Title: Peter Robinson Sees The Music Industry Downsizing
Date: 6 April 2002
Source: The Guide
Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aaronintheuk/
Source: Submitted by generationhansonextreme
Topic: Other
Location: UK
Imagine, if you dare, that you're Simon Fuller. S Club 7 are getting engaged, waving spliffs arouund in Covent Garden, and finally - triumphantly - going fat, bleaching their hair and quitting the band. Your carefully nurtured S Club brand could fall apart at literally any moment. Except... is that the pitter patter of a tiny safety net? Why yes: it's S Club Juniors, the throng of 11-to-13-year-olds granted a support slot on their mentors' recent tour, like some elaborate pop rewrite of a Docytor Who regeneration. That there are eight of them is the only factor left to chance: this is a pop scheme so perfect that their debut single, One Step Closer, would be a No 1 hit even if it wasn't the greatest pop single of 2002. It's like Muppet Babies never happened.
In recent years the growing importance of recognisable pop brands has not sat comfortably with the industry's increasingly swift turnover of act, forcing managers and labels to have direct, bonsai-style substitutes waiting in the wings to look after business when the originals retire. S Club 7 will come out of this fairly well. Not Boyzone: by the time they were hitting the skids Louis Walsh had perfected the formula with Westlife and - wisely - reversed the 2:3 ratio of fit lads to mingers. As the final, humiliating blow, he also gave Westlife better hair.
The team behind Steps launched the all-singing, all-dancing allSTARS five-piece last year, shrewdly predicting that all good things, even Steps, must come to an end. Covering Duran Duran and Bucks Fizz has yet to give them a top five hit but, as predicted, allSTARS outlived their prototypes, and may yet inherit their fans.
There's more to come - in the wake of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter's little brother Aaron come Britney's sister Jamie Lynn and Samantha Mumba's brother Omero. This is a phenomenon that is both global (Wyclef's been nurturing baby Fugees City High and Jamie-Lynn Sigler is the new Jenniger Lopez, while French diva Mylene Farmer is responsible for Alizee), and multimedia (think again about Smallville, the Star Wars prequels, CosmoGIRL! mag and Heat's forthcoming teen spin-off Sneak). Blame can be laid squarely at the feet of Hanna-Barbera, who invented Scrappy-Doo to accompany Scooby and - in a move that provoked the sort of unbridled fury even s Club Juniors may never experience - coupled Godzilla off with baby Godzooki.
What happens next? With this business, that's all too clear. For allSTARS and Westlife, the fate that befell their elders serves as a tantalising glimpse of their own future, like seeing one's own parents succumb to a hereditary illness. Next week, Kian from Westlife is watching Boyzone's Keith Duffy attempting to present a TV show. "His career is over!" guffaws Kian. And his face contorts to a look of utter horror. "But... we share the same management genes..."
