A few chart-toppers ago, when writing about LMC’s ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, I announced a new genre: ‘tacky dance’.
Lola’s Theme, by Shapeshifters (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, 18th – 25th July 2004
‘Tacky dance’ involves taking an old sample and splicing it with a disco-lite beat. It’s cheap and catchy, and goes down like a Bacardi Breezer. I’ve also heard this genre described as ‘handbag house’, though I think that sounds even more derogatory, conjuring up images of large groups of screeching women on a hen night.
Anyway, after writing all that, it feels harsh to tar our next #1 with that brush. Yes, ‘Lola’s Theme’ is two samples and a disco-house beat. But it works better than ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, as the Whitney and U2 samples on that record felt gimmicky. Here, the Shapeshifters – a British/Swedish production duo – took two relatively unknown songs and created a much fresher sounding record.
The disco strings and horns come from Johnnie Taylor’s 1982 song ‘What About My Love’, while the I’m a different person… refrain comes from Anthony White’s ‘Love Me Tonight’ (neither song had been a hit in the UK). The result is a catchy, accessible dance record. Yes, it’s a bit basic. But being ‘a bit basic’ is essential when making a tacky dance record. And I remember it being everywhere in the summer of 2004, with the melody used as montage music on every daytime TV programme going for several years afterwards.
One thing I like about tacky dance is that it put dance diva vocalists back front and centre. The singer on this was soul artist Cookie, for whom this was a career highlight (though she has also been a live backing vocalist for Kylie, Ronan Keating, and Nick Cave). I do enjoy when she lets loose on the Turn my world around… line. I’m disappointed, though, to finally learn that the lyric in the bridge is You fired up my heart… when I had always heard it as You fag-burned my heart… A cigarette singed heart is the perfect image for the cover of a tacky dance single.
Before we go we must address the question that is presumably on everyone’s lips. Who’s Lola? She was the wife of Shapeshifter Simon Marlin, and ‘Lola’s Theme’ a placeholder title that was never improved upon. Still, very few people can claim to have a number one single named after them, so well done her. The Shapeshifters had one further Top 10 hit, and a few smaller hits, and are both still active today.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
One of my faves of the chart-toppers of the year, and I’m often not a fan of tacky samples on basic beats but this one did it right – one can’t get annoyed of samples one doesn’t recognise, and it gave flops a kind of success retrospectively. That vocal hook is terrific, yay for Cookie. The follow-up was pretty good too, Back To Basics.
It seems every year in the UK since the late-70s you Brits get at least one big post-disco or nu disco hit. Disco never really left the UK chart, did it?
Definitely very familiar with this song. This is total banger. Awesome song. Here in Australia, it reached #35 on the singles chart (yet not only reached #1 on the Dance Club chart but finished at #1 for the year), but this song still gets a lot of play today here, especially at retail stores. Fantastic sample use of the Johnnie Taylor and Anthony White songs. I’ve heard this song out and about, and I’ve also heard it played at dance clubs very late into the night when most people are too drunk and intoxicated to care.