960. ‘Where Is the Love?’, by The Black Eyed Peas

/ UK #1s blog / Leave a comment

Straight after asking if we’re ready for love, we’re asking where it’s gone already…

Where Is the Love?, by Black Eyed Peas (their 1st of five #1s)

6 weeks, 7th September – 19th October 2003

A song called ‘Where Is the Love?’, that opens with the line What’s wrong with the world mama, People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas… might come across a little preachy. But I’ve never found this record insufferable, even after living through its six weeks at number one (more on that later). It is of its time, post 9/11 and Iraq, and at a remove of twenty-three years it feels impossibly idealistic that a band would record a song like this, or that it would be a massive hit.

Also, I do like that within the first thirty seconds the Black Eyed Peas have called the CIA ‘terrorists’, and compared them to the KKK. So this is immediately very different from the flood of patriotic guff that came (mainly in the US) straight after the September 11th attacks. It hasn’t really got a political bent; instead asking simply why we can’t be kinder to one another. A sentiment hopefully most of us can agree with.

Sure, some it comes across a bit like something you might hear at a school assembly, especially the chorus begging for divine intervention. But other bits still ring very true today, in lines like a war’s goin’ on but the reason’s undercover… and wrong information always shown by the media, negative images is the main criteria… The difference between 2003 and 2026 is that no pop stars today would dare make a record this ‘political’, much less have a big hit with it, as they’d get sucked into the culture wars meat-grinder and get cancelled, by one side or the other.

I try to keep my politics out of this blog but, when a #1 like this comes along it can be hard not to. Let’s get back to the music. Black Eyed Peas were a hip-hop trio throughout much of the nineties, and added the vocal talents of Stacy Ferguson AKA Fergie in 2002 to aid in a move to a more pop-leaning sound. It clearly worked, although the real vocal star on ‘Where Is the Love?’ is an uncredited Justin Timberlake, singing the chorus. His record company allowed his vocals to be used, but insisted he be uncredited as they feared over-exposure with his debut solo album having been launched a few months earlier. It meant that, after two #2 hits, he was denied a first chart-topper on a technicality, like Jay-Z a few weeks earlier. He’d have to wait three more years.

Apparently will.i.am, founder member of Black Eyed Peas, worried that ‘Where Is the Love?’ was a sell-out after their straight-up hip-hop albums in the ‘90s. The success of this track clearly turned his head, because within two years BEPs were releasing songs like ‘My Humps’. Then there are the group’s moronic late ‘00s hits, and will.i.am’s even more moronic solo career to come…

On a personal level, this song was #1 when I started university. In fact it was on top of the charts for the first month and a half of my living (and ‘studying’) away from home for the first time. The six weeks this record spent at number one was the longest stretch since Cher’s ‘Believe’ five years earlier, and no song had spent more than four weeks on top in-between. It is the fifth-longest stay at #1 of the decade, and so naturally this record went on to be 2003’s biggest-selling hit. However, the fact that it is only the decade’s twenty-fifth highest seller goes some way to showing how low sales had fallen by the autumn of 2003.

959. ‘Are You Ready for Love’, by Elton John

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

Another chart-topping remix, in a summer full of them…

Are You Ready for Love, by Elton John (his 6th of ten #1s)

1 week, 31st August – 7th September 2003

Although, I think calling this a remix is generous. It’s more of a remaster, a sharpening of the mix, cleaning the tapes, that sort of thing. Even though it has been ‘remixed’, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the 2003 chart-topping version and the 1977 original.

Which is a good thing. This is a slice of late seventies disco, almost unknown and unearthed, crashing incongruously to the top of the charts twenty-five years too late. All the flourishes that we remember from the golden age of disco are present and correct: a frisky beat, a natty bassline, swooshing strings… It begs the question why this didn’t do better than reaching #42 at the time.

John had recorded it in ’77, but released it in 1979 on an E.P. of songs recorded with legendary soul producer Thom Bell, during a period in which he and Bernie Taupin were not working together. The Spinners recorded a version, and also guested on a special mix of the song with Elton.

Fast-forward to 2003, and a remixed version of the song was being used to advertise Sky Sports’ coverage of the coming football season. Demand built up and, hey presto, Elton had his sixth chart-topper. It was also his third, and final, completely solo number one (though Ashley Beedle, the DJ who remixed it, might argue with that).

This great but slightly random #1 adds to the sense of 2003 as being the year for great but slightly random #1s… From Russian lesbians, to disco remixes from adverts for Lynx deodorant (and Sky Sports), to Bollywood covers of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ and proper heavy, emo rock, there’s a feeling of falling sales allowing the charts to breathe, and indulge in something more fun, rather than being an endless week-by-week parade of the biggest names in pop.

It also adds to the sense of Elton John’s later career being marked by slightly strange hits, such as this. It follows on sharply from his duet with Blue a few months earlier, the first time he had ever had two chart-toppers within a year. Stranger number ones are to come for Elton, before very long…

Never Had a #1… Part 3

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Welcome back to my ongoing countdown of the highest-selling artists never to have enjoyed a British singles chart #1!

This is based on a Wikipedia list of history’s highest sellers, around which there’s some controversy over reported sales vs. recorded sales and yadda yadda yadda… I explained it quite well in Part 1, if I do say so myself, so please follow this link to catch up. Here also is Part 2, which I published in November. Those two parts counted down the 40th to the 31st non-charttopping highest sellers, and included the illustrious likes of Bob Marley, Van Halen, Barry Manilow and Nirvana.

Let’s get on with the acts placed 30th to 26th in this list, then…

30. R.E.M.

Biggest hit: ‘The Great Beyond’ (#3, in 2000)

R.E.M. are one of those bands I have somehow never found the time to get into, beyond the big hits. By that I mean ‘Shiny, Happy People’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’. Neither of which were the band’s biggest UK hit. That’s ‘The Great Beyond’, from the soundtrack to the Andy Kaufman biopic ‘Man on the Moon’, and I was aware of its chorus, with the line about pushing an elephant up the stairs. For a band that released their first single in 1981, to have their biggest hit almost two decades later is impressive. In fact, their total of ten UK Top 10s is way beyond what I would have expected, from a band that never felt that big.

29. Johnny Cash

Biggest hits: ‘A Boy Named Sue’ (#4 in 1969) and ‘A Thing Called Love’ (#4 in 1972)

‘What’s the best song ever written?’ is an impossible question. Anyone who says they can answer it definitively is wrong. And yet, the answer is actually quite simple. It’s ‘A Boy Named Sue’ by Johnny Cash (and written by Shel Silverstein). Country music is all about story-telling, and boy is this a masterclass in painting an entire life story in under four minutes. From the epic opening line – Well my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn’t leave much to ma and me, Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze… – to the drama of son and father finally meeting in a dusty saloon, the plot twist of why his dad gave him a girl’s name, and the punchline of If I ever have a son, I think I’m gonna name him… Bill or George, Any damn thing but Sue! Add to this the fact that there are actual convicted prisoners whoopin’ at the end of every line of this song, live from San Quentin, with the man in black growling his way through this tale of men being men despite the world’s myriad cruelties… And yet, and maybe this is just me and the fact I first heard this song at a young and impressionable age, there’s a strongly queer element to this song. It’s a song about a big tough macho man… named Sue. My name is Sue! How do you do! he hollers upon entering the saloon. Alright honey, we all heard you. I love it. Layers upon layers upon layers.

Like R.E.M, Johnny Cash had a career spanning several decades, and it took him a long time to even make the UK charts. In fact, the two songs featured here are his only British Top 10s. The second was this cute country-gospel ditty about the power of love. It’s alright, but it’s sadly lacking in men with women’s names.

28. Alicia Keys

Biggest hit: ‘Empire State of Mind’ with Jay-Z (#2, in 2009)

Despite having a healthy chart career of her own throughout the ’00s, Alicia Keys’ biggest hit came when she sang a chorus for Jay-Z, on his 2009 smash ‘Empire State of Mind’. But what a chorus. Few if any cities have been eulogised in song as often as the Big Apple, and this record was a worthy 21st Century addition to the canon, to stand alongside Sinatra and Billy Joel, although it does stray into worn clichés about dreams being made and big lights inspiring you.

27. Linda Ronstadt

Biggest hit: ‘Don’t Know Much’ with Aaron Neville (#2, in 1989)

Like Johnny Cash, for all Linda Ronstadt’s wide-reaching success, across pop, rock, country, and folk, she only ever enjoyed two UK Top 10s, both of which were duets. This ballad was the second, and the bigger of the two. It features soul singer Aaron Neville, who like Ronstadt had been around since the sixties. So, on the one hand its impressive that these artists could score such a big hit two or more decades into their careers… On the other this song is pure late-eighties sludge, and does nothing for me.

26. James Taylor

Biggest Hit: ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ (#4 in 1971)

Even more short on big hits is James Taylor, whose one and only UK Top 10 is this beautiful ode to friendship. It was written by Carole King, but it was her friend Taylor who enjoyed a big hit with the song, although King does feature as a backing vocalist on this version. It’s a simple song – some might claim the lyrics are bordering on trite – but there’s beauty in simplicity. Plus, the melody is gorgeous. I sang this in my primary school choir, and am now thinking of all the friends I once had that I haven’t seen in decades… Actually, there’s a chart-topping version of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ coming up soon, so perhaps we can discuss it in more detail then.

I hope you found something to enjoy in this latest installment. Once again the artists are very US-heavy, which is perhaps understandable given that that is the biggest music market in the world. In fact, looking back, all fifteen acts featured so far have been American! In the next installment, though, we’ll meet our first high-selling-but-not-chart-topping British acts.

958. ‘Breathe’, by Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul

/ UK #1s blog / 1 Comment

Another 2003 #1 that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the time…

Breathe, by Blu Cantrell (her 1st and only #1) ft. Sean Paul (his 1st of two #1s)

4 weeks, 3rd – 31st August 2003

And another remix. Shall we dub this the summer of the remix, after ‘Ignition’, this, and the chart-topper up next? Compared to R. Kelly’s re-tuned hit, the differences between the original ‘Breathe’ and this chart-topping version are minor: a mix that brings the distinctive horns more to the front, and Sean Paul. (The best part of this ‘summer of the remix’ is that the fact they are remixes is introduced to the listener at the start of each track: Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell, Remix that gonna make yo’ head swell…)

It’s a pretty simple song. There are the big, brassy horns – a sample from Dr Dre’s 1999 hit ‘What’s the Difference’, which in turn had been borrowed, and slowed down, from a 1966 Charles Aznavour hit called ‘Parce Que Tu Crois’ (who thus features on an unlikely second #1) – and Cantrell’s big, brassy vocals. She has a very mid-nineties diva, why use one note per syllable when you can use ten, sort of voice. It’s impressive, and makes you wonder why she didn’t become a bigger star.

It is in direct contrast with Sean Paul’s deadpan rapped intro and verse. If Blu Cantrell felt like she’d appeared out of nowhere, then Sean Paul was already one of the breakout stars of the year, with three Top 10 hits of his own and a #2 alongside Beyoncé to come. I always think of him as the successor to Shaggy, in terms of his indecipherable patois and throaty delivery (though Shaggy always seemed to be having a bit more fun with it).

So, I like this song. It breezes by, and it has a wonderfully swinging hook. (Any song that brings Dr Dre and Charles Aznavour into the same room has to be worth something.) I do wonder if I am more disposed towards this song because, like the remix to ‘Ignition’, it was one of the songs of the summer between high school and university. I have a clear memory of this playing in a friend’s garden as we had a barbecue… But I also wonder if that matters. What is the point of music if we take memory out of the equation and dissect it on a cold, emotionless slab?

Sean Paul would go on to have a career of some longevity, though his next number one is a decade off and his biggest hit won’t come until 2016 (and whether or not he’s even credited on it is a bone of contention). Blu Cantrell meanwhile would release one more album, and enjoy one more Top 40 hit. Interestingly, her biggest hit in her native US (2001’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops)’) was a much smaller hit in the UK, as ‘Breathe’ was in the States. At the time there were rumours about her having had a career in porn prior to the musical success – to the point that I instantly remembered this fact twenty three years on – but it turns out she had had nothing of the sort. A photoshoot aged eighteen was as raunchy as she got. Maybe that counted as ‘porn’ in the more innocent days of 2003, or maybe it all stemmed from the fact her name was ‘Blu’…

957. ‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’, by Daniel Bedingfield

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

In writing my post on Daniel Bedingfield’s previous number one, ‘If You’re Not the One’, I discovered that he claimed to not like that ballad. Too soppy, too Westlife-y, not a fair representation of him as an artist…

Never Gonna Leave Your Side, by Daniel Bedingfield (his 3rd and final #1)

1 week, 27th July – 3rd August 2003

So of course, he insisted that his label release something completely different as the album’s fifth single. Rap? Rock? Salsa? Nope. More of the same treacly schmaltz. I bet you could play this alongside ‘If You’re Not the One’, simultaneously, and they’d sync up pretty nicely. Gloopy synths, Spanish guitars, a string section. All very dull.

I do think the chorus here soars a little more, perhaps, and the heartbeat rhythm hints at something darker. But I also think I’m being generous. Overall, a dull, thankfully short-lived, interlude at the top in a year which has generally been filled with interesting chart-toppers. I have my next ‘Meh’ award in mind already.

Impressively, this was indeed the fifth single from Bedingfield’s debut album, a year and a half on from ‘Gotta Get Thru This’. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many fifth-single-from-an-album number ones. And I should clarify that this wasn’t the follow-up to ‘If You’re Not the One’. In-between he had released the far peppier ‘I Can’t Read You’ which peaked at #6. So what do I know? Clearly people wanted the ballads… Again, though, we can look to rapidly plummeting single sales clearing the way for some ‘easy’ number ones if you picked the right week to release.

Daniel Bedingfield would milk the debut album for a frankly greedy sixth single, before scoring just one further Top 10 from his second LP. He was a strange, flash-in-the-pan sort of pop star: three number ones in a year and a half, then very little else. He took an injury-forced hiatus following a bad car crash in 2004, but has never released a third album. Luckily for those already suffering from Bedingfield-based withdrawal symptoms, his sister will be along shortly to fill the void.

956. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé

/ UK #1s blog / 2 Comments

The song of the summer for 2003, for the noughties, perhaps for all time…

Crazy in Love, by Beyoncé (her 1st of six solo #1s)

3 weeks, 6th – 27th July 2003

It comes in strong. The way those horns slam in, taking the door off its hinges, making everyone withing a mile-radius jump to their feet. The first words uttered are Jay-Z’s Yes! It’s hard to imagine a more upbeat start to a pop song.

I’m not usually one to describe something as ‘joyous’, and would narrow my eyes at any song that someone described in that way. But it just fits as a description here. For a song that is about being head over heels in love, it ticks every box. From the blaring horns – a sample from the Chi-Lites’ 1970 recording ‘Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)’ – to the uh-oh-uh-oh-oh-no-no fills. From the grab you by the shoulders chorus to the glorious middle-eight, written by Beyoncé herself: Got me lookin’, So crazy my baby…

Hooks, hooks all the way. I’m listening to it now with a smile across my face, despite hearing it almost every day that summer and pretty regularly ever since. It’s the real litmus test of a classic: is it good in an art gallery stand-and-admire-it sort of way, or is it good in a still-gets-you-up-dancing-twenty-three-years-later sort of way? ‘Crazy in Love’ is firmly in the latter camp. It feels trite to say, but it still sounds fresh all these years on.

It also announces Beyoncé, who had of course enjoyed two #1s with Destiny’s Child, as the female star of the ‘00s. It wasn’t her debut solo single – that had been ‘Work It Out’, a #7 from the ‘Austin Powers: Goldmember’ soundtrack, and a perfectly serviceable soul-funk track – but it did feel like it. Plus there was the intrigue of Jay-Z guesting, and the rumours about their relationship being more than just purely musical.

*I must admit to having to add an edit here, as after writing the entire post I have just discovered that Jay-Z is NOT credited on the single, or by the Official Charts Company… I had always just assumed this was ‘Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z’!*

In fact, it’s interesting to approach this from the angle of Jay-Z actually being the bigger solo star at the time. He’d first appeared in the Top 10 back in 1997, and had enjoyed several big feature hits over the years, as well as his own #2 ‘Annie’ remake, ‘Hard Knock Life’ in 1998. ‘ft. Jay-Z’ became a pop song cliché in the ‘00s, as ‘ft. Pitbull’ would in the ‘10s, but he was a genuine chart force. In fact, ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde’ had been a #2 hit a few months earlier, as Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé, as a sort of soft-launch of their romantic-slash-professional relationship.

From this point on though, Beyoncé would be the bigger star. The biggest female pop star of the century? Possibly, though I would argue that she has never produced a moment bigger than this, her ‘debut’ solo single. That’s not a criticism; it would be hard for anyone to top a track as good as this. The only one of her following five chart-toppers that comes close to this is… Well, I won’t give that away. All I’ll say is that it’s a duet with the one woman who can rival her for the ‘female star of the century’ title…

955. ‘Bring Me to Life’, by Evanescense

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

It’s becoming a bit of a theme with 2003’s number ones. They come along, and you go ‘Huh?’

Bring Me to Life, by Evanescence (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, 8th June – 6th July 2003

Evanescence making number one is the biggest ‘huh’ of all. Mainly because rock music has been pretty absent from the top of the charts in the 21st century. Huge fanbase acts like U2, Oasis and the Manics aside, the truly only contemporary rock chart-topper in four years has been Limp Bizkit.

So how, and why, did this record spend a month on top of the charts? It wasn’t a breakthrough moment for a band who’d put in the hard miles; this was their debut single. Was it the last hurrah of nu-metal, with a very Linkin Park-ish mix of overwrought vocals and rapping? Was it because it is really a pop song in disguise, with a very catchy call and response chorus? Was it the novelty value of a woman singing lead vocals on a rock track? Was it a beneficiary of the low sales climate?

I’m going to be a proper historian and do the hedge my bets, all of the above move. Plus it had featured on the soundtrack to the movie ‘Daredevil’, which had been released that February, giving it several months of free promo. Basically, it was a ‘lightning in a bottle’ moment, the stars aligning and returning rock music to the top of the charts.

Sadly, despite this being a moment, I’ve never really liked ‘Bring Me to Life’. It’s just too much. Too overwrought, too serious, too emo. The one bit that speaks to me is the even-more-bombastic-than-the-rest middle eight. Frozen inside… And I say this as a big fan of My Chemical Romance, the ultimate emo band. But MCR always managed to give the feeling of deliberately going OTT with a knowing wink. Evanescence don’t. I had it in my mind that they had a Christian rock background… They don’t (though singer Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody met at a Christian youth camp), but they have that vibe. Meanwhile the shouty rap parts were delivered by Paul McCoy, who wasn’t even a full-time member of the band (sometimes he’s given a ‘ft’ credit).

If you’ve been listening carefully, there have been hints that rock music has been planning a return to the mainstream. Pink’s ‘Just Like a Pill’ used the same emo influences in a much poppier way. 2003’s version of a boyband, Busted, freely wield guitars. Girls Aloud had surf guitars on their reality TV winners single… Okay, it might be a tenuous link from ‘Sound of the Underground’ to this, but when you view things from a distance it does start to make sense. Pop music in 1999 or 2000 didn’t even feature fake guitars.

Evanescence enjoyed two further Top 10s from their debut album, before Moody left under a cloud. This song’s success did not herald the start of a huge chart career, or indeed a prolonged return for rock music to the top of the charts. They are still active though, with a couple of hiatuses along the way, and with Lee as the only remaining original member.

Cover Versions of #1s… Britney Spears

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

For our latest covers special, we bring you two covers. One of the legendary Miss Britney Spears, and one by the legendary Miss Britney Spears….

In 1999, Britney was the big new pop superstar on the block, while Travis were the big new indie band. Travis were either part of the tail-end of Britpop, or part of the start of the ’00s indie revival, or a bridge between the two, and were hugely popular. They were also divisive, part of a group, alongside the likes of Coldplay, Embrace and Starsailor, who many felt compared poorly to the big Britpop acts, and whom Oasis’s manager Alan McGee had infamously dubbed ‘indie bedwetters’. I always quite liked Travis though, as they had a great ear for catchy melodies, and weren’t as whiny as Chris Martin and chums.

And in covering Britney’s ‘…Baby One More Time’ they kick-started something that would define British pop music in the 21st century. I’m not sure if it was definitely the first ever ‘Live Lounge’ performance for Radio 1, but the novelty of it went viral, by the standards of 1999, and helped create a phenomenon which carries on to this day. It is a simple enough premise for a radio feature: a popular act of the day perform a live version of their current single, and a live cover of a song in a genre with which they aren’t usually associated. Which in the early days of Live Lounge usually meant guitar bands doing goofy and knowing covers of pop tracks (see above).

On the one hand, it could be fun to hear, say, Arctic Monkeys covering Girls Alouds’ ‘Love Machine’. It was all part of the blurring between rock and pop, mainstream and indie, cool and uncool, that happened during the 2000s. And occasionally a Live Lounge track would go on to become a bona-fide hit single, such as Jamie Cullum’s cover of Pharrell’s ‘Frontin’. There have been Live Lounge tours, and Live Lounge compilation albums. Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Taylor Swift have all done Live Lounge. Walls have broken down, genres blurred, love has reigned…

But I was a regular Radio 1 listener in those days, and half the time I turned off when Live Lounge came around. Not because the covers were bad, but because the tone of it was so bloody self-congratulatory and back-slappy. Jo Whiley purring in reverential tones, as if she’d been on the rooftop with the Beatles in 1969, when in actual fact she’d just heard the Zutons covering the Scissor Sisters. They’re musicians, I’d think to myself, of course they can pull a half-arsed cover out of the bag.

So, I chose this Travis version of Britney’s biggest hit precisely because it is so half-arsed, and also because it sparked a genuine British pop music phenomenon, for better or worse. Anyway, to prove that I’m not precious about pop acts going rock, or vice-versa, here’s Britney herself. Covering the Stones.

Brit’s version of ‘Satisfaction’ is ten-times better than Travis’s barroom singalong of ‘…Baby’ because a) she’s treating the source material with respect, and because b) she does something different with the song, seamlessly updating the sound for the Y2K generation.

It’s not as good as the original, of course it isn’t, not even close. But it is a worthwhile exercise. It was also fairly well-received by critics. At the same time, it annoyed rock snobs who probably didn’t even listen to it before railing against popular music going to hell in a handcart.

The year after this cover, Britney and Mick Jagger met at the VMAs for a slightly awkward interview in which Britney looked like she wasn’t 100% sure who the old man next to her was, and Mick claimed unconvincingly that she did ‘very well’ covering ‘Satisfaction’. Then Britney went off and performed with a snake around her neck. It was quite the time to be alive…

Our regular posts will resume in a couple of days…

954. ‘Ignition (Remix)’, by R. Kelly

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

Okay. This is not the first time we’ve met a sex offender at the top of the charts, and it won’t be the last. As with Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, P Diddy, and Michael Jackson, and probably every rockstar active in the 1960s and 70s, we take a moment to acknowledge the crimes…

Ignition (Remix), by R. Kelly (his 2nd of three #1s)

4 weeks, 11th May – 8th June 2003

We also take a moment to acknowledge that this is a proper old school jam. It’s the freakin’ weekend baby I’m about to have me some fun… R. Kelly would like us to leave our credibility, and our clothes too, before entering the Stretch Navigator, for three minutes of soulful R&B silliness. There’s crystal poppin’, there’s coke and rum, there’s an after party, there are toot toots and beep beeps… If you’ve ever seen an episode of ‘Trapped in the Closet’, R. Kelly’s hip-hopera, this record is much the same vibe.

The original ‘Ignition’ had been recorded a year previously, but had existed for several years before that, perhaps explaining its retro sound. Due to an album leak, Kelly decided to remix several of its tracks. It was a good decision, as the original ‘Ignition’ is dull and treacly. It also adds to the feel of 2003 as a retrospective year, with big hits like ‘Make Luv’, ‘Loneliness’, and ‘Beautiful’ harking back to various different eras (plus a cover of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ for good measure).

So yes, this song is fun and goofy. I am nostalgically attached to it as it was number one when I finished high school, and was one of the songs of that long summer before I went to university. However, it has to be said that a song about getting a girl drunk and taking her back to a hotel, as well as select lines – I’m about to take my key and stick it in the ignition – leave a certain ickiness knowing what we now know.

Although, Kelly’s crimes were already well known in 2003. Rumours had been around since he’d ‘discovered’ fifteen-year-old Aaliyah in the mid-nineties, even before his 1st chart-topper ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ and in 2002 he was prosecuted on child pornography charges. Thus, the remix to ‘Ignition’ made #1 with the public in full knowledge of Kelly being a wrong ‘un. There’s no way that would happen today. (I am going to cast no moral judgement on this. Listening to a criminal’s songs does not mean you endorse the crimes, but I respect those who refuse to.)

Before we finish, note how this is already the fourth number of the year to stay at the top for a full month, with another four-weeker along straight after this. In my last post I mentioned plummeting sales, which might have contributed to these longer-running #1s (the early ‘90s was another time of low sales and long stretches at the top). But compared to a few years ago, when the year 2000’s fifty-two weeks gave us forty-two number ones, it’s another big shift.

953. ‘Loneliness’, by Tomcraft

/ UK #1s blog / 2 Comments

Writing this blog has changed me, in many ways, but none so thoroughly as how it’s enhanced my understanding of dance music.

Loneliness, by Tomcraft (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, 4th – 11th May 2003

I’m still not 100% on top of the terms – it’s a process – but I’m confident in labelling this next number one as ‘techno’, or maybe ‘trance’. It’s not ‘house’, and definitely not ‘drum n bass’, or ‘ambient’, and probably not ‘breakbeat’ (though there’s a chance it could be).

I’m on safer ground when I stick to saying ‘I like it’. A good song is a good song, regardless of the genre. ‘Loneliness’ is churning, and ominous, with a bassline that vibrates right through you. The distinctive, throttled riff is memorable. Unlike other recent dance hits, it’s not an old song sampled and mashed up (a la ‘Make Luv’), and it’s not an old song backed by a basic sledgehammer beat and high-pitched vocals (a la ‘Heaven’). In fact, I’d say that ‘Loneliness’ is pretty dated by 2003 standards. It reminds me more of something from the late nineties, Wamdue Project maybe, or even Eiffel 65, and is indeed based on an excerpt from a 1998 track, ‘Share the Love’.

It’s quirky. Depending on which mix you listen to the structure of the song changes, curling itself in different ways around the main, industrial beat. Some mixes have a distinctive piano motif. The UK single edit, which for our purposes is the version attached below, has a rainfall break in the middle. It’s not a predictable dance track, and for a number one single it is fairly hardcore. Look at me, a regular Pete Tong, sprinkling this post with all the dance genres…

I remember this topping the charts, appearing out of nowhere to spend a week on top. And it seemed to vanish as quickly as it appeared, remaining fairly forgotten, with fewer than two millions views on YouTube. Tomcraft, a German DJ known to his parents as Thomas Brückner, only managed one follow-up #43 hit. He remained active and influential though, until his death in 2024, aged just forty-nine.

One other thing worth noting, and perhaps an explanation for tracks like this making number one, is how quickly single sales were plummeting in 2003. The downward trend had begun as far back as 2001, despite huge sales from reality TV acts like Hear’Say and Will Young bucking the trend, and by May 2003 Tomcraft needed fewer than 37,000 sales to make #1. Back in 2000, anything less than 100k per week for a number one was unusual. Sales will only drop further over the next couple of years, until the introduction of downloads in 2005 helps steady the ship. What these low sales will do, though, is give the charts an interestingly unpredictable feel.