Artist:Five
Song:When the Lights Go Out
Album:Greatest Hits
The British boy band Five scored a top ten hit in the US with the 1998 single When the Lights Go Out. It was their only big hit in the US. They were much more successful at home. This was at the tail end of the boy band craze. of the 90s. The guys behind this group were Bob and Chris Herbert of Heart Management who also created The Spice Girls. They placed an ad in the performing arts newspaper The Stage. After 3,000 auditions, They narrowed it down to fourteen and then five. They were Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, Sean Conlon, Jason "J" Brown and Richard Breen. Breen took on the name Abz Love so no one would confuse the two Richards. They were named Five or sometimes 5ive. They are called Five on all the album covers. They signed a six album record deal with Simon Cowell and RCA. When the Lights Go Out was the second single from the 1998 album Five. It reached #4 on the British Singles chart and #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. That may have been a surprise to the group's management as early 90s British boy band Take That never charted in the US. Why was the song a hit in the US? My guess is fans thought it was a new Backstreet Boys single. I think they were supposed to be a soundalike act. The record was produced by Eliot Kennedy, Mike Percy and Tim Lever. Kennedy produced Take That. Percy and Lever are from the band Dead or Alive. Those three wrote the song with Westlife songwriter John McLaughlin. Five co-wrote several songs on the album. Five released three albums. They continued to have success in England. But When the Lights Go Out was their only US hit. My guess is when the target audience figured out they were fooled, they rejected Five as imitators of real boy bands. After the 2001 album Kingsize, Five split up. You can get all their hits on this comp. They reunited in 2006 and released an album in 2022. They will tour again in May. Here's the video for When the Lights Go Out by Five.
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