When Mel C scored her first number one, the hip-hop leaning ‘Never Be the Same Again’ featuring Lisa Lopes, I mentioned the impressive scope of her first few solo singles. Pop rock, alt-rock, rap… And now she achieves her second chart-topper, with some pretty hardcore trance.
I Turn to You, by Melanie C (her 2nd and final solo #1)
1 week, from 13th – 20th August 2000
I used to look at the number ones of 2000 with scorn: there are so many of them, such a high turnover that the idea of being ‘top of the pops’ seemed cheapened. But actually now, in the midst of listening to all of them, it’s turning out quite fun. Variety is, after all, the spice of life (no pun intended).
The same could be said about Mel C’s discography. The album version of ‘I Turn to You’ was a slower, longer, more atmospheric piece of music. And as it was chosen to be the LP’s fourth single, it needed something new to appeal to fans. That something was an absolutely banging remix. As regular readers know, I’m neither a dance music expert nor an aficionado. What stands out here is the beefy bass, and the buzzy synth riff. It reminds me of the dance hits of the early nineties, before Balearic beats and garage slowed things down.
There’s a subtle piano in the chorus that complements her vocals, and the exotic strings in the second verse keep things interesting just when the beat might have become tiring. Overall, though, this song works because it’s exciting. It has a power that makes you pay attention. The remix was the work of Hex Hector, an American producer who won a Grammy for this record in 2001.
Most importantly of all, Mel C’s vocal chords get a proper workout here, unlike on ‘Never Be the Same Again’. I turn to you, Like a flower leaning towards the sun… It’s left ambiguous whether Mel is singing about turning to a lover to help her through dark days, or a higher power. But in dance music, it never hurts to keep things vaguely spiritual.
She never managed any further solo #1s (though the Spice Girls have one more to come), but Melanie C has released eight solo albums to date, while also moving into musical theatre. In terms of #1s she is the second most successful solo Spice (behind Geri), and in terms of Top 10 hits she’s third (behind Geri and Emma Bunton). If we can crown a ‘most interesting solo Spice’ however, then Mel C’s got that award in the bag.
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…
Now that my most recent recap has drawn the ’90s to a close, it’s time to announce what are officially my 10 Best Number Ones of the Decade. Conclusively, ultimately, unarguably….
I’ve done this for all the previous charts decades – follow the links if you’d like to catch up (the ’50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s) – and it works like this. Every recap I’ve named a Very Best Chart-Topper, plus some other #1s that came close. This isn’t me retrospectively choosing my ten best, this is what I chose as I went. No changing of mind allowed, for better or worse. For the previous Top 10s this method threw up some interesting choices, and the 1990s is no different…
‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinéad O’Connor – #1 for 4 weeks in January/February 1990
I think the records at the very top and bottom of this list are perhaps the two songs people can have the fewest complaints about. For who can dispute ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’s haunting beauty? It was only the 3rd #1 of the nineties, but remains one of the decade’s strongest, and was the Very Best Chart-Topper in my end of the 80s/early 90s recap. Plus the stories around it have passed into legend: Prince’s reaction, Sinéad’s solitary tear… Read my original post here.
‘Would I Lie to You?’, by Charles & Eddie – #1 for 2 weeks in November 1992
1991 provides no number ones for this list, probably because Bryan Adams was on top of the charts for roughly half that year. So the next winner of my ‘Very Best Chart-Topper’ award was this retro-soul number from Charles and Eddie, a #1 in November 1992. It’s not a song I had thought much about before writing my post on it, but it charmed me, standing out in unashamedly old-fashioned style in the charts of the time.
‘No Limit’, by 2 Unlimited – #1 for 5 weeks in February/March 1993
Okay, here’s where things get a little silly. I actually named ‘No Limit’ as runner-up to ‘Would I Lie to You?’. Whether this is a reflection of the poor quality of competition at the time (the early-to-mid nineties were a weird no-man’s land of cheap dance, reggae revival, and power ballads), nostalgia blinding my eyes (‘No Limit’ is one of the first pop songs I can remember in ‘real time’), or me being on the wine while writing that recap, I don’t know. Of course, ‘No Limit’ has no right being on any ‘Best Of’ list. But at the same time… It’s a banger. I regret nothing. Techno, techno, techno, techno…
‘Stay Another Day’, by East 17 – #1 for 5 weeks in December 1994/January 1995
The undisputed winner of my ’93-’95 recap, East 17’s stately ballad remains one of, if not the, best boyband number one of all time. Written about a brother’s suicide, the timely additional of church bells turned this into a festive classic, with most people assuming its about the singer begging a lover to remain around at Christmas time. Whether or not it’s a Christmas hit is up for debate; what’s not up for debate is the record’s undoubted quality. Read my original post here.
‘Firestarter’, by The Prodigy – #1 for 3 weeks in March/April 1996
Runner-up in the following recap, it’s one of the decade’s most controversial number ones. I’m the bitch you hated, Filth infatuated… With the ‘Fat of the Land’ album, the Prodigy rebranded themselves from cool dance act to public enemy number one, and ‘Firestarter’ was only the beginning. It’s an acquired taste, but an era-defining chart-topper. This also means that 1995 becomes the decade’s other year not to place a song on this list, and that’s because, looking back, 1995 could well be the worst year on record for number one singles… (Robson and Jerome…. The Outhere Brothers… Cotton Eyed Joe… shudder…)
‘Setting Sun’, by The Chemical Brothers – #1 for 1 week in October 1996
Just edging the Prodigy out to win a ‘Very Best’ award, with a track carved from very much the same block of stone as ‘Firestarter’, it’s the Chemical Brothers. Well, it’s two for the price of one, as an uncredited Noel Gallagher also features (I had to squeeze Oasis in here somehow, even if none of their own songs feature on this list). Original post this way.
‘Your Woman’, by White Town – #1 for 1 week in January 1997
The decade’s 5th ‘Very Best’ number one, and one of its strangest. Recorded by a fairly nerdy man in his bedroom, and based around a trumpet sample from 1932, it has an eerie, yet goofy, oddness to it which you don’t often find at the top of the charts. I debated long and hard about choosing this, or the record below (which is also the record that knocked it off the top of the charts), as The Best. But in the end, they both get to feature on this list. Original post here.
‘Beetlebum’, by Blur – #1 for 1 week in January/February 1997
Replacing ‘Your Woman’ at the top, (which makes that fortnight in January 1997 officially the best two weeks of chart music, ever…) here’s Blur. It’s the ’90s, so we really had to have one Britpop song on this list. Problem is, most of the truly great Britpop anthems famously failed to make it to #1. So we’re left with this fuzzy dirge, and Damon Albarn slurring some lyrics about being on heroin, that many now claim marked the beginning of the end of Britpop…
‘Believe’, by Cher – #1 for 7 weeks from October-December 1998
We seem to have become side-tracked. The past few songs are great pieces of music – I mean, that’s why I chose them – but they’re hardly the first tunes people remember when they think of ‘the nineties’. Luckily, we finish on a gigantic pop big-bang. Starting with Cher’s biggest-selling record. In fact, the best-selling single ever released by a member of the female race. It was my final ‘Very Best’ record of the decade, it introduced the world to autotune, and it remains a stone-cold, classic floorfiller to this day.
‘…Baby One More Time’, by Britney Spears – #1 for 2 weeks in February/March 1999
But is ‘Believe’ better than this…? I still don’t know. They’re both great, they both bring this rundown to a close, and both represent the best of the nineties’ poppy final years. In my mind, though, ‘Believe’ is ’90s through and through, whereas ‘…Baby One More Time’ feels much more of the 21st Century. Which means it’s the prefect record to end on, really.
Since this officially closes both the 1990s, and the 20th century, as far as this blog is concerned, here are the fifty best number one singles of the singles chart’s first five decades, according to me. Deep breath…
‘Look at that Girl’, by Guy Mitchell (1953) ‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray (1954) ‘Mambo Italiano’ by Rosemary Clooney (1955) ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez Prado & his Orchestra (1955) ‘Dreamboat’, by Alma Cogan (1955) ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’, by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers (1956) ‘That’ll Be the Day’, by The Crickets (1957) ‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis (1958) ‘Who’s Sorry Now’, by Connie Francis (1958) ‘Dream Lover’, by Bobby Darin (1959) ‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers (1960) ‘Shakin’ All Over’, by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates (1960) ‘Telstar’, by the Tornadoes (1962) ‘She Loves You’, by The Beatles (1963) ‘Needles and Pins’, by The Searchers (1964) ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”, by The Righteous Brothers (1965) ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones (1965) ‘Good Vibrations’, by The Beach Boys (1966) ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum (1967) ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye (1969) ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, by Simon & Garfunkel (1970) ‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry (1971) ‘Metal Guru’, by T Rex (1972) ‘See My Baby Jive’, by Wizzard (1973) ‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud (1974) ‘Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)’, by The Stylistics (1975) ‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie (1975) ‘Dancing Queen’, by ABBA (1976) ‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer (1977) ‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie (1979) ‘Atomic’, by Blondie (1980) ‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA (1980) ‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz (1982) ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, by Bonnie Tyler (1983) ‘Relax’, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1984) ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive (1985) ‘The Power of Love’, by Jennifer Rush (1985) ‘It’s a Sin’, by Pet Shop Boys (1987) ‘Theme from S-Express’, by S’Express (1988) ‘Ride on Time’, by Black Box (1989) ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinéad O’Connor (1990) ‘Would I Lie to You?’, by Charles & Eddie (1992) ‘No Limit’, by 2 Unlimited (1993) ‘Stay Another Day’, by East 17 (1994) ‘Firestarter’, by The Prodigy (1996) ‘Setting Sun’, by The Chemical Brothers (1996) ‘Your Woman’, by White Town (1997) ‘Beetlebum’, by Blur (1997) ‘Believe’, by Cher (1998) ‘…Baby One More Time’, by Britney Spears (1999)
*Abba and Blondie get around my ‘1 song per artist’ rule by cleverly releasing two brilliant number one singles in two different decades… And 1955 emerges as officially the best year for chart-toppers! Though the ’50s had an obvious advantage in the fact that I was choosing ten #1s out of seven (and a bit) years instead of a full decade. Maybe I should trim it down to eight ’50s number ones… But that would spoil my nice round fifty.
Of all the year 2000’s many, many number ones (this being twenty-four out of forty-two), is Craig David’s ‘7 Days’ its most famous…?
7 Days, by Craig David (his 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 30thJuly – 6th August 2000
There aren’t many Brits of my vintage who can’t still recite Craig’s week of wooing: I met this girl on Monday, Took her for a drink on Tuesday, We were making love by Wednesday, and on Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday… (sounds exhausting, to be honest…) We chilled on Sunday…
Like his first chart-topper, ‘Fill Me In’, this is light and airy commercial garage. The Spanish guitar riff and insistent beat make it more instantly appealing than its predecessor, and the chorus is as memorable as they come. It’s calmer, more confident, a fact also reflected in the lyrics. No longer is Craig David creeping around behind his girlfriend’s parents’ backs. Oh no, here he’s picking up a twenty-four year old ‘cinnamon queen’ in an underpass… She asks him for the time, and the rest is history.
The call and response bit, in which his friends quiz him on his conquest, is fun too, Was it for real…? Damn sure… It’s like ‘Summer Nights’ for the new millennium. Elsewhere, though, it does meander a little. Again, this is garage’s problem, in that it is so breezy in places that sometimes it fails to land. But, I’ll stick with my initial claim, in terms of the record’s sound being peak-2000, and the chorus being an era-defining earworm.
It also feels very old-fashioned too, twenty-five years down the line, when everyone now meets their romantic partners on the apps. Imagine approaching someone in a subway (he’s using the word in the British sense, rather than the American) and asking them out on a date. The 2025 version of this song wouldn’t get past day one, and would probably end in a restraining order.
It would be easy to argue that Craig David’s career peaked early, with his first two solo singles giving him his only two number ones. But he’s had a near twenty-year stretch of Top 40 hits, and thirteen further Top 10s. I’ll give a shout out to ‘Walking Away’ and ‘Don’t Love You No More (I’m Sorry)’ as two favourites of mine. However, he is probably just as well known in Britain for being played in caricature by Leigh Francis on ‘Bo’ Selecta!’, a massively popular comedy. David has both claimed to have been fine with his portrayal in the show; and has described it as “racist blackface”, and “hurtful beyond belief”. He probably does have a point, though, in claiming that it affected his career.
First of all, let’s get some things straight. I love Queen (who doesn’t?) I like Five (a fun boyband who tended to avoid ballads). I – and I hope my posts on the previous eight hundred and sixty-six number ones have proven this – am no purist. So why does this collaboration annoy me so…?
We Will Rock You, by Five (their 2nd of three #1s) & Queen (their 6th and final #1)
1 week, from 23rd – 30th July 2000
I don’t think it annoys me musically, as it is big, and beefy, and features a nice crunchy guitar solo. Plus, it begins and ends with a massive thunderclap, and has piped in crowd noise. It is not a song which holds back, or is interested in subtlety, and I appreciate that. I think it keeps the energy of the original, but updates it for the early noughties. As Abs so succinctly puts it in his rap: Five bring the funk, Queen bring the rock…
What annoys me is the fact that both acts had far better songs than this which failed to make number one. Five released a great run of hip-pop hits in the late nineties that fell short. Queen have a multitude of huge, household classics that never made #1. It feels that this record made it on novelty value, rather than merit (and it wouldn’t have made number one at all had Ronan Keating not released his dodgy enhanced CDs).
What also annoys me is the fact that Queen are featured and credited. If this was a sample – as Five did very well when using ‘I Love Rock n Roll’ on ‘Everybody Get Up’ – I might view it more favourably. But Brian May and Roger Taylor play their guitar and their drums, scoring Queen a number one to rank alongside ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Under Pressure’, and it just feels a little cheap, a little tawdry. This is how one of Britain’s most legendary rock acts end their chart-topping career: whoring themselves out as a backing band. It may be wishful thinking, but I wonder if Freddie Mercury would have allowed this, had he been around? And given John Deacon’s retirement from the band, and his subsequent comments on their later work, we can assume he wasn’t overly impressed either.
But what annoys me more than anything, really, is the fact that I can’t now listen to the original ‘We Will Rock You’ without wanting to add the moronically catchy We’re gonna rock ya baby! line to the chorus…
Anyway, whatever my objections, this did make number one. The two groups had performed the track together a few months earlier at the Brit Awards, too. Amazingly, Queen now have as many chart-toppers without Freddie as they managed with him. Plus, since we were keeping track of Kylie’s three chart-topping decades, we should mention that this record’s success meant that Queen joined Cliff Richard in having made top spot in four different decades.
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…
It’s time for part two of our semi-regular B-sides feature. My first was on Oasis, the band perhaps most famous for the quality of their B-sides. For my second I’m turning to one of the great chart-topping singles…
‘Space Oddity’ was David Bowie’s first chart hit, and his first number one. Not at the same time, however. It made #5 on its first release in 1969, tying in with the Apollo 11 moon landing, before belatedly making #1 six years later, after a re-release. (Read my original post here.)
For the 1975 rerelease, another old tune was chosen as the first B-side. ‘Changes’ had featured on Bowie’s 1971 album ‘Hunky Dory’, but had flopped completely as a single in early 1972. (Amazingly, Bowie had been looking like a one-hit wonder following the original ‘Space Oddity’, and had to wait until his Ziggy Stardust era for another hit.)
Despite now being one of his signature songs, you can kind of see why ‘Changes’ failed to catch on at the time. What exactly is it? Is it glam? Is it jazz? The chorus and the middle-eight are great power pop. It’s listed as ‘Art-pop’, but then that sounds like the sort of genre given to songs that nobody can quite place.
The second 1975 B-side was an offcut from the Ziggy Stardust sessions, ‘Velvet Goldmine’. Testament to the depth of Bowie’s career, this is another now-classic that went unnoticed at the time. Bouncy, theatrical and fruity, with a brilliant humming-slash-whistling outro that reminds me of Lee Marvin’s ‘Wand’rin Star’. Unlike ‘Wand’rin Star’, however, this is an ode to blowjobs: I had to ravish your capsule, Suck you dry… The song is now so well-respected in the annals of glam that it lent its name to the 1998 movie ‘Velvet Goldmine’, about a fictional glam-rock star.
A bonus for you here, as ‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’ was the B-side to the original 1969 release of ‘Space Oddity’. It’s an epic tale about… something. When I reluctantly admit that I’m not a fully paid up member of the Bowie fanclub, it’s songs like this that have put me off. This single version is quite sparse – just a guitar and some trings – but he re-recorded it for his eponymous second album, with an orchestra, and that version has an appealing grandeur about it. (I’m still not sure what it’s about, though…)
Our next number one feels very much of its time – the Corrs were probably playing on at least one British radio station at any given moment between 1998 and 2000 – but also a bit of an outlier among the chart toppers we’ve been working our way slowly through.
Breathless, by The Corrs (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 9th – 16th July 2000
‘Breathless’ isn’t dance. It’s not hip-hop. It’s not bubblegum. Instead, we’ve got some good old-fashioned MOR pop-rock. With actual guitars! And it’s a welcome sound!
At the time, as an unsufferable teen, I thought this track was a bit naff. And yes, it has lots of unfashionable touches. There are some cheesy synth fills, revving guitars, and that naggingly catchy (but also pretty annoying) Go-ooh on! Go-ooh on! hook. But the driving riff, and the sheer breeziness of the song wins me over, belatedly. I’m just disappointed that I’d written it off for a quarter of a century!
The fact that I wrote it off, and didn’t pay much attention to it, is probably tied to the fact that, despite being chart-obsessed from the age of eleven, and despite owning every ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ album between… I think… Now 35 and Now 44; by my mid-teens I’d lost interest. I went from taping the charts from the radio and writing them out in notebooks every week to not really knowing who was who in the Top 10. I knew the big songs, from the radio and from classmates, but couldn’t have told you who was #1 on any given week. This lasted until around late-2002, when my interest in the charts suddenly burst back into life, and has never left!
Anyway, back to the song at hand. It also has some vaguely Celtic touches, which every Irish act had to have at this time, but these are dialled well back from some of the Corrs’ earlier hits. What it reminds me of is Shania Twain’s huge ‘Come On Over’ album from around the same time (now she really should have had a couple of number ones out of that…) It’s no surprise then to learn that this was produced by ‘Mutt’ Lange, producer of, and husband to, Shania. And thanks, presumably to Lange, we are treated to a guitar solo! When was the last time we heard one of those?? (Oasis, a couple of months ago, but you get my point…)
The Corrs are a family group, consisting of siblings Andrea, Sharon, Caroline, and Jim. The three women are raven-haired Irish beauties, which meant the jokes in the playground at the time were mainly at Jim’s expense… ‘Breathless’ was the lead single from the follow-up to the hugely popular ‘Talk On Corners’ album, and so was always positioned to do well. I’m glad it did this well, though, as I’ve been able to rediscover a fine slice of power pop. It represents the pinnacle of the Corrs’ chart fortunes too, as they only managed one further Top 10 hit. They split in 2005, but reformed a decade later and remain a touring and recording concern.
May we have your attention please? May we have your attention please? Won’t the highest selling male artist of the 21st century please stand up?
The Real Slim Shady, by Eminem (his 1st of eleven #1s)
1 week, from 2nd – 9th July 2000
Whatever your opinion of rap as a genre, or on the talents of Marshall Mathers III, it’s hard to deny that we’re introducing a massive cultural phenomenon with this next chart-topper. And for the record, I will not deny Eminem’s skills as a rapper, which are well on display here. This is hip-hop for the new millennium – sharp, slick and rapid-fire – making much of the rap that we covered in the eighties and nineties sound slow and antiquated.
And, even though this wasn’t his first chart hit, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ acts as the perfect introduction to Eminem. The beat is robust, if simple and repetitive, starting as the theme to a kid’s TV show gone wrong, ending with a slightly out-of-tune recorder coda, and peppered with lots of fairly juvenile sound effects. While the lyrics – which are what we’re all here for – are spat out with precision, and venom. Not a beat or a syllable is wasted, as this sleek, modern rap-bot veers from vulgar, to profound, to problematic, to funny, quickly marking off all the boxes in Eminem Bingo.
We’ll deal with the vulgarity first, as this is the most explicit number one single we’ve met yet. Aside from the actual swear words, we’ve got reference to clitorises, VD, Viagra and jerking off, and whom Christina Aguilera may or may not have given head to. Some of the cultural references haven’t aged too well, though: for example I don’t remember why or when Tom Green humped a dead moose. Profundity (of sorts) comes from the fact that Eminem anticipates the controversy that this song will cause, positions himself as a voice of the disenfranchised (the little guy at Burger King spitting on your onion rings), and encourages everyone to raise their middle fingers to the world.
The problematic bits, for me at least, are his making light of Tommy Lee’s domestic violence against Pamela Anderson, and his comparison of homosexuality to bestiality. Yes Eminem duetted with Elton John shortly after this, and has gone on to show that he’s probably not homophobic; but the lyrics are still there, ringing in this gay man’s ears as loudly as they did when he was a closeted fourteen-year-old. But then other parts of this record are undeniably funny, and the Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records, But I do, So fuck him, And fuck you too… line ranks as one of my all-time favourite chart-topping lyrics.
We have ten more of his number ones to get through, so plenty of time to dissect the many guises of Eminem. His music can be extremely unpleasant; but at the same time, to react to it with outrage is to give him exactly what he wants. This isn’t his best chart-topper, and I think its impact is now marred by the fact that we’ve had twenty-five years of similar schtick, and several (far less funny) comedy singles, from him down the years. But it does represent a moment in time when Slim Shady was becoming both the biggest star on the planet, and public enemy number one.
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.
The UK Number Ones Blog 