News: Steps return with brand new album and 14 date 2021 arena tour
4 min read
Three years after they staged the UK’s most successful comeback of the decade, enduring pop legends Steps – aka Claire, Faye, H, Lee and Lisa – return once again with their new album, What The Future Holds, to be released on November 27th 2020 and the sure-to-be epic, What The Future Holds 2021 Tour, starting in Sheffield on November 2nd 2021.
Kicking off a flurry of exciting news, the five-piece premiere their first single What The Future Holds tomorrow on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast show. Next week, their tour will go on general sale from Friday 18th September 2020 at 10am from aegpresents.co.uk/steps, with an advance pre-sale for fans who pre-order the album from the Steps superstore. Those fans will receive an exclusive access code for the fan tour presale on 15th September. Steps will be joined on tour by the brilliant Sophie Ellis-Bextor as special guest.
Fans will be able to stream and download the brand-new single What The Future Holds after the global premiere on Radio 2, where it will be available on all digital platforms. Built around a typically Steps-esque bittersweet refrain of “one foot in the past and one foot in the future”, the album’s thundering, gloriously dramatic title track was penned by pop queen Sia and is the perfect statement for a band who have taken a wave of nostalgia and alchemised it into an album full of future anthems.
Their sixth studio album, What The Future Holds, will be released on November 27th via BMG, and will be available on all digital platforms plus CD, Vinyl (including a limited edition transparent pink edition) and Cassette. A must for all Steps memorabilia collectors, the album will also be available as part of a Cassette Collection featuring five separate transparent pink solo cassettes with an intro from each band member, all in a special collector’s box.
Their most ambitious album to date, What The Future Holds showcases the big melodic choruses of their top-tier bangers but also brings back the harmony-laden ballads and some atmospheric mid-tempos. What the Future Holds is the best distillation of Steps so far; an album that shows both a deeper shade of blue and a brighter future. Their 6th album sees them reunite with writers such as Fiona Bevan (One Direction, Lewis Capaldi), Ina Wroldsen (Shakira, Britney Spears) and Karl Twigg (who worked on their first three albums) plus experiment with songs written by the likes of Greg Kurstin (Adele, Beyonce), Hannah Robinson (Kylie) and new pop shape-shifters such as Gracey and MNEK.
Speaking of the album and tour, Steps add: “We will never forget the past with Steps, it’s what made us, but we’ve got to look to the future too. We were so thrilled that the last album was a success and it gave us a new lease of life. Performing live has always been our favourite part of being in Steps – we had the most fun of our career on the last tour and we’re already planning for the next one to be our biggest spectacle yet. We’re also thrilled to have Sophie Ellis-Bextor as our special guest on the What The Future Holds 2021 Tour – her catalogue is full of floor-fillers and she knows how to get any party started. We are so excited for everyone to hear this new album and to come join us on tour.”
Launching during the halcyon days of pop in 1997 with their line-dancing classic 5,6,7,8, Brit award winners Steps set about re-turfing the music landscape via 14 UK top 10 singles and three multi-platinum albums in three years including #1’s Tragedy and Stomp. Fast forward twenty years, the band returned with the mighty Tears On The Dancefloor, which hit #1 on the physical and iTunes album charts and went Gold within a matter of weeks, becoming the second biggest-selling independent album of 2017 behind Stormzy. Their subsequent ‘Party On The Dancefloor’ tour saw the band sell out twenty-two arenas. 23 years on from their debut, 2020 sees them return with What The Future Holds.
What The Future Holds 2021 UK Tour Dates
Nov 2 – Sheffield, FlyDSA Arena
Nov 3 – Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
Nov 5 – Birmingham, Resorts World Arena
Nov 8 – Newcastle, Utilita Arena
Nov 11 – Manchester, AO Arena
Nov 13 – Aberdeen, P&J Live
Nov 15 – Belfast, SSE Arena
Nov 18 – Liverpool, M&S Bank Arena
Nov 19 – Leeds, First Direct Arena
Nov 22 – Glasgow, The SSE Hydro
Nov 25 – Brighton, Centre
Nov 26 – London, The O2
Nov 29 – Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
Dec 1 – Bournemouth, International Centre
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