Hip-Hop

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

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

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).

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

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

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.

885. ‘Stan’, by Eminem

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

The end of the longest year in chart-topping history is in sight: here we are at the forty-first and penultimate number one of 2000. And of all the zeitgeist grabbing #1s we’ve met along the way – Craig David’s seven days, Robbie’s rocking DJ, Destiny’s Child and their independent women – we’ve reached the ultimate pop culture reference. For none of those other records’ titles have entered the OED, as both a noun and a verb…

Stan, by Eminem (his 2nd of eleven #1s)

1 week, from 10th – 17th December 2000

With ‘The Real Slim Shady’, Eminem announced himself, for better or worse, as a foul-mouthed, parent-baiting, attention-demanding cartoon character. With ‘Stan’ he announces himself as something else entirely. It’s a study of fame, of fandom, of what we would now call toxic masculinity, much of which is even more pressing today than it was a quarter of a decade ago. And it was almost a Christmas number one.

I don’t love Eminem, and I’m not the biggest fan of hip-hop. But I am a writer, and the way he constructs a character, a backstory, and a narrative with not one but two twists, in four verses is one of pop music’s great feats. One little detail stood out to me on this re-listen: in verse one Stan mentions how sloppy his handwriting is, while in the third he calls back to it and claims he wrote the address on his letters perfectly. That’s some proper plotting.

The tension builds as the letters from Stan pile up, unanswered. (The fact that Eminem manages to make some weirdo writing letters this gripping is another great feat.) The start of the third verse (the best of the four) is my favourite moment: Dear mister I’m too good to call or write my fans…! Stan then launches into a rambling rant about how he’s like the character in Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’, with Eminem capturing perfectly how someone on a fistful of downers and a fifth of vodka would sound.

Then there’s the twists. First that Eminem hasn’t been ignoring Stan’s letters, he’s just not had the time to reply. And then Eminem remembering in the final lines that he’d heard about some guy on the news who’d driven off a bridge, killing his pregnant girlfriend. Come to think about it, His name was… It was you… Damn. Thunderclap. It’s an almost theatrically, dare I say camply, abrupt ending. But it works, ending a near seven-minute record in a flash.

The fact that Stan references Eminem having written songs about killing his ex-wife Kim, inspiring him to do the same, is worth mentioning. Eminem knows the controversy he causes, knows the monsters he might create. But he doesn’t apologise, doesn’t judge, doesn’t celebrate. He offers us a glimpse of a life lived, and ended. And it’s art, quite high art, of a level that not many #1s can achieve.

The only thing that feels forced is the P.S. line about Stan wanting ‘to be together’ with Eminem. I covered the homophobic side of Eminem in my last post, and again maybe this is just the repressed fears of fourteen-year-old me, but I don’t think the song needs a gay element to it. Stan is already unhinged enough without wanting to literally fuck his idol. It just feels like an excuse to allow Eminem to reject him in the final verse – That type of shit makes me not want us meet each other… – a chance for him to prove, yet again, that Marshall Mathers is definitely not homosexual.

Beyond Stan’s story, what makes this record stand out is one of the great uses of a sample. Dido’s ‘Thank You’ had existed since 1998, and had been used in the soundtrack to the film ‘Sliding Doors’ (which gave us an earlier chart-topper in Aqua’s ‘Turn Back Time’) A DJ put the chorus to a hip-hop beat, and the demo found its way to Eminem who was inspired by the line got your picture on my wall to write about a deranged fan. In the wake of ‘Stan’s success, both ‘Thank You’ and Dido’s debut album raced up the charts, establishing her as one of the biggest British stars of the new millennium.

But as great as ‘Stan’ is, I am glad it didn’t hold on to become Christmas number one. No, after this tragic tale we all needed some light relief…

867. ‘We Will Rock You’, by Five & Queen

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

First of all, let’s get some things straight. I love Queen (who doesn’t?) I like Five (a fun boyband who tended to avoid ballads). I – and I hope my posts on the previous eight hundred and sixty-six number ones have proven this – am no purist. So why does this collaboration annoy me so…?

We Will Rock You, by Five (their 2nd of three #1s) & Queen (their 6th and final #1)

1 week, from 23rd – 30th July 2000

I don’t think it annoys me musically, as it is big, and beefy, and features a nice crunchy guitar solo. Plus, it begins and ends with a massive thunderclap, and has piped in crowd noise. It is not a song which holds back, or is interested in subtlety, and I appreciate that. I think it keeps the energy of the original, but updates it for the early noughties. As Abs so succinctly puts it in his rap: Five bring the funk, Queen bring the rock…

What annoys me is the fact that both acts had far better songs than this which failed to make number one. Five released a great run of hip-pop hits in the late nineties that fell short. Queen have a multitude of huge, household classics that never made #1. It feels that this record made it on novelty value, rather than merit (and it wouldn’t have made number one at all had Ronan Keating not released his dodgy enhanced CDs).

What also annoys me is the fact that Queen are featured and credited. If this was a sample – as Five did very well when using ‘I Love Rock n Roll’ on ‘Everybody Get Up’ – I might view it more favourably. But Brian May and Roger Taylor play their guitar and their drums, scoring Queen a number one to rank alongside ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Under Pressure’, and it just feels a little cheap, a little tawdry. This is how one of Britain’s most legendary rock acts end their chart-topping career: whoring themselves out as a backing band. It may be wishful thinking, but I wonder if Freddie Mercury would have allowed this, had he been around? And given John Deacon’s retirement from the band, and his subsequent comments on their later work, we can assume he wasn’t overly impressed either.

But what annoys me more than anything, really, is the fact that I can’t now listen to the original ‘We Will Rock You’ without wanting to add the moronically catchy We’re gonna rock ya baby! line to the chorus…

Anyway, whatever my objections, this did make number one. The two groups had performed the track together a few months earlier at the Brit Awards, too. Amazingly, Queen now have as many chart-toppers without Freddie as they managed with him. Plus, since we were keeping track of Kylie’s three chart-topping decades, we should mention that this record’s success meant that Queen joined Cliff Richard in having made top spot in four different decades.

864. ‘The Real Slim Shady’, by Eminem

/ UK #1s blog / 20 Comments

May we have your attention please? May we have your attention please? Won’t the highest selling male artist of the 21st century please stand up?

The Real Slim Shady, by Eminem (his 1st of eleven #1s)

1 week, from 2nd – 9th July 2000

Whatever your opinion of rap as a genre, or on the talents of Marshall Mathers III, it’s hard to deny that we’re introducing a massive cultural phenomenon with this next chart-topper. And for the record, I will not deny Eminem’s skills as a rapper, which are well on display here. This is hip-hop for the new millennium – sharp, slick and rapid-fire – making much of the rap that we covered in the eighties and nineties sound slow and antiquated.

And, even though this wasn’t his first chart hit, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ acts as the perfect introduction to Eminem. The beat is robust, if simple and repetitive, starting as the theme to a kid’s TV show gone wrong, ending with a slightly out-of-tune recorder coda, and peppered with lots of fairly juvenile sound effects. While the lyrics – which are what we’re all here for – are spat out with precision, and venom. Not a beat or a syllable is wasted, as this sleek, modern rap-bot veers from vulgar, to profound, to problematic, to funny, quickly marking off all the boxes in Eminem Bingo.

We’ll deal with the vulgarity first, as this is the most explicit number one single we’ve met yet. Aside from the actual swear words, we’ve got reference to clitorises, VD, Viagra and jerking off, and whom Christina Aguilera may or may not have given head to. Some of the cultural references haven’t aged too well, though: for example I don’t remember why or when Tom Green humped a dead moose. Profundity (of sorts) comes from the fact that Eminem anticipates the controversy that this song will cause, positions himself as a voice of the disenfranchised (the little guy at Burger King spitting on your onion rings), and encourages everyone to raise their middle fingers to the world.

The problematic bits, for me at least, are his making light of Tommy Lee’s domestic violence against Pamela Anderson, and his comparison of homosexuality to bestiality. Yes Eminem duetted with Elton John shortly after this, and has gone on to show that he’s probably not homophobic; but the lyrics are still there, ringing in this gay man’s ears as loudly as they did when he was a closeted fourteen-year-old. But then other parts of this record are undeniably funny, and the Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records, But I do, So fuck him, And fuck you too… line ranks as one of my all-time favourite chart-topping lyrics.

We have ten more of his number ones to get through, so plenty of time to dissect the many guises of Eminem. His music can be extremely unpleasant; but at the same time, to react to it with outrage is to give him exactly what he wants. This isn’t his best chart-topper, and I think its impact is now marred by the fact that we’ve had twenty-five years of similar schtick, and several (far less funny) comedy singles, from him down the years. But it does represent a moment in time when Slim Shady was becoming both the biggest star on the planet, and public enemy number one.

857. ‘Bound 4 da Reload (Casualty)’, by Oxide & Neutrino

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

The garage revolution picks up pace. All three so-called ‘garage’ chart-toppers that we’ve met so far, though, have been light and fluffy. Garage with the edges softened. Garages that you might find on a semi-detached house in a middle class suburb (Craig David did sing about a jacuzzi, after all).

Bound 4 da Reload (Casualty), by Oxide & Neutrino (their 1st and only solo #1s)

1 week, from 30th April – 7th May 2000

Here though is some proper garage. A garage covered with graffiti on an inner-city estate. Sirens. Gun shots. The theme tune from a long-running BBC hospital drama… Okay, that last bit doesn’t sound too street, but the sample from the ‘Casualty’ theme lends this record its name. It adds a dramatic energy to parts of the song, and works interestingly well when repeated on staccato synths. And it’s the only good thing about this record…

The rest of this song is abrasive nonsense. Bound for da bound bound for da reload… is the hook, repeated over and over, against a simple two-step beat. There’s some rapping, toasting, scatting, call it what you will. There’s a jarring spoken sample from the film ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ (Ah! Shit! I’ve been shot…) I was fourteen when this came out, and yet hearing it now I feel like an old fogey. It’s borderline unlistenable.

Having said that, the sweary sample above meant that ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ received little radio play, and so this probably passed me by unnoticed at the time. It does mean that it becomes one of a handful of chart-toppers so far to have featured swearing, and only the second after The Outhere Brothers to feature an F-bomb. But we’re on the precipice of swearing in number one singles becoming commonplace. Glancing down the list I can see the imminent debut of a certain bleach-blonde rapper, which will contain more swears than any previous number one combined.

Oxide and Neutrino were members of garage/hip-hop collective So Solid Crew, a group of anywhere between nineteen and thirty singers, rappers, DJs and MCs. In just over a year the group will score their one and only chart-topper, but it is Oxide & Neutrino who struck first here. Leading me to wonder, is this the only instance of someone enjoying a solo number one before their group has had one…?

Full, un-edited version:

853. ‘Never Be the Same Again’, by Melanie C ft. Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

One Spice Girl replaces another on top of the charts. Off the top of my head, this might be the only time two former band members have traded places like this, but I am open to being proven wrong…

Never Be the Same Again, by Melanie C (her 1st of two solo #1s) ft. Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez (her 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 26th March – 2nd April 2000

Anyway, Melanie Chisolm becomes our third Solo Spice. She was, famously, the Spice Who Could Actually Sing, and so perhaps we might have expected her first #1 to be a little more full-throated? This was her fourth solo single, after the grungy ‘Goin’ Down’ and the slightly dull ‘Northern Star’ had both made #4, while her Bryan Adams country rock duet ‘When You’re Gone’ made #3.

So, Mel C had had to wait, and it took a hip-hop detour to finally score her a chart-topper. It’s slow and slinky, with some cool drum-fills, and lots of record scratches (which even in 2000 every hip-hop record apparently had to have). It’s interesting how hip-hop still hasn’t yet become the dominant chart force that it eventually will. Not that ‘Never Be the Same Again’ is proper hip-hop, with Mel breathily singing her lines, and a very hooky, pop chorus.

No, the hip-hop is brought by the guest feature, the coolest guest feature since Mel B introduced us to Missy Elliott: TLC’s Lisa Lopes, AKA ‘Left Eye’ on account of her left eye being more ‘slanted’. She delivers a proper, sustained rap, the likes of which remains few and far between in the number one slot. It’s a bit basic, compared to some of TLC’s classics – The US to UK, NYC to LA, From sidewalks to highways… – but it ticks off all the requirements of a guest rapper slot. And it’s to their credit that both Mels managed to secure such impressive features.

The only disappointing thing about this well-produced, catchy but credible record, is that Mel C isn’t tested vocally. However she’s to be congratulated for trying out different sounds and genres on her debut album, while her second number one will be something completely different again. We can assume that her label decided to release a week after Geri’s ‘Bag It Up’ to avoid the girls being in direct competition, but for the record ‘Never Be the Same Again’ debuted with thirty thousand more sales than Geri had the week before.

As for Lisa Lopes, this was her 3rd and final solo hit in the UK – all of which were features – to add to the four Top 10s that TLC had scored in the ‘90s (‘No Scrubs’ was the highest, making #3). She died in a car crash in Honduras, in 2002, while on volunteer work.

802. ‘I Want You Back’, by Melanie B ft. Missy Elliott

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

Straight on the back of Robbie Williams first solo #1, we have our first Solo Spice…

I Want You Back, by Melanie B ft. Missy Elliott (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th September 1998

I’m not sure Mel B would have been many peoples’ choice for the Spice Girls most likely breakout star and, in truth, though she struck early she wasn’t the most successful of the five. But this is in fact the perfect solo Spice Girl number one: cool, edgy, and unlike anything the group had released in their two album career…

I’m the M to the E, L, B… Melanie Brown announces. As iconic raps go, it is not on the same level as her Now here’s the story from A to Z… moment in ‘Wannabe’, but it does the job. She tells the story of how she may think her ex is a bit of a dick, how he’s driven her to drink and distraction, but how she still wants him back…

The sharp strings and the ominous guitars over a hip-hop beat do sound pretty cutting edge for 1998, and a huge step away from what we’ve heard so far from the Spice Girls. But what roots this record in the late nineties is the very dated rap lingo. I admire the use of the term ‘wack’ in the chorus, but can’t help grimacing at lines like I know I talk mad junk, But I know what I want… And even though you’re a mack true dat, I want you back…

Still, bringing true street cred we have Missy ‘Misdemeanour’ Elliott on board, for her only credited appearance on a UK #1 single. (She will also feature, uncredited, on ‘Lady Marmalade’ in a few years time.) She does little more than spell out her name and then go ‘uh uh uh’, but hey. I think this might be the very first example of a pop star A ft. a rapper B record to make number one, with many to follow in the coming decades. To reduce Missy Elliott, a hip-hop pioneer, to the status of rent-a-rapper feels wrong though, and I do wish she’d been given more to do.

According to Mel B, this was Missy Elliott’s song, and she the one who invited the Spice Girl to duet on it. Incongruously, it also featured on the soundtrack to the Frankie Lymon biopic ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’. Elliott was far from a household name in Britain at this point, and wouldn’t make the Top 10 under her own steam until 2001’s ‘Get Ur Freak On’.

Mel B meanwhile peaked early in her solo career, and while she would go on to score two more Top 10 hits she will not be returning to the number one position without the help of her bandmates. ‘I Want You Back’ may not be the best remembered of the Spice Girls’ solo efforts, but I’d go as far as to say that it is not the wackest piece of music any of them have put their name to.

789. ‘Under the Bridge’ / ‘Lady Marmalade’, by All Saints

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

All Saints score their second number one in a row, with a much-maligned double bill…

Under the Bridge / Lady Marmalade, by All Saints (their 2nd of five #1s)

1 week, from 3rd – 10th May / 1 week, from 17th – 24th May 1998 (2 weeks total)

I’m interested to see what I make of the first part of this double-‘A’. The official view from the playground in 1998 was that All Saints covering Red Hot Chili Peppers was a travesty. Silly girl groups trying to sing songs by proper, sweaty, socks ‘n’ cocks guitar bands was wrong, and no teenage boys had the guts to say otherwise.

But here I am, two and a half decades later and unencumbered by peer pressure. Free to admit that I’m not much a fan of the Chili Peppers (though ‘Under the Bridge’ is one of their better, less obnoxious moments). Free to discover that All Saint’s version isn’t actually that bad. I do like the stripped-back intro, and the off-kilter delivery of the verses. It’s something new – an interesting re-imagining of the original – which is the basic duty of a half-decent cover version.

Because it’s 1998 there are lots of scratchy turntable flourishes, and a crackly, old-time effect on the main guitar riff, both of which feel quite dated. And perhaps unsurprisingly for a song about someone’s relationship with heroin, several of the lines were changed and/or omitted. Anthony Kiedis was not a fan of All Saints’ version (“it looked like they didn’t know what they were singing about”), which is fair enough for a song so personal to him. You do wonder what the thought process was in choosing this as a cover, for surely they knew there would be a reaction from the rock snobs. (Though it should be noted that the guitar on this record is played by Mojo Magazine favourite Richard Hawley.)

So, this isn’t terrible. Not even close. I’m not sure why they needed to do it, and I have no idea why it’s five minutes long, but here we are. And not content with reinterpreting one much loved classic, on the other side of this double-‘A’ the girls have their way with Labelle’s raunchy disco standard ‘Lady Marmalade’. From heroin, to prostitutes…

This feels a bit more what you’d expect from a ‘90s girl group. A bit more basic, if you will, with a mid-tempo disco-funk beat that reminds me of the Spice Girls’ ‘Who Do You Think You Are’. But again they at least do something a bit different with it, removing most of the original verses and replacing them with saucy raps – My place or yours, Gotta be raw… Gotta get wet, Are you ready yet? – which cement their place as the edgier girl group of the day. Of course they keep the famous Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? line, but it’s rendered fairly PG by some of the smut around it. (I remember having an embarrassing conversation with my mum when this came on the radio, her asking if I knew what the French meant…)

The Labelle original had made #17 in 1975, which is surprisingly low. The original of ‘Under the Bridge’ had fared slightly better, reaching #13 in 1992. It’s fair to say that neither of these covers have usurped the originals in the public’s affections, while an even more popular cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’ will be along in a few years to overshadow All Saints’ effort. And personally, I much prefer the originals of these two hits. This is by far the weakest of the girls’ five number ones; but they aren’t the crimes against music that some may try to suggest.

787. ‘It’s Like That’, by Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Check this out… Just a couple of weeks after Norman Cook worked his magic on Cornershop’s ‘Brimful of Asha’, American house DJ Jason Nevins has his wicked way with a hip hop golden oldie…

It’s Like That, by Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins (their 1st and only #1s)

6 weeks, from 15th March – 26th April 1998

I remember this being huge, an omnipresent hit that spring. And six weeks at number one is a very impressive run for the late-nineties (only one song will beat that total in 1998). But listening now, I’m a bit stumped trying to work out why it was quite so popular… It’s a bit repetitive, a sledgehammer beat that goes on, and on, with a less stardust sprinkled by Nevins compared to Fatboy Slim. Some of the transitions are predictable, and the original Run-D.M.C. vocals feel off in the mix.

Not that it’s bad, or that I don’t enjoy it on a certain level, or that it doesn’t unleash a heady wave of nostalgia listening to it again in 2024. I just mean that I can’t really locate the reason that it became the year’s 3rd best-selling single and – even more impressively – the only record to ever hold a Spice Girls’ song off number one in the UK (this was released in the same week as ‘Stop’, which it beat to the top by well over 100,000 copies).

The original ‘It’s Like That’ had featured on Run-D.M.C.’s debut album in 1984, and was released as the LP’s first single. It’s a call-to-arms – a spikier, more cynical ‘What’s Going On’ for a new decade: Unemployment at record highs, People coming, People going, People born to die… Don’t ask me because I don’t know why, It’s like that, And that’s the way it is… What’s interesting about the original is that the 1998 hit is there, fully formed. If anything, the beat is even heavier. Nevins does little more than tart it up with a standard dance rhythm and some up-to-date flourishes (which admittedly is also what Norman Cook did on ‘Brimful…’, I just like that song better).

The one notable thing that Nevins does add is the sped-up Run DMC and Jam Master Jay! break, along with a bit off beatboxing. That’s the part I most remember, perhaps the hook that sold this as a hit. But in actual fact it last barely ten seconds, before that relentless beat comes slamming back in. (I always assumed that ‘Jam Master Jay’ was Jason Nevins, but he was actually the DJ in Run-D.M.C, who was sadly shot dead in 2002.)

Not surprisingly, this would be both Run-D.M.C.’s and Jason Nevin’s biggest ever hit. Nevins has only returned to the Top 10 one further time, although he’s gone on to work with stars like Nelly and Ariana Grande. For Run-D.M.C., this was their second Top 10, a decade on from ‘Walk This Way’ – in which they and Aerosmith fused rap with rock, much like Nevins was fusing rap and dance on this record.

Is it too early to call this the Age of the Remix? It is true that we’ve had two in quick succession, and that remixed hits will be more noticeable at the top of the charts as the century turns. I think it’s the fact that this is the first ‘versus’ record to make #1, as opposed to a plain old ‘featuring’ or an understated ‘&’. It feels so very turn of the twenty-first century (though a quick scan has shown me that there will actually only be a couple of other ‘someone versus someone else’ number ones between now and 2005.)