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…
What’s a turn-of-the-century Christmas time without a downtempo ballad from one of the big pop acts of the day?
Never Had a Dream Come True, by S Club 7 (their 2nd of four #1s)
1 week, from 3rd – 10th December 2000
Ballads for Christmas are not a new phenomenon, but there has been a very specific kind of syrupy love song popping up around this time since East 17 in 1994 (none of which have come close to matching ‘Stay Another Day’). Think Peter Andre’s ‘I Feel You’, B*Witched’s ‘To You I Belong’, Steps’ ‘Heartbeat’, and Westlife’s double-A massacre for the new millennium…
So actually, ranked alongside some of those dubious hits, S Club’s addition to the canon of wintry ballads is actually fairly decent. It’s got an old-time, almost soulful, feel in the groove. And it’s helped by the fact that Jo is on lead vocals, and that she was S Club’s Mel C (i.e. the one that could properly sing). Meanwhile the video is a classic of the genre, with the group all in white, trying their best to brood amidst blasts of fake snow.
I mean, it’s nothing hugely special. But it’s a nice enough song to endure for three minutes and forty-five seconds. I imagine it soundtracking a thousand and one snogs at school discos that year, and being a conduit for teenage lust is as noble a reason for a song’s existence as I can think of. Oh, and it was also 2000’s Children in Need official single, which is almost as good a cause, and probably a big factor in it becoming a belated second #1 for S Club, as well as the year’s ninth biggest seller.
My attention, though, starts to wander sometime around the midway point. I begin to realise why this has been forgotten among S Club’s peppier hits. They acquit themselves well but really, slow songs like this aren’t what S Club were about. Interestingly, though, this was their only single to make the Billboard charts – no mean feat for a British pop act at the time – and it ascended all the way to #10.
By the time this record ends in a cascade of tinkles, I’m starting to think this might actually have tipped over into the saccharine, and might actually be a bit crap. But no! I block these thoughts because, as with Steps and the Spice Girls, I am disposed to think kindly of S Club 7, thanks to those old rose-tinted spectacles. For which I will not apologise!
Independent Women (Pt. 1), by Destiny’s Child (their 1st of two #1s)
1 week, from 26th November – 3rd December 2000
Towards the end of a year jam-packed with zeitgeist grabbing choruses, where does All the women, Who independent, Throw your hands up at me… rank?
That’s before we get to the I bought it bridge, or indeed the repeatedly deadpanned question line. It’s slick turn-of-the-century R&B, minimalist in its instrumentation, with plenty of space for Beyoncé and co.’s tight harmonies, especially in the nearly a cappella break. This was the first Destiny’s Child track to feature Michelle Williams, and the only one to feature Farrah Franklin (who was only in the group for a couple of months).
‘Independent Women’ comes from the soundtrack to a movie reboot of ‘Charlie’s Angels’, and we are given no chance to forget it. From the spoken intro introducing the actresses, to the Charlie how your angels get down like that… refrain, few other movie soundtrack chart-toppers have had such strong product placement. It could have backfired, or at least left the song stranded in a very particular place in time, but it hasn’t. In fact, lines like Cameron D, Invest in me have perhaps added to its nostalgic allure.
I earlier drew comparisons between the Spice Girls’ recent ‘Holler’ and US girl-groups like Destiny’s Child, but really it’s no contest. This is so polished, so confident; another example of how American acts were setting the tempo at this time. Britain could still produce good pop (Steps!), but whenever we tried to ape this sort of hip-hop/R&B uber-pop we just couldn’t pull it off.
What I’m noticing now, after repeated listens, is the irony of a song about women’s independence promoting a film about three (admittedly kickass) women controlled by an unseen older man. Plus, as others have pointed out before me, the independence of the women in the song seems to be measured by the fact that they can buy their own clothes, shoes, cars and jewellery.
I mentioned her in passing, but we should make more of this being our introduction to Beyoncé, who will go on to be one of the new millennium’s biggest stars, with a near twenty-five year span between this and her most recent chart-topper. And while this track is well-remembered, I’d argue that the two following Destiny’s Child singles have become even more embedded in popular culture (one of which will be shortly turning up at #1).
Before we finish, I have one final question. If this is ‘Independent Women (Pt I)’, then what of part two? Well, it’s an album track, much harder-edged, nowhere near as catchy. Case closed, Charlie.
Showing A1 just how it’s done, here is some authentic turn-of-the-century American jumbo-pop.
Can’t Fight the Moonlight, by LeAnn Rimes (her 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 19th – 26th November 2000
Can that become the standard term for this sort of huge chords, huge vocals, huge synths pop? Jumbo-pop. It’ll be my legacy. Though while Britney and Christina are obvious reference points for this record, LeAnn Rimes was first and foremost a country artist, and so this is jumbo-pop with a country twang. Which is cool.
But as with the Corrs’ Mutt Lange-produced ‘Breathless’, this makes me once again rue the fact that the Queen of late-nineties country pop, Shania Twain, never made top spot in the UK. Catchy as ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’ is, it is no ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’. Very few pop songs are…
I will say that this song does almost lose the run of itself from the middle-eight onwards, with synths that sound like a garbage crusher gone haywire. It gets very cluttered and rushed, as if on a deadline, where a few more seconds runtime could have allowed the song to breathe a bit. But the way Rimes launches herself into the key change is impressive, and allows her to show off her vocals towards the end. It was written by Diane Warren, and produced by movie mogul Jerry Bruckheimer, which perhaps explains its ginormous sound.
Bruckheimer was presumably involved because this comes from the soundtrack to his movie, ‘Coyote Ugly’. It’s a film that I remember being huge among my age group at the time, but that never gets mentioned anymore. (Its 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes might explain why…) Apparently LeAnn Rimes appears in the film as herself, while she also recorded ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’ for actress Piper Perabo – who played the main character – and so technically duets with herself at the end of the film. Which sounds enjoyably messy.
While this may be a bit cluttered, a bit too fast, a bit chaotic, it’s still undeniably huge and catchy. There’s something admirable about the sheer joie de vivre of so many of these recent number ones, even if not many are truly great records, which makes me miss a time when pop music came with a capital ‘P’!
Although this is LeAnn Rimes biggest hit by chart position, she is probably much better remembered for her ballad ‘How Do I Live’, which was the 6th highest-selling song of 1998 despite never rising above #7. She remains active, and seems to have moved more into Christian contemporary territory in her old age.
Time for another instalment of ‘On This Day’, and how the 27th May has tied in to various number one singles over the years (links to my original posts for each one).
Starting off with the record sitting atop the charts sixty-seven years ago today…
Many of the 1950s’ biggest hits were boringly straight-faced declarations of love, done in a bombastic fashion. Thank goodness for Connie Francis’s classic tale of sass and schadenfreude, then, which is one of my favourite number ones of the decade. I love the bluntness of the closing line: I’m glad that you’re sorry now…‘Who’s Sorry Now’ isn’t a fifties original however, as it dates all the way back to 1923. What’s amazing is that 1923 to 1958 is what 1990 is to 2025… Like Sabrina Carpenter covering ‘Vogue’, or something. All of which begs a discussion as to how much popular music changed between 1923 and 1958, and how much it hasn’t changed in the past thirty-five years. A discussion for another day, perhaps. Anyway, Connie Francis is still with us, aged eighty-seven, having only retired from music in 2018.
Meanwhile on this day in 1943, ‘ar Cilla was born in Liverpool. Proud achiever of eleven top ten singles between 1964 and 1971, the first two of which gave her a brace of #1 singles, before she moved more into TV. ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ was the UK’s biggest-selling single by a female artist through the entirety of the 1960s – a fine achievement considering some of the legendary divas she was up against.
Next up, a Stones double-header. For not only was ‘Paint It, Black’ number one on this day in 1966 (meaning that the coolest comma in rock history had its moment in the sun), but on May 27th two years earlier newspapers were reporting that eleven fifth-form boys had been suspended from Woodlands Comprehensive School in Coventry for having ‘Mick Jagger haircuts’. Donald Thompson, their headmaster, decried the boys’ hair as ‘long and scruffy’, and that they could return to school only ‘with a neat Beatle cut’. We can clearly see what side of that great rock rivalry Mr Thompson was on…
Finally, on May 27th 1977, just in time for Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols released the number one that never was. In my Should Have Been a #1 post on ‘God Save the Queen’ I erred on the side of caution, not committing to sensationalism without proper evidence like a proper, upstanding blogger. This time, though, I’m just going to come out and say it: ‘God Save the Queen’ was the best-selling single the week of the Silver Jubilee, but was kept from the top by some very selective book-keeping. (For one week only, records bought in a shop owned by the label they were released under didn’t count towards the chart. It’s as if they knew Virgin’s Sex Pistols might sell quite a few singles in Virgin Megastores…)
It seems I’m not alone, as many sources have retrospectively awarded the Sex Pistols a number one, and the furore over it now seems incredibly quaint. How society has changed in forty-eight years… And hey, being blocked from number one by the establishment is way more punk than actually getting there. I’m sure Johnny Rotten and co. weren’t at all bothered.
Let’s purge A1’s unnecessary cover of ‘Take on Me’ from our minds, and instead revel in their second number one of the year, and some of the purest turn-of-the-century pop this side of *NSYNC.
Same Old Brand New You, by A1 (their 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 12th – 19th November 2000
In fact, this is *NSYNC crossed with the Backstreet Boys, and with a liberal dollop of Britney Spears. It is a shameless tribute to/pastiche of/rip-off of that blockbuster, Max Martin sound so beloved of those Stateside pop juggernauts. It was co-written by Eric Foster White, who had worked with Britney and the BSBs. And it comes pretty close to being as good.
The a cappella intro is striking, and well sung; and the chorus is a peach. The chords are huge, the production has that clanking industrial sound that makes everything feel epic. It’s also got a cheeky title, almost palindromic. No song called ‘Same Old Brand New You’ is going to be dull. But why don’t I rate it as highly as, say, ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’?
Sad to say, it’s probably because it’s A1, and there’s something a bit budget about them. If this has been recorded by Justin Timberlake and his crew, maybe I’d be more effusive. We Brits tend to knock our own while being in thrall to anything from across the Atlantic. I felt the same about Billie Piper’s foray into similarly hard-edged pop, ‘Day and Night’.
Though if I had to give a specifically musical reason for this song falling short of classic status, I’d point out the hugely clunking robot-voice sections. They go on too long, are too distorted, and are simply incomprehensible. The lyrics get completely lost: something, something, not keeping your promises… (To my ears it sounds like never gonna change your passwords…)
But it’s still a lot of fun, and a song I admit I’d completely forgotten about. Despite being a chart-topper, it’s definitely been lost among the year 2000’s more illustrious number ones. This was from A1’s second album, and they had one more in them. That gave us their last big hit – the also pretty decent ‘Caught in the Middle’, which made #2 in early 2002. They split soon after, but have reformed since. Like Westlife in my previous post, A1 were hugely popular in Asia, so popular that there were four teenage girls sadly crushed to death when the band turned up for a signing in Jakarta.
As it is still just about Eurovision season, it would be remiss to finish without mentioning that A1 almost represented Norway at the contest in 2010. Meanwhile Ben Adams did, as one half of Subwoolfer, finishing in 10th place in 2022, with the memorably titled ‘Give that Wolf a Banana’.
So, Westlife replace The Spice Girls at number one, and in doing so break the Girls’ record for consecutive chart-toppers…
My Love, by Westlife (their 7th of fourteen #1s)
1 week, from 5th – 12th November 2000
I’ll come clean… this is my favourite Westlife number one. I know, I know, just having a favourite Westlife number one is not something to admit in polite company, let alone revealing which song it is. But here we are. Something about ‘My Love’ just bloody well does it for me.
Despite it being one of their most unashamedly old-fashioned ballads, with all the tinkly production, drenched in echo and gloop, there’s something appealing about it. I’ve always thought it had the feel of ‘Mull of Kintyre’, and apparently the songwriting team responsible did have Wings’ mega-hit as a deliberate reference point. It’s Celtic enough, with a timeless melody and lyrics about meeting a long-lost love where the fields are green, without resorting to the bejaysus sort of Irishisms that B*Witched were so fond of.
Though I’m pretty sure I also compared ‘Fool Again’ to ‘Mull of Kintyre’. (There’s a chance Westlife’s entire career was based around ‘Mull of Kintyre’.) Anyway. Of course, a majestic key change is pulled off for the final chorus, and things end in suitably soaring fashion. In the video the lads find themselves finally back on the Emerald Isle, on the Cliffs of Moher. I may cast doubts on the singing abilities of certain other boybands, but I don’t think anyone could accuse Westlife of shirking their most basic responsibility. The boys can sing.
I’ll move on, however, before I find myself lavishing any more praise on Westlife than is strictly necessary. For those not so enamoured, you’ll be glad to note that we’ve already reached the halfway point in terms of the band’s number ones. The end is almost in sight!
What’s interesting is that while in the UK ‘My Love’ doesn’t make Top 10 on the list of Westlife’s best-sellers, for much of the rest of the world it is their signature song. Ask anyone on the streets of Hong Kong, Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur to name a Westlife tune, and they’ll probably say this one. In South Korea it has apparently never left the International Karaoke Charts since they began in 2010…
Like I said, this was Westlife’s seventh consecutive number one, and it broke the Spice Girl’s record of six in a row from debut. This is all rendered moot, really, by the fact that the Beatles managed eleven in a row between ‘From Me to You’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ (their first two singles having not made #1). And Westlife’s run will come crashing to an end with their next release, foiled by a cartoon construction worker…
Almost two years earlier, the Spice Girls had scored their eighth and, we assumed, final chart-topper – their third Christmas number one in a row. It was called ‘Goodbye’, for heaven’s sake. But no, we have to reckon with this strange footnote to their discography…
Holler / Let Love Lead the Way, by The Spice Girls (their 9th and final #1)
1 week, from 29th October – 5th November 2000
‘Holler’ is a huge departure from the original Spice Girls’ sound, if they ever had a ‘sound’. It’s a clear attempt to sound street, to be Destiny’s Child, or TLC – the opening riff is literally ‘No Scrubs’ – to be a bit garage, a bit R&B, and resolutely not a pop group.
They are going to take a boy to their ‘fantasy room’, treat him right all through the night… Things will presumably involve a bit of zig-a-zig-ah. And it feels right to cast our minds back to their debut hit here, and all the jokes about what that phrase might have meant. It was silly innuendo, because the Spice Girls weren’t really about sex; they were about fun, and female friendship. Girl Power, as they put it. So to see hear them singing about making a guy holler feels almost like a betrayal of what made them so special in the first place.
Plus, the song itself is a big pile of average. There’s the most generic, and uncredited, guest rapper; and a genuinely tortured attempt to rhyme ‘holler’ with ‘follow’ (folla? foller?) We don’t need the Spice Girls to sound like Destiny’s Child or TLC, because we already have Destiny’s Child and TLC, and they are great. We want the Spice Girls to sound like the Spice Girls.
But at least I was vaguely familiar with ‘Holler’. I have genuinely never heard the song on the flip-side of this double-A, ‘Let Love Lead the Way’. (Four years earlier, in the midst of my Spice Girls obsession, I couldn’t have imagined not hearing one of their singles.) And if you thought ‘Holler’ was average…
It’s a ballad, a sort of sisterly message to a young girl. Why is there joy, Why is there pain? Why is there sunshine and the rain? But compare it to some of their earlier ballads, ‘2 Become 1’, or ‘Viva Forever’, and it pales in comparison. It’s not truly terrible, it just sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack of a straight-to-VHS Disney animation.
You have to wonder how much the girls’ hearts were in this third album. Geri of course was long gone, but all four remaining members had also launched solo careers. Mels B and C had made #1, and Emma’s solo moment in the sun wasn’t far away. Victoria had come as close as it’s possible to come a few weeks earlier. ‘Forever’ wasn’t a flop – it made #2 behind Westlife – but it sold a fraction of the Girls’ two earlier, multi-million selling LPs. No further singles were released from it.
Strange footnote it may be, but ‘Holler’ and ‘Let Love Lead the Way’ give the Spice Girls’ a ninth number one, drawing them level with ABBA. In chart geek terms it is also significant, for this was the year 2000’s thirty fifth number one. The following week’s chart-topper would confirm this year as having the most number one singles ever…
Tomorrow marks that one day of the year in which Europe (plus some countries technically in Asia, and Australia for some reason) comes together to celebrate the joys of music. Or at least to celebrate the joys of cheesy riffs, simplistic lyrics, unhinged dance routines, and a whole load of camp. Yes, it’s the…
Held every year since 1956 (2020 excepted, thanks to COVID), Eurovision was invented through collaboration between seven nations’ broadcasting corporations, as a means of testing out the capacities of live broadcasting. The first contest featured just those seven – France, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – and was won by the Swiss. The UK made their first appearance the following year, when a public vote was brought in to help decide the winning song. Ever since then there have been plenty of complaints about political voting (usually from us Brits, when nobody gives us any points) with neighbouring countries, and nations with a shared ethnicity, trading points based perhaps more on kinship rather than on musical quality.
A maximum of forty-four countries can enter – qualifiers were introduced in the 1990s – and as of 2024, twenty-seven different nations have won the contest. Sweden and Ireland have the most wins with seven, and Britain holds the record for finishing second. Norway, meanwhile, holds the record for finishing last, and has ended with the dreaded nul points four times.
Eurovision is famous for launching the careers of ABBA, who won with ‘Waterloo’ in 1974, but it has also played a part in helping Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias, and Olivia Newton-John become world famous. Other legends to take part include Sandie Shaw, Cliff, Lulu, Bonnie Tyler, Engelbert Humperdinck, Nana Mouskouri and, um, Flo Rida. And of course we’ve already met plenty of Eurovision number ones during our chart-topping journey… Who could forget Dana, Brotherhood of Man, Bucks Fizz, Nicole, Johnny Logan, or Gina G…?
Part of the reason why I chose to do this post now is that in the 21st century there have been no further Eurovision chart-toppers. Plenty of songs have gone close, but none have made it to the top. And so, having covered all the Eurovision #1s in the regular blog, it’s time to check out the Best of the Rest. I’m only counting songs that made the UK Top 10, and have whittled a thirty-odd longlist down to ten.
‘Volare’, by Domenico Modugno (3rd place for Italy in 1958)
Probably rivalling ‘Waterloo’ as Eurovision’s most famous song, this was the first big Eurovision hit, making #10 in the UK and top spot in the States (it remains the only Eurovision chart-topper on the Billboard 100). Dean Martin’s version is now perhaps more popular, of the hundreds that have since been recorded, but this was the original. Ubiquity has not, and seemingly cannot, dull the laidback coolness of this classic.
‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’, by Lulu (joint 1st place for the UK in 1969)
Och, if it isn’t lovely wee Lulu. Nonsense song titles have long been a Eurovision cliché, and you have to think ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’ helped in that. (We’ve since had winners titled ‘Ding-a-Dong’, ‘A-Ba-Ni-Bi’ and ‘Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley’.) If it were just the verses, this wouldn’t have stood a chance of making the list, as they make Sandie Shaw’s ‘Puppet on a String’ sound subtle. But it is in that nonsense chorus that the song soars. Watch the performance above, and marvel at Lulu – the consumate performer that she is – selling the living daylights out of this tosh. She dragged it to a joint first place finish (the only time there’s ever been a tie) and to #2 in the charts. The contest was held in Madrid that year, and in true Brits-abroad fashion Lulu finishes her performance with a big ‘Olé!’ Who says we don’t try to learn the local languages…?
‘Jack in the Box’, by Clodagh Rodgers (4th place for the UK in 1971)
Lyrically this is ‘Puppet on a String’ Pt II – I’m just your Jack-in-the-Box, You know whenever love knocks, I’m gonna bounce up and down on my spring – and musically it’s not a million miles from ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’. It didn’t do as well as either of those earlier entries (4th place in the contest, #4 in the charts) but I’d argue it’s a better song than both. Especially when, in the best music hall fashion, things slow down for a big, showstopping final chorus. Clodagh Rodgers, from Northern Ireland, received death threats from the IRA for representing the UK. (Interestingly, the year before Ireland had won through London-born Dana.) This was Rodgers’ third and final UK Top 10 hit. She sadly died just a few weeks ago, in April 2025, aged seventy-eight.
‘Beg, Steal or Borrow’, by The New Seekers (2nd place for the UK in 1972)
Going by my choices, the late-sixties to early-seventies was the golden age of British entries at Eurovision. A world away from the British acts that were setting the standard and pushing the envelope in those days when pop music was developing at a heady pace; it was a world of bubblegum, easy-listening, and schlager. Which was a wise choice, and why so many of those entries placed very high, such as this runner-up performance from 1972. (Pink Floyd probably wouldn’t have done well at Eurovision…) But representing the UK were acts that, while not the avant-garde, were still very famous names: Cliff, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Clodagh Rodgers, and the New Seekers above. Going to Eurovision was seen as a big thing, a beneficial thing, whereas in the 21st century it is the reserve of the has-been, or of the unknown act looking for any sort of break they can get. Anyway, ‘Beg, Steal or Borrow’ is perfectly decent pop – better than the New Seekers’ saccharine Coca-Cola anthem, but not as good as their sadly forgotten second chart-topper.
‘Go’, by Gigliola Cinquetti (2nd place for Italy in 1974)
A case of right song, wrong time, as Gigliola Cinquetti’s gloriously sultry ballad came up against ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’. Still, it made the Top 10 in the UK (re-recorded in English, which means that I’m not technically choosing the Eurovision version, but hey ho…) The original has exactly the same melody and instrumentation, but is entitled ‘Sí’, which means ‘Yes’. Cinquetti had actually won the contest a decade before, aged sixteen, with a song entitled ‘Non ho l’etá’ (‘I’m Not Old Enough’), meaning she came close to becoming the first act to win Eurovision twice. In Italy, the song’s title caused drama as the contest coincided with a referendum on making divorce illegal (it having just been legalised a few years earlier) and authorities believed that a song featuring the word ‘yes’ sixteen times might subliminally influence the vote… Even the contest itself wasn’t broadcast in Italy until a month afterwards. In the end the divorce laws stayed, and Cinquetti also went on to host the contest in the 1990s.
‘Love Shine a Light’, by Katrina & the Waves (1st place for the UK in 1997)
It would be remiss of me not to include the song that last won the contest for Britain, almost thirty (30!) years ago now. ‘Love Shine a Light’ manages – just about – to straddle the line between genuinely inspiring and sentimental schmaltz (a battle that Eurovision songwriters have been waging ever since 1956). It provided an unexpected career coda for Katrina & the Waves, who had struggled for a follow up hit ever since their 1985 breakthrough ‘Walking on Sunshine’. ‘Love Shine a Light’ peaked at #3, beating even ‘Walking on Sunshine’, but the band split the following year.
You may have noticed a twenty-three year gap between our last two entries, after a run of sixties and seventies hits. There weren’t that many Top 10 hits from Eurovision in the eighties (apart from those that went all the way to #1), and I doubt many people could name any of the winners between Bucks Fizz and Katrina & the Waves.
‘Flying the Flag’ by Scooch (22nd place for the UK in 2007)
Making Steps look like the Velvet Underground, it’s Scooch! There are compelling arguments for this being Britain’s worst ever Eurovision entry, and I get it, I do… But I will never not enjoy this psychopathically tacky number. It’s too much, really, to even have been considered as a parody of a Eurovision entry; and yet we actually sent this to Helsinki in 2007. Where it finished joint second-last, with a grand total of nineteen points. The flying theme is taken to the extreme, with plenty of European capitals name-checked, and an impressive attempt to sexualise a pre-flight safety demonstration. One of the band’s job is solely to make saucy spoken asides ‘in character’ as a gay flight attendant, culminating in him making the lascivious offer to the captain: Would you like something to suck on for landing, Sir…? Whether it went over the heads (pun intended) of the audience I do not know, I’m just forever grateful that it happened. It seems to have been viewed more fondly in its home country, as the British public sent it flying all the way to #5 in the charts.
‘Calm After the Storm’, by the Common Linnets (2nd place for the Netherlands in 2014)
A much more sedate number now, from a Dutch country rock duo. This doesn’t tick any of the typical Eurovision boxes, and yet it’s a lovely, atmospheric ballad. The band had only formed the year before entering the contest, and ‘Calm After the Storm’ was their first release. Interestingly, this was only the 4th non-winning, non-British entry to enter the Top 10 (after ‘Volare’, and ‘Go’, and another Dutch entry from 1975), reaching #9.
‘Space Man’, by Sam Ryder (2nd place for the UK in 2022)
After years in the Eurovision doldrums, of Jemini (nul points), Scooch, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Blue, Britain finally finished strongly in 2022. (We probably would have won, had Ukraine not had the goodwill of the continent behind them.) For years people had claimed that it was all political: that Britain placed low because of Iraq, Brexit, and because we make such obnoxious tourists. But as it turns out, all we needed do was to enter a half decent song! ‘Space Man’ is a strong pop-rock single, that felt like we were finally taking the contest seriously again. I find Sam Ryder to be fairly irritating (I’ve seen him described as a golden retriever in human form, and am still unsure as to why that is a compliment) but I seem to be in the minority. ‘Space Man’ came agonisingly close to being the first Eurovision chart-topper in twenty-five years, only to be be beaten at the last by Harry Styles. Sadly, in the two contests since ‘Space Man’, the United Kingdom has reverted back to type and placed fairly low. Hopes are mixed, then, for Remember Monday this year.
‘Cha Cha Cha’, by Käärijä (2nd place for Finland in 2023)
The first and so far only song sung in Finnish to make the UK Top 10, we end our run down with ‘Cha Cha Cha’. And this, really, is what Eurovision is all about: it’s loud, brash, chaotic, camp. Terrible, and yet brilliant. A metal-dance-pop fusion, featuring a dance routine in which Käärijä rides his backing dancers while they do the human centipede. The song is apparently about getting drunk, specifically on pina coladas. But you don’t really need to understand the lyrics. The charm of this song, and of Eurovision in general, is getting behind songs you don’t understand, by artists you’ve never heard of, and celebrating being part of the smallest but most culturally diverse continent on the planet.
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.
The UK Number Ones Blog 