This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If you’ve been celebrating the breakup of The Spice Girls, the party’s over.
You see, the U.K. pop-music biz, like nature itself, abhors a vacuum — except for the ones between performers’ ears. So they’ve annointed the latest queens of Britpop: Atomic Kitten. Their names — you might as well learn ’em now — are Lil, Jenny and Natasha. They are good-looking (but not unattainably posh) blonds from Liverpool. Their singing talents are negligible. Their Svengali mastermind, former Orchestral Manoeuvers member Andy McClusky, writes and programs many of their songs, which are musically closer to Bananarama than Spice Girls (a point in their favour). Lyrically, though, said songs are the usual bubbly, double-entendre drivel about love, heartbreak and how they want you to “do it to me, right now!” Soon, if things go according to plan, your seven-year-old will be singing that around the house. And screaming for you to buy the lunchbox, shirts, sheets and other merch. Oh, great. All of a sudden the Spices don’t seem so bad, do they?
