Our 5th (!) boyband of the year is, fittingly, Five. And of the seven boyband number ones so far in 1999 (eight, if we include solo Ronan Keating) ‘Keep on Movin’ is, for my money, the best.
Keep on Movin’, by Five (their 1st of three #1s)
1 week, from 31st October – 7th November 1999
Late-nineties boybands, or their management, had a clear choice to make: ballads, or bad boys? We know what direction Boyzone and Westlife went in, but Five took the opposite path. (And yes, I know that Five were styled as 5ive, but it’s something that I’ve always thought looked stupid. I will be referring to them as Five throughout, just as Pink will never be ‘P!nk’, nor Kesha ‘Ke$ha’.)
Of course, East 17 (bad boys) took ‘Stay Another Day’ (a classic ballad) to Christmas number one, but bear with my theory. Five played into a faux hip-hop, street fashions look, more like a young NKOTB than any of their British counterparts. Their debut single was, for example, the basketball referencing ‘Slam Dunk (Da Funk)’. In addition, all five looked like they could handle themselves in a pub brawl (Jay in particular, with the Desperate Dan jaw and the eyebrow ring, always looked like he’d gotten lost on the way from home from his shift at a building site). Even the cute ones, Abs and Ritchie, gave the impression that they’d gleefully steal a member of Westlife’s lunch money.
Not that ‘Keep on Movin’ is at all street, or hard-edged though. It’s a mid-tempo, perky pop tune about always looking on the bright side of life. Get on up, When you’re down, Baby take a good look around… No overwrought declarations of love, or grand statements about flying without wings. When the rainy days are dyin’, Gotta keep on tryin’, When the bees and birds are flyin’… Not lyrics to trouble the Nobel Prize committee, but still kind of sweet.
Musically it’s got a couple of interesting touches, in the verses that must have been influenced by Blur’s ‘Coffee and TV’, which had been a hit a few months earlier, and in the ear-catching, sitar-sounding riff. It sounds very modern for the late-nineties, both in the music and the down-to-earth, positive sentiment, like something One Direction might have put out a decade or more later.
It was also quite the departure from some of Five’s earlier hits, which were much more ‘90s R&B, Backstreet Boys influenced – tunes like ‘When the Lights Go Out’, ‘If Ya Getting Down’, and the Joan Jett sampling ‘Everybody Get Up’. Maybe this shift to a more mature, family-friendly sound is why they managed a belated number one single, but can we just take a moment to bemoan that none of those fun songs listed above made #1, unlike every turgid ballad Westlife ever crapped out.
Speaking of the Backstreet Boys, and by association Max Martin, we should mention the production credit here for his British equivalent, Steve Mac: a man who was putting his name on the third of what is now thirty UK chart-toppers. I should also mention that as much as I think this is a decent pop song, and Five a generally fun boyband, their next chart-topper is, shall we say, polarising…
Back, by unpopular demand, for one week only… Westlife.
Flying Without Wings, by Westlife (their 3rd of fourteen #1s)
1 week, from 24th – 31st October 1999
In earlier posts, I had mentioned the existence of two Westlife songs that I quite liked. (I then realised that ‘If I Let You Go’ was a bit of a bop, and had to admit to liking three Westlife records.) ‘Flying Without Wings’ was one of the original two, but question is: does it live up to my expectations…?
Well, sort of. It is a decent enough pop ballad, a three-minute long crescendo that builds to an actually quite stirring finale. And, credit where it’s due, I think a lot of that is down to the boys’ vocals, especially – and I’m going to attempt this without Googling – Shane (the plain, Gary Barlow-ish one) and Mark (the, um, gay one), who take the lead.
What lets the song down, and means it doesn’t quite manage to be the deep, soulful classic it wishes to be, are the clunky lyrics, and the cheap production. Unusually for a boyband song, the words focus partly on non-romantic love: friendships, parents, even the joy of being alone, all of which apparently make you feel like you’re flying without wings… Which is a pretty banal title, really. Meanwhile the production is pure ‘X-Factor winners single’ shlock, when a more stripped back backing might have worked wonders.
It’s records like this that make me wonder: who were Westlife’s fans? Ok, ‘If I Let You Go’ was teen-pop, but this and ‘Swear It Again’ are very middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road. I was thirteen when this came out, and don’t remember any Westlife fans at school (though maybe they were just keeping it quiet). Then again, three number ones in a row don’t lie. Though we should at some point, when we’ve truly run out of things to say about yet another one-week-wonder ballad, explore just how canny the band’s management were in securing them all these number ones.
So, ‘Flying Without Wings’: pretty good, compared to much of Westlife’s output, but not the classic it so clearly wants to be. And I’d say that there are plenty of their songs that are better remembered a quarter of a century on. Interestingly, though, in 2004 a live version of ‘Flying Without Wings’ made history by becoming the first ever #1 on the download chart (a chart that in 2005 would be combined into the regular singles countdown). What I would like to ask, though, is why oh why did they not save this record for their Christmas release a few weeks later, rather than the dross they did eventually serve up…? More on that soon enough.
Genie in a Bottle, by Christina Aguilera (her 1st of four #1s)
2 weeks, from 10th – 24th October 1999
Despite both being former squeaky clean Disney Mouseketeers, it felt from the very beginning that Christina Aguilera was packaged as the anti-Britney, the bad girl, the girl next door if you lived in a slightly dodgier neighbourhood… And listening to ‘Genie in the Bottle’, you can see why.
Compared to ‘…Baby One More Time’ its edges are sharper, its beats more streetwise and sassy, and its lyrics a lot more steamy. My body’s saying let’s go, But my heart is saying no… One thing I’d never really notice before is the dramatic squelchy synth riff that underpins the whole shebang, that I quite like. But it’s not got the oomph of the Max Martin produced ‘…Baby’, and it has probably not gone on to be remembered as equally iconic.
Yet once it gets to the chorus, it can compete with anything any member of pop royalty could come up with. Christina has standards, and isn’t going to just give it up for anyone. If you wanna be with me, There’s a price you have to pay, I’m a genie in a bottle, You gotta rub me the right way… Conservatives frothed a little at all the rubbing – Debbie Gibson of all people claimed that it was inappropriate for a teen idol, suggesting that she hadn’t been paying much attention to the previous five decades’ worth of pop history – but really, it’s a song about abstinence: My heart’s beating at the speed of light, But that don’t mean it’s got to be tonight…
Although in terms of UK sales and chart success Christina fared less well than Britney, she trumped her in one fairly essential area. Christina can sing. There’s not much in this record to prove that fact, but towards the end she starts letting loose with some of her trademark yeaheayeahs. And to be honest, it’s enough. Less is often more with Christina, the over-singers’ over-singer.
Despite just now claiming that she can’t sing, I will not often hear a bad word against Britney. And yet, I do think that Christina has lived somewhat unfairly in her shadow. Who, for example, remembers that she also kissed Madonna at the VMAs…?? (This is all from my Western-slanted viewpoint. She is arguably a much bigger name in the Latin world, having recorded half her output in Spanish). Christina and her team clearly disliked this one-sided comparison too, as for her second English-language album she will return with one of the great pop comeback tunes, a song that will make ‘Genie in a Bottle’ sound incredibly tame by comparison. Xtina awaits…
And so we come to this story, about a little guy who lives in a blue world…
Blue (Da Ba Dee), by Eiffel 65 (their 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October 1999
Blue his house, With the blue little windows, And a blue Corvette, Everything is blue for him… I warned you that we weren’t quiet done with the novelty dance hits, but it feels unfair to lump this in with the Vengaboys’ banal beats. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ has a strange depth to it, a deep melancholy in the piano line, and a compelling bizarreness to the verses’ revving bass and deliberately off-key vocals.
For a start, it’s clearly about someone in the middle of a depressive episode, wandering through a world where everything is blue, inside and out, cause he ain’t got nobody to listen… This guy needs help! ‘Dancing through the tears’ is a well-established dance music trope, but very few records can have mixed dance and depression like this. And really, can you actually dance to this song? The bpms are fairly low, and it doesn’t really have peaks and troughs, the moments of euphoria that dance records need. Just a steady trudge through a blue world.
I can see why this record annoys people (‘Rolling Stone’ have it as the 14th most annoying song ever), and yet I think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, it’s repetitive and sing-songy. Yes the chorus is just lots and lots of da ba dees. Yes, the video is spectacularly bad (I’m not sure what’s more dated, the CGI or the band’s frosted tips). But so what? Get beyond that, and listen to the moment in the verses where the autotune twists the lyrics to make it sound like the singer’s voice is breaking, and wonder if there might not be some depth to this record.
Plus, if nothing else, it has left the world with that piano hook, which has been sampled, remixed and interpolated many times in the past twenty-five years. A re-write by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, which tapped into the 2020’s nostalgia for all things ‘90s, made number one a couple of years back, while there’s not a Best of the Nineties compilation worth its salt without this tune on it, like it or not.
Eiffel 65 are an Italian duo (formerly a trio when this made #1), and this their first big hit. They managed a #3 follow-up, ‘Move Your Body’, which was more of the same without being anywhere near as memorable. They then vanished from most charts, though they were scoring Italian hits well into the 2000s. They are still active, and were recently seen trying to represent San Marino at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile the funny blue alien from the video, Zorotlekuykauo Sushik IV, AKA ‘Zorotl’ has also released music under his own steam (with a song written by the members of Eiffel 65). The more you know…
Bookending the summer of 1999, Vengaboys return with their second number one.
We’re Going to Ibiza!, by Vengaboys (their 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 12th – 19th September 1999
But in Vengaworld, summer isn’t over yet. We’re off to Ibiza. Or should I say ‘Ay-bizza’ – rhymes with ‘pizza’ – which I assume how the island is pronounced in Dutch. It is a re-write of Typically Tropical’s 1975 chart-topper, ‘Barbados’, complete with captain’s in-flight announcements, plus bonus nonsensical chanting.
The original was plenty catchy and so, yes, this is still an earworm. The Vengaboys’ producers knew what they were doing, creating records that stay with you no matter how much you’d wish they wouldn’t. And it’s a little more chilled than ‘Boom x4’, with it’s semi-calypso beats. But it’s still damn annoying, and the tacky synth line is jarring.
And while Typically Tropical’s original came in an age when air travel was still a luxury – and when the journey to Barbados described in the song would have been a fantasy for most – the Vengaboys’ version conjures up visions of a cheap EasyJet flight full of rowdy Glaswegians. It’s an interesting example of how even the most throwaway pop records can tell us something about society beyond the charts.
Most of you will probably be glad to learn that this is the last we’ll hear of the Vengaboys (though it’s far from the last novelty dance record of the year). They were amazingly popular despite the quality of most of their records, with their two chart-toppers coming in the middle of a run of seven straight Top 10 hits. I once went on a desert safari in Qatar, driving up and down sand dunes in a jeep at breakneck speed, during which our driver played Vengaboys Greatest Hits on a loop. You can’t properly appreciate the cold majesty of the desert unless it’s accompanied by an extended mix of ‘We Like to Party!’
Recently, as we’ve slowly stumbled towards the fag-end of the ‘90s, I’ve been wondering why pop music took such a turn towards the disposable, and the bubblegum, at the turn of the century. There are lots of sensible reasons, like the CD single being at the peak of its popularity, with discounts, and clever marketing all targeting teens and tweens; but I have an inkling that the impending unknown that was Y2K also brought out people’s hedonistic side, that they were literally partying like it was 1999. Why feel any shame about buying ‘We’re Going to Ibiza’ when the world might end in four months’ time…? I was there, though just a little too young to properly remember the prevailing public mood, and whether or not a fin de siècle over-indulgence is to blame for the popularity of the Vengaboys. But it might have been.
Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…), by Lou Bega (his 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, from 29th August – 12th September 1999
…this is Mambo Number Five. Autumn may have begun while this record was at number one, but the Latin summer of 1999 is still going strong. As with both our previous Latin chart-toppers – ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ and ‘Mi Chico Latino’ – yes, this is cheesy, and yes, this is Latin music with all the raw edges softened. But I challenge anyone to listen to this and not smile, just a bit. And even today, you throw this on at any kids party, or wedding, hell even at a funeral, and the dancefloor will light up.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a mambo at number one. Forty-four years, to be exact, when Rosemary Clooney scored her second chart-topper with ‘Mambo Italiano’ (which was mambo in name more than anything else), and Pérez Prado had an instrumental smash with ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’. It was Prado himself, the King of Mambo, who originally recorded ‘Mambo No. 5’ in 1949. He had also been back in the charts in 1995, despite dying in 1989, when ‘Guaglione’ made #2 thanks to a feature on a Guinness advert.
Lou Bega, a German-born Italian-Ugandan rapper, had the idea to sample ‘Mambo No. 5’ and turn it into a modern pop-rap song while living in Miami, where he had been turned on to Latin music. The brass band, and the shouts, are that of Prado; but Bega added lots of ad-libs, and some wonderfully dated record scratches and tapes-getting-all-tangled-in-the-deck sound effects (kids these days will never know the pain…)
And of course, he also added the words. Seven ladies that went down in history. Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica. There is a particular joy in knowing someone by any of these names, and of trying to crowbar their accompanying line into conversation. I used to work with a Rita (all I need), while I also know a Mary (all night long), but my personal goal is to meet a Sandra (in the sun).
What’s interesting is not just how big this genre of music suddenly became in the summer of 1999, but how much songs like this and ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ remain in the public consciousness, far more than the Westlife’s many ballads and anonymous dance tunes. Lou Bega managed one more minor hit in the UK with the follow-up to this, ‘I Got a Girl’, in which he yet again lists his many girlfriends. He remains active, still dressing like Pablo Escobar on his summer holidays, still peddling his schtick (his most recent release on Spotify samples ‘Macarena’).
Still, he’ll always have ‘Mambo No. 5’. Stick a random pin on a map and chances are you’ll hit a country where this record made #1. In France it was there for a mind-blowing twenty weeks… The success wasn’t all positive though, as Bega and his producers spent seven years locked in a legal battle with Pérez Prado’s estate, before a judge ruled that the writing credits be split evenly. Meanwhile my favourite story connected with ‘Mambo No. 5’ is that it was originally chosen as the theme song for the US Democrats’ 2000 convention, before someone pointed out that having Bill Clinton walk out to A little bit of Monica in my life wasn’t such a hot idea…
After a slightly disappointing start to her solo career, missing out on #1 by a few hundred copies to Boyzone, Ginger becomes the second Spice Girl to make top spot away from the band, and the first to do so completely on her own…
Mi Chico Latino, by Geri Halliwell (her 1st of four solo #1s)
1 week, from 22nd – 29th August 1999
Just a few weeks on from ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’, Geri Halliwell hops aboard the Latin-revival bandwagon. Or is it the mid-80s Madonna bandwagon? For this slice of Spanish silliness owes quite a large debt to Madge’s 1987 chart-topper ‘La Isla Bonita’. It also reminds me of holiday classic ‘Lambada’ in the melancholy chord progressions, not to mention ‘Viva Forever’s flamenco guitars, and even ‘Spice Up Your Life’ in the propulsive beat.
But what ‘Mi Chico Latino’ lacks in originality, it makes up for in camp charm. From the start, Geri clearly knew that her core fanbase were gay men, and she had no illusions of much wider appeal. (The video features a liberal amount of men in trunks, while the ‘B’-side was literally titled ‘G.A.Y.’) And she is, as has been well documented, no great vocalist. But she carries this tune along with a likeable purr in her voice.
Geri has, I have just discovered, a Spanish mother, which gives the lyrics a little more respectability. She chucks around some GCSE-level stuff like confetti – Donde esta… Yo no se… – but I’m fairly sure there was no mention of el hombre con fuego en la sangre in the textbooks my school used… I might have studied a bit harder if there had been.
Like the Westlife song it replaced at number one, nobody is going to argue that ‘Mi Chico Latino’ is a classic. But at the same time, it is. Sort of. A classic of the summer of ’99, when Latin pop was having a resurgence, and a one-time Spice Girl was on her way to becoming the country’s biggest female star, for a year or two at least. There’s something quite appealing in the way this record barrels along, on the castanets and the ayayays. ‘Loveably crap’ might be a good way to sum it up. That might also be a good way to sum up the entire solo career Geri Halliwell, my now-favourite Spice Girl.
Westlife’s first number one was knocked off top spot by Backstreet Boys, demonstrating the gulf in quality between glossy, Max Martin produced uber-pop and its rather limp and sickly British equivalent. So, for their second chart topping single, they took a leaf out of the American boyband playbook…
If I Let You Go, by Westlife (their 2nd of fourteen #1s)
1 week, from 15th – 22nd August 1999
First a disclaimer: I know Westlife are not British, and that calling an Irish act ‘British’ risks pissing off an entire nation, as well as ignoring a lot of recent, bloody history. But they were very popular in the UK, and we’re going to count them as one of us. We have a lot of Westlife number ones coming up, so it’s better to clarify things early on. Plus, geographically speaking, Ireland is part of the British Isles, so there.
To the music. ‘If I Let You Go’ is a much better song than ‘Swear it Again’. It sounds like it’s aimed at actual teenagers, not their aunties. I can imagine this being sung by Backstreet Boys, something I couldn’t say about Westlife’s debut hit. They’ve taken that faux hip-hop drumbeat which any pop song worth its salt was using in 1999, they’ve added a hugely effective bridge, and some classic boyband Oooh babys and Oh yeahs. Plus, we have a key change! Westlife were not often good; but when they were a key change was never far away.
Other enjoyable moments include the overblown drumbeat before the choruses, and the electric guitars that bring the song to something of a soaring climax. Electric guitars! Blimey. It’s all a bit… fun! Plus, it sounds as if the boys themselves are having a good time singing it, which always makes a song more enjoyable for the listener. I think we should take a moment to appreciate all this, knowing some of the horrors to come from these five lads.
Here I am, defending Westlife! I had mentioned in earlier comments that there were two Westlife songs I can tolerate. I wasn’t thinking of this one when I wrote that, and so file a third tune under ‘Westlife Songs I Don’t Mind’. It’s still a fairly basic pop song, but at least it’s not their usual syrupy crap. Or, rather, it is still their usual syrupy crap, but dressed up in a manner which could give Backstreet Boys a run for their money.
I did warn you… Just because Boyzone’s chart-topping days are over, we’re far from hearing the last of Groanin’ Ronan.
When You Say Nothing at All, by Ronan Keating (his 1st of three solo #1s)
2 weeks, from 1st – 15th August 1999
Barely three months on from ‘You Needed Me’, and before his band had even released their final single, Keating launched a solo career, with immediate success. Of course, he was helped in this by having his debut single included on the soundtrack to the year’s biggest romcom, ‘Notting Hill’, but still. I’ll admit, quietly and grudgingly, that I’ve always quite liked this…
It’s got a nice country lilt to it, and a decent chorus. Some of the production is very late-nineties bells and whistles, and it could have done without the overpowering backing singers. Plus the tin-whistle chorus is better not mentioned. Still, I’d tentatively state that this is better than at least four out of Boyzone’s six number ones.
The worst thing about it is… Yup, you guessed it. The singer. Ronan Keating is not a bad singer. He hits the right notes, he holds them, and you can make out what he’s saying (a quality my late gran held above all else). But his vocal affectations, his growls and lisps, his insistence on pronouncing his ‘ch’s and ‘sh’s like Sean Connery… He doesn’t speak like that. It’s put on when he sings. It’s annoying! And it was a huge risk for him to tempt every comedian in the land by releasing a record with the crucial line: You say it best, When you say nothing at all…
I’ve had various people commenting on Keating’s voice in previous posts. One has suggested that he might have had an alternate career as a grunge singer, which I can understand. Another has suggested that he is better on upbeat numbers, a theory that his performance on ‘When the Going Gets Tough’ doesn’t hold up but that we can put to the test again with his next chart-topper. Further thoughts on his vocal stylings are always welcome.
This was the fourth time in just over a decade that ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ had been a hit. Keith Whitley took it to the top of the Billboard Country Charts in 1988, while Alison Krauss & Union Station took it to the lower reaches of the Hot 100 in 1995. Both of those versions are a lot rawer, and less polished. Frances Black then took it to the Irish Top 10 in 1996, which is when Ronan first heard it. He upped the Irishness – perhaps inspired by B*Witched’s recent dedication to all things Celtic – and scored the biggest hit of all.
The two earlier ‘Today’s Top 10’s I’ve done were pretty succesful. Thanks to all who had a look, liked and commented. I was wondering what to do with the feature going forward, and I think I’ll use it to take a deeper look at interesting periods in chart history. What can the Top 10 tell us about where pop music was at a particular time and place?
So, we’ve done the death of the ’60s, and we’ve done the Summer of Love. Now we turn to perhaps one of the most exciting times in modern popular music: late-1963. The moment when the sixties finally started to swing. Thanks, mainly, to the Beatles. But not, as this chart will hopefully prove, solely because of them. For those interested in significant world events, this was also the Top 10 on the week that JFK was assassinated.
10. Let It Rock / Memphis, Tennessee, by Chuck Berry – down 4 (7 weeks on chart)
But what’s this…? Two rock ‘n’ roll tunes first released in 1959. How the charts like to mess with us… The reason is tied to the times, though. The Godfathers of rock, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry, had inspired the new Beat groups that we’ll be meeting further up this chart. The Beatles early albums were full of Berry songs, while the Stones’ first hit had been a cover of ‘Come On’ earlier in 1963. Pye Records saw an opportunity, and released some of these influential tunes for the first time in the UK. Amazingly, this was Berry’s first ever visit to the UK Top 10. A runaway train might not be the most obvious topic for a rock ‘n’ roll tune, but this wasn’t Berry’s first time singing about a railroad. And the way he makes his guitar sound like a train horn is iconic.
It was paired with the more laidback ‘Memphis, Tennessee’, which had also been a hit in a version by Dave Berry & the Cruisers around the same time. It pulls the same trick as such classics as Gilbert O’ Sullivan’s ‘Clair’, and Brotherhood of Man’s ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’, by tricking the listener into thinking that the singer is singing about a girlfriend, when he is actually singing about a small child. Berry, though, consumate storyteller that he was, manages to do it in a far less creepy manner, making the song more about the messy break-up, and the father’s regret, than about dodgy double entendres.
9. I’ll Keep You Satisfied, by Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas – up 2 (3 weeks on chart)
This one’s much more 1963. One of the big beat combos that had broken through earlier in the year (with another three to come higher up), and who had been at #1 just a few weeks earlier with the Lennon-McCartney tune ‘Bad to Me’. ‘I’ll Keep You Satisfied’ is another L&M composition and, while it would peak decently at #4, it isn’t quite as good. Still, it’s better than the Dakota’s next hit, the dubious ‘Little Children’. Watching the video above, the music may be (slightly) rocking, but Billy J. is giving good crooner energy. Nothing to worry grandma… yet.
8. I (Who Have Nothing), by Shirley Bassey – up 1 (9 weeks on chart)
A constant presence on the charts of the ’50s and ’60s: a bit of Bassey. This is three minutes of pure melodrama, as Shirley watches an old-flame woo his new girl. ‘I (Who Have Nothing)’ was adapted from an Italian hit, which was something of a theme in the early sixties. It’s a classic of its genre: an intro of swirling strings, quiet bits, and bits where she lets loose, belting out high notes like nobody else can. I always find Shirley Bassey somewhat lacking in subtlety, but then again – if you’ve got it flaunt it. If I could sing like her then I’d be belting out my Starbucks orders.
7. Blue Bayou / Mean Woman Blues, by Roy Orbison – down 3 (10 weeks on chart)
Another double-‘A’ side from an American rocker, who had been around since the ’50s. Unlike the Chuck Berry record, though, this was a new hit. ‘Blue Bayou’ is one of Orbison’s gentler numbers – for the Big ‘O’ could of course give Shirley Bassey a run for her money in the belting stakes – but it’s always been one of my favourites. Even as a young ‘un who had no idea what the hell a ‘bayou’ was. Linda Rondstadt recorded a famous cover in 1977, though that didn’t make the UK Top 10.
On the flipside of this disc was a cover of ‘Mean Woman Blues’, an Elvis track from 1957. Personally, while they are both fine singers, I prefer Elvis’s version. I prefer bombastic, overblown Orbison to rocking Orbison. On this record he tries out the famous Grrrrrr, which he’d use to great effect on his chart-topping ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ the following year.
6. Secret Love, by Kathy Kirby – up 6 (3 weeks on chart)
We’re keeping an eye out for the bands that came along in 1963 and changed popular music forever. But for every beat combo that made it big, there were plenty of British women who were just as instrumental in making the sixties swing. Kathy Kirby’s name hasn’t lasted alongside the likes of Cilla, Dusty, Lulu or Sandie Shaw, but here she is, enjoying her biggest hit. Her take on ‘Secret Love’ starts off very bombastically, much like Doris Day’s chart-topping original from a decade earlier, but soon a groovy guitars-and-backing-singers beat takes over, nicely updating the song for a new era. Plus, she has a great voice, with a bit of bite to it. Kirby may have retired from showbusiness in the early eighties and died in relative obscurity, but for a while she was a huge name: representing the UK at Eurovision in 1965 (finishing as runner-up) and hosting her own television programme.
5. Don’t Talk to Him, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows – up 2 (3 weeks on chart)
Common knowledge would have it that with the arrival of the Beatles et al the career of Cliff Richard – the hottest star in the land just a year or so earlier – fell off a, well, cliff. But glance at any Top 40 from any random moment post-1962, and it quickly becomes clear that Cliff went nowhere. Okay, he didn’t hit #1 as regularly, but ‘Don’t Talk to Him’ was one of an astounding 33 Top 10 hits he achieved across the sixties. I’d never heard this before, but it’s actually a really good song, combining a latin rhythm with some very current, beat guitars. This could easily have been written and recorded by one of the acts a couple of places up this chart, proving that Cliff gave those young whippersnappers a stronger run for their money than the history books suggest. *Some sources disagree as to whether this was Cliff solo, or Cliff with the Shadows, but I’ve gone with the latter*
4. Be My Baby, by the Ronettes – up 1 (6 weeks on chart)
The first of two all-time great, hall of fame pop songs in this week’s Top 4. The fact that this never made it higher than number four is a shock, and I’ve already done a post on how this really Should Have Been a #1. Even on this chart, in the year that it was recorded, where girl groups like the Ronettes were common, ‘Be My Baby’ stands out as special. It would stand out as special on any chart, in any era, simply because it is better than 99.95% of anything else in the history of pop.
3. Sugar and Spice, by the Searchers – down 1 (5 weeks on chart)
Here we are then, a purely Liverpudlian Top 3. The Searchers had been the 3rd Merseybeat band to make number one that year, after the two acts ahead of them in this chart, with their cover of The Drifters’ ‘Sweets for My Sweet’. Although still on the candy theme, ‘Sugar and Spice’ was an original, written by producer Tony Hatch. The chiming guitars and harmonies, as well the almost skiffle rhythm section, are pleasant, almost proto jangle-pop. But within a year, once the Stones, Kinks and Animals started making the upper reaches of the charts, it would start to sound a bit safe. The Searchers had two much better hits to come: their majestic second #1 ‘Needles and Pins’, and their cover of ‘When You Walk in the Room’. Like so many Beat bands that didn’t, or couldn’t, write their own material, the Searchers’ chart shelf-life was limited.
2. She Loves You, by The Beatles – up 1 (13 weeks on chart)
The song that officially kicked off the swinging sixties? The way that ‘She Loves You’ barrels in, chorus-first, on a wave of tight guitars and precision drumming, and yeah yeah yeahs. In France, this style of Beat music literally became known as ‘Yé-yé’ (and surely everyone knows by now how Mr McCartney Senior thought ‘yes, yes, yes’ would have sounded much more proper…) It is utterly perfect pop, to rank alongside the Ronettes a couple of places below it on this week’s chart. Although they developed their sound so far beyond this, I would still rank ‘She Loves You’ in my personal Beatles Top 3. You can read my original post on it, as a number one, here. On this week in November 1963, it was on its way back to number one, having already spent a month there that autumn, and on its way to becoming the biggest-selling single ever, at that point, in the UK (where it remains the Fab Four’s highest seller). Also, the seven-week gap between its two runs at the top remains a record to this day.
1. You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry & the Pacemakers – non-mover (7 weeks on chart)
The 4th Beat group in the Top 10 on this day sixty-one years ago, Gerry & the Pacemakers had made history by being the first act to make #1 with their first three singles. This was the final week of a month-long run for ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, and it would also be The Pacemakers final week on top of the charts. (You can read my original post on it here.) The fact that for only their 3rd single the band had turned to a cover of a song from a 1945 musical is telling. While the Beatles were just warming up, their contemporaries were often relying on covers (or on handouts from Lennon & McCartney). Plus there was the fact that for record labels and producers, rock and roll was still a very new thing, one that many were convinced wouldn’t last. It was seen as essential for bands to branch out, and to nurture a wider appeal.
Of course we know now that rock ‘n’ roll was here to stay, even if Gerry & The Pacemakers weren’t. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was also here to stay, and by the end of its initial chart run it had already been adopted by the crowd at Anfield as Liverpool FC’s unofficial anthem, to be belted out pre-match from here to eternity. The song returned to number one in a charity version by The Crowd, following the Bradford City fire, while it also made top spot for a third time in 2020 in a version featuring Michael Ball and the 100-year-old Captain Tom Moore, a phenomenon that can only be explained by how crazy we all went during lockdown. It is nothing short of a modern-day hymn, given the song’s role in the current British psyche.
I hope you enjoyed this flashback to Today’s Top 10 in 1963. What a snapshot of popular music that was, as Britain finally cast off the shadow of the War and started to get a little groovy. Up next we’ll return to 1999, and to a country just a few months away from the terrifying uncertainty of a new millenium. Would all the computers crash? Would planes start dropping from the sky…? Nobody knew, so confused and distracted were people that they kept buying Ronan Keating records in large quantities. Stress will do that to you…
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