My boot scootin' baby is drivin' me crazy

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

07/06/99 : Step One - Steps

Our second visit this year with them cheeky Stepsters - last time I found them surprisingly bland.  I wasn't expecting to be revisiting them quite so soon but obviously I'm DELIGHTED to see them again - I'm expecting some grade A Cheddar and no, we never owned it (12/30 - unless my wife sheepishly owns up to it at some point).

I actually knew more of this than I thought I did and I didn't mind "Last Thing On My Mind" and "Better Best Forgotten", but "5, 6, 7, 8" is just too Cotton Eye Joe for me, I'm afraid.  I can also proudly announce that I didn't mind "Heartbeat", but there rest of it is probably best described as bearable dross.  Most of the time they sound desperate to be ABBA, but they just ain't - and the singing isn't always up to the level you'd expect.  It's (mostly) not dreadful, but it's not in any way a great album.  It's also a very curious album cover, suggesting that behind every bland grinning member of Steps there's either a gurning loon or someone wondering what the fuck they're doing there.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on their (get ready to be depressed) 38th week of a 64 week run (including a 16 week run in the top ten and a 44 week run in the top twenty) with it having peaked at #2 in its debut week - ah, poor Steps not getting to #1.  The top five this week were Boyzone (a new entry poised to take control of the charts for a bit), ABBA, Shania, Texas and Stereophonics - an interesting mix.  We have one more new entry in the top ten which is a Shed Seven best-of (#7) which would be a great album if it was only three or four tracks long and the next highest newest entry is Vonda Shepard (#39) which is curious only because that's the second time I've mentioned her this year - and I've still not got the faintest idea who she is.

Wikipedia tells me this is their debut album and it was kept off the top by Manic Street Preachers, who simultaneously kept them off the top of the singles chart - I like to think a musical feud was formed as a result.  It also reminds me that "Last Thing On My Mind" is a Bananarama cover - how could I have forgotten that?  Apparently "Love U More" is also a cover of a Sunscreen track from '92 which is one of the first techno tracks to make the US top 40, but I must confess to having completely forgotten it.  Furthermore, some versions of the album also included their version of "Tragedy" which manages to be peak Steps whilst also making you think "well, it's not as good as the original, is it?" and some other versions included their version of Kylie's "Better The Devil You Know", which I imagine sounds exactly like I'd imagine it would, but I'm too scared to check.

Funnily enough, there's no section on critical reception but I imagine NME laid into them - I searched for the review but couldn't find it so we'll have to make do with this from their review of Steps' best-of "Steps were only signed for one single - with good reason, for '5,6,7,8' was shit of the very highest order" (to be fair, the rest of the review goes on to say some quite nice things about them).  Whatever the critics thought, it obviously did well over here and was top ten in quite a few other countries - including getting to #1 in Belgium.  Globally, it managed to a surprising 2.5 million copies - god knows who was buying it (hopefully not the lovely Mrs Reed).

"Customers also listened to" S Club (of course), B*witched, Newton and A*Teens - I don't know the last two and I don't want to.  I also don't want to know Steps, but we can't always have what we want - and I also have to admit that not nearly as much of this is as dreadful as I was expecting.

30/05/99 - A very fine album indeed
13/06/99 - An act of pure desperation