OPTIMYSTIC Loves Gone Mad

So Smash Hits is over. Gone! Not that we've read it since they went into boyband hyperdrive after the demise of the Spice Girls. However Smash Hits was a pop institution and its closing reminds us all of the ongoing need to keep traditional pop music alive. Wipe away that tear and leave a message over at Smash Hits forever: while listening to Optimystics Loves Gone Mad.

Optimystic were Steps with the music of early Take That. They featured quite heavily in Smash Hits who recieved them as the next biggest thing since er Take That circa 1995. They were the Take that but with two girls. Pop is genius like that. Optimystic were Ian McKeith, Stuart McKeith(brothers!), Bryn Downing, Shola Finni and Selina Charlier: we miss u all so much! They had three chances at the British pop charts and completely flopped despite the two cutest men in the band being nude in most of their publicity shots. The Optimystic album sleeve 'HeartBeat' featured one of the guys gripping his rude bits in a clenched fist. The start of Loves Gone Mad actually starts off sounding like you've accidently recorded the soundtrack of a gay porn flick with all its macho grunts and 'uh uh uh uh ah ah ah'. They were quite clearly before their time!

Most of their material was of course produced, written and mixed by the master of 90's pop music Ian Lavine which makes their rare album of no less than 18 tracks, one of the best mid-90's albums of er the mid-90's. Tracks included Best Thing In The World, which is er actually like the best thing in the world. Optimystic were THE very essence of Smash Hits. Indeed in the Smash Hits Alphabet under O came the all important question "Optimystic... Have the been dropped yet?" (Mark Sutherland!).