I didn’t realise how wrong a turn modern music had taken until I went back and listened to some classics. You know – the good stuff – Westlife and the Spice Girls, Boyzone and Bjork, and it was like being taken by a fever dream. There’s so much fun being had in the music of the late 90s and early noughties. It’s all about having a good time. It doesn’t take itself too seriously – its videos are bright and colourful. Artists weren’t these tortured types; they were enjoying themselves, and so were we. It was a vibe for the age, the soundtrack for our esprit de corps as we marched into a new millennium. We had this young guy named Tony Blair who swept into Downing Street on the back of D:Ream’s promise that ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. The Cold War had ended, peace was brought to Northern Ireland, and everybody became middle-class overnight. This was a time when people were excited by questions like, ’Who shot Phil Mitchell?’, as opposed to, ’Will the Ukraine conflict escalate into thermonuclear Armageddon?’ Even the films, like Wanted, The Matrix, and Fight Club, were all about how everything was so nice and peaceful that the world had got boring. It was the ascendant age of conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and David Ike who refused to believe the steak was real. The year 2000 – the future – was now. History was over, and each new moment promised to be even better than the last. And it was all going well until when, on September 11th 2001, 19 hijackers commandeered passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Centre. All at once a tempest fell upon the world, and the winds of change ravaged every part of our lives, our finances, our films, and our music. This week in June 1999, the UK Top 40 was topped by S Club 7’s debut single, ‘Bring It All Back’. The song bore all the hallmarks that would see the band become enduring darlings of British pop culture, and it propelled them to instant success. S Club 7 were clean-cut and wholesome. Their music was bouncy and fun. The appeal isn’t any particular gimmick. They looked nice, sounded nice, danced nicely – they were just nice. In the video for ‘Bring It All Back’, the S Club crew are seen full of youthful energy as they dance around Miami, bombing into pools and swimming with dolphins in the cutaways. See and hear for yourself: The lyrics are brimming with contagious hope and optimism, which can’t help but uplift even the most stoic of listeners. The first verse of S Club 7’s first song tells you all you need to know: Don’t stop, never give up Hold your head high and reach the top Let the world see what you have got Bring it all back to you In other words: persevere, try your best, and demonstrate your quality. That message is a thread which runs through so many of S Club 7’s songs. Take ‘Reach’, popular enough for my generation to be played at my school prom as late as 2011. It’s about a future full of potential which is waiting to be seized: Don’t believe in all that you’ve been told The sky’s the limit; you can reach your goal No one knows just what the future holds There ain’t nothing you can’t be There’s a whole world at your feet I said reach Comparing this to the UK number one from the same week this year is an utterly depressing exercise. Occupying the top spot at the time of writing is ‘Sprinter’ by British rappers Dave and Central Cee.

Dave (R) and Central Cee (L) in the music video for ‘Sprinter’
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It is not clear whether the mention of this concoction is a recommendation or a diss. But later on, one of the rappers – and no, I don’t know Dave from Central Cee – brags about selling drugs to students. The BBC’s music correspondent praised the duo for producing a “playful, knowing track that indulges in rap clichés while acknowledging their absurdity”, but I fear he is giving them too much credit. The music video contains no dancing, just Dave and Central Cee monologuing passive-aggressively into the camera and occasionally waving their arm past it to flash a watch or a tattoo sleeve. It neither uplifts nor delights, although, in fairness, it doesn’t mean to. Now let us return to June 1999, when number two in the charts was Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’. This song was made for the second Austin Powers film, The Spy Who Shagged Me. It is playful and cheeky, with Mike Myers starring in the video alongside the queen of pop.

Mike Myers and Madonna in the music video for ‘Beautiful Stranger’
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Today the second spot is occupied by ‘Miracle’, by Calvin Harris and Ellie Golding. Interestingly, ‘Miracle’ is an attempt to ape the feel of 90s dance music and wouldn’t sound out of place on NOW 44. Clean vocals carry the song through the bridge and into the drop. It’s trancey and has those soft piano notes we all remember. A far cry from Central Cee’s verbose beat. But it’s still not fun. There’s a bit of a gloomy edge to it. It’s hard to put your finger on the why of it until you see the video where its star, Golding, is dressed variously as a Satanic acolyte and the vampire priestess from Dusk Till Dawn. Golding stands before apocalyptic hellscapes and above the backing dancers. She barely moves her body, except for her arms which command the hooded dancers into animation, giving us the impression that she is something between a Roman emperor at the Colosseum and a necromancer.

Harris himself makes a brief appearance, unsmiling and rather forlorn