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After finding fame as runners-up on TV's "Popstars" programme, Kevin, Tony, Michelle, Jessica and Kelli decided to form their own band - and their debut single 'Thinking It Over' gave them an impressive No. 5 chart debut... Reflecting on their decision to stay together, Kelli says "we decided to be positive about the whole Popstars experience and just thought 'Let's go for it' because we were so strong together."
Popstars, for those struggling to remember now, was the first in the modern era of pop reality shows, the one which assembled the then-record-breaking quintet Hear'Say. Liberty were the five finalists who fell at the final hurdle, and unsurprisingly at the time were able to get a record deal and a big debut hit produced by one of the Artful Dodger. In fact I'd forgotten how 2-step this single actually sounded, not that I listened to it much at the time, and I've scarcely heard it since.
As they inevitably had the same two boys/three girls set up as the winners you might have expected them to sound the same, but the vocal style they marked out is closer to Steps with little deliniation between the voices and not much for the male singers to do. Indeed they're about as prominent here as on any of the group's hits because the lyrical conceit seems to demand it. Of course they did manage to outlast Hear'Say, but it didn't come without its price - they soon attracted the attention of another act already using the name Liberty and evidently didn't have such good lawyers as Blue, because they were compelled to append an X to the end of their name. I've tagged this entry with the name they used for the bulk of their career.
A decade later several of them seem to have ended up back on reality TV.
Also appearing on: Now 52, 53, 54 [with Richard X], 56, 62, 63
Available on: Thinking It Over
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