As the nineties progressed I – far from your usual raver – found myself enjoying dance music more and more. Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers incorporated rock into it, trance brought a banging immediacy to it, while I’m always susceptible to a bit of Euro-dance cheese.
Another Chance, by Roger Sanchez (his 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 8th – 15th July 2001
But if 2001’s dance #1s are anything to go by, house is making a comeback. And I always feel that house music sounds good for setting a tone, giving a bar a vibe, soundtracking a sunset cocktail… But that it lacks the oomph to stand out. And I feel it here, once again, as I let ‘Another Chance’ wash over me. Perfectly pleasant, fairly up-tempo, full of lush, dreamy touches; but nothing to grab a hold of.
The vocals are deep in the mix, and filtered through several layers of echoing reverb. Does the song title feature? I had genuinely no idea. Turns out it does, because this is built around a sample of Toto’s 1982 hit ‘I Won’t Hold You Back’, featuring the line If I had another chance tonight… which I didn’t recognise because eighties soft rock leaves me as cold as house music.
Of course we’re not meant to be singing along to a song like this, so the lyrics don’t really matter. It begs the question though, who feels compelled to buy records like this? What do you get out of listening to this on your home stereo rather than a nightclub’s speakers? It does have a nice couple of drops, and I like the wistful piano line that briefly takes over, but other than that…
And yet if writing this blog has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t always understand the motivations of the British record buying public. And this record is far, far from their worst offence. It’s just not my thing. Roger Sanchez did well off it anyway, scoring by far his biggest hit. He has produced and remixed for a star-studded array including Diana Ross, Kylie, Madonna and No Doubt (his remix of ‘Hella Good’ won a Grammy). He remains a DJ, and has maintained an Ibiza residency every summer since 2000.
Just the music:
The UK Number Ones Blog 
This one really brings back the memories of being a godly Terpsichorium podium twinky in the clubs 😭😭 And the video of the girl carrying the heart around was the darndest cute thing ❤️
This was just before my clubbing days. I first made my debut aged 16 in 2002, with lots of wet look gel and a horrifically glossy, baggy, one half light blue-one half dark blue shirt… God knows how or why they let me in. I looked 12.
I think Pleasant covers it. Toto in soft-rock phase were pleasant, the sample is pleasant, and the track is pleasant. I like it, and I liked it then. I wouldnt call it an all-time fave rave but I have a high tolerance for Pleasant music of any genre, end of the evening wind-down and all that, especially as I get older – less energetic music seems to often go with less energetic older folk 🙂
I agree it’s pleasant. What I don’t always see is how something goes from pleasant to huge hit single…
I think the forgotten target-audience of music has always been the more mature woman (as in not teenage girls) – they often like pleasant, maybe what used to be called Easy Listening in by-gone eras – and I certainly went for Easy Listening as a kid and beyond. I reckon this one would prob have squeezed in under that category without the dance beats. Toto certainly would have 🙂
That is an interesting take: the idea that easy listening as a genre morphs into a form of whatever is popular at the time. Still, I get why this sort of music clogs up the charts in the streaming era, with people playing it as inoffensive background music, but struggle to see why you’d have gone all the way into Woolies to buy a copy. But I could say that about any #1 I’m not a huge fan of. Shouldn’t pick on this particular record too much!