Pop

818. ‘When the Going Gets Tough’, by Boyzone

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From pop heaven, it’s back down to earth with a hefty bump…

When the Going Gets Tough, by Boyzone (their 5th of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st March 1999

Boyzone return with their penultimate chart-topper. Yes, we’re almost done with them. And, hey, at least this isn’t a ballad! Instead it’s that other modern pop group staple: the charity cover. From the late nineties onwards, charities desperate for your money made a clear shift away from novelty singles over to classic covers by the day’s big acts. There are similar crimes against pop to come from the likes of Westlife, Girls Aloud, and One Direction.

The synths are cheap and the production tacky on this version of Billy Ocean’s 1986 #1, while I think this might be Ronan Keating’s most grating vocal performance yet (a category with some very strong competition). In fact, this is pretty poor all round. I just don’t think Boyzone had the personality to do anything other than bland balladry. The fun and frivolity here sounds much too forced.

The best bit by far is that they keep the original’s saxophone solo almost note for note, which means we get a blast of sweet mid-80s sax – a sound I never realised I’d missed. And yes, the Billy Ocean version is a decent enough song (though not one I was overly hot on in my original post), and it’s hard to completely ruin decent source material. That original feels like a lifetime ago (in some ways it was, as I was born a few weeks before Ocean made #1), but the thirteen year gap between these versions means it’s the same as an artist in 2024 covering a song from 2011, which sounds like the blink of an eye…

This was the 1999 Comic Relief single, raising money for any number of good causes. So yes, yes, yes we shouldn’t be too harsh on it. (Though I would donate far more money than the price of a CD single to never hear Boyzone again). The video features the requisite plethora of celebs goofing around in the name of charidee. In fact, watching this was the most enjoyable part of this whole exercise, seeing people that hadn’t crossed my mind for many years: Will Mellor, John McCririck, Mystic Meg (RIP) and Saracen from Gladiators (as well as a very young Graham Norton).

817. ‘…Baby One More Time’, by Britney Spears

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It’s Britney, bitch.

…Baby One More Time, by Britney Spears (her 1st of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 21st February – 7th March 1999

Sorry, couldn’t resist. That iconic intro is still eight years off. But let’s be real, the three note piano motif (the official term, apparently) that introduced the world to Britney Spears, and that underpins one of the all-time great pop songs, is even more iconic.

Yes, ‘all-time great’. Up there in the pop pantheon with ‘Cathy’s Clown’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘It’s a Sin’… You name a pop classic from any era, and ‘…Baby One More Time’ is up there holding its own alongside them. It has all the indefinable qualities – the ability to hook you instantly, the ability to remain catchy but never cloying, the ability to still somehow sound fresh after twenty-five years – which all classics need.

But, I hear you argue, is this not too bubblegum to be an all-time classic? Don’t Britney’s vocal, shall we say, limitations not detract? To the first charge I say no, for this has as much underlying melancholy as the best ABBA songs. What other teenybop songs involve lines about fatal loneliness? And to the second I say that sixteen-year-old Britney’s vocal stylings are perfect for a song about teenage lust and longing. Plus, she managed to influence the way an entire generation pronounced the word ‘baby’ (Bayba? Baybay? Byebuh?)

To reach truly magical heights though, a song needs a moment where everything just clicks. That moment of transcendence arrives in the middle eight, as the chorus lines are chopped up and loaded with emphasis: I must confess, That my loneliness, Is killing me now…

Of course, this was a massive smash across the world, and now stands as one of the best-selling singles ever. It’s most recent placing in the Rolling Stone Top 500 of all time was #205. It’s also been voted the greatest debut single of all time, and the UK’s 7th favourite number one. Britney aside, it also properly introduced the world to Max Martin, one of the most successful chart-topping writers and producers of all time. At last count I make this his first of twenty appearances in the credits of a chart-topping single in the UK.

‘…Baby One More Time’ also won awards for its video, in which Britney flaunts almost every school uniform rule in the book. It got criticism too, for sexualising both school uniforms and the teenage singer in them, as well as the suggestion that it was glamorising sexual violence. Martin has since argued that the ‘hit me’ in the lyrics refers to ‘hitting someone up on the phone’ (as the kids put it in 1999), and that any confusion stems from the fact that English isn’t his first language.

But frankly, who cares? A song this good doesn’t deserve to be caught up in tawdry speculation about its slightly risqué video. Having said that, while this might technically be the best of Britney Spears many singles, it is not my favourite. Britney has five more number ones to get through, and two of those songs can rival this for classic status.

810. ‘Tragedy’ / ‘Heartbeat’, by Steps

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1999, then. Just writing it out – ‘1999’ – still feels pleasingly futuristic, despite it being twenty-five years ago. And what cutting-edge, avant-garde #1 do we have to guide us into the future…? Steps! With a Bee Gees cover…

Tragedy / Heartbeat, by Steps (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 3rd – 10th January 1999

It is a cheap and cheerful (‘cheap and cheerful’ being the Steps motto) and pretty faithful cover of the Brothers Gibb’s 1979 chart-topper, the big hit of the ’98 party season. By the first week in January presumably everyone knew the hands-to-the-face-while-shouting-out-the-title-line move from the video, the record having taken seven weeks to climb to the top – a very slow burn for the late nineties.

‘Heartbeat’ is a little more inventive, and was initially the song that was pushed to radio. A wintery ballad, with lots of little retro-flourishes (I love the revving bass), sounding like something Barbara Dickson might have recorded a decade and a half earlier. Faye and Clare, the pair that usually took the lead on Steps’ singles, both have an oddly old-fashioned, stage school way of enunciating their lines which is well-demonstrated here. But they also both have a set of lungs on them, giving oomph to even the most banal of lines. As with most Steps songs, we are left to wonder what the two male members, H and Lee, are doing. At least here they contributed some nice backing vocals.

I will admit right now, loud and proud, that I like Steps. Whatever. Sue me. Yes, they’re camp. Yes, they are cheesy. Yes, they are a Poundland ABBA. And yes, occasionally they’ve made some truly awful records (‘5,6,7,8’ springs immediately to mind). But all that is forgiven thanks to the pop perfection of singles like ‘Last Thing on My Mind’, or ‘Love’s Got a Hold of My Heart’.

Sadly, they’re neither the first, nor the last, act to be poorly served by their chart-toppers. ‘Tragedy’ and ‘Heartbeat’ wouldn’t rank among their best songs (and the less said about their second #1 the better… until I have to write a post about it.) They match Sash! – see my previous post – for five #2s, at least four of which would have made better #1s than this.

1999 will take us longer to get through than any year so far, with thirty-five chart-toppers (up four from 1998’s total). But luckily we’re now hitting a typically eclectic run of January number ones, made up of genre-hopping DJs, boyband covers, punk rockers, and the shock return of a legendary new-wave band… Exciting times ahead!

807. ‘To You I Belong’, by B*Witched

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A blast of Celtic pipes meets our ears, heralding the arrival of our next number one. Because heaven forbid we forget just for one second that B*Witched. Are. Irish!

To You I Belong, by B*Witched (their 3rd of four #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th December 1998

Girl group rules dictate that the 3rd single must be a ballad, especially if said single is being released at Christmas. So in some ways, ‘To You I Belong’ is a fairly predictable, low-tempo, pop smoocher (with a strangely old-fashioned sounding title, grammatically speaking). In other ways, though, it’s actually quite interesting.

For such a generic girl group ballad, there are plenty of touches that I wasn’t expecting. The tin whistles and strings give it a New Age feel, with hints of Enya even, and the girls’ floaty, trembly voices are quite soothing. Turns out that B*Witched could properly sing, something that was lost amongst all the bubble-gum silliness of their first two singles!

It’s unexpectedly classy, and even if I don’t automatically love all the Celtic flourishes at least it’s something a little different from what the other girl groups of the time were offering. I would say, though, that it could have done with a more stripped-back production – maybe just the girls’ voices and a couple of guitars – as all the layers of computer generated synths and tinkly bits make it sound cluttered.

Three #1s from their first three singles catapulted B*Witched into exalted company: Gerry & The Pacemakers, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Jive Bunny and The Spice Girls. And they’ll go one better than the first three of those acts, by making it four out of four. Speaking of The Spice Girls, B*Witched sensibly released ‘To You I Belong’ a week before the festive number one race, rather than going up against the Queens of Christmas. However, with this giving the Irish girls their third chart-topper of 1998, compared to the Spice Girls’ one (so far), it could be argued that at this point B*Witched were the bigger group…

Finally from a chart-geek angle, this record kicks off a run of ten one-week #1s in a row, through until late February 1999, as the chart-topping turnover continues to ramp up. (The previous longest run of one-weekers was five, in early 1997.)

806. ‘Believe’, by Cher

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What is this fantasy world, in which a fifty-two year old woman can score the biggest hit of her career, well over thirty years into it..?

Believe, by Cher (her 4th and final #1)

7 weeks, from 25th October – 13th December 1998

Well the autumn of 1998 was no fantasy. Was it the novelty factor? Was it the autotune? Or was it just the fact that ‘Believe’ is a simply great pop song? Yes, yes, and yes; but I also think that it’s the contrast between the low-key, melancholy verses, with lines like No matter how hard I try, You keep pushing me aside… And the soaring, positive chorus. Do you believe in life after love…? Well, do you?

It’s also a modern sounding pop song, with all the late nineties flourishes, sound effects and, yes, a version of that synthesised drum beat. Quite a departure from the MOR rock that Cher had been recording for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s; sounding like it could have been recorded by one of the much younger poppettes of the day.

But we do have to address the Auto-Tuned elephant in the room. ‘Believe’ is often credited with introducing the world to the tool, which had been invented just one year before. But it’s use here is gimmicky, and fun. Nobody doubts that Cher can sing, and the way she belts the middle-eight out here, all natural, leave us in no doubt. Other, less vocally capable, singers’ use of Auto-Tune is a subject we can save for another day…

‘Believe’ truly was a behemoth of a song. Seven weeks at number one in the late-nineties was a huge achievement, a run that will not be matched again until 2005. In some ways we could see it as the last of the 1990’s ‘event’ singles, songs that went beyond the chart and entered the lives of the general public, like Bryan Adams, Whitney Houston, Wet Wet Wet, and Elton John before. I certainly remember it being everywhere in the school playground that autumn, and it remains the biggest-selling single of all time by a solo female.

I wrote earlier about the novelty factor of having an old(er) pop star like Cher at number one, but the truth is that this was her third chart-topper of the decade, after ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ and ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’. The ‘90s is by far her most successful chart era, after her initial ‘60s successes and a fairly barren twenty years in between. So perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise that she was capable of pulling a hit like this out of the bag in her fifties.

Since ‘Believe’ Cher hasn’t managed too many more hits, but she reached #18 last year – aged seventy-seven! – with her festive ‘DJ Play a Christmas Song’. She will probably outlive us all. An interesting footnote here is that the week in which ‘Believe’ made #1 – the final week in October – the Top 5 of the singles chart was famously superannuated. George Michael was #2 with ‘Outside’, U2 were at #3, and a recently reformed Culture Club sat at #4.

804. ‘Girlfriend’, by Billie

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Right after B*Witched, the year’s second biggest teenybop act returns for another crack at the top…

Girlfriend, by Billie (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 11th – 18th October 1998

I thought ‘Rollercoaster’ was a big improvement on ‘C’est la Vie’, a record I detested. Is the same upswing evident with Miss Piper, bearing in mind that I didn’t find ‘Because We Want To’ anywhere near as bad as B*Witched’s accursed debut? Um… Not particularly. It’s more of the same, really.

It starts off fairly promisingly, though. Some excellent vintage record scratches, and some shoobydoobydoopdoops reminiscent of the classic girl groups. There’s a bit of sass in the verses, and I can certainly hear a bit of All Saints in there (as with B*Witched, Billie’s second single was clearly trying to add a little more edge). The song’s premise is that Billie has seen a boy that she likes, and she isn’t going to play it coy: Playin’ hard to get takes too long sugar, So I told my friends that I’ve found a man…

While I admire the confidence (very Girl Power), the song is let down by another chanty chorus. Do you have a girlfriend…? Can I have your number…? I don’t think it suits Billie’s voice particularly well, which adds to the grating effect. And I’m not sure this aggressive approach would have worked, romantically speaking.

I’ve lost count of how many pop songs in 1998 have had the same vaguely hip-hop backing beat and squelchy bass synths. It’s another step towards what I would call truly ‘modern’ pop music (i.e. the Max Martin sledgehammer approach). This is a bit more minimal than what’s to come, the simple beat decorated with various horn parps and string flourishes.

Billie Piper has an interesting post-pop career, but we’ll hold off on that for now. She has one final number one, with a big and beefy Y2K sound, and that will make an interesting contrast with her first two chart-toppers. It’s worth mentioning, before we go, that ‘Girlfriend’ put Billie out and clear as the youngest person to make #1 with their first two singles.

803. ‘Rollercoaster’, by B*Witched

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I was very down on B*Witched’s debut single, ‘C’est la Vie’. So down that I named it as a Very Worst Number One. At the same time, I’ve long been touting their second chart-topper as a lost classic…

Rollercoaster, by B*Witched (their 2nd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 27th September – 11th October 1998

Which was risky, considering I hadn’t listened to ‘Rollercoaster’ in two decades or more. What if I actually hate it? Well here we are, and I am happy to announce that this is a decent little pop record. Yes, another spoken word intro had me fearing the worst, but this one actually makes sense, with the girls on their way up a rollercoaster (I can’t believe I’m doing this…!) And thankfully there’s not an Irishism in earshot!

The verses are okay, lilting guitars and organs, and lines about sailing the seven seas. The bridge is great though: very, um, Beatlesy. Seriously, it’s ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. And then the chorus has hints of T. Rex (Come on, Get it on, Riding in a rollercoaster of love…) Beatles! T Rex! No ‘begorrahs’! What’s not to love? This is light years better than ‘C’est la Vie’.

Okay, there is another Irish fiddle interlude, presumably contractually obliged in case listeners even briefly forget where the band come from. But this one is bearable, enjoyable even. The complete opposite of the demented jig from ‘C’est la Vie’. And there is also still a lot of double-denim in the video, but fashion faux-pas can be forgiven when the songs are good.

Is ‘Rollercoaster’ a lost classic, though…? I guess, probably not. I perhaps oversold it slightly. It’s not the greatest pop song ever. Or of the decade. Or even of the year. But it has an understated charm that its predecessor completely lacked, and a couple of really catchy hooks.

I suppose when your debut is so gimmicky, then you have to come back with something strong as a second single. More of the same; but not quite the same. Aqua managed it with ‘Doctor Jones’, and B*Witched managed it here. They wouldn’t be one-hit wonders. There are even signs that their team were trying to add a bit of edge to them, with lines like You’ll soon be high… Though I’m not sure anyone was convinced by the We’re not nice, We’re cool as ice line… It may be an enjoyable pop song, but B*Witched were still teenyboppers through and through.

801. ‘Millennium’, by Robbie Williams

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Into the eight hundreds, and we do so with a bold statement of a number one…

Millennium, by Robbie Williams (his 1st of seven solo #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th September 1998

The biggest British pop star at the turn of the century, the black sheep of the ‘90s biggest boyband, finally scores a solo number one. It’s a cocky, swaggering track, making nice use of a sample from Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’. (Though in actual fact it is a rerecording in a slightly higher key, which was cheaper than paying for the original.) Anyway, it slams the door open, sweeps into the room chorus first, declaring ‘I’m here!’

After that comes a state of the nation address, over a hip-hop beat. Live for liposuction, Detox for your rent, Overdose at Christmas, And give it up for Lent… We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars, that sort of thing. It’s very zeitgeist grabbing, very of-the-moment, less than a year and a half before Y2K, all delivered with a sense of theatre by Robbie Williams. We’re praying it’s not too late… he sings in the chorus… Millennium…

Even if you’re stuck behind a dead end desk job in Slough, the appeal of an idea that we’ve got stars directing our dishevelled fates is clear. My favourite bit though is the nonchalantly loutish Come and have a go if you think you are hard enough… chant. It is this that sums up the post-Britpop nineties, the lads and the ladettes, the alcopops, all that. It’s clever, and catchy, somehow deep without really trying.

Some pop stars don’t seem to care about their chart fortunes, about whether or not a song will be a hit, but I don’t think Robbie Williams is one of them. At this point in his career at least, he seemed to relish being famous, being on stage, on TV, on the radio. And he released songs that were big and catchy, that appealed to the widest possible audience, like this one. He certainly had charisma, the X-factor that the best pop stars need. But he also had a clever team around him, and a songwriting partner in Guy Chambers who guided him through this imperious phase from 1998 to the early years of the 2000s.

‘Millennium’ was the lead single from Williams’ second album, ‘I’ve Been Expecting You’, but to pinpoint the moment he became Britain’s biggest pop star we need to rewind a few months to when ‘Angels’ was dominating the charts and the airwaves, to the extent that it began to feel like the country’s unofficial national anthem. Despite peaking at #4 it remains his biggest selling single. Following that his now signature tune ‘Let Me Entertain You’ made #3, and the rest is history.

It had been a long time coming, though. Williams had left Take That over three years before, and spent a year fighting a clause in his contract preventing him from launching a solo career while his former band were still recording. Fittingly, his first release was a cover of George Michael’s ‘Freedom’, which made #2 in July 1996, around the same time his bandmate Gary Barlow was releasing the dull ‘Forever Love’. Compare and contrast Barlow’s two forgettable number ones with this one, and it’s not hard to see why Williams went on to be the far bigger solo star.

It’s also hard to overstate how big Robbie Williams was becoming when this record went to the top. I wouldn’t count myself a huge fan, and I’ve never bought any of his music, but it turns out I knew all the words to ‘Millennium’ through sheer osmosis. He will have a nice and steady drip-feed of #1s for the next few years, so I’ll have plenty of time to test my knowledge of his other lyrics as we go on.

800. ‘Bootie Call’, by All Saints

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Suddenly it’s eight hundred not out. We continue to cut a swathe through the chart decades, almost tipping over into a new century. But there’s still plenty of life left in the 1990s, as All Saints return to form…

Bootie Call, by All Saints (their 3rd of five #1s)

1 week, from 6th – 13th September 1998

I tried to make the best of their double-bill cover record, featuring interesting takes on ‘Under the Bridge’ and ‘Lady Marmalade‘. And while it wasn’t the horror show some might have claimed, it still wasn’t that good. So here’s their third number one of the year, making them 1998’s joint most successful girl group (the other one isn’t the Spice Girls). And it’s a fun record.

It’s also a strange record, despite the subject matter being very All Saints. Casual sex is the order of the day, and it’s worth stopping to note that while this song isn’t at all explicit, it’s only really been since the mid-nineties that chart-toppers have started to be this up-front about sex. Never stop giving good love, ‘Cause that’s what I call you for… the girls purr… You can bring it on with the rough stuff, I don’t want to be tamed… All Saints are, of course, in charge of the whole situation, reminding their guys: It’s just a bootie call… (Why, incidentally, not ‘booty’? Is ‘bootie’ a British spelling I don’t know about?)

The strangeness comes from the production, and the sound effects that hang all over this song like weird Christmas decorations. There’s what sounds like someone snoring, a man going ‘uh’ over, over and over (once you’ve noticed him in the mix he takes over completely), plus lots of vaguely sexual breathing and spluttering. The second verse is very rough around the edges, with the girls taking turns over their lines as if ad-libbing around a looped piano riff. It could be cool; but it could also sound half-arsed. It’s certainly not polished or softened, like so many of the recent tween pop #1s, so that’s something to be thankful for. The girls don’t forget that there might be children listening though, adding a line I assume to be about safe sex: Jimmy’s got to ride in your pocket, or lock him in your wallet…

‘Bootie Call’ isn’t as good as ‘Never Ever’, or either of the band’s two remaining chart-toppers. It’s a little gimmicky, and gets a little repetitive. But even as their fourth best number one, it’s pretty enjoyable. Plus it cements their place as the biggest British girl group of the day, as the Spice Girls continue to disintegrate.

Next up we have a much delayed recap, but before that we should cast our eyes back towards each of the ‘hundredth’ number ones. What’s interesting is that almost all of them represent a facet of British chart-topping tastes. All Saints are a good way to mark the girl-powered sass-pop of the late nineties, as were Chaka Demus & Pliers (700) a good way to mark the mid-nineties reggae revival. What’s interesting is that there are barely four and half years between 800 and 700, as the turnover of number ones increases, but more than six between 700 and 600, in which T’Pau represented for all the eighties power-ballads.

500 was Nicole’s ‘A Little Peace’ (Eurovision), while 400 was ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ (showtunes). Tony Orlando and Dawn’s ‘Knock Three Times’ represents nothing more than the British public’s ongoing love of middling cheese. 200 was ‘Help’ by the biggest band of all time, while 100 was Anthony Newley’s ‘Do You Mind’, highlighting the lull that came between rock ‘n’ roll and Merseybeat. And of course, Al Martino kicked the whole shebang off in 1952, repping for all the pre-rock crooners. It’s been a lot of fun so far – thanks to everyone who has come along for the ride – and rest assured I have no intention of stopping until we make it all the way to the present day.

797. ‘Viva Forever’, by The Spice Girls

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The Spice Girls return, after missing #1 for the first time behind Run-D.M.C, with their first Geri-less single…

Viva Forever, by The Spice Girls (their 7th of nine #1s)

2 weeks, from 26th July – 9th August 1998

I can still remember where I was when I heard Geri had left the group (some generations had JFK…) I was in a minibus, on my way home from a Scout camp, when news broke on the radio. But of course, ‘Viva Forever’ had been recorded months before, so Halliwell still features both in the song and in the video – as much as any of the girls ‘feature’ in the video as animated fairies – and in fact was credited with writing most of the lyrics.

There are some lovely strings ‘n’ harmonies in the intro, then a cool Spanish guitar to bring some drama. The verses have a sense of melancholy, and the lyrics – originally about a summer romance – have a real yearning to them. The bridge even has some Spanish, for that touch of class. The verses too have a timeless quality to them, even if the chord progressions are a little predictable.

Of course, by the time Geri had left, the lyrics had ceased to be about a summer fling and seemed to fit perfectly as her ‘goodbye’ to the band. And this is a very solid pop record. In fact, it’s almost adult-oriented soft rock. And I’d put it down as the group’s best ballad, miles ahead of ‘Mama’, and pretty far ahead of ‘2 Become 1’. The fact that they had gems like this up their sleeve, two years into their career, sets the Spice Girls apart from most other pop fodder of the time.

The only thing that slightly lets this record down is the vocals. And we know, of course, seven chart-toppers in, that people didn’t buy Spice Girls’ records for the quality of their voices. But it’s on songs like this, where they can’t rely on boisterous, girl-power energy, that you can hear how reedy a couple of them were. Luckily, Mel C is on hand to do most of the heavy lifting as the song reaches its climax.

I can’t remember ever seeing the full music video for ‘Viva Forever’ before, but it’s a trip. Set in the 1970s, two boys follow an animatronic bouncing chicken into a forest where they meet the Spiceys as slightly demented looking fairies. One of the boys disappears into a Rubik’s cube with the girls, leaving his friend lost and confused… It apparently took longer to film than the entirety of ‘Spiceworld – The Movie’, and adds a ‘loss of innocence’ interpretation to the song’s lyrics.

So, Geri had left, citing exhaustion and depression. The drama was that she didn’t tell the other girls to their faces, causing a rift for many years… It wasn’t the only crack to start showing, though. Before the Girls return for their penultimate number one, their solo careers will have started, with predictably chart-topping results.