This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2010) |
Another Level | |
---|---|
Origin | London, England |
Genres | |
Years active | 1997–2000 |
Labels | Northwestside |
Past members |
|
Another Level were an English soul and R&B-influenced boy band that formed in 1997 and broke up in 2000, consisting of Mark Baron, Dane Bowers, Bobak Kianoush and Wayne Williams. They achieved seven top ten singles, including the 1998 number-one "Freak Me".
In 2013, the band were about to reunite for the ITV2 documentary, The Big Reunion ; however, Williams and Baron chose not to take part in the show. [1] [2] Bowers was the only member to take part in the show and joined the supergroup 5th Story along with Kenzie from Blazin' Squad and former soloists Adam Rickitt, Kavana and Gareth Gates.
On 30 November 2014, it was reported that Another Level could make a comeback, but nothing happened. [3]
According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Another Level has been certified for sales of 400,000 albums and 1 million singles in the UK. [4]
Dane Bowers and Wayne Williams were both students of the BRIT School of Performing Arts & Technology in the London Borough of Croydon when they were discovered. Williams enrolled at the school in 1995, while Bowers was in the year below, but started in 1994.
Another Level were originally conceived by Nick Raphael and Christian Tattersfield for their new record label project Northwestside Records, a BMG sub-label in the United Kingdom that had also signed Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records unit in 1998. Due to Northwestside's position as an urban marketed record label, a number of R&B and hip hop stars guested on Another Level's songs. These included Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah and TQ, amongst others.
Another Level had seven top 40 singles in two years, including 1998's UK singles chart number one "Freak Me" (a cover of the 1993 hit by US group Silk), and a platinum-selling, eponymous debut album.
1999's gold-selling Nexus followed, along with Brit Awards nominations, and the opening slot on Janet Jackson's European tour. In early 2000, the group split after Kianoush and Williams left the group in 1999. [5]
On 27 August 2013, Another Level were on the verge of signing up for the ITV2 documentary, The Big Reunion , but Williams announced that he would not take part. In an interview with MTV UK, he said: "I decided not to participate in The Big Reunion because it wouldn't feel right to me...I'm in a totally different space in my life and I don't feel any need to look back." [1] Also, Baron, who now works for Alan Sugar's company Amsprop, had been forced to pull out due to Sugar not allowing him time off work. Bowers told the Daily Star , "Another Level were supposed to do it but then Mark said he couldn't because of work. He's married to Alan Sugar's daughter and works for him. You don't say no to Alan Sugar. I was a bit annoyed because he pulled out right at the end. Surely he would have known earlier. But his loss is my gain." [2] Bowers was the only member to take part in the show as he joined supergroup 5th Story along with Kenzie from Blazin' Squad and former soloists Adam Rickitt, Kavana and Gareth Gates.
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [6] | AUS [7] | BEL [8] | NED [9] | SCO [10] | ||||||||||
Another Level |
| 13 | 144 | 20 | 26 | 56 | ||||||||
Another Level Remixed |
| 76 | — | — | — | — | ||||||||
Nexus |
| 7 | — | — | — | 32 |
| |||||||
From the Heart |
| — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||
Love Songs |
| — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||
Freak Me – The Collection |
| — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||
"—" denotes items that did not chart or were not released in that territory. | ||||||||||||||
Year | Title | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [6] | AUS [12] [13] [7] | BEL [8] | FRA [14] | GER [15] | IRE [16] | NED [9] | NZ [17] | SCO [18] | SWE [19] | |||||
1998 | "Be Alone No More" (featuring Jay-Z) | 6 | 165 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 31 | — |
| Another Level | |
"Freak Me" | 1 | 43 | 15 | 91 | 75 | 10 | 2 | 12 | 13 | 11 | ||||
"Guess I was a Fool" | 5 | — | — | — | — | 20 | 19 | 39 | 17 | 31 | ||||
1999 | "I Want You for Myself" (featuring Ghostface Killah) | 2 | 85 | — | — | — | 19 | 44 | — | 9 | 50 | |||
"Be Alone No More" (remix) / "Holding Back the Years" | 11 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 27 | 28 | — | Another Level Remixed / From the Heart | |||
"From the Heart" | 6 | 143 | 28 | — | 29 | 14 | 32 | 39 | 16 | 25 |
| Nexus | ||
"Summertime" (featuring TQ) | 7 | — | — | — | — | 24 | — | — | 24 | — | ||||
"Bomb Diggy" | 6 | 80 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 26 | — | ||||
"—" denotes items that did not chart or were not released in that territory. | ||||||||||||||
Blazin' Squad were an English hip hop group. The group had six top ten hits, including "Crossroads", a cover version of the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony original.
A1 is a British–Norwegian boy group formed in 1998.
Adam Peter Rickitt is an English actor and singer. He portrayed the part of Nick Tilsley on the British soap opera Coronation Street from 1997 to 1999, and again from 2002 to 2004. He later joined the New Zealand soap Shortland Street for a three-year stint between 2007 and 2010. From 2017 to 2020, he appeared as Kyle Kelly on Channel 4's Hollyoaks. His other credits include the BBC's Doctors.
Silk is an American R&B group, formed in 1989 in Atlanta, Georgia. They are best known for their 1993 hit single, "Freak Me", which reached number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Kevin Ian Simm is an English singer and songwriter. He was a member of Liberty X (2001–2007) and is the vocalist of Wet Wet Wet. Simm also won The Voice UK in 2016.
Richard Abidin Breen, better known as Abz Love, is an English singer, rapper, and songwriter. Love was a member of the boy band Five and is a current member of the supergroup Boyz on Block.
Dane Bowers is an English singer, songwriter, producer and DJ. He was a part of R&B boy band Another Level between 1997 and 2000 when he performed on seven Top 10 singles, before taking up solo projects with True Steppers and Victoria Beckham. He has made TV appearances on Celebrity Big Brother 7 and the celebrity version of Come Dine with Me. He was part of the supergroup 5th Story, set up for the second series of The Big Reunion.
Kavana is a British singer and actor who scored a number of hit singles in the late 1990s, and won Smash Hits 'Best Male Artist' award. His second album, 'Instinct', went platinum in Asia; this was followed by a tour of Australia and Japan. Kavana moved to Los Angeles in 2001, where he appeared in cult MTV soap opera 'Undressed' In 2014, he became part of the supergroup 5th Story, who took part in the second series of The Big Reunion, and followed this with a major arena tour in the UK. In 2015, he took part in the fifteenth series of the Channel 5 reality series Celebrity Big Brother, making the final week.
"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday", sometimes written as "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day", is a Christmas song recorded by British glam rock band Wizzard. It was first released in December 1973 and, as with most Wizzard songs, was written and produced by the band's frontman Roy Wood—formerly of The Move and a founding member of Electric Light Orchestra. Despite the song's strong, long-lasting popularity, it has reached no higher than number four on the UK Singles Chart, a position it occupied for four consecutive weeks from December 1973 to January 1974. The song was beaten to the 1973 Christmas Number 1 spot by Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody", which remained at the top of the charts for five weeks, from December 1973 to January 1974.
MN8 are a British R&B-pop group. They consisted of KG, G-Man, Kule T (vocals) and Dee Tails.
James MacKenzie, better known as Kenzie or James Kenzie, is a British rapper, DJ, actor and personal trainer, who was formerly a member of ten-piece hip-hop group Blazin' Squad. He was also part of the R&B/pop supergroup 5th Story, set up for The Big Reunion in 2013.
The discography of English rock band Dire Straits consists of six studio albums, three live albums, three compilation albums, two extended plays and 31 singles. Dire Straits also have sold over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists in the world.
"Love on the Line" is a song by ten piece hip-hop group Blazin' Squad, released as the second single from their debut studio album, In the Beginning.
The discography of East 17, a British boy band, consists of six studio albums, four compilation albums, and twenty-four singles.
"Be Alone No More" is the debut single by British R&B vocal quartet Another Level, released on 16 February 1998 by Northwestside Records. It is from their eponymous debut album (1998), and features American rapper Jay-Z. The song was written by Steven Dubin, Andrea Martin and Ivan Matias. In 1999, it was released a second time in remix form together with a cover of the Simply Red song "Holding Back the Years". The two releases peaked at number six and number eleven in the UK respectively. Several UK garage remixes were also released, such as the 'Dubmonsters Mix' and 'Another Groove Mix'. The latter is a mashup with Double 99's "RipGroove".
The discography of British boy band 911 consists of 13 singles and three studio albums. They were formed in 1995 and released their debut single in May 1996. They went on to score 10 UK top 10 singles and 10 million singles sales around the world, before their split in early 2000. The trio reunited in 2005, when they participated in the ITV reality show Hit Me, Baby, One More Time and have performed live shows occasionally since.
English recording artist Olly Murs has released seven studio albums, twenty-five singles and twenty one music videos on recording labels Epic and Sony subsidiary Syco. Olly rose to prominence in the United Kingdom after being a contestant on The X Factor during its sixth series, ultimately finishing in second place on 12 December 2009. During his time on the show, Murs appeared on the number-one charity single "You Are Not Alone" alongside the other finalists. His debut single, "Please Don't Let Me Go" was released on 27 August 2010—where it became his second number-one single and first as a solo artist. The accompanying album, Olly Murs was released on 26 November, where it debuted at number two, and was preceded by the number four single "Thinking of Me" on 19 November. The singles "Heart on My Sleeve" and "Busy" were also released from the album on 27 March and 27 May 2011—peaking at number twenty and forty-five in the UK respectively.
The Big Reunion is a British reality-documentary series that began airing on ITV2 on 31 January 2013. The show featured chart-topping bands who were big in the UK pop music scene between the 1990s and early 2000s, and the programme followed them as they reunited for the first time in a decade and went through their two weeks of intensive rehearsals before finally stepping back on stage for a comeback performance.
5th Story were an English supergroup consisting of 1990s-early 2000s pop stars Dane Bowers, Gareth Gates, Kavana, Kenzie and Adam Rickitt. They were formed in 2013 exclusively for the second series of the ITV2 reality-documentary series The Big Reunion.
The second series of the British reality-documentary series The Big Reunion began airing on ITV2 on 6 February 2014 and ended on 27 March 2014. The show features 'teen' bands, some of whom were big names in the UK pop music scene between the 1990s and early 2000s, and the programme follows them as they reunite for the first time in a decade and go through their two weeks of intensive rehearsals before finally stepping back on stage for a comeback performance.