906. ‘Let’s Dance’, by Five

Five (sorry, 5ive) return for album number three, and in boyband years three albums equals… Well let’s just say it’s almost time to go to that big boyband concert in the sky.

Let’s Dance, by Five (their 3rd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 19th August – 2nd September 2001

‘Let’s Dance’ is a swansong, then, and as a swansong it ticks all Five boxes. Rapped verses, catchy chorus, a hint of disco, cheeky swagger, Abs’ bucket hat in the video… Job’s a good ‘un. There’s even a spot of very du jour Daft Punk-influenced vocoding, perhaps borrowed from S Club 7 (and their far superior disco reboot) a few months earlier.

It’s a decent enough tune, then. But it’s all a bit calculated, fairly 2001-pop-song-by numbers. It lacks the personality, the vim and vigour of Five’s earlier hits, and again I’m left to lament that they had to wait so long for a #1, and that the likes of ‘Everybody Get Up’ and ‘If Ya Getting’ Down’ fell short.

It has the feel of a boyband on their last legs, basically, and that’s before you get to the fact that one of them, Sean Conlon, had already left the band due to exhaustion. This hadn’t been announced to the fans, and so he’s represented by a cardboard cutout in the video. Something that Conlon felt was a bit insulting, and that’s probably fair enough.

And on their last legs they were, as the split was announced just a month after this record had been sitting at number one. Various reunions took place over the next couple of decades, but always with one or two members missing. Earlier this year, though, they announced they’d be getting properly back together for a tour. News that was greeted more excitedly than most pop reunions, because I think Five were generally well liked by everyone, even those who were usually immune to boybands’ charms. They were fun, they were fresh, and they were – let’s be real for a moment – all pretty fuckable. And, most importantly of all, praise be: they kept the ballads to a minimum!

The strange, mockumentary official video:

The actual song:

905. ’21 Seconds’ by So Solid Crew

Garage music continues on its mission to be as annoying a genre as possible…

21 Seconds, by So Solid Crew (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 12th – 19th August 2001

The three hardcore UK garage number ones – ‘Bound 4 da Reload’, ‘Do You Really Like It?’, and now this – feel like the musical equivalent of a teenager playing their music out loud at the back of the bus.

I could argue that I’m just an old fogey; but actually, I was fifteen when this made number one. I could easily have been that twatty teen. And while I’m sure me and my schoolmates were plenty obnoxious, none of us were ever into garage music. It felt very inner-city London; not small-town Scotland.

Like the two earlier garage #1s, this has lots of MCs spitting rhymes over a minimal 2-step production. The title refers to the fact that each performer gets twenty-one seconds to deliver their verse. Which at least keeps things quite fast-paced, and if one rapper doesn’t grab you then you know they won’t be on for long. Problem is, none of them grab me. And this isn’t me speaking as someone who doesn’t like rap music. There are rap songs I love. I named a rap song as my most recent Very Best Number One. It’s just that none of the rappers involved on this track have anything interesting to say.

What the title doesn’t refer to is there being twenty-one MCs on this track, though it starts to feel like it. There was actually a mathematical formula involved in creating the record. According to Wikipedia: “21 seconds is arrived at as the song’s tempo is approximately 140BPM, has a key of G minor, and each rapper has 12 bars of 4 beats (48 beats at 140BPM, when worked out to the nearest integer, rounds to 21 seconds).”

So Solid Crew had, at any one time, somewhere between nineteen and thirty members. Which makes them by far the biggest group to reach #1, although fewer than ten were involved in this track. The one member of So Solid that I can name with any confidence is Lisa Maffia, who is the only MC who sings her verse. Turns out I also recognise Romeo and Harvey, who had decent-ish solo careers away from the Crew. Interestingly, Oxide & Neutrino (of ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ fame) were So Solid members but didn’t feature on this track.

Of the three garage chart toppers that I mentioned, I would rank this in the middle. It’s not as intentionally annoying as DJ Pied Piper, and there is a lot of cultural relevance here. It’s punk for the new millennium, the sound of rebellious youth. It’s extremely modern, and there’s a clear line from this through to modern UK rap hits from the likes of Stormzy or Central Cee, while the I got twenty-one seconds to go, I got twenty-one seconds to flow chorus went just as viral, by 2001 standards, as Do you really like it, Is it is it wicked... I don’t like this record, but that’s down to personal taste. I must say, when I reviewed ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ I never thought I’d be placing it top of any list, but there was a joie de vivre in its ‘Casualty’ sampling novelty that is lacking in this song’s charmless slog through five minutes’ worth of identikit rapping.

One other thing worth mentioning here is the first appearance of the N-word in a number one single, in Megaman’s opening verse. I’m a big fan of tracking offensive language in chart-topping singles, from Lonnie Donegan’s ‘bloomin’’, to John Lennon’s ‘Christ!’, to Paul Weller’s ‘bullshit’. It feels like a switch was flicked the moment we hit the 21st century, with Oxide & Neutrino, and then of course Eminem, cramming their chart-toppers with vulgarity. All that’s left is the debut appearance of the c-word on top of the charts (and I don’t mean Coldplay…)

904. ‘Eternal Flame’, by Atomic Kitten

I admitted to a nostalgic appreciation of the cheap and cheerful production on Atomic Kitten’s first number one, ‘Whole Again’. It worked fine on an original composition…

Eternal Flame, by Atomic Kitten (their 2nd of three #1s)

2 weeks, from 29th July – 12th August 2001

But to replace the iconic, tingling intro to ‘Eternal Flame’ with the exact same pre-set drumbeat is sacrilege. And all three Kittens combined cannot compare to Susanna Hoffs tremulous vocals. We’ve heard a lot of inessential covers cropping up at number one in recent years, many of them re-dos of eighties classics, and I’d say that this rivals A1’s ‘Take on Me’ for cheapening banality.

Ironically for a song widely believed to have brought about the end of the Bangles, this version of ‘Eternal Flame’ was the official relaunch of Atomic Kitten, Kerry Katona having been replaced by Jenny Frost during the promotion of their previous number one. It set the tone for several more years of mid-level balladry and cheap covers, none of which were a patch on the catchy, playful singles from their first album. We can once again conclude that Kerry ‘That’s why mum’s go to Iceland’ Katona was the genuine creative force in the group…

What’s interesting-slash-alarming to realise is that there were only twelve years between the two versions of ‘Eternal Flame’ making number one. Yet to my ears, considering I was aged three for one and fifteen for the other, they sound as if they’re from completely different millennia. Which they technically are, but that’s not what I mean… Whatever is beyond your living memory is automatically ‘ancient’, and anything you can remember is ‘modern’, even if there’s but a year between them. It’s the same as how I can watch ‘Top Gun’, or footage from the 1986 World Cup, and struggle to believe that I was alive at the same time…

Apologies for that tangent, but is there a better place to get lost in contemplation of the perception of time than in a post on Atomic Kitten’s butchering of ‘Eternal Flame’? And luckily for us, this isn’t the last eighties chart-topper that the Kittens are going to get their claws stuck into. Their final chart-topper awaits…

903. ‘Eternity’ / ‘The Road to Mandalay’, by Robbie Williams

I’ve always liked the yearning simplicity of ‘Eternity’, Robbie Williams’ fourth solo chart-topper. It’s a tender song, telling of a fond farewell to a former lover (Geri Halliwell, if rumours are to be believed), with a pleasant piano line and some echoey, country guitars (played by Brian May).

Eternity / The Road to Mandalay, by Robbie Williams (his 4th of seven solo #1s)

2 weeks, from 15th – 29th July 2001

I’d also say it’s been largely forgotten among some of Robbie’s bigger hits, in both a bombastic and in a sales-figures sense, even if this was the first of his #1s to spend more than a week on top. And that’s a shame, as this is a pretty decent ballad. The middle-eight and the backing vocals remind me of Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Goodnight Girl’, and it’s definitely got the same mum-rock vibe as that hit from nine years earlier.

Is mum-rock a genre, in the same way that dad-rock is? Or have I just invented it? Another good question: why is ‘Eternity’ five minutes long? It loses its way somewhere past the three-minute mark, and by the end feels dragged out. Again, though, I do like it. We’ve met plenty of artists poorly served by their number ones, but I think Robbie’s first four have been a pretty balanced overview of his early solo career. Two in-your-face swagger anthems (‘Millennium’ and ‘Rock DJ’), two heartfelt ballads (this and ‘She’s the One’). And, thankfully, no ‘Angels’!

‘Eternity’ was a stand-alone single, released between Williams’ third and fourth albums, but as a double-‘A’ it had what was technically the fifth single from ‘Sing When You’re Winning’: ‘The Road to Mandalay’. Which becomes surely the one and only chart-topping single to be partly-inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem (Telly Savalas’s ‘If’ doesn’t count!)

Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ was first published in 1890, and had been set to music various times in the early 20th century, right up until Frank Sinatra had his way with it in the fifties, much to the annoyance of Kipling’s family. But, sadly, William’s ‘version’ seems to share nothing but a title with these earlier songs. According to Robbie, he wanted to record something ‘French sounding’, and so composed a chorus made solely of ba-bum-ba-bum-bums-bums, which I suppose has a sort of Gallic jauntiness to it.

My general rule when it comes to double-‘A’ is that the two sides should sound different. But although it’s much more upbeat than ‘Eternity’, ‘The Road to Mandalay’ is still quite light and acoustic. I’m not sure it adds enough to the record to warrant its inclusion, even if it is pleasant.

At least it does add to the list of places to feature in #1 singles, alongside Paris, San Francisco, Massachusetts and Liverpool (there must be more, that was just off the top of my head…) And if ever there was a Pointless answer to ‘Places that feature in number one singles’, then Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, must be it.

902. ‘Another Chance’, by Roger Sanchez

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:

901. ‘The Way to Your Love’, by Hear’Say

Every time I come across a #1 that I haven’t heard before I assume it will be the last such occasion. And I genuinely thought that I would have remembered something – a chorus, a line – from every 21st century chart-topper. But no, Hear’Say’s second number one has me stumped.

The Way to Your Love, by Hear’Say (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 1st – 8th July 2001

Though it makes sense that this was such a flash in the pan, and has been completely forgotten. The knock-off Max Martin production (Britney wouldn’t even have had this as an album track), the predictable chord progressions, lyrics like your heart is my home… It’s just so damn basic. If this is the best the year’s big new pop group can do for their second single then you start to fear for their longevity…

The two boys in the band, Noel and Danny, take more of a lead role here. And while I don’t want to be mean, I always thought they looked like two of the least likely pop group members ever. The three girls? Fine. I can see them as a sort of Atomic Kitten level girl group. But those two boys look more suited to refitting your kitchen. They can sing though – they all can sing, having gone through multiple audition rounds on ‘Popstars’ – and don’t let the side down.

Midway through, the song improves slightly, and morphs into a peppy Disney theme. A straight to VHS Disney movie, maybe. It’s still undeniably lame. And although this made number one, it did so on fairly low sales and went on to be the second lowest selling chart-topper of the year, ahead only of J-Lo’s January #1 ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’. Most tellingly, it sold but a tenth of ‘Pure and Simple’s total.

Hear’Say would release only one more single (the #4 hit ‘Everybody’) before the ‘Popstars’ winning line-up was ripped in two by Kym Marsh’s departure in January 2002, citing a rift in the group. She was quickly replaced, by backing dancer Johnny Shentall, for one final single. By then, public opinion against the group had turned, and they were being booed off stage and harassed at motorway service stations. They called it quits in October 2002, just twenty months after launching.

Of the five, Kym Marsh and Myleene Klass launched solo music careers (Marsh making #2 in 2003 with ‘Cry’ and Klass releasing two classical crossover albums) before moving into TV, acting and presenting. Suzanne Shaw went into stage and screen acting, as did Noel Sullivan, who I’m pretty sure I saw playing Danny in ‘Grease’ in the West End. Danny Foster is a wedding/pub singer. And to be honest, that all counts as a fairly successful end for a bunch of reality TV show contestants. Far sadder post-fame tales have been told…

900. ‘Lady Marmalade’, by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa & Pink

We are officially 900 number ones not out! Thanks to everyone who has ever read, commented, liked and followed. I’m not sure that I ever imagined when I started writing these posts back in November 2017 (!) that I’d ever get this far. But, to paraphrase an old football cliché, I’ve just been taking it one number one at a time…

Lady Marmalade, by Christina Aguilera (her 2nd of four #1s), Lil Kim, Mýa & Pink (her 1st of three #1s)

1 week, from 24th June – 1st July 2001

Our 900th is not the most original of chart-toppers, a cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’ coming barely three years on from the last chart-topping cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’. Have two other versions of the same song ever made #1 so close together? Anyway, while All Saints’ take played fast and loose with the LaBelle original, this all-star re-imagining is much more faithful.

One big difference, though, is that Lady Marmalade no longer plies her trade down in old New Orleans. She’s been transferred to the Moulin Rouge in Paris, just in time for the big glossy Baz Luhrmann movie musical of the same name. Different brothel, same story. Kitchy kitchy kitchy yaya dada. Mocha chocolatey yaya… Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?

It would be easy to look down on this OTT, fairly superfluous take on a seventies classic, in which four bad-ass chicks from the Moulin Rouge try to out-diva one another. And I won’t claim that it is better than LaBelle’s. But I enjoyed it back in 2001, and I still do enjoy it now. It strips all subtlety from what was already a fairly unsubtle song, adds a grinding industrial synth riff, and some well-placed cowbells. Mýa warms things up with the first verse, Pink (feeling quite out of place here, and in her suspenders in the video) ups the ante with the second. Clearly things were being set up for Christina, by far the biggest name of the four at the time, to blow everything out of the water for the finish.

Except, for my money, the show is stolen by Lil Kim’s rapped verse, the song’s one big change from the original, in which she delivers the immortal line: We independent women, Some mistake us for whores, I say why spend mine, When I can spend yours…? It’s a very modern female rap, a full decade ahead of Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, that even Xtina’s explosive belting can’t overshadow. But boy, does she try. And it works, doesn’t grate, because, again, this ain’t the time for subtlety.

This record is a lot like the movie it came from, and like a lot Baz Luhrmann’s filmography: good fun, as long as you don’t stop and think about it too much. My biggest issue with it is why Missy (Misdemeanour here) Elliott, who acts as the MC for the outro, doesn’t get a credit, and therefore her second number one single?

It’s been customary, every hundred number ones, for me to look back at the marker posts that have gone before. But there’s a recap up next, and I’d like to save any retrospection for then. What is worth noting is how short the gaps between each hundred are getting. There were over seven years between the first chart-topper and the hundredth (November 1952 to April 1960), but less than three between numbers 800 and 900 (September 1998 to June 2001).

899. ‘Angel’, by Shaggy ft. Rayvon

Shaggy’s three chart-toppers so far have been largely upbeat, get your ass to the dancefloor type reggae-pop songs. Here then is his final UK chart-topper, and it’s much more of a slow jam…

Angel, by Shaggy (his 4th and final #1) ft. Rayvon

3 weeks, from 3rd – 24th June 2001

‘Angel’ weaves the bass line from a seventies classic (and nineties #1) – ‘The Joker’ – together with the melody from a sixties original (and big eighties hit) – ‘Angel of the Morning’. And it would be a stretch to suggest that it improves on either. It’s cloying, it’s simplistic. It’s not quite a novelty, but it’s not far off.

Shorty you’re my angel, You’re my darling angel, Closer than my peeps you are to me… It sounds touching, if a little clumsy. Like a love letter written by a thirteen-year-old to his girlfriend. Which I’m assuming was also largely the market age for this ditty.

But listen closer, and this isn’t quite as sweet as the chorus suggests. Life is one big party when you’re still young, But who’s gonna have your back when it’s all done…? It’s all good when you’re little, You have pure fun, Can’t be a fool son, What about the long run? It turns out that Shaggy was dismissive and unfaithful towards his ‘angel’ for years, but as he got older and the fun times ended he realised he needed a steady girl… Now he wants to show the nation his appreciation.

Still, let’s hope that she had a bit of fun while she waited for her man to come to his senses. This is the flip-side of the same alpha bullshit we had on ‘It Wasn’t Me’, which I didn’t mind when it was played for laughs, but when it aims for sincerity it falls short. Plus it doesn’t help that Shaggy’s voice starts to grate the further he gets from his reggae roots. What was a playful patois on ‘Oh Carolina’ and ‘Boombastic’ now sounds a bit forced on a more straightforward pop song.

Luckily he has Rayvon on duty for the chorus, and he has a nice, slightly tender, voice for it. He had previously starred on Shaggy’s 1995 Top 10 cover of Mungo Jerry’s ‘In the Summertime’. And again, we should take a moment to appreciate the impressive spread of Shaggy’s chart-toppers. There were over eight years between ‘Oh Carolina’ and this, and there aren’t many other chart veterans from February 1993 who were still hitting it in the summer of 2001.

His hit making days were almost up, however. He managed three further Top 10s, including a comedy #2 alongside Ali G, ‘Me Julie’. He has released eleven albums since 2001, including one with none other than Sting in 2018. Shaggy continues to be very active then, as does Rayvon, who remains a dancehall/reggae voice for hire.

898. ‘Do You Really Like It?’ by DJ Pied Piper & the Masters of Ceremonies

Our next number one poses us a couple of questions… Do you really like it? Is it, is it wicked? And if these questions refer back to said next number one then my answers are no, and NO.

Do You Really Like It?, by DJ Pied Piper & the Masters of Ceremonies (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 27th May – 3rd June 2001

It’s hard to underestimate how much, back in 2001, this song’s hook became engrained in the popular conscience. We’re lovin’ it, lovin’ it, lovin’ it… We’re lovin’ it like that… It’s also hard to underestimate how annoying it became. Or maybe it isn’t hard. Maybe all it will take is one listen for the uninitiated to realise how terrible this record is.

At least the Do you really like it? and the Lovin’ it, Lovin’ it sections are memorable. They’ve been living rent free in my mind since I was fifteen. They’re only ten percent of this song, though. And I never realised, or had blanked out, how bad the rest of this record is: repetitive, nonsensical, unlistenable, with ugly, lurching changes in direction and tempo that make it difficult to even call it a song.

I thought that Oxide and Neutrino’s ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ was a low-point for 2-step garage, but I think that ‘Do You Really Like It?’ is even worse. At least the former had a kind of novelty value in the ‘Casualty’ theme sample, and the sweary spoken word bit from ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’. Not a song I’d ever want to hear again, but sort of amusing at the same time. This though… Yeesh.

Though it is interesting how that 2-step beat has become a sort of early 2000’s shorthand, used by everyone from Craig David, to Bob the Builder, to this. And how garage can be incredibly hardcore, like I suppose this is, and also very poppy. DJ Pied Piper was the main driver behind this song, and was joined by four Masters of Ceremonies: MC DT, Melody, Sharky P and the Unknown MC. Maybe that explains its messiness, with all five members given their slot in which to impress. Sadly none of them do.

They got back together for one further single, ‘We R Here’, later in the year, but that failed to chart completely. And so DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies go down as gold star one-hit wonders. We will, however, have to grapple with further garage records in the near future. We can say with some confidence that none of them will be as bad as this.

897. ‘It’s Raining Men’, by Geri Halliwell

Providing the meat in an S Club sandwich, Geri Halliwell returns for her fourth and final solo chart-topper. It is also, sadly, our very last Solo Spice number one.

It’s Raining Men, by Geri Halliwell (her 4th and final solo #1)

2 weeks, from 6th – 20th May

But… Is this a case of saving the worst for last? I’ve found something to enjoy in all seven of the Spice Girl’s previous solo #1s, which have spanned a variety of genres, from hip-hop to trance. But I find Geri covering ‘It’s Raining Men’ to be a step too far.

It’s not just that it’s yet another inferior cover of an eighties classic, after similar recent efforts from Westlife, A1, and Boyzone. It’s also not just that it’s another classic #2 being belatedly taken to the top, after 911, Madonna, and Westlife (again). These things don’t help, but this cover feels even more tired than many of those earlier refits.

I think it’s more of what I complained about in Geri’s previous #1, ‘Bag It Up’, in which she was so blatantly chasing the pink pound that it was becoming a bit embarrassing. And what could be more gay-baiting than covering ‘It’s Raining Men’? Like I wrote in that post, she already had gay icon status. She was a Spice Girl, for God’s sake! She didn’t need to try so hard.

Anyway. She decided (or was asked) to cover this camp classic. Very well. But it’s so half-arsed. It’s missing the original’s sassy ad-libs (how low, girl? and the like). It’s missing the thunderclaps. And she gives the song’s best line – I’m gonna go out, I’m gonna let myself get, Absolutely soaking wet – neither the gravitas nor the commitment it deserves. I don’t believe for one second that Geri is excited about this extreme weather event. Whereas, in the original, I fully believe that the Weather Girls were two thirsty bitches ready to rip off their roofs and stay in bed. The lowest point comes when Ginger finally does try her own smutty ad-lib, and it’s genuinely cringey. Go get yourself wet girl, I know you want to… No, Geri. We don’t.

Other than that, it’s a fine record… Joking aside, it was the lead from her second solo album, as well as being from the soundtrack to the second ‘Bridget Jones’ film (from memory, it soundtracks Hugh Grant and Colin Firth beating each other up in a fountain). It was probably always destined to be a huge hit, and was the only one of her four #1s to spend more than a week at the top. But it was the beginning of the end, as none of the album’s subsequent singles got higher than #7.

I feel I’ve been a bit harsh of ol’ Gezza here. She remains my favourite Spice Girl. She remains an icon. And in fact, her best record was yet to come. She had one final LP, 2005’s ‘Passion’, from which the lead single was ‘Ride It’: her truest, campest classic. She always had it in her, she just didn’t have to try so hard…

If anyone’s interested, my solo Spice Girls singles ranking goes (from worst to best): ‘It’s Raining Men’ > ‘Never Be the Same Again’ > ‘Lift Me Up’ > ‘Bag It Up’ > ‘I Want You Back’ > ‘What Took You So Long?’ > ‘Mi Chico Latino’ > ‘I Turn to You’.

The ‘Fame’ referencing video, over which a lot of fuss was made at the time about Geri’s eye-catching, yoga-based weight loss. Just the song below: