Today’s Top 10 – June 12th, 1979

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This latest randomly chosen Top 10 truly was randomly chosen. Other ‘Today’s Top 10’ posts have been themed around the Summer of Love, or the Merseybeat Explosion, or my birthday. This one though doesn’t feel like it has a theme. Yet mid-1979 was an interesting time for the charts – late-stage disco and cutting-edge new wave jostling to be the sound of the era – and I’d count the late seventies to early eighties one of the most fertile periods for number ones during our regular countdown. So, I’m intrigued and excited to hear what the top ten selling singles were this week forty-six years ago! Let’s do it…

10. ‘H.A.P.P.Y. Radio’ by Edwin Starr (up 12 / 4 weeks on chart)

Setting the tone for what is a fairly toe-tapping chart, it’s Edwin Starr and a disco-soul beauty crashing into the Top 10. ‘Songs celebrating the joy of listening to the radio’ is a not insignificant sub-genre, especially in the seventies and eighties, and this is a great addition to the canon. It’s a musical natural high… Edwin growls, over a high-tempo beat and funky horns. I had never heard this before – the only Starr song I knew was ‘War’ – but this was his third biggest hit in the UK (ascending to its #9 peak a week later). And he is an absolute dude in the video above, shimmying like a pro while some very perky backing dancers cut shapes behind him.

9. ‘Theme from the Deer Hunter (Cavatina)’, by The Shadows (up 1 / 8 weeks on chart)

If I’d sat down to make a list of acts I might have expected to see in the Top 10 in June 1979, then I think it would have taken me several days to suggest the Shadows. But here they are. For their recent ‘String of Hits’ album they had covered several big seventies hits, such as ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Baker Street’ and ‘You’re the One That I Want’ (link provided, because that’s just too intriguing not to…) Their take on ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ had made #5 a few months before, and now this cavatina – Italian for a simple melody – gave them their sixteenth Top 10 hit (or their forty-first, if you include all their Cliff features). It’s a beautiful melody, much more mature and restrained than their earlier work, but Hank Marvin’s guitar chimes as crystal clear as ever.

8. ‘We Are Family’, by Sister Sledge (up 13 / 4 weeks on chart)

Here comes the disco, then. Despite how close to the genre was to imploding through over-exposure (more so in the US, with ‘disco sucks’ and all that, than in the UK), the first six months of 1979 brought us some of disco’s biggest hits. ‘I Will Survive’, ‘Tragedy’, not to mention ‘Y.M.C.A’. In fact, just cast your eyes further down this Top 10 to see the extent of the disco domination. ‘We Are Family’ was the follow-up to Sister Sledge’s breakthrough hit ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’, and surprisingly for such a ubiquitous anthem it managed no higher than #8 (then #5 after a remix in 1993). It was written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the first song they had ever written and not recorded with Chic.

7. ‘Are “Friends” Electric’, by Tubeway Army (up 13 / 5 weeks on chart)

Disco may have been reigning supreme, but there were signs that its days were numbered. Here comes the sound of the future: Gary Numan and Tubeway Army storming into the Top 10 on their way to number one. Not technically the first new-wave #1, but certainly one of the most arresting of all time. And almost certainly the only one about a robot prostitute. Read my original post here.

6. ‘Shine a Little Love’, by Electric Light Orchestra (non-mover / 5 weeks on chart)

Every band seemingly had a disco phase in the late-seventies, and ELO were no different. Though they were hardly the most unlikely candidates to do so, being always willing to try out various pop sounds in their fantastic run of singles throughout the decade. There’s so much more to this record than the disco strings: the galloping beat, the falsetto chorus, the groovy bassline… Great stuff.

5. ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’, by McFadden & Whitehead (up 3 / 5 weeks on chart)

Disco could often veer towards cheesiness – see the record on top of this chart – but the record peaking this week at #5 is as classy and soulful as the genre got. Despite sounding more like a law firm, McFadden and Whitehead were R&B producers du jour throughout the seventies, working with acts like Gloria Gaynor, The Jacksons, James Brown and Gladys Knight, before releasing their own recordings. ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’ was their one big hit, but it has gone down in history as an anthem of Black Americans: I know you refuse to be held down no more… Its fantastic bassline has also lived on, and provided the foundations for Madison Avenue’s 2000 chart-topper ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’.

4. ‘Boogie Wonderland’, by Earth, Wind & Fire and The Emotions (non-mover / 6 weeks on chart)

Disco-ed out yet? Hopefully not, for here we have one of the most disco-drenched records of all time. ‘Boogie Wonderland’ delivers on its titular promise, providing five minutes of dramatic strings, falsetto vocals and funky bassline. The video gives the impression of a massive jam session, with the members of Earth, Wind and Fire, along with female vocalists the Emotions, having a grand old time on stage. It was inspired, though, by the story of a murdered schoolteacher, with ‘Boogie Wonderland’ representing a mythical place where troubles could be forgotten.

3. ‘Dance Away’, by Roxy Music (down 1 / 8 weeks on chart)

Perhaps the outlier in this week’s Top 10, as Roxy Music give us a slice of smooth, smooth soft rock. It was their first big hit in almost four years, and marked a new chapter after their emergence as a maverick glam rock act at the start of the decade. ‘Dance Away’ was dropping from its #2 peak, making it Roxy Music’s joint-biggest hit in the UK, and it set the tone for their second era of chart dominance, which would end in a belated #1, with their cover of ‘Jealous Guy’ in the wake of John Lennon’s assassination.

2. ‘Sunday Girl’, by Blondie (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)

Dropping after three weeks on top, it’s Blondie’s second British number one. Perhaps the most forgotten of their six chart-toppers? But considering that Blondie had one of the strongest runs of hitmaking in pop history, even their less well-remembered tunes are crackers. It’s also their poppiest number one, with a retro girl-group feel among the new-wave power chords. Read my original post on it here.

1. ‘Ring My Bell’, by Anita Ward (up 2 / 3 weeks on chart)

And climbing to the top for the first week of a fortnight at number one, one of the last huge disco hits. In fact, you could argue that this was the last true disco chart-topper, as it was followed by Tubeway Army, the Boomtown Rats, the Police and the Buggles. Of course plenty of number ones since have had disco touches, all the way through to the nu-disco dance hits that we’ve been covering throughout 2000, but they all feel more like they’re using it as a reference, rather than being born of the movement.

So, if ‘Ring My Bell’ was indeed the last true disco #1, it is both a classic of the genre, and an explanation for why some were growing sick of it. For everyone who enjoys the pew-pew sound effects and the high-pitched innuendo of the chorus, there will be others who find it gimmicky and annoying. I could go either way on this record, depending on my mood.

And that was the Top 10 on this day forty-six years ago. A real uptempo run of hits, dominated by disco, but with enough of a hint of the decade to come to keep things interesting. And, of course, the Shadows, too. Up next, we will be heading into 2001…

886. ‘Can We Fix It?’, by Bob the Builder

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Ah, the classic British Christmas. Pigs in blankets, a half-pissed Granny, more rain than snow outside, and some novelty tripe at number one in the charts…

Can We Fix It?, by Bob the Builder (his 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 17th December 2000 – 7th January 2001

Bob the Builder joins Mr Blobby, Benny Hill, the kids of St. Winifred’s, Little Jimmy Osmond, and several more, in the festive hall of shame. But I will say that, while ‘Can We Fix It?’ is not a song I’m desperate to ever revisit after this; it’s far from the most heinous example of festive excess.

It’s an expansion on the theme to the popular kids’ TV show, with lots of fun musical references. It opens with a version of the escalating ‘Twist and Shout’ intro, also heard in more respectable chart-toppers from David Bowie and the Manic Street Preachers (which means that the year 2000’s first and last #1s are connected in the most unlikely way). Elsewhere there’s a pretty current 2-step garage beat, and lots of record scratches. For a song based on a children’s TV show theme it actually sounds like it could, in a not too distant parallel universe, be a real pop song.

In the video, by which novelties like this often live and die, Bob the Builder puts on various pop star guises, the most memorable of which is Liam Gallagher, complete with a parka and a sneering microphone stance. It also helps that Neil Morrissey, AKA Bob, has a Jarvis Cocker-esque drawl to his voice, sounding almost like a real rock star, but also like he’s very much not taking this seriously at all.

So, like I said, far worse musical crimes have been committed in the name of a Christmas number one. (And that’s before we mention the many God-awful, non-festive novelty chart-toppers…) But quite how this managed to become 2000’s best-selling single – in a year not short of generational classics – and the entire decade’s 10th best seller (!), I’m not quite sure. But hey, at least it kept Westlife’s ‘What Makes a Man’ off top spot, denying them a second Christmas #1 in a row.

Interestingly too, it was the only one of the year 2000’s forty-two chart-toppers that climbed to the top, entering at #2 behind ‘Stan’ the week before. It then peaked in sales in its third week, taking the coveted Christmas prize.

We finally, then, reach the end of 2000: the longest year we’ll ever cover. I published the first number one of this year on 23rd January, real-time, and we’re now well into June. I’m not sure I can sum up a year with so many different number one singles, but I’ve enjoyed more of them than I expected to (while it’s also been a self-indulgent trawl through my fifteenth year on this planet). Back then I was frustrated at the high turnover, feeling that it devalued the charts (which it does), but I’m coming round to the feeling that variety is indeed the spice of life. Meanwhile, at the time of writing in 2025, the current UK #1 has just entered its twelfth week on top…

885. ‘Stan’, by Eminem

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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…

884. ‘Never Had a Dream Come True’, by S Club 7

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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!

883. ‘Independent Women (Pt. 1)’, by Destiny’s Child

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Question…

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.

882. ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’, by LeAnn Rimes

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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.

On This Day… 27th May

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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.

881. ‘Same Old Brand New You’, by A1

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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’.

880. ‘My Love’, by Westlife

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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…

879. ‘Holler’ / ‘Let Love Lead the Way’, by The Spice Girls

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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…