Hurray! Our first random dance hit of the new century! From the mid-nineties onwards these have become a common occurrence, and they aren’t letting up in the early years of the 2000s.
Don’t Give Up, by Chicane (his 1st and only #1) ft. Bryan Adams (his 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 12th – 19th March 2000
This is blissed-out, late-afternoon by the pool sort of dance. Background dance, if there is such a thing. Which begs the question, how did this middling record end up on top of the charts? What’s the USP? Is it the fact that it’s rock music’s Bryan Adams croaking his way through it?
Maybe it was a bigger deal than it seems now, a middle-aged rock star appearing on a fresh dance track. Nowadays nobody bats an eyelid at a rock-cum-dance remix. I initially wondered if it was a sample of an old Adams’ track, but no – it was written by Adams in 1999, then mixed and produced by Chicane (British DJ Nicholas Bracegirdle). Vocally, Adams does a Cher and is heavily vocoded and autotuned. And yet, you can instantly tell it’s him. I never would have pegged him as having such a distinctive voice.
Other than the novelty of Bryan Adams’ featuring on it, there’s not much here to catch the ears. It picks up a bit from the midway point, with some higher tempo trance touches, but it remains fairly repetitive. I can’t escape the feeling that this sounds like the sort of remix that would usually have been tucked away as the third track on a CD single.
Perhaps the success of this record was due to the fact that Chicane had been responsible for the single edit of Adams’ 1999 #6 single ‘Cloud Number Nine’ (a much better song than this). View ‘Don’t Give Up’ as the follow-up and its success starts to make more sense. Chicane didn’t have too many big hits, but when they did it was usually with someone interesting. His single before this featured Máire Brennan, sister of Enya, while his 2006 hit ‘Stoned in Love’ was with Tom Jones.
Bryan Adams meanwhile was no stranger to chart success. This was his 11th Top 10 hit since arriving on these shores in the mid-eighties. It is interesting to see the difference in his two chart-toppers though, both in terms of their sound, and in their presence at the top. ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ holds the record for consecutive weeks at number one; while a decade later ‘Don’t Give Up’ squeaked a solitary week on fairly low sales, just over a thousand copies ahead of Madonna in the end.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Having read most of the accompanying posts on Youtube while listening to it, I feel a bit guilty about saying anything negative here as it obviously means a lot to so many people on a personal level. But as you say, ’nothing much to catch the ears’ as far as I’m concerned either, no matter how much I enjoyed the singles on ‘Restless’ some four decades ago. If you want another hit, get yourself an enterprising dance DJ!
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The YouTube comments for almost any song will convince you that it’s the most important piece of music in existence. I’m sure even The Birdy Song has saved at least one person’s life…
In a way I admire an ‘older’ artist that does try to branch out and reach a younger audience, even if it is mainly due to financial motivations! Tom Jones was a great one for it until quite recently.
Bryan Adams returns to the top after the reign of terror he inflicted upon the UK Singles Chart in the early 90s with a surprisingly decent song. I didn’t recognise the title, but I know this song (well, the chorus definitely). I don’t remember explicitly ever hearing this song during the 2000s but the chorus is very familiar to me. Down under, here, it peaked at #6. It’s a typical trance/chill-out rave song – the perfect song to get high and dance to at a rave near the end of the night when you’re tired and everything’s about to begin winding now.
Bryan Adams is such a conflicting artist for me. On one hand, a lot of his music utter trite, but he has some great songs like “Run to You”, “Summer of 69”, “Heaven”. People call him discount Bruce Springsteen, but he’s more discount John Mellencamp, who already is a discount Bob Seger.
Ol Bry’ relocated to the UK and kept in touch with what was cool here, and I always have time for musicians willing to step outside of their comfort zone. I don’t always like some of his drearier tracks, or rock-by-numbers singalongs, but he can never be written off from dropping gems like Run To You, the Robin Hood anthem, Thought I’d Died, When You’re Gone with Melanie C, and the odd remix or sample. I liked this one, good on the dancefloor, but I wouldnt rate it amongst his top-tier. Bryan still keeps on quietly releasing good tunes every few years, some get picked up for Radio 2 and some don’t, but I usually welcome him back, always been a grounded and likeable pop star.
I would have NEVER connected Bryan Adams with this…never in a million years.