In 1996, Take That, Britain’s biggest pop act, broke up. This was headline news. It prompted tears, the rending of garments and, according to Michael Cragg, left a vacuum that needed swiftly to be filled. Britpop still reigned, of course, but Britpop “was a bloke-heavy swirl of guitar-led authenticity, coke-sweat and lad mags”.
Cragg craved the more giddy delights of pop and, courtesy of the Spice Girls, Steps, 5ive, Blue and S Club 7, duly got it. Its ubiquity carried him through adolescence, and later facilitated his becoming a pop music writer (for the Guardian, among others). Now convinced that 1996 to 2006 represents a golden age – after which, he suggests, the genre became drearily “post-ironic”, with everyone making “Billie Eilish-adjacent mope-pop” – he’s written a book arguing for its enduring cultural significance.
