POPFESSIONS

James Edwards

In October 1999, I turned 7. You’re old huh? Coincidentally, that was also the month that 5ive laid waste to the charts with the unquestionably brilliant Keep On Movin‘. Now as a little pigeon-chested 7 year old, I had had very little interest in pop music, preferring to spend my waking hours playing with the dog (he was called Jason, and he was brilliant too) and shouting, leaving me very little time to appreciate the latest offerings from whoever you folks listened to back then. Maybe it was 911. I don’t know. But the moment I heard that song, reluctantly sitting in front of Top of the Pops with my parents, and its silly jangly guitar and breathy vocals, I knew I’d stumbled across something special. Something that wasn’t throwing mud at next door’s windows, which was the other thing I’d gotten into since my birthday.

I made my mum buy me the cassette from Woolworths (see, I’m grown up enough to be nostalgic too) and I scampered off to my room with it, dog in tow, like a boyband-obsessed Tintin. I played it for days and days, which was very fucking annoying for everyone, but at least it kept me from doing mean things in the garden. Maybe, just maybe, that’s how 5ive saved me from prison.