FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
Atomic Kitten - Whole Again
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THIS is a rather strange…
instalment of this feature, as I am recommending a song that has sort of been remade by the band. Atomic Kitten were a big girl group of the 1990s. The current line-up, Liz McClarnon, Jenny Frost, Natasha Hamilton, have sort of remade Whole Again for the England football team. The Line of Best Fit explain the remix:
“Atomic Kitten have re-recorded and released their updated version of "Whole Again" featuring lyrics about England football manager Gareth Southgate ahead of tomorrow's Euro semi-final game against Denmark.
Last weekend Atomic Kitten took to the stage at Boxpark Croydon following England's Euro 2020 win against Ukraine to perform the Gareth Southgate remix of "Whole Again", which was first adapted by fans during the 2018 World Cup.
Today (6 July), ahead of tomorrow's semi-final game against Denmark, Atomic Kitten have given the reworked version of the song an official release.
Atomic Kitten's new version is titled "Southgate You're the One (Football's Coming Home Again)", and features the iconic chorus paying tribute to the England manager, "Looking back on when we first met / I cannot escape and I cannot forget / Southgate you’re the one / You still turn me on / Football’s coming home again”.
Few people were expecting the group to come back together for a cause like England’s progress in Euro 2020. This is being written before the final so, when it goes online, we will know whether England won against Italy.
Whole Again is taken from the group’s debut, Right Now, of 2000 The album was re-released in 2001 following the departure of Kerry Katona. Whilst not one of the strongest girl groups, the Liverpool-formed trio were pretty strong. Many people have judged Whole Again to be a guilty pleasure. Before going on, here is some background regarding the track:
“Whole Again" is the fifth single released from British pop girl group Atomic Kitten's debut album, Right Now (2000). It is the group's biggest selling single to date and was the final single to feature founding member Kerry Katona, who left the group midway through promoting the single. "Whole Again" was the first single released from the album in Europe and South Africa. It was a massive success, reaching number one in several countries and selling over a million copies in the UK alone.
"Whole Again" was co-written by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) members and Atomic Kitten founders Andy McCluskey and Stuart Kershaw, along with Jem Godfrey and Bill Padley. The four writers were nominated for the Ivor Novello Award for excellence in songwriting, and Billboard ranked the track number 96 on their list of the "100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time". Multiple artists, including OMD, have covered the song.
Following the departure of Katona, she was replaced a few days later by Jenny Frost of fellow English girl group Precious, just after the single topped the UK Singles Chart. As a result, the music video was reshot and Frost's vocals appeared on the reissue of Right Now”.
A lot of songs from girl groups of the 1990s and early-2000s are dismissed or seen as inferior. Whilst the U.S. girl groups were stronger than ours, I have a lot of time for Atomic Kitten. Whole Again is catchy, soulful and romantic! The fact they have reworked it for England is pretty good! If you have never heard the song before, then give it a spin. The Right Now album is satisfying and has plenty of good songs on there. I don’t think that Whole Again is a guilty pleasure – not that I think this is a term that can be applied to any song. Whole Again is a lot stronger than many have given it credit for. Going back to Wikipedia. They discuss and explore the impact and success of the song:
“The single debuted at number one in the United Kingdom with first-week sales of 69,286 copies, staying atop the chart for four weeks and increasing in sales during every week that it was at number one. It has since gone on to sell over 1,000,000 copies in the UK alone. It is the fourth best-selling single by a girl group of all time, after "Wannabe" and "2 Become 1" by the Spice Girls and "Never Ever" by All Saints. It also became the 13th overall best-selling single of the 2000s decade. As of November 2016, it remains the biggest-selling song of the 21st century in the UK by a girl band”.
If you have been against Atomic Kitten and avoided Whole Again, then spend some time with it now. It is a really solid song that should get a lot more love. I first heard it when it came out and I like to give it a play every now and then. To me, it is most definitely not…
A guilty pleasure.