The One-Hit Wonders – The 2000s Part 7.

This is the final story of a girl group that I plan to feature, promise (probably). Recently, I wrote about the amount of girl groups on the chart (along with the ones that didn’t make it) around 2000 in a rather overcrowded market. Well just a year or two later things had changed a lot in pop music. Popstars had launched, and now if you wanted to audition for a group you could also get yourself on primetime TV.

And what would become Girls Aloud were put together on Popstars: The Rivals. Now we know that they went on to make many great pop singles, it almost makes me wish that I had watched this at the time. This was a group who came along just before that though, what would they have to offer? Smoke 2 Seven (who were originally called Holy Smoke) were a British female trio consisting of Beverley, Jo, and Vikki, who were barely out of their teens at the time.

In March 2002 their debut single “Been There Done That” was released. I do remember hearing this on the radio a few times, and I thought that it wasn’t too bad as far as these things go. I was a little surprised though at the lyric “I won’t take your crap“, it didn’t really bother me, but it probably hindered their chances of appearing on all those children’s TV shows (and indeed channels by this point). No Blue Peter appearance for them.

“Been There Done That” reached no. 26, not that incredible, but it was a Top 40 hit. However, in March 2003, their follow-up single “Envy” failed to reach the Top 75, why even look at this when Girls Aloud were on the up, they must’ve been rather jealous of them. After this, Smoke 2 Seven went their separate ways, not even getting as far as releasing an album, and once again, another group failed to fill their potential (they don’t even have a Wikipedia entry).

It must be a rather odd feeling to have got into a business where you’re just about past it at the age of 22 when you think you know everything, it must be brutal. And with that, they were left to pop music history. They were no Sugababes unfortunately, nor even a Madasun. Some of them did go on to have further success behind the scenes though, including management and songwriting.