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Do you still wish you had hair like that Rachel off of Friends?
Do you think the reggae mix of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is the best version? Did your mum have massive glasses? Were T-shirts that changed colour around your armpits a good idea? If so then brace yourself. This news is going to make your Bermuda shorts turn inside out. 5ive...are reuniting! Oh.My.God! Lush! Yes the pop-sensation of cheeky, uber-talented sex-bombs – farted out by the then un-known Simon Cowell - are going to get back together alongside some of the most influential musical behemoths of the last two decades, all for a special ITV2 show: The Big Reunion.
The cast is quite simply a roll-call of pop superstardom. A who’s who of who were they again? A shuddering, heaving, gargantuan landslide of microphone-gripping, denim-clad, centre-parted 90s (and noughties) pop lushousness. It gives me pant-smearing joy to list the gods and goddesses of our collective musical past: Atomic Kitten, B*Witched, Liberty X, 911, and yes, we've all missed them! The incredible worldwide pop megatron that was...Honeyz! Who? You know! Finely found wadavbin loo-ookin for.
Quick! Fetch your Naff Naff bomber jackets. Boys: part your hair in the middle and put on Caterpillar boots and jeans with pointless loops stitched onto the legs. Girls: where should that pony tail be? Right on top of your head! With a scrunchy! Gel that fringe until it looks like a comb! Zip up your clompy denhim boots, tattoo a dolphin on your ankle, fetch a bottle of Metz, goodle Zack from Saved By The Bell and let's parrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrty! Woop-woop! Woop-woop!
Yes, nostalgia, ladies and gentlemen, makes money. And popstalgia is now a well-established industry. Ever since Botox Barlow re-varnished Take That, other long-forgotten acts have been attempting to follow their lead and make bum-bags of cash. The problem is that TT were a huge generation-defining phenomenon like the Spice Girls. Oh my actual God I still love the Spice Girls like 110%! Their comeback was fractured and spasmodic – true - but the feisty fivesome arrived and departed like a clap of girl power thunder!
So will this latest clutch of reformed bands inspire a countrywide school reunion? Or are they little more than pop's answer to genital herpes? I totally fancied one of the lads from 5ive. The one with the girl's face. Let's find out by reminding ourselves who those bands were with a TOTP run-down.
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