In ordinary circumstances, the return of an independent band who, back in the day and with minimum marketing budget, bypassed self-appointed media tastemakers and overcame an almost total absence of radio support in order to sell millions of records, might be welcomed and the red carpet rolled out. We might find some interest in the story of a band who eschewed prescribed notions of cool, and went from signing a one-off single deal to becoming the biggest touring act in the UK. And we might celebrate a story arc in which the band’s members put aside their differences in order to return with a new single as good as any one of their 14 consecutive Top 5 hits. But this is Steps, and the red carpet remains unrolled. Which seems like a shame.
When I expressed excitement about the band’s return – a new single, Scared of the Dark, a forthcoming album, Tears on the Dancefloor, and an arena tour were announced on 5 March – one Twitter user queried that excitement, asking if I was being paid by the band. To which, on this occasion, the answer is thanks for the reminder: I must remember to invoice for writing their new press bio. But having first heard the new single in January, I’d got on board with this comeback for the same reason I started a Steps fansite in 1998: the music excited me.
Pop history is littered with great acts who failed and truly woeful ones who succeeded, but in the post-Spice Girls pop landscape, Steps hit an unpretentious sweet spot. There’s something to be said for pop music – a product historically dictated by rules, plans, forecasts and second-guessing – that makes things up as it goes along. Steps’ debut single was the questionable novelty line-dance effort 5, 6, 7, 8, but it was such a success that they were granted a second single. From that point on, the band found themselves in the same position as a surprising number of their peers: derided by many for apparent style over substance but actually existing, single to single, on the strength of their tunes.
It's official... #20YearsOfSteps pic.twitter.com/3xKKFNuCG3
— Steps (@OfficialSteps) March 6, 2017
It was One for Sorrow, the band’s 1998 reimagining of Abba’s The Winner Takes It All, that registered Steps as a bona fide pop band. Further hits such as Stomp and Summer of Love homaged the likes of Chic and Irene Cara, while their well-judged cover of the Bee Gees’ Tragedy came with a video that involved a triple wedding and referenced The Graduate, cementing the band’s self-aware ludicrousness.
And there was always something slightly shambolic about Steps. Their later cover of Chain Reaction is better best forgotten, band member H was never likely to win any acting awards for his depiction of “popstar being kidnapped by a trio of gnomes” in the Heartbeat video, and the deep cut Experienced, in which H recounts an affair with an older woman, feels even more preposterous in 2017 than it did two decades ago. But again, there’s a charm in pop that’s slightly haphazard – particularly in 2017, when pop stars seem more passionate about marketing than the art of actually being a pop star.
How Steps’ latest comeback will pan out remains to be seen. Its nostalgia factor is lessened because the band haven’t strictly been away for as long as it may seem: their 2011 Steps: Reunion reality show documented their return to touring arenas, and in 2012 they released an album of Christmas covers.
And on the day Steps announced their comeback, the wheels fell off the return of Bros, who cancelled most of the dates on their forthcoming tour. Bros going from owing you nothing to owing ticket refunds at the point of purchase is easily explained – they only ever had a few hits, there was no new material, and they didn’t come back with the full lineup, and the fact that Matt and Luke Goss are twin brothers didn’t exactly frame their return as the denouement of a compelling narrative. But even if Steps only sell 5,678 concert tickets, the standard of their new single is its own vindication. It’s all about the music, right? Right.
There were always predictable criticisms of what Steps did: they didn’t write their own songs (an argument whose logical extension is that they’re as good as Elvis and Frank Sinatra), their audience were all idiots (teenagers, women and gay men: know your place) and the band weren’t credible (because, of course, Steps spent their entire time demanding to be considered in the same breath as Slint).
While it’s true that Steps will never be credible in the same, Jools Holland-approved way as, say, Seasick Steve (who eventually turned out to have fabricated his back story in order to conceal a secret disco background that makes Steps sound like, well, Seasick Steve), they thrived on a type of credibility that comes from being and doing exactly what one is and sets out to do. There may have been forced smiles that masked exhaustion, but Steps were as straightforward and honest as their tunes.
In any case, anyone who hoped that removing a band such as Steps from the world would have fast-tracked Mogwai to the top of the singles chart fundamentally misunderstands the fact that, when it comes to music, some people – many people – simply want banging pop tunes.
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