If the year 2000 has a defining sound – and I’m far from convinced that it does, with so many chart-toppers crammed into its fifty-two weeks – then UK garage would be a strong candidate.
Fill Me In, by Craig David (his 1st of two #1s)
1 week, from 9th – 16th April 2000
These staccato, two-step beats have started to appear more regularly, with Shanks & Bigfoot last year, and to a lesser extent Gabrielle a few weeks ago. I never particularly liked garage at the time – it always felt too light, too airy, too difficult to grab a hold of. It dances around the beat, without ever committing to it. Garage makes me think of a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, impossible to catch. A strange image for a musical genre, perhaps, but one that works for me.
And eighteen-year-old Craig David, Southampton’s most famous chart-topper, is an equally strong candidate for the year’s breakout star. He has a soft, honeyed voice, and controls this lyric-heavy song despite lacking what I would describe as ‘oomph’. (That’s what garage lacks – oomph!) It tells the story of a young couple trying to get jiggy in the face of her over-protective parents. Calls diverted to answer phone, Red wine bottle half the contents gone, Midnight return, Jacuzzi turned on… Can you fill me in? her folks ask.
Clearly Southampton is a bit posher than where I grew up, as I never knew anyone with a jacuzzi. The Wikipedia entry for ‘Fill Me In’ amusingly claims the song as a commentary on helicopter parenting, though I’m not sure there are many parents, helicopter or otherwise, that would be thrilled upon discovering their teenage daughter had been in a jacuzzi with the next door neighbours’ randy son, guzzling their wine. It is an interesting twist, however, to have a song about teenage lust told from the parents’ point of view.
Listening back to this now, a quarter of a decade later, and I’m more disposed to it than I was at the time. There’s something light, yes, but carefree too; though maybe that’s just nostalgia. As garage goes, this is way over to the poppier side of the genre. It owes as much to American R&B – TLC, Usher, Destiny’s Child and the like – as it does to UK MCs spitting rhymes on council estates.
Craig David had announced himself to the world as the vocalist on Artful Dodger’s ‘Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)’ right at the end of 1999. That is an era-defining single, although it fell just short of appearing in this countdown. (‘Bo Selecta’ is a phrase that will come to haunt David, but more on that later.) His second #1 is also a real cultural moment, leaving ‘Fill Me In’ in the strange position of being Craig David’s first chart-topper, but not one of the two songs everyone remembers him for.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
The lyric “you left all your money on the TV” will make zero sense to today’s young people. “Don’t they use their phone to pay for stuff?” and “how would you balance physical cash on top of a TV?”.
Ha yes, well observed. But also, please don’t remind me how long ago the year 2000 was!
I also had that same reaction to garage when it came out, I like your butterfly metaphor. It was nice enough but it lacked the thumping power of a dancefloor hit, but I still remain unconvinced by the poppier side of garage/drum n bass of that period – at least for another couple of years. I can pinpoint exactly where I changed my mind: Kosheen’s minor hit Harder. Gorgeous, a full sound, and emotional. They had had a short run of good hits and then this track seemed to end their career. I like to see it as ahead of it’s time cos it’s still a cracker, Craig David I also warmed to as he went on, he had much better later hits than Fill Me In. I wouldnt turn it off the radio, but I wouldnt dig it out either.
I know Southampton well, that’s where I started my clubbing phase (a bit late, but better late than never!) in 2001. Never saw Craig out and about in the specialist clubs I went to, but “posh” is not a word I would associate with the city, the centre is and was more Council flats, rented flats and shopping retail than anything else, and the only jacuzzi’s you can find would be in Saunas! I’m sure the suburbs and outlying areas have their better off families but I never met any of ’em, but I’d still guess the jacuzzi would be on the back garden…. 🙂
I’m imagining the jacuzzi was some sort of imagined glamour invented for the song, rather than something Craig David ever experienced, going by descriptions of his childhood. I’ve only ever been to Southampton airport, and you’re not selling the city to me as a holiday destination!
Oops, I did sound a bit down on Soton! 🙂 Southampton’s fine for a day trip, great for shopping, historic remains of the old town walls – takes about 20 minutes – and a massive harbour for cruising the world on ships the size of a small floating mountain. Ooh and an actual gay club still going, a rarity these days since young “Queer” and “straight” people decided they prefer “normal” clubs and tanking up on booze at home first, it’s cheaper. RIP old-fashioned local pubs that dont do food, hello blocks of flats (much-needed admittedly). Soton also is great for outdoor concerts in the summer and huge draw megastars at St Mary’s Stadium, much easier than travelling to London or Birmingham.
You know, as a member of Gen Z, when I first heard of the term UK garage on this blog, I was getting excited thinking that UK garage rock had a moment at the top of charts. This is clearly not that. But, this is pretty decent. I’ll take this over most boy band pop ballads anyday. I like the R&B-style vocals (this style of R&B vocal I remember didn’t get ousted from mainstream R&B until around early 2010s when alt-R&B thanks to The Weeknd and Frank Ocean became the big thing so it had some longetivity). It was #6 here in Australia and now that I’ve listened to it a few times, I actually do know this song from my childhood in the 2000s. It’s a solid song.
I wish it was UK garage rock; though the mid-00s indie rock revival is not too far away, and that will have some impact at the top of the charts
Arctic Monkeys right? I think they have two UK No. 1s from their first album. Surprised none of the singles from AM hit No. 1 considering how hugely popular that album is nowadays.
Yes, Arctic Monkeys were the biggest, but bands like Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Stereophonics also had number ones around that time. Coldplay too, if you count them as ‘indie’, or indeed ‘rock’. It was the last real hurrah of the rock group, as since then there have been precious few in the Top 10, let alone at #1.
When you said garage…I was happy…but it wasn’t the garage I was thinking of lol.
Hahaha sadly, no.
Well can’t blame a guy for hoping!
Stewart I’ll start again tomorrow dang it. I’ll catch up I promise. My stupid work got busy this morning when I was starting…damn them! Who do they think they are?
Don’t they know you have more important things to do…?!
No worries – I don’t think there have been too many recent #1s that are your cup of tea, but you never know. The one I’m posting tomorrow might be, though.
I know right! Well in my business…we are like fireman…yea we do preventive IT maintenance but it’s like too much to do or we have a lot of time.
Cool…I hate being negative so I do try to curve it. I do come in with an open mind. Hey l actually liked some of the Spice Girls. Hope you are doing well and your trip was nice. I would love to go there and New Zealand.
It was a great trip, thanks. We drove along the coast from Sydney to Melbourne, stopping at lots of little towns and beaches. My first time there, and it’s really beautiful. Would love to see New Zealand one day too!
One fun fact…Australia has things that could kill ya and a bunch of snakes…New Zealand has NO snakes…how does that happen? Anyway…glad you had a good time.
Did not know that! I didn’t see anything too terrifying. No snakes, but some wallabies and koalas. The animals there are so different, even the birds.
I would love to go there….both places…but yea…not one snake in New Zealand. How did they not catch a ride on a ship? Anway…its interesting. I love those animals… wallabies and koalas.