Retro top ten
THIS WEEK IN 2001
1 Pure and Simple Hear’Say 2 It Wasn’t Me Shaggy ft Rikrok 3 Uptown Girl Westlife 4 Whole Again Atomic Kitten 5 Mr Writer Stereophonics 6 Clint Eastwood Gorillaz 7 Teenage Dirtbag Wheatus 8 Rendezvous Craig David 9 I’m Like A Bird Nelly Furtado 10 I Wanna Be U Chocolate Puma
Hear’Say (Danny Foster, Myleene Klass, Kym Marsh, Suzanne Shaw and Noel Sullivan) were created through the short-lived reality TV talent show Popstars and ‘Pure and Simple’ was their first single.
The song had first been recorded three years earlier by little known English-Dutch girl band Girl Thing who had been formed in 1998 by Simon Cowell with the aim of rivalling the Spice Girls.
Girl Thing lost their record deal and disbanded before ‘Pure and Simple’ could be released. Coupled with a B-side cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, Hear’Say’s ‘Pure and Simple’ rocketed to the top of the charts, propelled by the massive publicity surrounding the TV show.
The release broke a number of records. It sold 550,000 copies in its first week, making it at the time the fastest-selling debut single of all time in the UK. It went on to sell over a million copies in 2001, to become the year’s second-best selling single, beaten only by Shaggy’s ‘It Wasn’t Me’ which sold 80,000 copies more.
With the release of their debut album ‘Popstars’, Hear’Say became the first act in UK chart history to simultaneously top the singles and albums chart with their debut releases.
The song was a huge hit in New Zealand where it topped the charts for five consecutive weeks.
Hear’Say’s follow-up single ‘The Way To Your Love’ was also a UK number one, but the group’s popularity quickly diminished. Controversy over the departure of Kym Marsh and auditions to find a replacement saw them being constantly booed by members of the public at promotional appearances and they split in late 2002 citing ‘abuse from the public’ as the principal reason.
To rub salt in the wound, Hear’Say’s popularity had been eclipsed by that of Liberty X, a band composed of the five other finalists of Popstars.