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

The precocious 1990s and aboriginal 2000s saw an detonation of sugary, lightweight popular music, arsenic grounds labels realised determination was a marketplace for thing different than dreary indie bands with haircuts arsenic dishevelled arsenic their clothes.

Steps, Westlife, B*Witched, 5ive, S Club 7, Busted and Atomic Kitten topped the charts and sold retired arenas with songs that captured the giddy inertia of teenagedom: Don't Stop Movin', Keep On Movin', Rollercoaster, Flying Without Wings.

In the pages of Smash Hits and Top of the Pops magazine, these bands seemed improbably glamorous. Then on came Michael Cragg to dispel the myths.

His caller book, Reach For The Stars, is simply a past of British popular from 1996 to 2006 that lays bare the "mechanisms down the manufactured popular juggernaut".

It's a communicative of exploitation, exhaustion and adjacent fist fights.

Claire Richards from Steps recalls "starving myself for four-and-a-half years due to the fact that I was told I had to suffer value connected time one". Sugababe Mutya Buena was granted 2 weeks maternity permission earlier being shoved backmost "in the studio, breastfeeding astatine 5am". The boyband 5ive went from sharing a location to outright animosity successful the abstraction of 12 months.

"There were fist fights that spilled retired into corridors," admits vocalist Ritchie Neville.

"The hours were brutal, and the docket similar nary other," adds Hear'Say's Myleene Klass. "No stone stars would beryllium capable to support up. It's hardcore."

And erstwhile it each ended, the fallout was extreme.

"Not knowing what was adjacent was a immense shock," says S Club 7's Jo O'Meara.

"[S Club] was truthful subject and past it stopped truthful quickly. We were told what to do, told wherever to go, told erstwhile I'm eating. I didn't cognize however to beryllium without it."

Cragg, who has written for Vogue, GQ and The Guardian, spoke to much than 100 radical for his book, uncovering scores of antecedently untold stories.

"I wanted to inquire questions they weren't truly asked astatine the time, erstwhile they were much apt to beryllium asked what their favourite sandwich filling was," helium says.

He discovered an manufacture that enactment "punishing" expectations connected singers who'd hardly near school.

"They were governed by the charts. If you didn't marque the apical five, it was similar 'This is not enough.'

"I deliberation now, radical would beryllium doing backflips if their debut azygous got to fig eight, but backmost past determination was a batch of wealth being spent, truthful the rewards had to beryllium truly precocious and quick."

Not that bands needfully saw immoderate of those rewards.

Sugababes' Keisha Buchanan reveals that she "got transferred £3,000" aft the set signed "a million-pound deal".

"Even erstwhile the wealth was coming in," adds 5ive's Scott Robinson, "we were fixed £100 a week".

There was 1 exception, says Cragg, successful the signifier of line-dancing popular behemoth Steps.

"They'd each been [Butlins] Redcoats oregon had different jobs, truthful they understood what was going connected a tiny spot more," helium says.

"They knew that if they went to America to enactment Britney Spears, that the wealth would beryllium coming retired of their budget, truthful they were reluctant to bash it astatine first.

"And that's absorbing due to the fact that astir different radical would person (a) been told they had to bash it oregon (b) would person jumped astatine the accidental and not thought astir the finances. But Steps were a flimsy anomaly."

Although his publication is presented arsenic an oral history, Cragg's cognition and affection for the euphony shines done each paragraph.

That's however helium manages to unearth the real crushed 5ive didn't get to grounds Baby... One More Time (they confidently told songwriter Max Martin it was awful), and to explicate wherefore the nationalist turned against the archetypal world TV set Hear'Say.

"Popstars was done arsenic a documentary, and radical were incredibly upset erstwhile they launched arsenic a set due to the fact that they'd had a tiny makeover," helium says.

"Suzanne got hairsbreadth extensions and everyone was like, 'Oh my God, who she thinks she is?'"

Revisiting this decade-long flourish of British popular was much than conscionable an world exercise, however.

At the time, Cragg was a "closeted teenager" who hid his emotion of popular euphony down a veneer of indie cool. In the opening prologue, helium recounts making a pilgrimage to Dublin to spot Scottish rockers Travis when, really, helium wanted to gorge himself connected Spice Girls memorabilia.

"I really won those tickets," helium says. "I entered a contention and I won and I took my person and we stayed successful a younker hostel wherever I got deed by an inflatable armchair.

"It's specified a acheronian clip successful my life. I was hiding distant from this euphony due to the fact that I thought it revealed excessively overmuch of me."

Writing the publication was the archetypal clip helium was capable to "look backmost astatine the euphony [and] beryllium blessed to clasp it fully. And that was rather exciting."

Cragg showed an aboriginal involvement successful journalism. As a child, he'd ticker the TV quality and constitute down the details. In the epoch of MySpace, helium started blogging euphony reviews, past took a occupation selling adverts for The Guardian, wherever helium yet plucked up the courageousness to transportation a festival review.

"It conscionable benignant of rolled from there," helium says, reminiscing astir his archetypal ever interview, with Texas stone set Midlake, "one of whom was asleep".

"I was overly-prepared. I had 14 pages of questions and I virtually sat determination and work them out. It was not ideal."

Since then, he's honed his method connected everyone from Lady Gaga and Katy Perry to Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.

"Once I started penning astir popular music, I conjecture I jumped retired of the closet," helium laughs.

Over the people of his career, the gravitational centre of euphony penning has shifted from glossy magazines to broadsheet newspapers, resulting successful much serious-minded coverage. Nowadays, stars similar Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa expected to person opinions connected warfare and intelligence wellness and LGBTQ rights, alternatively of declaring their favourite colour.

Our speech takes a agelong detour into the merits of this approach. Has the property stripped popular euphony of its glamour? Or did old-school magazines bash 5ive and Sugababes a disservice by papering implicit the intelligence wellness crises that forced their founding members to quit?

"I deliberation the intelligence wellness concern with those bands was the work of the grounds labels and the radical astir them, not the journalists who were trying to merchantability this amusive popular epoch to fans," Cragg says.

"These days, if you're going to beryllium connected the screen of a broadsheet supplement, there's decidedly a unit to speech astir these incredibly ample and dense issues - but if you spell into an interrogation with Charli XCX and you speech astir her intelligence health, is that helping Charli XCX, necessarily?

"Charli XCX is incredible. She's hilarious. She makes perfectly bonkers music. I privation to cognize astir that. I privation to know, like, if I came astir for dinner, what would she navigator me? I deliberation that's much interesting, arsenic a fan."

As a result, Cragg insisted his publication didn't conscionable contiguous the "sad stories" of pop.

"Even 5ive, whose vocation ended horribly erstwhile they were astatine their peak, person travel to a spot of acceptance and are capable to look backmost connected it fondly."

With S Club 7, Busted and Sugababes each connected the comeback trail, the publication arrives with auspicious timing. Unless, that is, you're Louis Walsh, who gave Cragg an unforgettable pull-quote for the particulate jacket.

"Nobody buys books. No-one's going to work this."

Reach for the Stars: 1996-2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop's Final Party by Michael Cragg is published connected 30 March.