Soap stars have often turned their hand to the world of music. With varying degrees of success. Eastenders has had a shed load of them appearing in the charts and even turned their theme tune into a top five smash via Anita Dobson’s vocal stylings.
Coronation Street has too had a few, but has also done the reverse with Shayne from Boyzone and Kym Marsh from Hear’Say appearing in the Rovers.
But who’s been the best at pop in terms of chart success? Let us cast our minds back and see. First up, the girls.
Michelle Gayle was Hattie in the London show in the ’90s who everyone liked then went to Norwich and never came back. Maybe she’d had enough of the city. In reality she was unleashing her inner popstrel unto the world in 1994. She got to number four with the above track “Sweetness” and wore the same outfit in the video as she did on her TOTP debut. Maybe it was wash day and she had nothing else. She did sing it live though and actually can sing. It’s a shame the song’s a bit blah. And that she didn’t do a wash.
And then wheeled in on a Kwik Save trolley looking like having just woken up in a bin comes the cobbles’ Tracy Shaw aka Maxine Peacock. After her character was murdered by another of Gayle’s well chosen husbands, the homicidal Richard Hillman, Tracy tried but ultimately failed quite badly to launch a pop career. She did a cover of “Happening All Over Again” by Lonnie Gordon which limped in at number 46, then tried a year later with the above. No chart date seems to appear for this one, nor video or performance. Why IS that one wonders? Listen to the above and you may find the answer.
So that’s 1-0 to Eastenders. Let’s see what the men bring.
Dopey, dozy, in fact all the seven dwarves rolled into one Ricky Butcher, left Eastenders as Sid Owen because Sid Owen is a real man who played him. Sid had dreams of cod reggae tinged chart stardom you see so he left the square and covered “Good Thing Going” by Sugar Minott. It got to number 14, then not much else happened as no one wanted a full album frankly and the novelty had worn off so he went back to Eastenders where you can see him being Ricky again, just a bit portlier.
Christ. Nick Tilsey the second, came back to Corrie from years in Canada in the form of hunky Adam Rickitt. He wasn’t the best at acting, but he had a pretty face so that always helps. Adam tried his pop luck with the above “Breathe Again” single which saw him naked in a glass box in a fictional laboratory in not-at-all-cynical attempt at chart stardom via the medium of flesh and appealing to the gay community. It got to number five and sold over 200,000. Yes, 200,000. He released a couple of other singles and an album and then was dumped by his label. Since then he has come back to Corrie, left, come back and then left again; attempted a political career; acted in New Zealand soap Shortland Street and been arrested for shoplifting cheese, coffee and HP sauce in an Auckland supermarket. Apparently he was pissed. Either way, he wins it for the boys.
Corrie 1-1 Enders.
So who to choose for the deciding vote? Well we’ll take it to the groups.
From the south we have this:
Released as a single as a result of a plotline in the show , Sharon and Kelvin had chart success despite the difficult-to-dance-to nature of the track (the beat is too fast for the melody and sounds like two different tracks being played at once and therefore renders ones feet confused) getting to number 12 in the charts. They were probably dead pleased and that until Nick Berry took the shine off it though with his number one for “Every Loser Wins“, the big show off.
And from the north – YE GODS – we have this:
A musical account of some of the most famous episodes sung by the cast. It’s actually real and you can buy it should you so desire. Miss T. A. Scott from Tyne and Wear gives it five stars and says she “can count on one hand how many CD’s I have, but this album is the most original CD you will probably hear”. Probably. It was released via Tesco and didn’t make the top 100 on release. They also released Nadine Coyle’s album and managed to shift 117 copies on the first day. They didn’t do many more on the second.
Therefore Eastenders are the champions of the charts.
Well done.
They should release an album of all their hits. Perhaps not with Tesco though.
