Band Story
In May 2001, a new band named Blue released their debut single. The next year saw the band achieve a meteoric rise to fame, becoming the hottest new act to emerge from the UK in years and picking up the coveted "Best Newcomer" award at this year's BRITS.
Comprising of London based lads Duncan James (24), Anthony Costa (21), Lee Ryan (19) and Simon Webbe (24), Blue released their first single in May 2001, the anthemic "All Rise", which entered the UK chart at No. 4 and stayed in the top ten for five weeks.
The next two singles "Too Close" and "If You Come Back" went on to be even bigger hits, both crashing into the chart at No.1 and selling in excess of 200,000 copies each.
The boys followed this massive success with their eagerly anticipated debut album "All Rise", which has now sold over 1.2 million copies in the UK alone, reaching No.1 in the album charts after a phenomenal 23 weeks.
"All Rise" drew praise from all sides. "A fantastically mature debut album", said Heat, while Top of the Pops Magazine declared the sound "smooth, slick and supersexy". Elle labelled the boys "perfect pop", with trade bible Music Week adding that Blue were "one of the breakthrough's of the year".
Blue ended 2001 on a massive high picking up numerous awards in end of year polls including "Best Newcomer" at the Smash Hits Awards, "Best Newcomer" in The Sun's Bizarre poll, "Best Band" in the Daily Star's Hot poll and "Best Newcomer" in the Pepsi Chart People's Choice Awards.
In March of 2002, Blue picked up three awards at the Capital FM Awards: Best Single for "If You Come Back", Best Newcomer and Best Pop Act. They also released their fourth single, "Fly By II", a brand new version of the track which appears on the album. Reworked and remixed, "Fly By II" proved to be a massive airplay hit, reaching No.1 in the official airplay chart. It also provided the band with their fourth consecutive top ten hit in a row.
October of last year saw Blue unleash a brand new single, "One Love", the first track to be taken from their second album, also entitled "One Love". The song, an infectious and silky smooth pop groove featuring an irresistible hook, shot straight into the UK Top 3 and provided Blue with their second consecutive No.1 airplay hit.
"One Love" the album is a confident collection of classic r'n'b/pop tracks, which features some of the best songwriters and producers around, and takes the boys' trade mark sound to a new level.
The album is a journey of many moods. Opening with the anthemic 'One Love', and straight into the hard-hitting 'Riders', it moves to the mellow beauty of the Angie Stone penned track 'Don't' Treat Me Like A Fool', and on through the silky hook laden flavour of 'U Make Me Wanna' and 'Invitation' - this album has something for pop fans and soul boys alike.
Also included is a duet with international superstar Elton John, a poignant cover of Elton's 1976 hit 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word', released as a single on 9th December which went straight in at No1. The collaboration came about when Lee had the idea for Blue to cover the track as it is one of his all time favourite songs. Approaches were made to Elton to ascertain his interest in recording the song and Blue were delighted when Elton agreed to the idea.
Following the "One Love" album release Simon, Antony, Lee and Duncan embarked on their first ever tour - a mammoth Arena tour of the UK and Ireland, taking in Sheffield, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester and London's Wembley Arena.
The past six months have seen Blue cement their success internationally. So far they have scored big hits in New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Demark, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Ireland, paving the way for another year of success that is sure to follow.