East 17 'Hey Child'

Chart Peak: 3

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'Hey Child' was yet another Top 3 smash for East 17... It was the follow-up to 'If You Ever', their hugely successful duet with Gabrielle and their 16th UK Top 20 hit in a row.

Just a quick warning - it's all boy bands till the end of Disc One, so if you don't want to read about them I'd suggest you come back on Friday or Saturday.

Anyway, this was indeed the sixteenth East 17 hit, although the sleevenote's not totally accurate because the second one only got to 28. It was also the last hit for the original incarnation of the band: it was the second new track from their snappily-titled compilation Around The World - HIT SINGLES - The Journey So Far, and at that stage of their career the record company probably would have quit while they were ahead anyway. In the event though, it was during the promotion of this single that lead singer Brian Harvey made his notorious and shocking-at-the-time comments about how great taking Ecstacy was; he claimed at one point to have taken 12 in a night, although as a non-user myself I don't know whether this is possible. In any case, this raised enough controversy (particularly in the slow news time of early January) that the band were more or less forced to sack him, and whilst he subsequently rejoined, main songwriter Tony Mortimer bailed out instead. This remaining trio carried on for a while under the (ironic under the circumstances) name E-17, but it didn't last.

As it happens, 'Hey Child' is (unless I'm hugely misremembering things) their one hit to feature Mortimer as lead singer, although of course he raps on several other hits. I don't know whether this song was especially personal to him, or whether Harvey just didn't want to do it, but either way he isn't a very good singer, and the song is his usual preachiness (presumably aimed at a newborn) with a side order of psuedo-gospel. It feels a lot longer than four minutes, I can tell you, and there's probably a reason why it's not one of their songs that people remember.

Naturally, the success of Take That in the last five years created a lot of pressure for their biggest rivals to reform, and there seems to have been a lot of stop-start activity with various incarnations of the act, usually minus either Harvey or Mortimer. The latest version (which includes Mortimer and a lead singer who was on X-Factor once) has a comeback single out soon, whilst Brian Harvey was recently in the news for filming the police when he hadn't paid his electrity bill.

Also appearing on: Now 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35 (with Gabrielle), 41 (as E-17)
Available on: The Very Best Of East Seventeen (DMD)