YouTube [starts quietly]
Many hearts were broken across the UK this autumn when super-boy-band Five announced they were going their separate ways... Sean, Scott, Ritchie, Richard & Jason can look back on a career that includes sales of over 6 million albums, 8 Top 5 UK singles and a host of top awards including "Best British Band" at the 2000 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.
Like the Steps track before it, this is a penultimate hit; but whereas the disbandment of Steps was very obviously planned (and ultimately announced on Boxing Day for maximum publicity), Five seem to have stuttered to a halt around the time they released this lead single for their third album: indeed Sean Conlon was already unavailable at the time of the video shoot for this track (supposedly for health reasons) and is replaced by a cardboard cut-out. Other injuries and absences befell them in the subsequent weeks, and since the band name would make it harder for them than most boy bands to survive losing a member or two, they and their management saw the writing on the wall before they reached the intended ending. A farewell single was rushed out and a Greatest Hits by the end of year, before the stage was set for the usual decade or so of failed attempts to reform and make comebacks.
Much as a found them annoying at the start of their career, I did develop a bit of a soft spot for Five over the years. No, they weren't the best band ever or even the best of their times, but at a time when there were a lot of very samey boy bands, they stood out for their reluctance to sit on stools to sing slow songs where they stood up for the key change, and for their hints of a sense of humour (remember the cardboard cutout?) which certainly set them apart from the American boy bands of the time who ploughed a similar furrow, but did so with a sense of earnestness and protestations that they were really serious RnB acts. Even things like their cover version of 'We Will Rock You', which is of course rubbish by any sensible yardstick, were most often rubbish in a memorable way. 'Let's Dance' isn't one of the songs they're really remembered for now, and if I had to pick one of their songs to listen to it wouldn't have been this one; but for what it is, it's not actually that bad, an upbeat pop record you actually could dance to, if you so desired.
Legend has it that Russell Brand unsuccessfully auditioned for the band. Maybe they should have got him in as the replacement.
Available on: Greatest Hits
