Aside from Britpop, the rapid-fire turnover of number ones, and the dominance of the Spice Girls, there’s one not so expected theme for 1997… Problematic performers.
I Believe I Can Fly, by R. Kelly (his 1st of three #1s)
3 weeks, from 6th – 27th April 1997
Starting with the disgraced, and currently incarcerated, R. Kelly. I’m not going to come over all hand-wringy about it, mind you. We managed with Gary Glitter and his gang, and when Rolf Harris sang about ‘Two Little Boys’. And unlike them, ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ doesn’t have any lyrics that sound dubious in hindsight (we’ll save that for Kelly’s next #1, ‘Ignition’).
Though some double-entendres might have given us something entertaining to write about at least, because this is a fairly dull, very worthy, song for most of its verses and bridges. It was written for the movie ‘Space Jam’, a half cartoon/half live-action film in which Michael Jordan plays basketball with Bugs Bunny (that sounds crazy when you actually type it out, but as a kid I went with it…) So there are lots of lines about never giving up, achieving miracles… If I can see it, Then I can do it… If I just believe it, There’s nothing to it…
I will say that the chorus, however, has whatever choruses need to be great. Something in the chord progressions; the simple, but not clunky, rhymes; that pause in the beat on the word ‘believe’… I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it makes for a chorus that leaves the rest of mush behind, and burrows its way into the public conscience.
By the end, things have gone full-on gospel, with some soaring strings, and Kelly bringing it home with lots of whoops, hollers and melisma. Impressive, but not worth the four minutes of sludge we had to wade through to get there. And also quite a hard turn from his usual output, which had been much more upbeat, R&B for his two prior Top 10 hits, ‘She’s Got that Vibe’ and ‘Bump and Grind’ (dubious lyrics klaxon!). Plus, if schmaltzy and over-emoted nineties ballads are your thing, I’d say R. Kelly surpassed this two years later, with ‘If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time’.
As with Glitter, I half-expected not to find Kelly on Spotify. They did, after all, make a big fuss about deleting his music in 2018, before reinstating it but refusing to feature it in any playlists. Which is a classic case of having your cake and eating it. I’m no fan of cancel culture, but if you are going to cancel someone then do it properly! Not this ‘loudly virtue signal but quietly still take the money’ nonsense. One person who did #cancelrkelly was Lady Gaga, who recorded the banging ‘Do What U Want’ with him in 2013 – long after the first allegations against him had come to light – then quickly replaced it with an (inferior) version featuring Christina Aguilera after a backlash… (I love Gaga, but I’m still sore about that one…)
Anyway, R. Kelly still has two more number ones to come, so we have plenty of time to cover his catalogue of crimes and get ourselves worked up about cancel culture if we so wish. In the meantime, let’s move on from all this, and pretend we’ve never had a problem with sex offenders having chart-topping singles, because up next it’s… Oh…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
On a purely musical level, I think this might be my least favourite song in the entire universe. I’ve hated it ever since it appeared. There’s something so dutiful, unconvincing and downright cynical-sounding about the peppy lyrics combined with a funeral-home sort of backing. It just makes me nauseous! And I only learned the name R. Kelly, never mind what he got up to, within the last few years.
It certainly is a worthy piece of music, taking itself very seriously. I can see why you feel that way about it.
Fitting that it was R. Kelly who was up for the next No. 1 on this blog as we are currently amidst the rap feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, the latter a man who has been accused of grooming, paedophilia and having sex with underage girls, amidst other things. The former funnily enough threatened to remove his catalogue from Spotify in support for R. Kelly in 2018 in reaction to Spotify announcing they would be removing Kelly’s songs from official playlists after he was accused of various forms of sexual abuse.
As for the song, I’ve known this song since I was a little kid. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know this song. It’s become such a meme. Relistening to it, wow, that chorus is a killer, especially when it turns into a gospel choir, but the verses are pretty damn boring.
I saw the title…and it came to me…this one I’ve heard before. To show you how much news I watch…I didn’t know the dude was in trouble lol…I know Sean Combs is in a heap of trouble though!
Yeah this one was everywhere at the time. And yep, Sean Combs is also coming up soon, completing 1997’s rogues gallery!
Not a fan of this dirge, and generally in the 90’s not a fan of R Kelly, though his early stuff wasn’t bad. Had we known at the time about his marriage to Aaliyah (aged 15) I think we would all have said “hang on, what!?” and he might have been caught a lot earlier and prevented from being in a position to use his stardom and money for dodgy controlling behaviour. If only we could turn back the hands of time, eh…?