Boy band videos tend towards the homo erotic. Whether wholly or only partially intended shots where boy band members appear to be singing to each other, or sharing a model who appears to be the love interest of 4 or 5 boy band members at the same time are the norm. However, in this, the most disturbing boy band video of all time, the love interest for all 4 members of Worlds Apart is an orangutan. I strongly urge you to watch the above clip in which they serenade, stroke and enjoy a candlelit dinner with the orangutan. While most of them are wearing dungarees (although the orangutan is naked).
Being big in Japan (or more commonly Malaysia) is common enough for British boy bands who fail to make it on home turf. Worlds Apart were big in France, which apparently has a relaxed attitude to bestiality I was unaware of but doesn’t wholly surprise me. After a string of minor hits on home turf they found the other side of the channel more receptive and began recording in French. Lineup changes meant that in 1994 they recruited Nathan Moore from minor Stock, Aitken, Waterman recorded boy band, Brother Beyond. Already pushing 30 failed to prevent Nathan from becoming a French pin up and Worlds Apart continued to enjoy dwindling success in France and Germany into the 21st century. After a brief hiatus they reformed as a 3 piece in 2007 meaning that Nathan’s boy band career has now (off and on) spanned 22 years. As manager of Lisa Scott-Lee on MTV’s Totally Scott-Lee he was seen neglecting his managerial duties in favour of pursuing his own comeback. His reality TV career continued with the all time great, Boys Will be Girls, in which he managed members of Scooch, Fast Food Rockers and 5boyz as they attempted to pass themselves off as a girl band called the Honeytraps. But that’s another entry.
In an unfortunate honeytrap related note, Nathan hit the news in 2004 when he pleaded guilty to soliciting a woman police officer saying that he was innocent but trying to avoid interest in his personal life. Unfortunately for him press interest continued when a PR agent (not his own) claimed to have been his boyfriend for 13 years. Nathan married (a woman) last year and whatever the truth of his personal life, at least only humans have been involved, and he wasn’t featured in Worlds Apart’s simian love fest.
He’s not a boy band, I know, but Adam Rickitt is far too fascinating to let being a solo artist stand in the way of appearing on this site. His music and image took so much from the 90s boy band tradition and he was managed by no less than Take That’s manager Nigel Martin-Smith. Launching his music career on the back of his success as Nicky Tilsley in Coronation Street (replacing an earlier Nicky who failed to grow up to be sufficiently hot so came back from Canada as someone else) Adam made an immediate impact with his debut (or dayboo as they apparently say in New Zealand - see the above video clip) single “I Breathe Again”. The video features Adam breathing heavily and naked in a box, surrounded by menacing lady doctors with clipboards. It’s easily one of the gayest videos ever made.
Adam was widely derided for attempting to build a music career around the ability to look good naked in a box. His unpopularity reached a climax at the 1999 Brighton Party in the Park when someone threw a smoke bomb on stage at him. Although I can’t claim to always be on the spot at moments of historical importance, on this occasion I was there as he was rushed off stage and I did ask him about the explosive attack but he just said “oh yeah, yeah”. I got him to autograph the poster given out by the local paper of himself topless though, and I also got A1’s (who will feature in a future post.)
His singles and album were undeservedly met with decreasing success despite the fact his shirt came off at every opportunity. After appearing in musical theatre, panto and as a last minute replacement for Goldie on “The Games”, “Celebrity Big Brother” must have been calling but instead, he bravely sought a career in politics. With the Conservative party. Being from poshest Cheshire the Tories must have seemed to be the obvious choice and he made David Cameron’s A list of potential candidates and appeared on Question Time (he didn’t feel that the offensive cartoon of Mohammed in a Dutch newspaper should have been censored, if you’re interested). However, it’s hard not to feel that all those topless pictures and the involvement in Coronation Street’s first gay kiss might have made it hard for some more traditional Conservatives to stomach, or so they may have publicly claimed.
Adam’s next move was an even bigger one…to New Zealand, to appear in their top stroke only soap opera, Shortland Street. Unfortunately this only came to the attention of any of the rest of the world when Adam got caught shoplifting a block of cheese and a jar of coffee from a supermarket in Auckland. Fortunately he got let off due to unspecified family problems and stress. Yes, it’s that well known famous person defense, where you can claim that you’ve been working so hard you forgot that you have to pay for things in shops. In his defence it can be claimed that there is something of a tradition of cheese stealing in New Zealand as Martin Phillips of the Chills also got caught stealing cheese (and a banana smoothie) from a supermarket in Dunedin. NZ MP Phillida Bunkle got in on the coffee stealing act shortly afterward with the theft of two packets of Fagg’s coffee although I really only mentioned that so I could say Phillida Bunkle.
Regardless of any illegal activities I was impressed with Adam’s performances on Shortland Street during the tense “mystery serial killer” storyline when I was in New Zealand and the New Zealanders seemed to be impressed to have someone who could act to international standards appearing on Shortland Street.
As seen in the video above, Adam now derides his pop career, but I can’t agree. He has chosen to continue his acting career in New Zealand rather than pursue politics (or music) and you can follow his activities in the other land down under on his weekly video blog.
Remember North and South? The boy band with their own tv series? And members from both the north and the south of England. They held out the promise of destroying the north south divide of boy band music in 90s England, where you could be a fan of Take That (north) or a fan of East 17 (south) but not both. North and South also reversed the traditional boy band tradition of “the unattractive member” by having only one attractive member. You would have thought that the unattractive girls who learn early to settle and claim to fancy the specially designated unattractive member (Danny from New Kids on the Block, Howard from Take That when he had dreads…) would have flocked to them but it didn’t quite happen and they broke up after only 3 singles.
No Sweat, the tv series of the band, had a first series set in Brighton in which the boys form a band in order to escape their drab lives (going to school, being bullied, not even a hand job from the girls at school, and one of them has a really annoying mother). They then attract girls but only the wrong kind (not slutty enough?) and have to hide from them a lot. What believability the first series had was altogether abandoned in the second in a move reminiscent of latter day Scooby Doo when they started having real ghosts, in that they started having real ghosts. Yes, why not introduce the supernatural into your failing boy band drama? In the second series North and South tour the country in a van which actually has a house inside (predating Harry Potter), have a glam rock manager and have to hide from a goth girl a lot. The BBC are keeping both series under wraps (no DVD) and the second did so badly their album, Allsorts, was never released. As ever I’d love to hear from you if you have a copy, because the few songs they did appeal were a great mix of guitars, singalong choruses and boy band tricks - like proto-Busted or McFly.
Little was heard from any of the members until the 6th series of American Idol when a now 28 year old Tom Lowe appeared and fessed up to his UK 90s past in North and South. He made it to Hollywood with (what else?) a Luther Vandross ballad but no further. His parents, however, will no doubt be pleased that he has an education to fall back on since he graduated from Harvard, no less. The official geeky member of North and South (the one in glasses) is probably a nuclear physicist by now.
* Are you between 17 and 21 and extremely good looking (we’re only looking for the best)
* Can you sing and wish to join the next teenage all boy band sensation?
So read the advertisement placed by Nick Stollery and Paul Hawkins of “World Records”, creators of Upside Down. With a car hire fortune behind them, they turned their attention to the more glamorous world of pop, and their spectacular failure to mould their chosen four lads into a teenage sensation was captured by the BBC for its documentary, “A Band is Born”. Since it isn’t on youtube, this description will have to suffice.
The programme starts with Nick and Paul reducing their initial 7,000 applicants to 250 by screening photographs, with the remaining fresh faced boys assembling at a Mayfair nightclub in February 1995 to sing either “Love Me for a Reason” or “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Many of the hopeless auditionees - who it’s hard to believe thought of themselves as “extremely good looking” - literally run away in mid-song. The rest are screened on video by Nick and Paul at home, weeded out with such damning comments as “spotty, isn’t he?” “yes, very bad acne”. The 250 are eventually reduced to four: Jamie (16), Chris (22), Richard (17) and Giles (20).
Even their new manager don’t seem overwhelmed with their lads, deeming them best of a bad bunch. Jamie seems to be their favourite but is judged “too short”. It could also be pointed out that he has big ears and a bad haircut but when asked by the BBC “do you think you’ll be attractive to young girls?” he blithely answers “yeah, definitely, definitely”.
After the initial euphoria wears off off, the boys’ parents are (perhaps understandably) nervous about handing their sons over to two middle aged men and take legal advice. Giles even has middle class parents and is giving up studies at De Montford University. The contracts unsigned, the documentary makers question Nick about possible exploitation: “Surely you could give them a few extra quid?” “Why?”
So Chris holds on to his job as a waiter, and is shown in a uniform of cowboy hat, braces, a pleated skirt over trousers and a red and white vertically striped polo shirt in some kind of bizarre combination of Austria and the Wild West (what can the food be like?) Worse sartorial horrors are in store for the band as Nick and Paul appoint a stylist. She is instructed to give the as yet unnamed band a “boys next door” look and an unlimited budget. We see her spend over £2,000 in two shops alone and dress the boys in black and white vertically striped suits which isn’t what the boys next door to me are wearing (I do live in Catford). They also go to a choreographer, who schools them in pelvic thrusts “because the girlies love them. Some boys do too.”
The boys are flown to Spain in April to acquire suntans for their proposed summer single. In a Marbella heavy metal club we see Richard trying to stay upright by holding onto a condom dispenser while moaning “oh no, fucking hell”. A voice helpfully suggests “Rich put two fingers down your throat” but he crashes to the ground in one of those truly humiliating moments that keeps me watching fly-on-the-wall documentaries. Marbella’s cocktails inspire the band’s eventual name, Upside Down.
Back in England they are taken to a singing teacher for vocal exercises. “Open your mouth enough to admit the fattest part of your thumb between your teeth” she advises. Certainly a skill worth having in the music industry.
Contracts finally thrashed out, the managers visit publishing house Rondor Music in the search for a “killer radio single”. Unfortunately publisher Zara de Candole (!) can come up with nothing better to offer them than a song called “Arnold Schwartzenegger” which Nick and Paul openly laugh at and dismiss as “really twee”. Haven’t they heard Belle and Sebastian? Instead, they hire Ray Hedges to create a sound for the band.
Ray: “I was a bit reticent because I thought, well, another boy band. I thought I want to try a harder route, I don’t want to do another boy band, so we’re trying to be more soulful. We’ll try to take it somewhere other boy bands haven’t been before. I can see more of a backlash than the boys can, and World Records. I just really don’t want them to fall into the trap of thinking they’ve just got a formula to put out records. You’ve still got to have that little spark so I’m going to try and drag it into the direction I think it should go.” He produces a Jackson 5 style song which is fantastic, but was never released, so if you have a copy, let me know!
World Records declare Ray’s single too “black” sounding a too much of a marketing challenge, so behind his back they hire Ian Levine in an effort to “hedge their bets” (pun probably not intended). They record a song due to have been recorded by Bad Boys Inc before they split up and which bears a mammoth debt to “Careless Whisper”. Ian Levine comes across as very patronising towards the band and they prefer the Ray Hedges track (with the exception of Jamie). World Records choose Ian Levine’s effort, “Change Your Mind”.
By now it is October and Switzerland becomes the location for the video shoot. For the video, the boys are filmed lying on fur rugs in front of fires, scantily clad. The director points to Giles’s shirt and says “if this falls off, don’t worry about it at all.” Richard is clearly uncomfortably, pointing out “well, I’m in my underwear”. Jamie is once again made to stand on the Yellow Pages when the group photos are taken.
Pop fame seems to beckon as Upside Down are chosen for the Smash Hits tour and attract the attention of a group of adolescent girls who scream and hold an animated discussion on which member is the most attractive, at least until Peter Andre appears. Paul declares “I want to see a few pairs of knickers on stage. Mine included.” Their performance in velvet suits didn’t do it for me but some girls do wave their “show us your d*ck” (asterix in original) banner with enthusiasm, so it is declared a success.
The documentary ends with the announcement that Upside Down’s single has entered the charts at number 35, their launch having cost Nick Stollery half a million pounds. You can buy success, but not very much of it. For anyone who likes and defends “manufactured” bands (and I was with Ian Levine when he said that usually “pop bands survive better when somebody is masterminding them”) it hurts to see them manufactured so badly.
Upside Down’s role as figures of fun was pretty much guaranteed after the screening of “A Band is Born”, but they released 3 further singles, all produced by Ian Levine. “Every Time I Fall in Love”, a song from the Rondor Music “repetoire” featured the lads in clashing acid bright suits (without shirts, of course), the 9 photo digipak providing plenty of opportunities to contemplate the crime against fashion.
“Never Found a Love Like This Before” was slated for being an obvious rip off of “Pray” and I can’t argue with that since the first time i heard it, I thought it was “Pray”. It didn’t help the cause that the video was directed by the director of “Pray”. Around this time, Richard acquired a stalker, a man whose actions were surely a cry for help.
For what was to be their final single, in November 1996, Upside Down recorded a genuine cover version, although thankfully not the cover of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” which they performed at roadshows. In best boy band tradition they went for the MOR ballad and “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago. If you’ve heard Westlife and Mariah Carey’s version of “Against All Odds”, well, it isn’t as good as that. There was a moody black and white video shot in Prague.
After dissolving their partnership with World Records, Upside Down reappeared…as a rock band, who played their own instruments, and were called Orange Orange (what do you want to bet they came up with their own name too?) I This reincarnation met with all the success you might expect and was followed by Giles’s equally unsuccessful solo career where he admitted that the band had lied about not having girlfriends and had slept with fans. I hope these performances were more successful than their musical ones.
It goes without saying, but if anyone knows what Upside Down are doing now, get in touch. Their documentary was borrowed liberally from for the 1999 mockumentary series “Boyz Unlimited” which brought us James Corden (Gavin & Stacey) as the obligatory oversize figure of fun member but fiction was a lot less funny than fact (or fat).
