Into 2001 we go… Picture the scene: it’s January, the Christmas decorations are down, the weather’s shit… Time for some Random Dance.
Touch Me, by Rui da Silva ft. Cassandra (their 1st and only #1s)
1 week, from 7th – 14th January 2001
I mean, why not? Now’s as good a time as any, and ‘Touch Me’ does have a cold, wintry feel to it. This is moody dance, made for mixing deep into a set at around two thirty in the morning. It’s not a grab-your-handbags floor-filler. I remembered the hook – Touch me in the morning, And last thing at night… – but little else about it.
What this reminds me of is that around the time this charted I was preparing for my Standard Grades (GCSEs to the rest of Britain), and in our art class we were allowed to have the radio on as we worked on our final projects. I can’t say for sure if ‘Touch Me’ was played often, but it’s the sort of thing that would have done. (We were also allowed to bring in snacks, which was even more of a treat than the radio).
I’m taking detours down memory lane not only because it’s fun, but because I can’t think of much to write about this record. It’s alright for what it is, which is not my type of thing. There’s not much to get your teeth into, really (unlike the fruit pastilles I was launching down my gullet in art class). It’s more of a vibe, a mood, than a melody and a hook. It’s technically ‘progressive house’, the first record of its kind to be a number one single, and I can see that. It’s more layered, more cerebral perhaps, than most dance records.
It’s also the first ever UK chart-topper by a Portuguese act, DJ Rui da Silva hailing from Lisbon. Vocalist Cassandra Fox, meanwhile, wrote the lyrics and became the third youngest woman to debut at #1, after Billie Piper and Britney Spears. Her voice has a nice throaty rasp well beyond her eighteen years. And actually, if we’re being pernickety, it this song, and not ‘The Masses Against the Classes’, which is technically the first number one of the new millennium.
So there are some stories here, just not necessarily within the song itself. Still, ‘Touch Me’ still seems to be well-respected in dance music circles. Meanwhile, the Guardian has claimed it to be both the ‘most forgotten number one of the decade’, and the 70th greatest UK number one single of all time.
Either an official video was never made, or has never been uploaded to YouTube.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I liked this one, cool voice.
I rate this more than a lot of chart-toppers of that era, dance music is always in vogue and will remain so for as long as Clubs still exist – all that changes is the genre name for the latest variation to the theme. I can’t say as I was ever bothered by what niche dance tracks came under (and there are SO many) for the enthusiasts, it either sounded great or it didn’t. It made you want to get up and dance, or it didn’t. This one did, I never got fed up with hearing it, and it had cool vibes. 70th greatest UK number one of all-time? Hmm, sorry Guardian, you need to have a very convincing analysis of exactly why it’s better than at least 300 classics I could rattle off. 70th best dance UK number one of all time? That might be more realistic, I reckon I would place it top 50 in that, ahead of Modjo on a par with Madonna and Kylie but far behind Sonique, Spiller of 2000 dance tracks, for example.
Love the art class refs, ah if only I had carried on with Art to O level. Our syllabus was biased to science and narrow in options. My art class musical memory is designing and painting an album sleeve based on Storm In A Teacup. It was a huge teacup with a storm over a tiny rural scene inside it 🙂 Amazingly I can top of the class that year in Art and had to drop the subject for bloody science stuff I was way less keen on 🙂
Luckily my school was a very general comprehensive (the biggest in Scotland at one point while I was studying there), with equal focus on everything. I think certain teachers quickly realised that I was better off as far away from the science/maths block as possible… And the day I finished my maths Standard Grade exam and realised that I would never have to study it again remains one of my happiest childhood memories : )