We all know by now that Steps placed at number four on the UK charts with Deeper Shade Of Blue – but how many copies did they sell last week? The number one single by Craig David sold over 160,000 copies last week, compared to Westlife’s 83,000 the week before. Steps sold just over 63,000 copies last week, nearly 100,000 fewer than the #1 single!

The following articles have been taken from Dotmusic:

Four chart positions. Four new entries. Detect a pattern here? Steps’ first single since their Christmas release Say You’ll Be Mine sees them return to the Abba-aping style that dominated most of their early releases. In the process it becomes their biggest chart hit for almost a year, their largest hit in fact since Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart reached number 2 in July 1999. It may sound unfair but it is almost inevitable that Steps’ appeal and chart positions will begin to tail off at some point, it is just a question of when. For the moment though they appear as strong as ever and Deeper Shade Of Blue is now their 8th successive top 10 single.

Unfortunately I have to agree with this statement:

Legendary A&R veteran Pete Waterman will still produce the third Steps album despite several writing collaborations working individually with the five members. The first two albums were produced entirely by Waterman. However Tim Byrne who co-manages the band, told dotmusic that Waterman had been ‘incredibly important’ and will definitely feature on the album in a production capacity.

Byrne stated that the plan had always been to develop Steps as songwriters. He commented: ‘I’ve been very pleased with the early results, and there’s more to come as we’re still sourcing ideas’. Steps are attempting to crack the US market and this provides a possible reason for the increased input by the individual members.

Writing collaborators on the forthcoming album include Cathy Dennis, Phil Thornalley (who co-penned Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’), Cindy Lauper and Gary Barlow.

Waterman confirmed that he is working on the new album, but appears to be miffed by the idea that the pop act needs to ‘develop’.

“Steps are the biggest singles and albums selling UK act of the past two years, what are they going to develop to? Anyone would think they aren’t successful!”

The new album is due for release in late autumn this year, while a best of is expected to follow next year.

Unlike Pete Waterman, I think Steps do need to develop to keep in with the ever-changing music industry. This week, Steps were beaten in the UK charts by two garage songs. Hopefully these contributions and others by Mutt Lange will enable Steps to stay ahead of the game, especially as it seems the new Steps album is due out about the same time as the new Spice Girls album, now that will be an interesting battle!