Pop

878. ‘Stomp’, by Steps

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The nu-disco movement, which has popped up time and again in the year 2000, reaches its peak. Because if Steps are referencing a trend, then you know it’s nearly over…

Stomp, by Steps (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 22nd – 29th October 2000

Actually, no. I love Steps, and will hear no word against them. I am definitely going to do a ‘Best of the Rest’ post, as they were so poorly served by their two number ones. We had the okay cover of ‘Tragedy’, paired with the okay ballad ‘Heartbeat’, and now this. Everybody clap your hands… (clap clap)… Get on up and dance, We’re gonna stomp all night now…

I mean, it’s fine. I like the rampant tempo of it, that forces you to do the full repertoire of classic disco hand gesture moves to it. I like it the pew pew effects, and the strings. Hand claps, and thank God for the weekend… In fact, it throws almost every cliché into the mix, including yet another of the year’s Chic samples (for which Nile & Co. didn’t initially receive a credit). So much disco, in fact that it promptly kills off the current revival. I’d be surprised if we hear much more at number one any time soon.

But ‘Stomp’ also can’t escape its sheer basic-ness. I know, I know, Steps were one of the most basic groups going. Which is true, to an extent. But most of their classic (yes, classic) songs are rooted in those late nineties pop sounds – a reason why they are fairly beloved by those who grew up with them – and so to hear them go disco feels like a lazy choice.

I also can’t help turning my nose up at this, knowing the Steps songs which failed to make #1. Twelve other Top 10 hits, five of which stalled at #2. ‘One for Sorrow’, ‘Last Thing on My Mind’, ‘Deeper Shade of Blue’… Meanwhile ‘Stomp’ sits at #11 in the Steps all-time sales table, and at #10 on their Spotify most played tracks. It also fluked its week at number one, with the lowest first-week sales of any of the year’s forty-two chart-toppers.

Steps split-up on Boxing Day 2001, but reformed with actually quite surprising success in the 2010s, remaining together (plus Michelle Visage, for some reason) to this day. They may have been ‘ABBA on speed’, in the words of Pete Waterman, but they bunged out some very decent pop records, and were in their own way a soundtrack to the turn of the millennium.

876. ‘Black Coffee’, by All Saints

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All Saints return for their second number one of the year, although ‘Pure Shores’ feels like a lifetime ago given how many chart-toppers we’ve ploughed through since then…

Black Coffee, by All Saints (their 5th and final #1)

1 week, from 8th – 15th October 2000

And this second single from their second album is cut from much the same cloth as their previous #1. It’s got the same lush, dream pop soundscape, with woozy synths and whale noises – it too was produced by William Orbit – and is a further departure from the sassy, R&B pop of their 1998 hits. But I think I actually prefer this to the hugely loved and well-respected ‘Pure Shores’.

I’d say that it’s got the best chorus of their five chart-toppers, and the contrast between the ambient yearning there and the fast moving verses is very appealing. It’s a love song, going by most of the lyrics… I wouldn’t wanna change, Anything at all… But the song’s wistful atmosphere (and the video) hints at a break-up… I wouldn’t wanna take, Everything out on you… (Although I know I do…)

Any song that chucks its title down the sink in the middle of the second verse is automatically very cool, but I would suggest that what elevates this record to true greatness is the coda, in which the first verse is remixed into something more industrial, and darker. It’s a fantastically edgy way for Britain’s coolest girl group to bow out from chart-topping duty.

Sadly, though, ‘Black Coffee’ was a big part of All Saints calling it quits in early 2001. It was the only All Saints original not to be written by Shaznay Lewis, and the Appleton sisters saw this as a reason for them to finally be given lead vocals over Lewis. Tensions built up during recording and live performances, until an argument over who got to wear a jacket for a photoshoot proved the final straw. And to be honest, that was a huge part of All Saints appeal: the fact that running behind all those great songs was the nagging suspicion that they really fucking hated each other.

They had one more single to come, the #7 ‘All Hooked Up’, which contains the classic chorus line: I know that you want a piece of my ass… But that was pretty much it (until the inevitable comeback five years later). On any given day my choice of best All Saints single might rotate between ‘Never Ever’, ‘Pure Shores’ and this, but today I’m leaning towards ‘Black Coffee’. Add in ‘Bootie Call’ and the better-than-they-should-have-been covers of ‘Lady Marmalade’ and ‘Under the Bridge’, then you have one of the great chart-topping runs.

873. ‘Take on Me’, by A1

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I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s definitely becoming a bit of a chart theme over the past year or so: classic #2s making #1 in inferior cover versions. We’ve had 911’s ‘A Little Bit More’, Westlife’s ‘I Have a Dream’, and Madonna’s infamous ‘American Pie’. But is this next chart-topping cover the most egregious…?

Take on Me, by A1 (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 3rd – 10th September 2000

Or is it a harmless tribute, bringing a much-loved classic to the ears of a new generation…? (Though there were only fifteen years between this and the original ‘Take on Me’, so I’m not sure enough time could have passed for it to have been forgotten.) The first thing that stands out are the reedy vocals, which simply cannot compete with Morten Harket, the ‘80s most crystalline voice. The producers try to paper over the cracks, by distorting, or by beefing them up with reverb and echo, and in the chorus Ben Adams makes a decent enough attempt at the high note (though the sceptic in me wonders if he didn’t have some electronic assistance…)

The original riff is of course, forever and always, a classic. So if you were to stumble across this version without ever having heard the original, then you might be impressed. But on top of the riff there are lots of pointless effects and window dressing. In fact, ‘pointless’ is the perfect word here. Why did A1 need to do this?

They had already enjoyed four Top 10 hits from their debut album, and the single following this – if I’m not mistaken – is something of a noughties pop classic. So, was it more of a statement? We’re back, with our second album, and a cover that’s bound to get us attention? I mean it worked, after all. Here they are, with their first #1. And they weren’t done meddling with the pop canon, as the B-Side was a Beatles medley.

A1 had been formed by Tim Byrne, the mastermind behind Steps, and Paul Marazzi, who had failed the audition to be in Steps. In my mind, they were very much a second division boyband, more Another Level than Take That, but they stayed together for three albums and eight Top 10 singles in total. The A-ha connection goes beyond this record, too, as they had a Norwegian member, Christian Ingebrigsten, and were almost as successful in Norway as they were in the UK.

869. ‘Rock DJ’, by Robbie Williams

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In my intro to ‘7 Days’ I suggested that Craig David’s signature tune was the year 2000’s best remembered song. I wrote that, though, in the full knowledge that I’d say the exact same thing about the following chart-topper…

Rock DJ, by Robbie Williams (his 3rd of seven solo #1s)

1 week, from 6th – 13th August 2000

Craig David was a popular young upstart; but this was the lead single from the biggest pop star of the day’s third album. And it’s Robbie at his Robbiest. If you don’t much care for his music, then ‘Rock DJ’ is probably one of the songs you care for the least. I got the gift gonna stick it in the goal… Cheeky nonsense like this in the verses – which he half-raps in a delivery that reminds me of Ian Dury – and a dancefloor-filling chorus. I don’t wanna rock DJ, But you’re making me feel alright…

For me, anyway, this is undeniable pop. Robbie Williams has made so many of these songs: songs that I would never look for but when they come on I’m forced to admit that, yep, they’re undeniable tunes. Meanwhile, this is probably the first time I’ve listened to ‘Rock DJ’ through headphones, and thus the first time I’ve noticed how nasty the bassline is.

Speaking of the beat, we need to give another shout out to Barry White, who (sort of) features on his second chart-topper of the year with a sample from his 1977 hit ‘It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me’. There are also small borrowings from a Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ and a track called ‘La Di Da Di’ by Slick Rick.

The video was, I remember at the time, also big news. Robbie is doing what he does best: demanding attention, this time at a roller disco. An uninterested female DJ remains impassive as he takes off his vest and jeans, and then strips off completely. But a naked Robbie Williams isn’t the story (it’s all tastefully blurred out anyway, in the Japanese fashion). Next he wrenches off his skin, before tearing off his muscles and organs and chucking them into the blood-spattered faces of the female roller-skaters. In the end, the DJ eventually deigns to dance with his skeleton. I think it’s maybe a comment on his fame, and everyone wanting a piece of him, but it’s completely bizarre. And to this day I don’t think I’d ever actually seen it in full, as the music channels of the day always cut it after he took off his pants.

So, huge lead single, controversial video: odds-on number one. And thus it came to pass. But even this massive record couldn’t break our run of one-weekers. The turnover in the summer of 2000 was relentless, so on we go…

866. ‘Life Is a Rollercoaster’, by Ronan Keating

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Straight on from the Corrs, it’s more Irish joy at the top of the charts. In fact, 2000 might just be the best year on record for Irish number ones, with Ronan Keating becoming the year’s third, with three more yet to go…

Life Is a Rollercoaster, by Ronan Keating (his 2nd of three solo #1s)

1 week, from 16th – 23rd July 2000

And while, yes, this is already Groanin’ Ronan’s eighth appearance in less than four years, I’m not feeling too apprehensive about this record. For, finally, Ronan is going upbeat. Strap yourselves in folks, because This. Is. Not. A. Ballad!

Like the Corr’s ‘Breathless’, ‘Life Is a Rollercoaster’ was a song impossible to escape when it came out. Radios nationwide blasted Ronan’s dulcet tones from dawn to dusk, all summer long, or so it seemed. So on one hand, it’s easy to groan when you think of how over-exposed this song became. But on the other, we should admit that this is actually quite a good pop tune. Nothing amazing, nothing revolutionary; but given the singer, it’s a welcome change of direction.

Strangely, I’d always remembered it being faster-paced. I thought it was more of a rollicking pop number, much like an actual rollercoaster. Listening to it now it feels slower, with a dreamy quality in the way Keating’s voice echoes against a wall of sound in the chorus. It’s somehow otherworldly, to the extent that I had to check I wasn’t listening to a remix, and ‘otherworldly’ is not a word you often associate with Ronan Keating. (Any otherworldliness, though, is undone by the fairly trite lyrics. Life as a rollercoaster. Because of all the ups and downs. Duh.)

Also, because it’s not a ballad, he doesn’t feel the need to chew every single syllable like tough steak in an attempt to convey ‘emotion’. He just sings the words, doesn’t overthink it, and produces what is by far the best vocal performance of any of his, or Boyzone’s, number ones. He even lets loose at the end, adding a semi-saucy adlib: Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it… (All night long!) I’m sure it had grannies across the land reaching for the smelling salts.

In writing this post, I’ve just realised that this song owes a big debt to George Michael’s ‘Fastlove’, with its Hey baby! refrain, and its similar tempo. I’m sure I’m not the first to notice, but it doesn’t seem to have caused a fuss at the time. Where there was controversy was in the fact that one hundred thousand copies of ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’s enhanced CD single were deemed ineligible to chart, due to an obscure chart rule about what an ‘enhanced CD single’ had to include. This didn’t stop the song from entering at number one, but it did cost it a fortnight on top when a further fourteen thousand copies were discarded the week after. And as we’ll soon find out when we hear the next #1, this was a costly error…

863. ‘Spinning Around’, by Kylie Minogue

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And she’s back. Forget Billie Piper, this is the pop comeback of the year 2000. Surely one of the biggest pop comebacks of all time?

Spinning Around, by Kylie Minogue (her 5th of seven #1s)

1 week, from 25th June – 2nd July 2000

Amazingly, it has been over a decade since Kylie’s last number one (‘Tears on My Pillow’ in January 1990), and almost six years six since her last Top 10 hit (1994’s ‘Confide in Me’). Since her debut in 1988, we’ve had ‘Neighbours’ Kylie, Pop Puppet Kylie, Creative Control Kylie, Indie Kylie… and then a couple of years of silence. Was that, everyone wondered, that?

As an unashamed Kylie fan, I’m glad about what ‘Spinning Around’ did for the Princess of Pop. It brought her back, set her up for a glorious, and so far never-ending, second act. She was still only in her early-thirties here, but quite often early-thirties might as well be early-eighties for a female pop star. It was truly impressive the way she returned, with an updated yet familiar, utterly-commercial-but-critically-respected sound, as if she’d never been away. But…

As far as ‘Spinning Around’ is concerned, I’ve always found it a bit basic. A bit Radio 2. A bit hen-night in a provincial town. It’s catchy, for sure, and it’s funky bassline and sparkly synths are more proof that we’re in the midst of a disco revival. I like the middle-eight – the Baby, baby, baby… bit – but the rest of the lyrics are a whole lot of nothing, vaguely themed around this song as a comeback. I’m spinning around, Move out of my way, I know you’re feelin’ me cause you like it like this…

And let’s be honest, as reluctant as I am to reduce Queen Kylie to a mere sexual object, the one thing everyone remembers about this record are the gold hotpants she wore while writhing around on a bar top in the video. (Hotpants that were allegedly bought for fifty pence in a market, and which have since been displayed at the V&A museum.)

So the best I’ll say for ‘Spinning Around’ is that it’s a perfectly serviceable pop song which did what it had to do. Kylie was back, back, back, and free to release better songs in the coming years. Of course there’s the colossal lead single from her next album, but even the Latin-tinged ‘Please Stay’ was a better track from later in 2000, while there’s also the industrial camp of ‘Your Disco Needs You’, which really should have been a single. Still, maybe it’s just me. ‘Spinning Around’ seems to be remembered fondly, and was the first in a run of sixteen straight Top 10 hits for Australia’s highest-selling act, lasting right through until 2008. It also earned Kylie enty to a very exclusive club – the #1s in three decades club, which at the time consisted only of Elvis, Cliff, the Bee Gees, Queen, Blondie and Madonna.

860. ‘Day and Night’, by Billie Piper

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The biggest pop comeback of the new millennium. Step aside Madonna, All Saints, Oasis, and Britney… It’s Billie. Piper.

Day and Night, by Billie Piper (her 3rd and final #1)

1 week, from 21st – 28th May 2000

She’s added a surname, as well as beefing up her sound. While her team may, just may, have been listening to Ms Spears. And perhaps a bit of Backstreet Boys too… Okay, in fairness this is a pretty wholesale ripping off of that big-chords, big-chorus Max Martin sound. It is the female version of ‘Backstreet’s Back’. I did check to see if Martin had been involved here, but no. ‘Day and Night’ was written by English songwriter Eliot Kennedy, as well as two members of Dead or Alive, and produced by Stargate, who will become one of the biggest names in ‘00s pop. (And who are from Norway, so there is a Scandinavian influence after all…)

So, yes, this is a lot more muscular, a lot more mature, a lot more internationally appealing, than Billie’s two teeny bopping hits from 1998. The beat is chunky, the production slick, and the chorus lands like a big slab of granite. But despite all this I’m finding it fairly forgettable. Twenty-five years on I vaguely remembered the chorus; and after listening to it three times in succession I still only vaguely remember it. Compare it with ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, a song it longs to be but that it falls far short of matching.

This track is also, inadvertently, evidence for the defence in the ‘Britney can’t sing’ case. Billie performs this competently, but her voice also sounds a little stretched. Brit could have sung this in her sleep. It also goes to show that while people may write off all pop music like this as disposable, it’s actually quite hard to locate that hidden ingredient which promotes a song from ‘decently catchy’ to ‘proper classic’.

The video is going for an ‘all grown up’ message (bear in mind she was still just seventeen when this made #1), with Billie and her friends partying in some sort of damp, underground garage. And a laundrette. This video debuted, according to Wikipedia, on 9th March, well over two months before the single was actually released, which gives another glimpse into why the turn-of-the-century charts were so fast-moving.            

Billie released two further singles from this, her second LP. By the summer of 2001 she had announced her retirement from music in order to focus on her acting career. And a pretty successful acting career it has been, twenty years in. She’s most famous for her role as Rose Tyler on ‘Doctor Who’, but has starred on both stage and screen without ever being tempted back into the recording studio. No matter, to a generation of Brits rapidly approaching their forties, the name Billie Piper will always bring to mind ‘Because We Want To’s chanty chorus, and some low cut jeans.

858. ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, by Britney Spears

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Earlier I claimed that Britney Spears’ second number one – the nice enough ‘Born to Make You Happy’ – was a placeholder, something to keep things ticking over until her next main event. Here then, is that main event.

Oops!… I Did It Again, by Britney Spears (her 3rd of six #1s)

1 week, from 7th – 14th May 2000

Yes, Britney’s debut ‘…Baby One More Time’ is a classic: a timeless pop song that managed to win over the even the snobbiest ‘proper music’ critics. And ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ is much more rooted in time by its crunching Max Martin turn-of-the-century production. But ‘Oops!…’ is also a work of genius. It’s basically ‘Baby… One More Time’ – they share the same piano, and the same chords – deconstructed and rebuilt in a brutalist fashion. (The two songs are also exactly the same length.) It’s the evil twin. It’s the version of ‘Baby…’ that you’d hear in the Upside Down.

Then there’s the little Easter eggs, the pronunciation of baybay, and the ellipsis in the title. And the fact that said title refers not just to the song’s lyrics, but to the fact that, oops, she’s come back with another monster hit. It’s all very modern, very now: the in-jokes and the sarcasm. Oh you shouldn’t have… Brit deadpans when presented with a diamond in the spoken middle-eight, which parodies ‘Titanic’, another pop culture behemoth. In fact, this song just might have invented 21st century pop culture. I hope you don’t think I’m going overboard here…

All this is compounded by the fact that the submissive Britney of her first two number ones is gone. I think I did it again, I made you believe, We’re more than just friends… she teases, before announcing: I’m not that innocent! In the video she dances in a red catsuit while brandishing a whip.

The entirety of her second album, which shared the same title, was a bit of a reinvention. It’s now something of a cliché, that a female teen-pop star’s second album has to see them ‘grow up’ in some way, and Britney’s main rival Christina would take this concept to the extreme a couple of years later. But Britney laid the foundations for a long career here, and in singles like ‘Stronger’, about empowerment, and ‘Lucky’, about the loneliness of fame. Plus, the album also included an actually half-decent cover of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’.

But back to the aforementioned main event. The question remains: is ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ better than ‘…Baby One More Time’? I’d say no, musically it is not. But also… yes. It’s conceptual, it’s clever, it’s camp and catty. I’ll bet a greater number of Britney fans list this as their favourite song over ‘…Baby’, which is almost too prefect, too pristine.

So, three number ones and two solid-gold pop classics. Not bad going for a singer still in her teens. We’ll have to wait a while for her next chart-topper, but when it does come it too will be worth the wait. And many of the Britney singles that didn’t get to the top during this imperious, pre-breakdown phase are also classics of their time. Churning out hit after hit, banger after banger? That is just so typically her…

852. ‘Bag It Up’, by Geri Halliwell

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Fresh from not giving up, we’re now bagging it up…

Bag It Up, by Geri Halliwell (her 3rd of four solo #1s)

1 week, from 19th – 26th March 2000

I overused the c-word in my post on Geri’s previous number one ‘Lift Me Up’, so I will endeavour to describe this record as anything but ‘camp’. Problem is, ‘Bag It Up’ opens with what may be the gayest line ever recorded: I like chocolate and controversy… Don’t we all, Geri.

What is this silly slice of disco-cheese about? Why is she treating her man ‘like a lady’? What the hell does I don’t take sugar on my colour TV mean?? It’s clearly some extension of the ‘Girl Power’ message, about how women don’t have to take crap from men. But like ‘Girl Power’ it falls apart under close inspection, and turns into the aural equivalent of a rowdy hen party entering a pub, even if the line Just a bad case of opposite sex… is wonderful.

Not that this record was ever meant to be closely inspected. It’s complete fluff. The video is even gayer, if such a thing was possible, as Geri advertises ‘Girl Powder’, which she uses to spike her boyfriend’s drink and turn him into a topless servant. She then dances around her factory with lots of pink-haired, six-packed oompah loompahs. Meanwhile, at that year’s Brit Awards, she performed the song after emerging from between a giant pair of legs.

Musically it sounds much like the Spice Girls’ ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, in its poppy, nu-disco beats. In fairness, all three #1s from Geri’s debut solo album have brought something a bit different to the party, while remaining utterly disposable pop. I don’t mean that to be rude, either: I love Geri, and I love disposable pop.

What I might have questioned, had I been a bit older in 2000, was Geri’s relentless pursuit of gay icon status. It’s fun and all, but if anything it’s a little too much. She’d secured it anyway, what with being a literal Spice Girl, and so didn’t have to try so hard. I wonder if in the end it cost her some longevity. (As I write this I’m just remembering that her final chart-topper will be a cover of ‘It’s Raining Men’…)

Still, ‘Bag It Up’ is fun, and Geri was admirably serious about not taking herself seriously. Compared to self-obsessed modern pop, it’s been very refreshing to revisit the time when she was the biggest female pop star in the land.

850. ‘American Pie’, by Madonna

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Just before our next recap, do we have a contender for the Worst Number One award…?

American Pie, by Madonna (her 9th of thirteen #1s)

1 week, from 5th – 12th March 2000

It’s fair to say that Madonna’s version of Don McClean’s ‘American Pie’ is much maligned. I’m guilty for some of this maligning, as I’ve pre-dissed it in earlier posts and comments, despite not having heard it for a quarter of a century. So, question is: is it as bad as everyone seems to think?

No, not at all. If this was the original version of ‘American Pie’, then it might be quite a fairly innocuous entry to the Madonna canon. But it’s not, of course. I think critics are more offended by the idea of this track than the song itself. Madonna? That cone bra wearing, Jesus humping, sex book publishing harpy, daring to cover one of the pillars of rock and roll?? And I’d guess that Madonna was fully aware of this, and that her deciding to cover this classic is an act every bit as provocative as the time she went down on Black Jesus.

At the same time, there’s nothing amazing about this version. It’s as if deciding to record it was bold enough, because Madonna forgot to make it particularly interesting. Sensibly, she doesn’t do the full eight minute version, and she uses McClean’s final verse, which most radio edits of the original skip. Perhaps she was attracted by the reference to the Father, Son, And the Holy Ghost, in keeping with her usual religious schtick.

‘American Pie’ was produced by William Orbit, just like the previous chart-topper from All Saints. This puts ‘American Pie’ in the unenviable position of sounding quiet a lot like its predecessor, but being not as good. All the Orbit swishes and swirls are there, but it ends up sounding like the B-side to ‘Pure Shores’. I’d have like Madge to have gone full, crunching electro – much like her second #1 of the year 2000 – just to truly give the purists a heart attack.

Madonna recorded this cover – and she’s not someone who has recorded very many covers during her career – for the soundtrack to her romcom ‘The Next Best Thing’ (her co-star Rupert Everett cavorts with her in the video, which also acts as an ‘America at the turn of the millennium’ time machine, with firefighters, body builders, blended families and kissing lesbians). It’s becoming something of a trend in the late nineties/early noughties for famous #2 hits make #1 in inferior cover versions. We’ve had ‘A Little Bit More’, and ‘I Have a Dream’. Now this, with a few more to come soon.

Perhaps, though, the final word should go to Don McClean himself, who was whole-hearted in his support for Madonna’s cover. ‘I have received many gifts from God’, he said, ‘but this is the first time I have ever received a gift from a goddess.’ (By ‘gifts’ we can only speculate that he meant ‘royalty cheques’.)

In other news, I recently wrote another guest post for Keith’s Nostalgic Italian blog, about books from our childhood. Check it out here.