From one of the most forgotten male chart-toppers in Steve Brookstein, to the ultimate male chart-topper… Elvis Aaron Presley.
Jailhouse Rock, by Elvis Presley (his 19th of twenty-one #1s)
1 week, from 9th – 16th January 2005
For what would have been Elvis’s seventieth birthday, on January 8th 2005, an ambitious (and money-spinning) project was announced by the holders of his back-catalogue, BMG Records. They would re-release each of the King’s eighteen UK number ones, week by week, for what would ultimately set collectors back around eighty quid. ‘All Shook Up’, his first chart-topper in 1957, came first, but was chart ineligible due to costing a tenner and coming with a commemorative, limited edition box in which to store all the other singles.
So it fell to ‘Jailhouse Rock’, Elvis’s second number one back in January 1958 (the first single to ever enter the UK charts at #1) to chart first… with the lowest sales ever recorded for a number one single to date: 21,262 copies.
Needless to say, this record was lucky to make number one. And lucky with the fortuitous fact that Elvis’s birthday fell in January, when sales are historically at their lowest anyway. Yet, can you imagine any other artist managing this? Re-releasing eighteen ancient singles and having them all chart in the Top 5, three of them returning to number one? After dominating the charts like nobody ever has, before or after, in the late fifties and early sixties; The King was back to dominate them again.
What of the actual music? Well, of course, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ is a classic. But there seems to be no point analysing it musically in the context of 2005. It was a forty-five year old rock and roll record re-emerging in an age of reality TV pop, tacky dance, and US hip-hop&B. I’ll refer you instead to my original post. I’m sure I was complimentary, but can’t really remember as I wrote it in 2018 (!) How time flies…
Next up, I’m going to bring the usual recap forward by one. And after that’s done, we can properly start the 1000 Number Ones festivities. Watch this space!
2005 begins with what should have been the final chart-topper of 2004, and that year’s Christmas #1…
Against All Odds, by Steve Brookstein (his 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 2nd – 9th January 2005
On the one hand you can feel a teensy bit sorry for Steve Brookstein, because a couple of years later winning X Factor would be a sure-fire way to have a genuinely massive million-seller, a Christmas number one, and at least one or two follow-up hits. But since he was the winner of the first series, before it was pulling in huge viewing figures, and because he came up against a juggernaut of a single in Band Aid 20’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ reboot, none of this came true. Instead he belatedly limped to #1 for a week, when nobody was watching, on a technicality.
At the same time, any sympathy for him evaporates when you hear this dull and predictable winner’s single. Did we really need another cover of ‘Against All Odds’? Mariah Carey and Westlife had taken their version to the top barely four years earlier. Phil Collins’ original was only two decades old. (Worryingly, Brookstein’s cover is now closer to 1984 than the present day…)
Of course, Brookstein isn’t a bad vocalist. But he is a glorified pub singer. Judge Sharon Osbourne didn’t like him, and I don’t think the X Factor producers were thrilled to have a thirty-six year old with a pretty limited appeal as their inaugural winner. The subsequent champions were all young, and pretty, with potential for real pop stardom. Some even came close to managing it.
The one person who did argue for Steve Brookstein was, inevitably, Simon Cowell. Cowell looks at a granny-baiting, middle-aged crooner as hungry kids look at chocolate ice cream. He lapped him up. For a while, at least. Following a debut, chart-topping album, Cowell and Brookstein feuded. Eight months after winning X Factor, he was dropped by BMG Records. According to Brookstein it was because he refused to record another LP of safe covers.
And so he faded into obscurity, popping up every now and then to rant about Cowell. He did a bit of musical theatre, a bit of TV, and a lot of provincial touring. Looking at his Wiki, has there been a more depressing sentence in a pop star’s bio than: “In June 2007, Brookstein appeared on the P&O Portsmouth to Bilbao car ferry, alongside X Factor alumni Chico Slimani and Journey South”? (More on Chico soon, btw.)
This would be the last X Factor winner’s single not to make Christmas #1 for five years, as the series dominated British pop culture in the latter half of the decade. So that’s something to look forward to covering… This also came dangerously close to being Britain’s 1000th number one single. Which feels like a close escape, but maybe it would have been fitting. Maybe it is the ultimate #1 single? Cheap, disposable, forgotten…
Twenty years on from the original, and fifteen years on from the SAW spin-off, comes the long-awaited Band Aid III: Band Aid with a Vengeance…
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid 20
4 weeks, from 5th December 2004 – 2nd January 2005
It was still helmed by Geldof and Ure, with the same aim of raising money for the world’s destitute, but they sensibly updated the collective’s name to Band Aid 20, and that sounds a bit more impressive than Band Aid 3. They also updated the sound of the record, and the singers involved, with more mixed results.
The original famously opened with Paul Young, then Boy George. This one opens with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, then Dido. (Insert opinion on the direction pop music had gone in during the past two decades…) It takes Robbie Williams, the third voice heard, to really get this record going. We then hear the Sugababes, Travis’s Fran Healy, the Bedingfields, Will Young, Jamelia, Busted (technically making ‘Thunderbirds’not their final #1), Joss Stone, and many other gilded names of the time.
In fairness, this version features a lot more ‘real’ instruments than the previous two, more synthy versions. The Darkness contribute a guitar solo – getting their Xmas #1 a year late – while Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, alongside Sir Paul McCartney, form a backing band of some distinction. But the biggest nod to the 21st century is the rap from Dizzee Rascal, then a fairly niche British rapper, but who would go on to become one of the decade’s biggest chart stars. You ain’t gotta feel guilt just selfless, Give a little help to the helpless… is a rhyme for the ages.
Stealing the show though, is the one returnee from the original: Bono. He had to fight to keep his line, as Robbie and Justin Hawkins each recorded a take, but honestly, nobody can self-righteously proclaim Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you… like Bono. It’s a line that gets a lot of stick, but to me it’s the one line in this festival of virtue signalling, about there not being snow in Africa and Christmas bells that are clanging chimes of doom, which actually rings true. We feel sorry for victims of war and famine, of course we do; but we also feel relief, and disgust.
I like a lot of the touches on this version, including the way it descends into an extended hard rock wig-out, then into a coda of semi-African sounding banging and shaking; but it lacks something. And that something is the driving synth riff from the original. So, yes, this is a version with ‘real’ instruments; but said riff, that is devoid of sleigh bells and snowy tinkles, but that gives the song a sense of urgency, a sense of hurry up, donate, save these poor souls! Plus, there must be a reason why neither this, nor Band Aid II, have replaced the original in the yearly Xmas onslaught.
Band Aid 20 was still a huge success, selling 72,000 copies in its first day, and almost 300,000 in its first week. It was the last CD single to sell a million copies, and was really a last hurrah for the format, with sales slumping to new lows by the early weeks of 2005. Downloads would be incorporated into the charts by the following spring.
I remember Band Aid 20 being a very newsworthy deal at the time, and listening to it now I can still identify many of the singers as their lines come up. There is one more chart-topping version of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ to come, in another decade, but the attitudes towards that one, and its subsequent reduced chart performance, are an interesting marker of how society had shifted in the social media age.
Girls Aloud – the pop group of the noughties – finally score a second chart-topper, slaying the curse of the reality TV show winner…
I’ll Stand By You, by Girls Aloud (their 2nd of four #1s)
2 weeks, from 21st November – 5th December 2004
Of course, the fact that bangers like ‘The Show’, ‘Love Machine’, and ‘No Good Advice’ had all stalled at #2 in between their debut and this #1 was a travesty. It is a perfectly serviceable cover of the Pretenders’ 1994 #10 hit, recorded for the BBC’s annual ‘Children in Need’ telethon – which has already brought us number ones from S Club 7, and the all-star collective with ‘Perfect Day’ – but it is the dictionary definition of “nothing special”.
For a girl group, Girls Aloud were thankfully not very ballad-heavy. But this was proof that they could indeed handle some balladry, and that they could properly sing. That’s probably the best thing you can say about this record, though, as it goes down the bells and tinkles, over-produced route that so many songs of this ilk do. I prefer the opening verse, which is nicely stripped-back. After that it drowns in schmaltz. (Some might also call the original schmaltzy – and Chrissie Hynde certainly isn’t the song’s biggest fan, claiming that it sounded too desperate to be a hit – but it still has far more edge than this cover.)
Making this sound even worse is the knowledge that Girls Aloud’s chart-topping fortunes wouldn’t improve after this second #1 either. Further classics like ‘Biology’, ‘Something Kinda Ooh’ and ‘Long Hot Summer’ would stumble before their next chart-topper – another charity effort – over two years away…
But charity records always buck trends and do well, especially in the run-up to Christmas. For confirmation of this, just take a look at what’s up next…
Lo! What is that I hear on the horizon? Rock…? Music…?
Vertigo, by U2 (their 6th of seven #1s)
1 week, from 14th – 21st November 2004
I am a confirmed U2 sceptic. I think they can be too clever for their own good, too preachy, too glossy… But I’ve also enjoyed most of their earlier chart-toppers, from the bluesy ‘Desire’, to the arty ‘The Fly’, to the danceable ‘Discotheque’. I am also ready to forgive U2 anything, now that they’ve restored rock and roll to the top of the charts.
And ‘Vertigo’ does rock. The riff is brutally simple, and the chorus’s hook-line (Hello, Hello, I’m at a place called vertigo…) is brutally catchy. I especially like the verses, where the Edge’s guitar chirps and cheeps like a wildcat ready to pounce, and a filthy bassline is brought to the fore.
I wouldn’t go so far as describing it as ‘punk’, as some outlets did at the time. Yes it’s simple, and blisteringly fast. But it’s U2, in 2004. ‘Vertigo’ lent its name to one of the biggest tours of all time. It was used to advertise the iPod. And it’s still very glossy. The chorus, as effective as it is, is polished to an edge-less (pardon the pun) gleam. While the middle-eight, which is very U2 with Bono intoning All of this can be yours… in a chiming break, breaks any punk-y aspirations once and for all.
I’d also suggest that ‘Vertigo’ is a slight rip off of ‘Elevation’, from their previous album, which had a similarly dumb, sledgehammer riff. 21st Century U2 always had one rocking single per album, and at least one ballad (see their soon to follow final #1). Which could also be seen as a slightly cynical, commercial approach to album-making when compared to their ‘90s concept albums. Then again, like I said, I am a big old U2 sceptic.
But, really. This is a great song. And it ensures that U2 can claim a chart-topping career spanning over sixteen years, an impressive feat for any act. And, alongside their feature on LMC’s ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, it means that 2004 was their most successful chart-topping year. The album ‘Vertigo’ came from, ‘How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb’, was also one of their most commercially successful. It was also a bit of a swansong, as by the time of their following LP, in 2009, pop music seemed to have finally moved on from them.
You may or may not be aware that aside from pop music, the charts, and all things #1-spot related, my other area of deep geekery is football. And I love all footballing competitions, but none more than the World Cup. My party piece is being able to recite all the winners, runners-up, host cities and scores (half-time and full-time) of all the finals since the first tournament in 1930. Not that that has ever really got a party going, but you know what I mean…
Of course, this World Cup – hosted in the USA, Canada and Mexico – has proven itself to be very controversial. At least the most controversial World Cup since the last one, in Qatar. Which was the most controversial since the one before that, in Russia. What’s never been controversial are the songs which have charted off the back of World Cups. No. These songs have always been beacons of taste and decorum…
We’ve already met three World Cup related #1s – ‘Back Home’, ‘World in Motion’, and ‘3 Lions ’98’ – all extolling the virtues of the England national team. Which is something that I, as a Scot, have no problem with. At all. But there have been plenty of other World Cup adjacent hits over the years. Some of them even extolling the virtues of Scotland! Here, then, are the other Coupe du Monde-themed records to have graced the Top 5, without managing #1.
‘We Have a Dream’, by the Scotland World Cup Squad ’82 – reached #5 in 1982
In which the star of 1981’s ‘Gregory Girl’, John Gordon Sinclair, narrates a tale of falling asleep in front of the telly, and dreaming that Scotland win the World Cup, with him scoring the winning penalty kick. Then he wakes to find he’s not kicking the ball, he’s actually kicking his mother… He’s backed by the entire Scotland squad, ahead of their departure for Spain.
Before anyone accuses me of bias, this is far worse than any of England’s chart-topping efforts. It features bagpipes, because of course it does, and I’m not sure bagpipes have ever enhanced a piece of music. Scotland, as they always do, crashed out after the first group stage of that year’s tournament, pipped on goal difference by the Soviet Union.
‘Carnaval de Paris’, by Dario G – reached #5 in 1998
From the ridiculous, to the sublime. Ahead of the 1998 World Cup, English electronic group Dario G released this iconic track. It’s based on a folk song called ‘Oh, My Darling Clementine’, which had been used as a terrace chant in stadiums for several years.
For the tournament, the tune was updated with a gloriously ’90s euro-dance beat, featuring musical flourishes from different nations appearing at the tournament in France. A samba beat for Brazil, steel drums for Jamaica, a twangy Asian riff for Japan. And, contrary to what I claimed above, this is the only song ever to be enhanced by the introduction of (electronic) bagpipes, in the Scottish section.
This might be nostalgia talking, but listening to it now, the simplicity of the track is amazing. It’s become a World Cup anthem, still played to this day. Newe, ‘official’ World Cup songs are almost unlistenable: corporate soundboards featuring three or four singers you’ve never heard of from strategically selected countries. And Pitbull. They are played at the opening ceremonies and never listened to again. While the video here, featuring kids painted in the colours of each nation playing on a dirt pitch, is surprisingly touching. The World Cup may have been monetized and commercialized to unrecogniseable levels, yet it still somehow represents football in its purest form.
‘Ole Ola (Mulher Brasileira)’, by Rod Stewart & the Scottish World Cup Squad’78 – reached #4 in 1978
Another attempt by the Scottish national side, but this one is better. Whether that’s due to it being upbeat, or to having an actual pop star doing the singing, or both these things, I don’t know. But it’s fun, silly, and catchy. It’s based on a samba-rock track, the title of which translates to ‘Brazilian Women’. Quite why we recorded a cover of a Brazilian classic for a World Cup in Argentina remains unclear…
Although perhaps that oversight sums up Scotland’s campaign at the 1978 World Cup, which is now regarded as one of the greatest acts of over-confidence in football history. Scotland left for Argentina as genuine contenders, in our own heads at least. Manager Ally MacLeod claimed that the day of the final would become known as National Ally Day, even inspiring another single – ‘Ally’s Tartan Army’ – which also made the Top 10 around the same time. Needless to say, Scotland crashed out at the first hurdle, and came home with tails very much between legs.
‘We’re on the Ball’, by Ant & Dec – reached #3 in 2002
The 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan tempted Britain’s favourite Geordie duo out of recording retirement. Ant and Dec recorded this piece of fluff, their first single in five years, and scored (pardon the pun) their biggest hit up to that point.
It’s not terrible… But it’s not particularly good either. It follows a very basic England World Cup song formula: a chanted chorus, snippets of commentary, players names in the lyrics, references to 1966… If you’re a listener from any other country, there is an automatic level of obnoxiousness to any song about the England football team that you have to battle through before you can appreciate it. (There is also an automatic level of schadenfreude to bask in when England fail to win each tournament. In 2002 it was Brazil in the quarters that ensured they were on thirty-six years of hurt, and counting.)
We’ll meet Ant and Dec on our regular countdown eventually, with their one hit that got even further than ‘We’re on the Ball’.
‘World at Your Feet’, by Embrace – reached #3 in 2006
By the 21st century, it was the height of uncool to have actual footballers singing on your World Cup song. Instead you had to get past-their-best Britpop bands like Embrace to sing inspirational lines such as With the world at your feet there’s no one you can’t beat…
After the brilliance of ‘World in Motion’, and even ‘Three Lions’, this is incredibly bland, indie rock by numbers. The video, equally milquetoast, in which the band lead a group of England fans around Wembley stadium, could double as a Vodafone advert. It ends with a whimper, much like England’s 2006 World Cup campaign, which ended in defeat on penalties to Portugal.
‘This Time We’ll Get It Right’, by the England World Cup Squad – reached #2 in 1982
Though any nostalgia for the days when a World Cup song involved players huddled around microphones, swaying awkwardly, arms around one another’s backs, should be extinguished by songs like ‘This Time We’ll Get It Right’.
It has the same plodding beat and similarly jaunty lyrics to 1970’s ‘Back Home’, as if popular music hadn’t moved by lightyears through glam, punk, disco or new wave in the intervening twelve years. Though in actual fact England hadn’t qualified for the 1974 or ’78 tournaments, and so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that this sounds like a direct follow-up record.
Anyway, while most of the records so far have been the sort of songs that would have finished bottom of their groups with zero points, the next three are finalists in my eyes…
‘Nessun Dorma’, by Luciano Pavarotti – reached #2 in 1990
Perhaps tellingly, the three biggest (and best) non-chart-topping World Cup hits are all ‘unofficial’ anthems. No official FIFA records or awkward footballers in chunky headphones.
And most randomly of all, we have a big beast of Italian opera: Luciano Pavarotti himself. ‘Nessun Dorma’ originates from Puccini’s ‘Turandot’, which debuted in 1926, and was first recorded by Pavarotti in 1972. The BBC used it as the theme for their coverage of Italia ’90, and so popular was it that it made #2 on re-release. Pavarotti, José Carreras and Plácido Domingo – AKA The Three Tenors – performed a concert ahead of the final, a live recording of which went on to become the highest-selling classical album of all time.
I don’t speak Italian, and know little to nothing about opera, but when big Pav hits the high note at the end of ‘Nessun Dorma’ it’s hard not to be awe-struck. So synonymous with football did this aria for a time become that it was performed on the pitch ahead of the following three World Cup finals.
‘Vindaloo’, by Fat Les – reached #2 in 1998
Having already labelled England-supporting songs as ‘obnoxious’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘bone-headed’ (if I haven’t used those exact words then I’ve definitely been thinking them), we come to the most obnoxious, arrogant and bone-headed of them all. And yet, I love it. I always have, aged twelve when it was released, and listening to it now, aged forty.
Its main refrain is We’re Enger-land, We’re gonna score one more than you… but it’s meant as a piss-take of the sort of songs that claim that it’s ‘coming home’. Comedian Keith Allen said he chose ‘Vindaloo’ for the title as it was just the sort of curry that a ‘right-wing lout’ would order. (I’m sure that some of the record’s buyers completely missed the tongue-in-cheek-ness of it, but an awareness of subtetly and nuance is not what louts are known for.) Meanwhile the rest of the lyrics involve camp gems like Can I introduce you please, To a lump of cheddar cheese… or Me and me mum and me dad and me gran went off to Waterloo, Me and me mum and me dad and me gran and a bucket of vindaloo…
Fat Les were Blur bassist Alex James, artist Damien Hirst, and Keith Allen (who co-wrote and performed in the video for ‘World in Motion’). The video features various comedians and celebs, most prominently Paul Kaye in a spoof of the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, and is so late-nineties it hurts. Please England, I beg of you, for 2026 can you give ‘Vindaloo’ a moment of resurgence, rather than ‘Three bloody Lions’?
‘Wavin’ Flag’, by K’naan – reached #2 in 2010
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa is not fondly remembered for the quality of its football, as an impressively dull Spain 1-0ed their way to the title. But it is fondly remembered, by me at least, for producing two of the greatest World Cup songs of all time. Give the competition to Africa, and at least you know the music is going to be good!
FIFA made a decent decision for once too, in commisioning Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’ as the official song of the tournament. That only made #21 in the UK, sadly, while the song that took off was the official Coca-Cola anthem: ‘Wavin’ Flag’ by Somali-Canadian singer K’naan. Okay, yes, big corporations are usually not a good thing for music, but the song had had a long journey to this point, having been a hit in Canada on its own, with lyrics about the experiences of Somali refugees, and then as a charity single following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. With more football-friendly lyrics, it eventually became a hit around the world.
It’s a great blend of African beats and a pop sensibility, Bruno Mars co-wrote and produced it, and it is not about England winning the trophy. The perfect way to wrap up this post. Which hopefully you enjoyed, even if you have no interest in the beautiful game. I’m off to set my alarm for whatever game kicks off at 3am tomorrow!
That sound? Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ahrgh! Eminem dramatically falling from grace…
Just Lose It, by Eminem (his 5th of eleven #1s)
1 week, from 7th – 14th November 2004
After a trio of chart-toppers – ‘Stan’, ‘Without Me’ and ‘Lose Yourself’ – that not only hugely advanced the critical reputation and lyrical potential of hip-hop, but what pop music as a whole could be capable of, Slim Shady returns with an Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ahrgh!
It’s so bad it could be viewed as a parody, and Eminem such a contrarian that it could be seen as an attempt to destroy his own legacy. The fact that it interpolates aspects of both ‘Without Me’ and ‘Lose Yourself’ backs this up. Or, it might just mean that Eminem had run out of steam. Apparently at the time of recording he was taking thirty to forty Valium a day, which might go a long way to explaining this record’s grotesqueness.
In the previous trio of #1s Eminem was in turns scary, hilarious, and charismatic. On ‘Just Lose It’ he sounds bored, a deadpan delivery making the predictable and unfunny lines sound worse. The video doesn’t help either, with Slim farting, vomiting, and for some reason dressing as Madonna, in a bid to ramp up some shock value.
He also takes a pop at Michael Jackson, in the video, and in the song’s one good line. What else could I possibly do to make noise, I’ve done touched on everything but little boys…? It’s especially interesting to hear this today, with MJ back in the charts and apparently fully un-cancelled following his successful biopic. At the time Jackson was pretty pissed off with this record. A couple of years later he had bought most of Eminem’s back catalogue.
Other than gleefully annoying Jackson and his unhinged fanbase, this record is largely irredeemable. And has there been a more confronting hook in a chart-topper than those bloody Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ahrghs? They are genuinely jarring.
Regardless of quality, the lead single from a new Eminem album is always going to be a big deal. Straight in at number one. And the low sales climate will mean that Eminem soon benefits from a second, slightly random #1 too. Much better than this one, though, thank God.
Yet another US-based R&B number one, to add to 2004’s increasingly long list…
Wonderful, by Ja Rule (his 1st and only #1) ft. R. Kelly (his 3rd and final #1) & Ashanti (her 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 31st October – 7th November 2004
Making this track even harder to enjoy, aside from its averageness, is the appearance of R Kelly for his final UK chart-topper. Your enjoyment of this song will depend on how well you can stomach Kels singing about how life is apussy buffet…
Though to give him his due, this feels like an R Kelly record rather than one led by Ja Rule, given that he gets around fifty percent of the airtime, including the chorus, which is the catchiest part of the song (I quite like the Morse Code-y, buzzing riff that holds it together too). Ja Rule contributes a couple of verses about gangstas and hos, and other rap cliches that make me roll my eyes. It’s always been a feature of the genre, that sort of aggrandisement, but one that started to dominate in the 21st century. Y’all bitches don’t know… Niggas can’t walk a mile in my shoes… That sort of thing.
I always quite liked Ja Rule, however. Usually in a supporting role, as on his two hits with J-Lo (‘Ain’t It Funny’ and ‘I’m Real’) and ‘Always on Time’ with Ashanti. Those songs felt much bigger, much more part of the fabric of the early ‘00s, than ‘Wonderful’. So in one sense it’s good that the dulcet tones of Ja Rule, and the much sweeter-voiced Ashanti, managed a British chart-topper. Just preferably not with this.
I’d even go so far as to claim that songs like this don’t belong on top of the UK singles charts. It’s not our music. It’s US cultural imperialism! Bring back Lonnie Donegan! Yes that sounds a bit Reform-ish, but – unlike other nationalities – we can be rude about Americans and not get into trouble. I do wonder which sections of the British public this record spoke to. Give me So Solid Crew over this: at least they spoke about the lives of British kids, and came from British council estates.
Of course, in late 2004, ‘Wonderful’ sold a fraction of what Ja Rule and Ashanti’s non chart-topping, earlier hits had sold. While it just about cleared the record set by ‘Call on Me’s final fortnight on top, the 23k copies it sold in its first week set its own record for the lowest selling record to debut at #1. Has anyone listened to this in twenty years? I doubt it. Not the most ‘Wonderful’ legacy to leave.
Turn-of-the-century Britain’s biggest pop star Robbie Williams scores his first #1 in almost three years. Right at the moment when he stopped chasing hits.
Radio, by Robbie Williams (his 6th of seven #1s)
1 week, from 10th – 17th October
He’s gone full-on new-wave electro with this clanking, blurping track. Vocally I get both Gary Numan, and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy. You’d probably struggle to identify this as Robbie Williams, until he reveals a slightly more trademark voice on the Jumping, Thumping, Shout out something… line.
It’s a strange record, and I don’t just mean strange sounding. I remember it catching people by surprise; and yet it’s hardly a very original song. It set the tone for Robbie as he moved further from away his imperial phase, releasing less successful but pretty cool songs like 2006’s ‘Rudebox’, and 2009’s ‘Bodies’. Plus, in 2004, such an eighties-chasing song was very zeitgeisty, as most of the era’s big rock bands were doing the same.
In fact, I’d say that this period is when Robbie cemented himself as a legendary pop star. Yes, Take That were huge, and he enjoyed massive hits from his first few solo albums, but a track like ‘Radio’ is really not what an ex-boyband star should be releasing. Cast your mind back two chart-toppers, to Brian McFadden’s fairly plodding ‘Real to Me’, to see the level of many ex-boybanders.
‘Real to Me’ was written by Guy Chambers, while ‘Radio’ was Robbie William’s first solo single not to be co-written with his regular partner. Lyrically it’s interesting (by that I mean ridiculous), and if that’s down to the departure of Chambers I don’t know. Although some of the lines are brilliant in their ridiculousness. He puts an ‘e’ in the Arsenal, A comb in my ‘fro, Divine retribution and away we go… being a particular favourite.
‘Radio’ was one of two new songs on Williams’ first greatest hits record, another way in which this was something of a line in the sand after his huge hit-making days. Though to claim that this was the end of him as a chart force is highly misguided, with eight further Top 10 hits to come before his final chart-topper in eight years’ time. I’d class this along with something like Kylie’s ‘Slow’, a song that only made #1 because of a huge star’s fanbase, but that made the charts a more interesting place for doing so.
Two sounds have dominated the charts of 2004: gloopy US R&B, and tacky dance records. Here we have the apogee of the latter genre.
Call on Me, by Eric Prydz (his 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October / 2 weeks, from 17th – 31st October 2004 (5 weeks total)
I’ve explained in earlier posts of what tacky dance consists. Basically it involves a sample from the ‘80s, and a trance-light beat. Basically, it’s basic. And catchy. And guaranteed to fill a provincial dancefloor. (That’s not me being snobby – I came of age on provincial dancefloors.)
‘Call on Me’ takes two lines from Steve Winwood’s 1982 #51 (and 1987 #19) hit ‘Valerie’, and adds a beat that alternately thumps then swirls. That’s about it. It does have a fill your ears, wall-of-sound quality to it, and I do remember it sounding very good in a dark and sweaty nightclub when you were five Apple VKs in. Earlier tacky dance chart-toppers, like ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’ and ‘Lola’s Theme’, sound lightweight in comparison.
But like all songs of its ilk, it is repetitive, and ephemeral. Why was ‘Call on Me’ such a big hit, compared to the year’s other dance records? Why did it become, at the time, the second-longest running chart topper of the decade? I can’t hear any particular reason… Oh no, wait. Now I remember. The reason for this song’s success wasn’t just to do with the audio…
The video was set in a dance studio, and featured a bevy of beauties in skimpy swimwear doing a sexy aerobics routine (which must have chafed, looking back). A DVD single was available, that included a ‘late night’ version of the video. God knows what that involved. Opinion has been torn ever since. It won Best Video at a dance music awards, but was named 5th worst video of all time by NME. Eric Prydz himself refused to play the song for many years, apparently embarrassed by its success, and was once bottled on stage in Canada for not doing so. The final word on the video has to go to Tony Blair, Prime Minister: ‘The first time it came on, I nearly fell off my rowing machine’… These days, with all the filth we require at our digital fingertips, it feels quaint to think that randy teenage boys rushed in their droves to buy a DVD single. A relic of a simpler time.
Winwood’s ‘Valerie’ had been used in an earlier dance song by French duo Together (one of whom was Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter). They didn’t want to release it, and so Prydz – a Swedish DJ – recreated it with re-recorded vocals from Winwood himself. He scored his debut, and breakthrough, hit with it. While – correct me if I’m wrong, because he’s had a wide and varied career – I think this restored Steve Winwood to the UK Top 10 for the first time since his Spencer Davis Group and Traffic days. It’s bizarre to think that the last time the vocalist from ‘Call on Me’ was at #1, it was with the bluesy-garage rock of ‘Somebody Help Me’ in 1966.
Another reason for ‘Call on Me’s extended run at the top, other than the smut and its crowd-pleasing sound, was the lack of competition. When it returned to number one in October, it did so with the lowest sales ever recorded, scraping only 21,749 in its final week as a chart-topper. That’s very low. But sales will drop even lower in the next couple of years, before downloads finally fill the void.
The UK Number Ones Blog 