One-hit wonders

Whatever happened to S Club 7?

Every day, wedged between episodes of “Angela Anaconda” and “Braceface” on what was then the Fox Family Channel, seven peppy British 20-somethings, who just so to all work together at a resort in Florida and also just so happened to love to sing and dance, entertained me on “S Club 7: Miami 7.”

The show was essentially a marketing platform for a manufactured and imported pop group.

And I was obsessed.

I rearranged my after-school schedule to watch this show, even though nothing ever happened on it besides the group performing janitorial duties in exchange for performance time at this fictional resort. In every episode, there was a musical number, but something always went wrong. Hilarity ensued – sort of.

Only 15 episodes of the 1999 show were ever aired, and after seeing each of the episodes maybe seven or eight times, I got bored and forgot about them.

Frankly, I hadn’t thought about them until last weekend when a few of my friends and I got bored and started talking about past guilty-pleasure musicians.

We started looking up all of the groups from our tween years: first, the easy ones like *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, then more obscure blips on the pop music radar like Dream, O-Town and 5ive.

And, of course, I requested my favorite S Club 7 song, “Never Had A Dream Come True.”

Our evening became a whir of awesomely shiny pleather pants, sky-high gelled hairdos and sweet dance moves.

Then we raised the inevitable question: Where are they now?

For some, this is an easy question to answer. Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees is currently mending his broken heart after breaking up with former MTV video jockey Vanessa Minnillo. The Backstreet Boys still tour sometimes. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back.

After doing a little digging, we tracked down a few more tween idols.

Rich Cronin, lead singer of LFO, battled leukemia for awhile in 2005. Two of the members of O-Town married their high school sweethearts, and one works construction.

Justin Jeffre, the bleach-blond, pouty-lipped member of 98 Degrees, ran for mayor of Cincinnati.

As for S Club 7, one member came in second on the British reality competition show called “Strictly Come Dancing.” Another starred on the recently canceled BBC show “Primeval.”

Three members – Jo O’Meara, Bradley McIntosh  and Paul Cattermole – have reunited and toured around Britain as the S Club 3. They perform in universities and nightclubs and sing old S Club 7 music.

Part of me wants to feel sad for my former idols, unable to let go of their former choreographed glory. I mean, they are almost all in their 30s by now. Isn’t it time to let go?

But after the record contracts expired, most of these guys were left with nothing except for has-been status.

They had to start over somehow, regardless of how vicious commentators on VH1 specials would be to them later.

So they’re still here, whether in suburbs or studios, construction sites or reunion concerts.

It just depends on whether we choose to remember.