Steps 5,6,7,8...

Twenty-one Years After They First Hit the Charts, '90s Brit Pop Act Steps Take to the Stage at Dubai Opera This Month

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If you grew up in the 1990s, it would have been difficult to escape the pop phenomenon that was Steps. The British cheesy-pop quintet, comprised of trained dancers and singers Lee Latchford-Evans, Claire Richards, Lisa Scott-Lee, Faye Tozer and Ian ‘H’ Watkins, scored a host of chart hits, from 5,6,7,8 and One For Sorrow to Stomp, Last Thing On My Mind and Tragedy, notching up two No 1 singles, two No 1 albums and 14 consecutive top five singles in the UK, as well as a string of hits throughout Europe and worldwide album sales of 20 million.

The group, named after a marketing ploy that saw the dance steps featured in their videos included in the sleeve notes of their CD releases, were at the top of the pop game when, in 2001, the departure of Richards and Watkins to form their own duo forced the group to disband. At the time, Richards revealed that the pair had been unhappy with the work, saying: “At some point you’ve got to say to yourself, ‘It doesn’t matter how much money I earn this year, I’m miserable.’”

H agreed: “We could have sold millions more albums, but it wasn’t worth it. There was no point in flogging a dead horse.”