Good morning and a happy Thursday to you, as we bring you another of our Pop Essays. And with meteorological spring starting this week in the UK, it seems only right we bring you a nice and cheerful little song from an underrated pop group for the arrival of lighter days…
- Artist: allSTARS*
- Song: Love Is
- Released: 13/05/2002 (on ‘allSTARS*’ album)
- Writers / Producers: Anders Wilkstrom / Frederik Thomander / Lamont Dozier / Graham Stack
- Highest UK Chart Position: 43
- Chart Run: 43 – 64
A little game to kick things off this week: see if you can guess the artist behind a brief summation of their career. In this case, it’s a British mixed pop group of singers and dancers who had success in the early 00s we’re discussing today. Steps maybe? Well technically their career began in the late 90s, so no, not on this occasion.
They also indulged in their thespian side and starred in their own hit TV series. Is it North & South? Well, they were all boys, and we covered them a little while ago, and again, they were definitely a product of the 90s. Maybe it’s Frank? All girls, played their own instruments and again, covered much earlier in this series. S Club 7 then? Usually it is, but not today. And so we thus arrive at allSTARS*.
So dubbed because, a la *NSYNC, the first letter in each of their names spelt the word ‘stars’, Sandi Lee Hughes, Thaila Zucchi, Ashley Taylor Dawson (yes, Darren Osborne from Hollyoaks), Rebecca Hunter and Sam Bloom were brought together in the summer of 2000 from auditions by Tim Byrne and Vicky Blood, the very same management team who had given us Steps and A1.
Featuring in STARStreet, a 13 part musical comedy drama series for CITV that first premiered on the hugely successful SM:TV Live on Saturday mornings in the spring of 2001, it followed them as they played fictionalised versions of themselves living together in a house that can best be described as a cross between the set of another CITV staple, My Parents Are Aliens, and the sets of either Tweenies or Playdays (The adjective “wacky” was used quite a lot in the early press release for STARStreet, which in our experience, is code for ‘our set designers obviously had a long drunken lunch’).
It was about a million miles away from say, S Club’s cool, sun drenched japes in their red Chevvy in Miami 7 or L.A 7. Although their “wacky house” did have the neat features of a rapping alarm clock, a voice commanded TV, a fridge that literally handed you food, and a slide out of your bedroom instead of stairs. Basically, allSTARS* walked so Steven Bartlett could run. We digress.
As the first series of STARStreet drew to a close, their first single and theme to the TV show, “Best Friends” was released in June 2001. But when it only debuted and peaked at #20, it was evident that an obvious flaw in the plan had reared its head. In September, they tried again with their second single, the straight up, spine chillingly brilliant Halloween bop known as “Things That Go Bump In The Night”.
It performed a little better, debuting and peaking at #12 (and our mates at Can’t Stop The Pop have written an excellent thesis in its favour). But it was still a long way off turning in the kind of consistent top 10, if not top 5 or number one performance and success expected of a newly signed pop group with their own TV show who were signed to a major label (Universal Island).
It took covering Bucks Fizz’s “The Land Of Make Believe” (and rather well too, we hasten to add) to finally land themselves a top 10 hit in January 2002. The wistful, Cathy Dennis penned midtempo “Back When”, released as a double-A-side with “Going All The Way”, the theme from second rate kids’ film Thunderpants (which sounds exactly what the name implies it to be, about a kid with the superhuman ability to break wind), then had the honour of leading in the release of their self titled debut album that April.
But when it debuted and peaked at #19, it was almost as if they were back where they started almost a year ago. With hindsight, it seemed that, even with a TV show behind them, allSTARS* were always going to be labouring in the shadow of S Club 7’s success, more so given that by this point, the soon to be sextet S Club also had a spin off, mini version in the form of S Club Juniors, who would overtake them in short order chart wise and success wise following Paul Cattermole’s departure.
So whilst the allSTARS* album entering and peaking just outside the top 40 in May 2002 was disappointing, it was equally inevitable, and they were quietly dropped and disbanded thereafter. A shame really, when the album offered so many possibilities for singles that, in a parallel universe, would have made them the superstars they deserved to be. “Love Is” is, for us, one such example.
It wound up in our year end top 5 on our Spotify Wrapped a few years ago during lockdown, and one listen to it again whilst writing this blog this week has offered all the confirmation why. It’s pop music of that time all over; bright, breezy and sun drenched with a slight feel of disco, with sweet and innocent lyrics about offering reassurance to a prospective new beau: “You’ve got fears, baby you’ve got doubts / Whatever it is, I can love it out / Just put your love and trust in me / Paradise can be a reality”.
The chorus is an utter earworm for days too, and refreshing in so far as, uncommon with other co-ed pop groups of that time, it’s not dominated by one lead vocal, and everyone can be heard: “Love is what you make of it / Giving or taking it / Whatever your heart says love is / I’ll be everything you need / You can be sure / That’s what my love is”. It’s just a record that’s so cute as a button that you would feel soulless for dismissing it out of hand.
Some of that, when you look at the writing credits, may be to do with the fact that it is was partly penned by Lamont Dozier – yes, the very same Lamont Dozier of Motown Records fame, who had a hand in writing fourteen number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, including classics like “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” by The Four Tops, and “Baby Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes.
True, we’re not immediately pegging “Love Is” on the same level as those songs by any stretch of the imagination, but it was evident of Dozier’s timeless approach to writing immediate, catchy and likeable pop songs. One can only wonder what might have been if it had been pushed forward as a single, and if it had won them slightly more credence by association. We challenge you to listen and see if you agree.
Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.
The Niche Reference 