28 April 2001
A chart year or two from here, we’ll have two UK girl groups—I’ve not seen the passport of all members to say otherwise—who each serve up hit after hit of sensational cutting-edge pop, right up there with the best music of the ’00s. Placed beside them, S Club 7 feel like a throwback to a milder, blander age. They were a girl-boy group whose members had no discernible charisma or personality, which was probably by design. The S stands for nothing, and you could say the same for the rest of their name. Their singles were as generic as own-brand supermarket groceries; I imagine the sleeve notes include thank-yous to a focus group. A parallel universe where S Club 7 and their elder siblings Steps are the guiding principle of chart pop, a sort of post-Boyzone-Westlife ascendancy, is a sensible shoe stamping on your face forever.
‘Don’t Stop Movin” is indeed a generic track by an achingly bland group. Happily, it’s also far, far better than it needs to be. Part of this is due to the genre in question being disco. Who doesn’t love disco? Nobody, that’s who. The vogue-ish vocoder hook at the start is a tip of the hat to the Daft Punk-inspired revival of disco as electronic pop for the ’00s palate. Also helping is the choice of Bradley—I researched this name and take it on trust—as singer on the verses; his voice here is as energetic and urgent as this crew ever gets, and gives ‘Don’t Stop Movin” enough forward momentum to see us through the pre-chorus and chorus, sung by others. Where Steps depend on your tolerance for kitsch and cheese, at least S Club 7 have one actual good track. That’s small beer, of course, compared to the pop thrills soon to come, but for now it’ll do.
