Two sounds have dominated the charts of 2004: gloopy US R&B, and tacky dance records. Here we have the apogee of the latter genre.
Call on Me, by Eric Prydz (his 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October / 2 weeks, from 17th – 31st October 2004 (5 weeks total)
I’ve explained in earlier posts of what tacky dance consists. Basically it involves a sample from the ‘80s, and a trance-light beat. Basically, it’s basic. And catchy. And guaranteed to fill a provincial dancefloor. (That’s not me being snobby – I came of age on provincial dancefloors.)
‘Call on Me’ takes two lines from Steve Winwood’s 1982 #51 (and 1987 #19) hit ‘Valerie’, and adds a beat that alternately thumps then swirls. That’s about it. It does have a fill your ears, wall-of-sound quality to it, and I do remember it sounding very good in a dark and sweaty nightclub when you were five Apple VKs in. Earlier tacky dance chart-toppers, like ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’ and ‘Lola’s Theme’, sound lightweight in comparison.
But like all songs of its ilk, it is repetitive, and ephemeral. Why was ‘Call on Me’ such a big hit, compared to the year’s other dance records? Why did it become, at the time, the second-longest running chart topper of the decade? I can’t hear any particular reason… Oh no, wait. Now I remember. The reason for this song’s success wasn’t just to do with the audio…
The video was set in a dance studio, and featured a bevy of beauties in skimpy swimwear doing a sexy aerobics routine (which must have chafed, looking back). A DVD single was available, that included a ‘late night’ version of the video. God knows what that involved. Opinion has been torn ever since. It won Best Video at a dance music awards, but was named 5th worst video of all time by NME. Eric Prydz himself refused to play the song for many years, apparently embarrassed by its success, and was once bottled on stage in Canada for not doing so. The final word on the video has to go to Tony Blair, Prime Minister: ‘The first time it came on, I nearly fell off my rowing machine’… These days, with all the filth we require at our digital fingertips, it feels quaint to think that randy teenage boys rushed in their droves to buy a DVD single. A relic of a simpler time.
Winwood’s ‘Valerie’ had been used in an earlier dance song by French duo Together (one of whom was Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter). They didn’t want to release it, and so Prydz – a Swedish DJ – recreated it with re-recorded vocals from Winwood himself. He scored his debut, and breakthrough, hit with it. While – correct me if I’m wrong, because he’s had a wide and varied career – I think this restored Steve Winwood to the UK Top 10 for the first time since his Spencer Davis Group and Traffic days. It’s bizarre to think that the last time the vocalist from ‘Call on Me’ was at #1, it was with the bluesy-garage rock of ‘Somebody Help Me’ in 1966.
Another reason for ‘Call on Me’s extended run at the top, other than the smut and its crowd-pleasing sound, was the lack of competition. When it returned to number one in October, it did so with the lowest sales ever recorded, scraping only 21,749 in its final week as a chart-topper. That’s very low. But sales will drop even lower in the next couple of years, before downloads finally fill the void.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Ah……ah….this song. I’m straight so I can speak on behalf of all straight men that this is one of the greatest videos of all time. It’s very hard to be objective about this song because it’s one of the first things I ever remember making a big impact for me, especially from music. This song – well actually, the music video – was probably the first thing I ever saw that made feel things that Sesame Street wasn’t making me feel, though it didn’t fully register as I was very little at the time. But I knew what I was seeing/hearing was something more intriguing than what Elmo and Big Bird were preaching. The video is incredible and…uh, memorable for several very big sweaty, flaunting and revealing reasons. I find this song extremely catchy though. It’s just long enough to leave you satisfied and just short enough to not be annoying. I listen to it a lot while working out at the gym – the video is also very good motivation to stay in shape.
This song got a bit of a resurgence after it was featured in the opening scene of Warfare, where the soldiers watch the music video together before being deployed. I also saw a Top of the Pops video of this song which was hilarious because several of the dancers in this video appear and you see all the guys in the audience just be in awe and completely enraptured.