown, Sean Conlon and Abz Love, released their debut single Slam Dunk (Da Funk) just six months later and found themselves living in a house together as teenagers. The band’s 11 UK Top 10 singles, three Top 5 albums and two arena tours spanned less than a four-year period. That it ended in burnout, depression and fist-fights was hardly surprising given their light-speed ascent. In recent years, there has been a happy ending of sorts with Neville, Robinson and Conlon reuniting as a three-membered Five and releasing a new album last year. But it all started out via five lads standing out from an initial crowd of 3,000 wannabes that featured a pre-fame Russell Brand among their number …