Panda Pops

IF SHE WERE IN THOSE SHOES...

Over the weekend we indulged in a bit of an orgy of chocolate biscuits and bubblegum pop, featuring some of the greatest hits of Rachel Stevens and Lolly (it was a comparitively short orgy). When we emerged from our stupor, with a slight headache and a vague grubby and nauseous feeling (a bit like the one you get if you read heat magazine), we remembered the rumours that both Rachel Stevens and current Panda Pops hotlister Hannah Spearitt were on the shortlist to "be" Lolly, before they got snaffled for S Club 7 and the role went to Anna Kumblé. Let's entertain the notion of parallel universes for a minute: what if Rachel Stevens hadn't been offered the S Club gig and taken the role of Lolly instead?

As things stand, Rachel's solo career doesn't look all that secure: the initial promise of 'Sweet Dreams My LA Ex' being waylaid by disappointing album sales and a relatively disastrous chart placing for follow-up single 'Funky Dory', it's generally safe not to be holding your breath for a second album. Lolly, in her Kumblé incarnation, had a string of top 20 hits and managed to last two albums before being consigned to pop's dumper and heading off to present CBBC.

Admittedly in her current incarnation, Rachel had the benefit of being in successful pop combo S Club 7, but her role in the band was largely consigned to being Jo O'Meara's backing singer on the records and playinig the slightly vapid comic foil on the TV shows. She may not have had much credibility had she become Lolly, but then similarly there's little to be gained from being the much-hyped first soloist to emerge from the ashes of a defunct pop band only to fail to live up to her initial promise. Had she been Lolly à la Stevens, she could have been the force behind several bubblegum masterpieces (oh, admit it, you love 'Per Sempre Amore' as well), forever earned a place in the hearts of The Gays, and made the segue into children's television presenting (which is probably where La Stevens is heading) far less embarrassing.

Then again, this could mean that Anna Kumblé would have released 'Sweet Dreams My LA Ex' and dated Jeremy Edwards, and that makes this parallel universe distinctly unsettling.

posted by Steve @ 8:55 pm