Kym Marsh 'Cry'

Chart Peak: 2

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In early 2001, Kym Marsh was just an unknown singer from Wigan - by early 2002, she had been voted into the original Popstars band Hear'Say, sold a few million records and then left... Early 2003 seems her preparing to release 'Cry', her debut solo single.

I suppose the preparations went well enough, in that the single was kept from the top only by the Room 5 track, but like a lot of the tracks on this part of the album it seems to have vanished into some sort of void beyond memory. In fact, she seems to have had a very similar career to Appleton - first two singles away from the group went Top 10, so did the album, then a third single barely scraped the Top 40 and it was all over. There seems not to have been enough clamour (yet) for a Hear'Say reunion, though, whereas All Saints have already got back together twice since 2003. And if 'Cry' seems even more forgotten than anything Appleton ever did, it's because it's so anonymous from the title downwards. Obviously not a problem in the heat of publicity at the time but there's real reason to listen to it now when you could be listening to a real Natalie Imbruglia record.

Despite the relative brevity of her chart career, Marsh remains well-known in the UK in 2015 as a long-serving actress in Coronation Street. So she can probably afford to stay off the reunion tour circuit for as long as she wants.

Also appearing on: Now 55
Available on: Standing Tall