2002
This year saw Pete Waterman join forces with Louis Walsh on music reality TV show ‘Popstars The Rivals’.
The aim of the show was to create one boyband and one girlband. The winning bands would then go head to head for the Christmas number one.
The Spice Girls’ Geri Halliwell also joined them on the judging panel, while Davina McCall was there for the contestants.
The audition process was exactly like Popstars, behind closed doors but on camera.
When it got to the live shows, they had ten boys and ten girls. Then it was girls’ week followed by boys’ week until they got down to the band selection.
Louis Walsh took management of the girls, named Girls Aloud, made up of Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh and Cheryl Tweedy (now Cheryl Cole).
Pete Waterman managed the boys, called One True Voice, comprising Jamie Shaw, Keith Semple, Matthew Johnson, Anton Gordon and Daniel Pearce.
The boys and girls played dirty during their promotion week for their singles. Girls Aloud’s ‘Sound Of The Underground’ was up against One True Voice’s ‘Sacred Trust’.
In the end, the girls pipped the boys to the post and ‘Sound Of The Underground’ was crowned the Christmas number one.
To be fair to the boys, on any other week their sales would have secured the number one spot, so they had nothing to be ashamed of.
As reality TV shows go, this was a rather successful one. Not only did we have the two winning bands, we also had two other bands made up of the unsuccessful contestants.
The boys called themselves ‘Phixx’. Their name was a pun on the fact that most reality TV shows are a fix. They were Nikk Mager, Andrew Kinlochan, Chris Park, Peter Smith and Mikey Green.
The girls were Clea: Chloe Staines, Emma Beard, Lynsey Brown and Aimee Kearsley.
Javine Hylton carved out a solo career for herself rather than joining the girls’ band.
This year saw Kym Marsh leave Hear’Say, stating that she wanted to spend more time with her two children before launching a solo career on her terms.
Kym said, “I want to go out and do my own thing now. I’d like to put my own band together, write my own songs and have a solo singing career.”
Being a solo artist gave Kym more flexibility where her children were concerned, as she wouldn’t be working around anyone but herself.
Paul Cattermole decided it was time he pursued his own dreams.
In doing so he had to leave family band S Club 7, leaving their adoring fans uncertain of the future of their favourite band.
The S Clubbers decided to carry on as S Club.
In November 2002, Louis Walsh’s Westlife released their Greatest Hits album, sparking rumours that the band would split.
It is widely known that not many boybands make it past the dreaded “Greatest Hits” album, but luckily for the Westlife fans their idols were not going anywhere.
