Seventh Hell for Sclubbers? (S Club 7 in general)

Member Name: Sugar Matty O

Product:	S Club 7 in general
Date:	19/02/02 (192 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can still delete the S for something mildly offensive

Disadvantages: Brits are coming up = more rants like this!

I know I know, it’s another pop music rant, but this one’s kinda topical, so that sort of makes it alright. Last week toy manufacturers PMS International were preparing a legal writ against S Club 7, claiming that sales in their S Club action figures (i.e., Bradley comes with fingers that you can curl up into gang signs) have dramatically slumped since the lad contingent were caught toking in Covent Garden. Now there’s a sales pitch if ever there was one – S Club Smokers. If the makers of the Eminem figure can get away with having the mini Mathers brandishing a chainsaw, then surely PMS can get sales on the up again by having Bradley Shakur, Village Idiot Paul and Grange Hill graduate John coming attached with a bellowing reefer between their lips. Apparently the writ is for as much as £800,000, which is a lot of S Club miniatures to go round and could pay for a helluva lot of plastic pop imitations. And the S Club 7 dolls range as well for that matter (bo-boom!).

PMS actually had a big factory down here in little old Southend before it got torched to the ground so perhaps their own claims are slightly underhand in trying to replenish unrelated stock. No, that’s a dreadful assumption to make, it has to be down to three pop scallies trying to look cooler beyond their years. Claiming that sales have fallen as a result of an eagle eyed tabloid snapper seems trite though. Could it be that interest in the 7-pack is waning instead? Come on, rumours have been abound for a while now…Whether PMS wins their court case may be the pendulum swinger in S Club’s fate. That’s when you realise pop music isn’t just about singing songs nowadays when an offshoot is holding you responsible for their own shortcomings. If something smacked of controversy in years gone by, it used to be the parents’ job to have a go. But the toy manufacturers? Next you’ll be telling me Afroman really works for Narcotics Anonymous.


If S Club 7 have hit their peak and the only way from here is down, I will dispense the reason behind this. Paul Cattermole. The man is an oaf. On their latest single You, you could not wish to see a better instance of someone making up the numbers. Pop stars are supposed to be shiny and new with teeth that go ‘ping’ every time a smile is flashed. Our man Cattermole though gives off the image of being someone who lives for kebabs and lager, with as much dance routine co-ordination as an arthritic bucking bronco trying to make headway through an oil spill. If he had entered Pop Idol, Simon Cowell would have had a field day – you can just imagine high-trousers giving the utmost gyp along the lines of ‘I’ve seen better performances from any one of the crap acts I’ve ever signed’. Rarely has there been an instance of mis-casting into such a numbers-heavy pop combo – it’s sort of like asking Buster Bloodvessel of Bad Manners (ask your dad) to try and fit into Westlife’s squeaky clean regime. Pop music’s bedrock is image, and Cattermole’s ‘I’ve just woken up from an all night bender’ look is at least a triumph of anti-establishment dishevelment. Really though, you think of all the pop hopefuls just dying to get one shot at fame and then you look at this podgy bastard dancing like Bez out of the Happy Mondays but with as much cool as Les from Coronation Street.

Talking of superfluous band members, what does that Tina do again? Rachel’s the eye-candy, Jo’s the vocalist, Hannah’s the androgynous love interest to King Oaf, and Tina…? She sort of twirls about a bit with similar disjointed limb spasms credited to Beer Monster Paul, but when it comes to opening her mouth…er…well, not sure what happens really. It’s not as if she can hold her own on the small screen either given her acting is so wooden she’s sponsored by Ronse
al (compared to the six other Oscar-nominees, anyway). To this point, S Club are a peculiar mix, all ages, different sexes, no real entertaining history, and yet multi-media darlings who could probably all retire right here right now. It’s the fact of HOW they entertain though that really rankles. Jo does all the singing (she might not even be in the same room when recording takes place but rest assured you’d still be able to hear her above anyone else), and the others chip in when they feel like it. Is that fair? If Jo is talented enough to be nominated as the lead on the majority of releases, why not just push the boat out, get rid of the excess and let her lead the solo line? Surely there must come a time when the Essex warbler thinks ‘it’s an S Club 7 team effort with my voice all over it again’, because the current format is not doing her or the others any favours whatsoever. Let’s be honest, if you had the strongest voice but had to share credit with the aforementioned chubby talentless prat, you might be considering other avenues to earn your corn. It’s like Beckham single-handedly getting us into the World Cup against Greece and Gary Neville taking all the plaudits.

This may sound like a personal vendetta against Mr Cattermole by the way, but in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Every time he’s on SMTV, TOTP or the Pepsi Chart, his entertainment factor alone is television gold. You can’t put a price on the laughing fits I regularly endure when seeing the man in ‘action’. Long may his ‘your dad after a skin-full of homebrew’ style continue.

As for Bradley, well at least Paul doesn’t pretend to be something he isn’t. He knows that he’s wearing the same clothes he’s had on for the last fortnight and is bloody proud that the stench from his armpits is giving off one hell of a haze on a Saturday morning in front of the cameras. Bradl
ey on the other hand, once compared in the Sunday Express to a young Gary Wilmot (all true!), is clearly trying to turn S Club into some sort of S Club-W-A or something. Y’know, the crucifix round the neck, the basketball shirt, the braided hair, the sneakers, the Tupac-fascinated bandanna. Not to mention the ghetto weed intake. Give it six months and he’ll be calling himself the Notorious B.R.A.D. Prat. If you wanna pretend you’re a Shakur or Biggie Smalls clone, fine, you go about your business and do that. But for as long as you are in a band performing ballads with unfeasible saccharine content, you just keep on acting like Gary Wilmot. Rudebwoy.

To be honest this argument has lost his way and I’ve merely gobbed off about people likely to have far more money than I can ever dream of accumulating. It must take real skill in being manufactured to the point of chucking in random punters to fulfil a contract – wish I had that sort of talent…

Fantasy S Club future? Tina leaves to pursue a career in becoming a ventriloquist’s dummy. Paul patents his own burger at McDonald’s and lives off the profits with hermaphrodite Hannah. Bradley gets lost in a McDonald’s drive-through, mistakenly thinking that it’s the same as a Tupac-style drive-by. Oh the shame. Choirboy Jon and eye-candy Rachel become Jo’s backing singers and Essex has a crooner on a par with any of its market traders. The new Saturday night ratings-winner to replace Pop Idol? Stranger things have happened – just ask PMS…

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