After plenty of boyband balladry and teeth-clenchingly sweet bubblegum, what else is on our 1999 checklist…? Of course: a one-off dance hit!

9PM (Till I Come), by ATB (his 1^st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 27^th June – 11^th July 1999

I believe the airy trance riff that holds this hit together is classed as Balearic, after the island chain in the Mediterranean, where tunes like this blast from beach bars and clubs all summer long. I have never been to Ibiza, but as I listen to this next chart-topper I can’t help but picture a beach bathed in late-afternoon sun, a cocktail glass glistening, a sunburnt Brit vomiting Stella onto a street corner…

It’s an evocative track. While I must remind readers yet again that I am no dance music afficionado, I can’t deny that this is ear-catching, and atmospheric. And sophisticated too, compared to the Vengaboys (though a Whoopee Cushion would sound sophisticated next to the Vengaboys…) The main riff was created on a guitar, and has an almost flamenco tinge to it. While I’m convinced that elsewhere in the mix there’s a banjo, which must be a first for a dance #1.

Of course the somewhat risqué title and lyrics also played a part in this becoming such a huge smash. Till I come… a breathy voice coos over and over… Change it and see… Change what and see, we’re left wondering? As examples of titillation in number one singles go, it’s pretty subtle. Which I like. As we move into the 21^st century, we’ll meet plenty of chart-toppers so brazen that they make this one sound relatively prudish.

ATB is the stage name of German DJ and producer André Tanneberger, for whom ‘9PM’ was a first smash hit, the first of three-in-a-row in the UK. (Which, okay, ruins what I said in the intro about this being a ‘one-off’, but you know what I mean.) It was the year’s 5^th highest-selling hit, and the 44^th highest of the entire decade! The riff proved so memorable that ATB recycled part of it for the #3 follow-up ‘Don’t Stop’, while it also returned him to the Top 10 in 2021 when a remake, ‘Your Love (9PM)’, was released. He was voted the world’s #1 DJ in 2011.

Detached appreciation is the best I can muster for this sort of dance hit, though it is a nice change of pace. I will say that this song was so ubiquitous at the time that, listening to it now, ‘9PM (Till I Come)’ feels so of the ‘late-nineties’ that it’s the sort of track you’d use in a film or TV show as a setting shorthand, making sure an audience knows exactly what time period they’re in.