Lopez Blogs

Remember May 2001? I was incredibly young and hunky. Darren and I were celebrating our first anniversary by purchasing our first home which had no kitchen and hideous aqua blue bathroom (it was a fixer upper)! Kirsty and Phil were launching Locationx3 and making saps like us think it was easy to fix up a dilapidated wreck (though we made a killing on it 12 months later. Woohoo!) Robert Downey Junior ruined the best year of Ally McBeal by snorting up or something equally salubrious, but the best tv finds were on the WB with Gilmore Girls rounding off a stellar first year and Felicity extending the Noel-Ben triangle a little longer as she finished her gun toting Junior year. And what a glorious month it was for pop music. It was the dwindling last days of the Steps era of pop, but there were still plenty of gems out there, and in no particular order are seven that still have me humming to this day...

1. S Club7 - Don't Stop Moving: Paul had yet to eat all the pies and with this stomping disco track, all of a sudden, S Club moved from producing brilliant singalong kiddie pop (like the amazing Reach) to producing something that you would dance to in a club. The Billie Jean mash up remains a fave remix of the tune to this very day
2. LibertyX - Just A Little: The first two songs had gone for the "cool" factor over Hear'say's pop leanings, yet mixing that style with a sexy video, canes and a chorus that just wouldn't quit, the group suddenly became Britain's Best Hope for all things sexypop. Shame the record company fucked them over with marketing of the second and third album (now commonly known as The Feeling factor)
3. Geri Halliwell - It's Raining Men: Woohoo! Bridget Jones was in the cinemas. And this soundtracked one of the worst-best fight scenes ever and had it's own fame inspired video when Geri looked just a little too healthy for her own good, but certainly threw all her pop desperation into this basket. And it worked. Glorious. (Cue me falling out of Nightingales and screaming at a policemans size 11 feet "It's raining men get the umbrellas" Oh Paul...)
4. Steps -You'll Be Sorry: H&Claire were probably already plotting at this point and not realising that it would never get any better than the point they were at in early 2001 (though All Out of Love was good wasn't it?). I totally ignored the oh-we-wanted-to-release-this-because-it's-so-cool theory behind the boring Here and Now and focused on the fabbosity of You'll Be Sorry. They were on a space ship in the video and Claire was still wrinkling her nose and her hair didn't even move. It was all aces of bases and sad as sad could be that it was to all come crashing down...
5. Blue - All Rise: Oh goodie a new boyband that weren't as serious as Damage and came storming off the block with the utterly catchy All Rise where they put their "lady" on trial. I still think they should've recorded a festive version where they sang "one for the money and the mince pies" Now that would've been groovy.
6. A*Teens - Halfway Round The World: My fave A Teens song ever. Just a perfect slice of pop music and a brillo video where they all look like they are miles away from each other then push down the studio walls and hey they are all together again! And dance! I was SO getting down with my bad self...
7. Backstreet Boys - The Call: What would be their final brilliant single (well apart from Just Want You To Know) it was a down and dirty funky little club about one of the boys doing the nasty on their baby (that would be Nick then, probably busy bruising Paris Hilton's arm). Oh no a friend found out! How can you stop listening after that!!

Unrelated other news:

Vile Katy Perry isn't number one in the US anymore (here and here) but does seem to be delighting in the controversy her lyrics are causing. Silly bitch. Yes it's marvelous to tell the world it's not something good girls do, adding to the harm Marissa caused on the OC by deciding to be a lesbian to piss off her mom. Good gravy! Check out Jill Sobule's much more charming song of the same title. So innocently sapphic, you can practically hear Jill achieve the elusive female external ejaculation at at 1.51. Plus she sang the theme tune to Popular so you can't go far wrong with her...