"Thinking It Over" is the debut single of English-Irish pop group Liberty, before they became

Liberty X Liberty X (originally called Liberty) are a British girl group consisting of Michelle Heaton, Jessica Taylor and Kelli Young. The group's best-known line-up also included Tony Lundon and Kevin Simm. The group was formed by the five finalists of ...

. The

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house and jungle production methods, but also incorporates elements from ...

song was produced by Pete Devereux (of

Artful Dodger Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger, is a character in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist''. The Dodger is a pickpocket and his nickname refers to his skill and cunning in that occupation. In the novel, he is the leader of th ...

) and the

Wideboys The Wideboys are an English electronic music duo known for club remixes and for their own song "Sambuca", featuring Dennis G on vocals, which reached number 15 in the UK in October 2001. Another top 40 single, "Daddy-O" featuring Shaznay Lewis ...

. It was co-written by band members Kelli Young and Tony Lundon. In the United Kingdom, the single was a hit, reaching number five, but was not as successful internationally, peaking at number 29 in Ireland and number 81 in Australia.

Background

While the five winning contestants of ''

Popstars ''Popstars'' is an international reality television franchise aimed to find new singing talent. Serving as a precursor to the ''Idol'' franchise, '' Popstars'' first began in New Zealand in 1999 when producer Jonathan Dowling formed the girl gr ...

'' formed

Hear'Say Hear'Say were a British pop group. They were created through the ITV (TV network), ITV reality TV show ''Popstars (British TV series), Popstars'' in February 2001, the first UK series of the international ''Popstars'' Media franchise, franch ...

, the five runner-up contestants formed the group Liberty. The name Liberty was chosen to reflect the freedom the members experienced following their participation in ''Popstars''. Amidst pejorative media commentary, including the term "Flopstars", the band proceeded to sign a multimillion-pound record contract with

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

's independent record label,

V2 Records V2 Records (or V2 Music and V2 Benelux; V2 being an abbreviation for Virgin 2) is a record label that was purchased by Universal Music Group in 2007, sold to PIAS in 2013 and partially acquired by Universal in 2022 (as part of larger PIAS 49% ...

. In response to the media backlash and pushback from the record label, the band initially released the song as a white label promo. In an interview with The Vault in 2013, Young said, "We knew that we wanted to do an R&B/pop sound and everyone was telling us that was not an achievable thing .and no one was going to play it. So, we had to trick people. We released Thinking It Over on white label and we didn't put our name on it ..We got lots of spot plays on the radio and all the clubs started playing it." Thus, their debut single, "Thinking It Over", was released on 24 September 2001. It came backed with three B-sides: "No Clouds", "Greed" and "Let's Get Working", the latter of which has never been released on CD in the United Kingdom.

Music video

The video for the track was filmed in a studio using

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fie ...

. It is set inside a skyline apartment in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, with the band performing in and around the lounge area. Despite the fact the video was filmed on a very low budget, it uses special effects to show and remove holographic images of the band from the apartment, to allow for different vocal sections of the song. It was the band's only video to be included on the physical single from the "Thinking It Over" era.

Track listings

UK CD1 # "Thinking It Over" (full length version) – 4:05 # "No Clouds" (first version) – 4:14 # "Greed" – 3:42 # "Thinking It Over" (video) UK CD2 # "Thinking It Over" (Pete Devereux & The Wideboys club vocal remix) – 5:14 # "Thinking It Over" (The Wideboys remix) – 5:31 # "Thinking It Over" (Almighty 7-inch mix) – 3:43 # "Thinking It Over" (Kinky Boy remix edit) – 5:14 UK cassette single # "Thinking It Over" (full length version) – 4:05 # "Thinking It Over" (Kinky Boy remix) – 6:42 # "Let's Get Working" – 4:15 Australian and New Zealand CD single # "Thinking It Over" – 4:05 # "No Clouds" (first version) – 4:14 # "Greed" – 3:42 # "Thinking It Over" (Pete Devereux & The Wideboys club vocal remix) – 5:14 # "Thinking It Over" (Kinky Boy remix edit) – 5:14 # "Thinking It Over" (video)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thinking It Over (Song) 2001 songs 2001 debut singles Liberty X songs UK garage songs V2 Records singles Songs with lyrics by Mary Susan Applegate