00s pop music

969. ‘All This Time’, by Michelle

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Into 2004 we leap! Into what is officially the mid-2000s! And, as with 2003, the year’s first new #1 is the previous year’s TV singing contest winner…

All This Time, by Michelle (her 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 11th January – 1st February 2004

Michelle McManus, a ‘larger than life’ travel agent from Glasgow, was the winner of the second series of Pop Idol. Her win caused quite the stir, with judge Pete Waterman storming off the set. Her size was both credited as the only reason she won, and blamed as a sign of Britain’s moral degeneracy. But, of course, she still had enough goodwill to spend three weeks at number one with her winner’s single (although with barely 10% of the first week sales that her predecessor Will Young had managed).

Listening to ‘All This Time’, I am immediately put in two minds. The first is telling me that this record is, inevitably, shit. But the other is telling me that it is perfect in its shittiness. We’ll hear many more number one in this style, on this theme; but none will top ‘All This Time’, the ultimate tossed-out in thirty minutes winner’s single.

The stupidly dragged out, faux-grandiose intro. The cheesy reverb. The gospel-lite backing singers. The OTT opening line: This time yesterday, I thought I was gonna die… and the actually quite uplifting chorus: All this time, We’ve come a long, long way, I’ve waited a lifetime for today… And, of course, the key change. I think every winner post-McManus should have been made to record their own version of ‘All This Time’. It should have become the national anthem of TV ‘talent’ show champions. The best thing about it isn’t even musical though… It’s the fact that it was released under a single-name – Michelle – as if she was already fit to take her place alongside Cher, Madonna or Beyonce.

While the criticism around her weight was undoubtedly ugly, it is hard to hear anything in this recording to suggest why Michelle McManus had just won a nationwide singing contest. Her voice isn’t bad, but I’m pretty sure you could hear similar at any karaoke night along Sauchiehall Street. It’s reedy, and a bit strained on the middle-eight, though perhaps a full-throated ballad like this wasn’t in her comfort zone.

And yet, unlike 90% of TV talent show winners, Michelle still has a career. I was back in Scotland over Christmas, and on Hogmanay there she was, twenty-two years later, singing her lungs out on the BBC. She may only have had two hit singles, but she has hung in there largely by agreeing to appear on whatever platform will have her. She has been a pop singer, an actress, a radio presenter, a TV presenter, a talent contest judge, a choir master, and a columnist for the Glasgow Evening Times. She has performed with Rod Stewart, Lulu, and Robbie Williams, and has sung for the Pope. Her TV credits range from ‘You Are What You Eat’, to ‘Loose Women’, to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’.

You could view this as symptomatic of celebrity in the 21st century, the sheer graft required just to stay relevant at all costs; but I prefer to see it as testament to McManus’s personality. She seems like a nice person, someone you’d happily share a bottle of wine with. I do have a slightly personal connection to this song, too, as it was number one on my eighteenth birthday. It’s simultaneously a terrible, and yet somehow almost fitting, song to come of age to.

968. ‘Mad World’, by Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules

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The Battle for Christmas Number One in 2003 was an epic for the ages, and one of the closest ever fought. And God was I annoyed about the way it went at the time…

Mad World, by Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 21st December 2003 – 11th January 2004

The Darkness, the year’s cock-rocking breakthrough band (another example of how 2003 was a deeply strange musical year…) had already had several Top 10 hits and a huge-selling album, and looked primed to take the festive top-spot, with a throwback to the classic glam hits of seventies. ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’ sounded like Slade crossed with Queen crossed with Sparks. It was great, it was bookies’ favourite, and it was bought by me…

Then along came this two-year-old cover of Tears for Fears’ breakthrough hit, the musical opposite of the Darkness, understated, minimalist… dull… and outsold them by just five thousand copies. I thought it was a travesty!

But, now I’ve had time to calm down, twenty-three (!) years later, I can admit that this is an intriguing number one. It is miserable; but it is also starkly haunting. Lines like Dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had… and Children waiting for the day they feel good, Happy birthday, Happy birthday… do not your typical festive hit make. But it spoke to people (and if folks in 2003 think they are living in a mad world, then boy do I have news for them…) Plus, the muffled piano line makes me think of snow softly falling, so it is somewhat Christmassy, at a stretch.

I do wish they hadn’t used the echoey vocal effects, and had kept it even more spartan. It’s like they were worried that people might find it too boring, and so dressed it up unnecessarily. There is a tradition of minimalist festive hits – think the Housemartins, or the Flying Pickets – and this can just about sit alongside them. I do prefer the perkier original, with its natty synth riffs, and I do still wish the Darkness had made #1. This record would presumably have climbed to number one after Christmas, so both records could have had their moments on top.

Michael Andrews was a producer and writer of film scores, and Gary Jules (whose voice sounds to me remarkably like Michael Stipe) a singer-songwriter. Both had worked together previously and collaborated on this cover for the soundtrack to ‘Donnie Darko’, an indie movie released in 2001 and which, over two years later, had built up quite a cult following.

This leads to probably the real reason why I didn’t like ‘Mad World’ at the time. I was seventeen, had just finished my first semester at university, and this song, along with ‘Donnie Darko’, represented the cool kids. The edgelords. The Oh my God you haven’t seen ‘Fargo’…? crowd. I was not a cool kid, but deep down I did want to be. I just never seemed to like the things that the cool kids liked. I couldn’t help be drawn to the brash mainstream-ness of the Darkness.

Ironically, the minute this became a number one single, the cool kids would have had to ditch it for something much less well-known. But it had its moment, and was quite the story at the time. Neither Andrews nor Jules has appeared on the charts at any other time, and both remain gold-star one-hit wonders.

Apologies for the poor quality video…

967. ‘Changes’, by Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne

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Another of 2003’s slightly out of kilter number ones: Tatu, Room 5, R Kelly, Evanescence, Blu Cantrell… Now this.

Changes, by Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, 14th – 21st December 2003

Although as we are nearing Christmas, traditionally a time of love, joy, and slightly out of kilter songs, perhaps this one isn’t as surprising. It’s a cover of the old Black Sabbath ballad, featuring Sabbath’s lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, and his daughter Kelly, plus a few lyrical tweaks to change this from a song about a romantic relationship to one about a father-daughter relationship.

So, ‘woman’ is now ‘baby’, the ‘I’ is now ‘we’, while the I love you daddy… line really makes me flinch. Is it serious? Is it a novelty? Is it a pointless indulgence by a fabulously rich, celebrity family? (Christmas cards with family portraits are bad enough, but here we have a freaking family duet just in time for the holidays…) Or is it just a cynical cash-in, with the Osbournes at the height of their MTV series fame? Apparently Kelly had demanded her dad write a song about her – he’d previously written songs for his other two children – which feels quite in keeping with her bratty persona from the show.

I don’t think the style of the song suits either of their voices. Ozzy sounds strained, compared to the original – decades of ingesting every narcotic known to humankind taking their toll – while if there is a style that suits Kelly’s voice, this isn’t it (though I’ll admit, I did like her cover of ‘Papa Don’t Preach’). Add in an orchestra and a choir, and you lose the original’s simplicity in a schmaltzy swamp.

For The Prince of Darkness’s only chart-topper I do wish it rocked a bit more. Or, indeed, at all. But the original was also an outlier in the band’s discography, featuring neither guitars nor drums. It had been inspired by Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s separation from his wife, but wasn’t released as a single until Ozzy recorded a live version in the early nineties. Another notable version of the song is a much more soulful cover by Charles Bradley, made famous as the theme to Netflix’s ‘Big Mouth’.

Despite clearly being released with the Christmas market in mind, ‘Changes’ was never really in contention for the Xmas #1, thanks to an epic chart battle that we’ll get to in our next post. This was Ozzy’s sole UK Top 10 as a ‘lead’ artist, though he had featured once with Black Sabbath (‘Paranoid’, in 1970) and alongside Kim Basinger, on Was (Not Was)’s 1993 hit ‘Shake Your Head’. Kelly outdid her dad in this regard, by three to one. And this is only the second, and so far final, father-daughter #1, after Frank and Nancy.

Ozzy, fifty-five at time of release, becomes the third man in their sixth decade to top the charts in 2003, after Elton John and Oliver Cheatham. The year of the late-middle-aged man! He sadly died a few months ago, meaning that this record takes on an even more bittersweet tone listening to it now (although I still think it’s fairly crap…)

This video quality isn’t great, so here’s one with better audio…

966. ‘Leave Right Now’, by Will Young

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Will Young and Gareth Gates’ final chart-toppers (of four each), neatly sum up their post Popstars careers.

Leave Right Now, by Will Young (his 4th and final #1)

2 weeks, 30th November – 14th December 2003

Gareth’s final #1 was a cheesy, charity affair for Comic Relief. He then went on to release more cheese, before going into musical theatre and reality TV. He’s made the most of limited resources, and is just about still active in the industry. Will Young’s final #1, meanwhile, was a much bolder statement of intent.

It starts off with a folksy, acoustic backing, allowing his voice to do all the work. Yes, it’s light, a little reedy. But the lyrics require vulnerability, and vulnerability is what Will Young’s voice brings. The song then grows, with strings and a backing band of real instruments, to a subtly orchestral climax, before ending on Young’s wavering voice once again, singing the title line. I think I better leave right now…

It’s grown-up, and real, compared to the hits from his first album. The themes are mature too, about unrequited love, and about knowing when you have to follow your head over your heart. One contemporary review made me chuckle, claiming it to be one of the most English songs ever, a ‘Brief Encounter’ for the 21st century, complete with Young’s posh vowels and quivering restraint. (Years later, Young revealed that he had re-recorded his vocals multiple times because record executives thought he sounded too ‘gay’.)

That restraint goes, briefly, in the middle eight, when he even allows himself a throaty rasp on the I wouldn’t know how to say, How good it feels seeing you today… line. But that is overshadowed by the catchy simplicity of the chorus, which I remember going viral by the standards of 2003. This was the first moment when it really became clear to the general public that a TV talent show contestant could have some musical chops, and some hopes at longevity.

Though it should also be said that ‘Leave Right Now’ wasn’t written by Young, and was still released under Simon Cowell’s supervision. In fact, he released five albums in total under his original contract, only leaving in 2012. Beyond his four #1s, he’s scored seven further UK Top 10s, and has never had any of his nine studio albums chart outside the Top 5. Will Young probably isn’t the best solo artist unearthed by a reality TV singing show, and he’s definitely not my favourite, but he was the first to show that there was life beyond the usual bland covers and the cheese.

965. ‘Mandy’, by Westlife

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Blame me. I mentioned them in passing in my last post and, like a vengeful demon, that is all it takes to summon Westlife…

Mandy, by Westlife (their 12th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, 23rd – 30th November 2003

You might be wondering why I made a fuss about the end of ‘the golden age of boybands’, when Busted are the biggest pop group in the land, and Westlife are still cranking out the number ones. Well, I’ve explained why Busted weren’t actually a boyband, and in this post I’ll explain why Westlife were no longer one either.

Actually, the this cover of Barry Manilow’s 1974 UK #11 (and US #1) hit does the explaining for me. Westlife have renounced the boyband mantle, and any attempts to woo the traditional teenage girl market, and become full-on granny baiters. (Westlife, for all their many musical crimes, were not initially very cover-version heavy. This was only their fourth non-original #1 from twelve.)

And the fact that they are now mining a rich seam of proudly cheesy, easy-listening hits means that this is actually one of their more enjoyable chart-toppers. After the dirges that were ‘Unbreakable’, and ‘Queen of My Heart’, a cover of a Manilow classic is a pleasant surprise. Plus, they’ve added a strangely interesting sitar riff. And a key change, naturally.

Giving up any pretence at being relevant was probably a sensible career move for Westlife, and the run of MOR covers that started with ‘Mandy’ probably extended their chart careers for a good few years (and set them up nicely for a post-chart career touring Asia, where people’s love of a soppy ballad knows no bounds). This was the second single from their fourth studio album, ‘Turnaround’. The lead single – the slightly more contemporary and actually quite upbeat ‘Hey Whatever’ – had done the unthinkable and stalled at #4 in September. Which proves my point about this being the right move for a boyband almost five years into their careers, as back to #1 they went.

A couple of interesting things about ‘Mandy’ before we finish. It was originally written as ‘Brandy’, and had reached #12 in the UK in 1971 for Scott English. Manilow changed the name to avoid confusion with Looking Glass’s big hit ‘Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)’. And Westlife’s version technically has the biggest climb to #1 in chart history, after a handful of copies were made available a day early by mistake. It had charted at #200 the week before, then rocketed to #1 when properly released. The OCC only acknowledge the Top 100, however, and so it is officially a new entry at number one.

963. ‘Slow’, by Kylie Minogue

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And so Kylie manages to squeeze one more chart-topper out of her early ‘00s comeback.

Slow, by Kylie Minogue (her 7th of eight #1s)

1 week, 9th – 16th November 2003

Some chart-watchers dismiss number ones such as this, bought by Kylie’s fans rather than the general public, but I think they are a valuable chart asset, helping songs to the top that might not make it otherwise. Okay, we can blame most of Westlife’s endless parade of bland #1s on this phenomenon, but still. I’ll stand my ground. Instead of calling them ‘non-number ones’, as many do, I like to think of them as ‘fanbase hits’.

It’s especially appreciated when it sends songs as sexy and slinky as this to the top. Of all Kylie’s chart-toppers, this is the furthest left-field. The monotonous beat, the cool sheen, the fluttering heartbeat synths. And Kylie purring into the mic as if she were a tiger about to devour its prey. ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ was a weird record (as massive smash hits go), and ‘Slow’ is that song’s even weirder cousin. Had it been recorded by a cool electronic act like Goldfrapp or Hot Chip – and it could have been – then it wouldn’t have come anywhere near number one. Hence why ‘fanbase hits’ can be a good thing.

In fact, her singing style here is very different to the earlier versions of Kylie – a sort of breathy, doll-like style – and is one that she’s used for the best part of two decades now. Maybe it was age getting the better of her voice, though she was only thirty-six when this made #1, but it has grown even more nasal as the years have gone by. (And that, readers, is as close as you’ll ever hear me get to bad-mouthing Kylie.)

Though I will also admit to finding ‘Slow’ a bit slow at the time. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe I was still too busy spinning Fatman Scoop, but it felt a little like a non-event. Listening now, I can see how wrong I was. ‘Slow’ is an interesting pop record, an experimental pop record, another fascinating detour in the long career of Kylie (the almost sixteen years between this and ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ was a record for a female act at the time).

‘Slow’ also features a fabulous middle eight. In a career littered with camp moments, Kylie has never sounded gayer than when uttering the read my… body language line. What makes it even better is that it’s basically a well-placed plug for the album. Kylie breaking the fourth wall: iconic. In fact, ‘Body Language’ is regarded as one of her very best LPs, and the two later singles from it were also great (‘Red Blooded Woman’ and the even slower and sexier ‘Chocolate’), though it is generally over-looked for the two, better-selling albums that came before.

For two decades and more, this appeared to have been Kylie’s seventh and final UK chart-topper. But then a Christmas miracle occurred, and she managed an eighth, twenty-two years on. Which was amazing. Though also slightly annoying, because I’ll have to postpone my ‘Kylie Best of the Rest’ post until around 2030…

961. ‘Hole in the Head’, by Sugababes

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Sugababes return for their third album, and a third chart-topping single. But is this the forgotten Sugababes #1?

Hole in the Head, by Sugababes (their 3rd of six #1s)

1 week, 19th – 26th October 2003

On the face of it, not much has changed since their chart-topping double whammy of the year before. Same catchy, street-smart beats (musically this is an interesting mix of an R&B rhythm with an almost banjo-ey twang). Same sass. Seven hours since you closed the door, Started a diet, Got a manicure… They miss that boy like a hole in the head, to the point where they would kiss their own arses before thinking of him. The logistics of which escape me, but I like the sentiment.

Yet, this business-as-usual approach makes the song, decent as it is, come across as a little basic when compared to ‘Round Round’, and especially to ‘Freak Like Me’. Those two hits were at the forefront of a shift in pop music, from turn of the century bubblegum to beefier 21st century beats. Since then we’ve seen great pop records from Christina, t.A.T.u, Beyoncé, among others, and so you might have hoped for something bigger and bolder from the Sugababes’ return. Not to mention that Girls Aloud were threatening their ‘biggest girl group in the land’ crown.

If this had come out a year earlier I might have hailed it as revolutionary. As it is, I hail it as a decent pop record, but a bit of a retread. The Sugababes had done better, and have better to come. Also, and perhaps this is intentional, even the lyrics creak under a bit of scrutiny. The sass is almost performative. They are so adamant that they don’t miss this ex, that you start to wonder if the ladies doth protest too much.

Sugababes third album was, for me, a little bit of a step backwards, especially in terms of its singles. None of the others would make #1, meaning that it’ll be a couple of years before they return to these pages. Meanwhile, Girls Aloud had started churning out pop classic after pop classic. Not that it was much of a rivalry, except in the fevered minds of now middle-aged gay men (myself included), but GA did feel like the fresher force back in 2003. Interestingly though, ‘Hole in the Head’ was produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania, who were much better known for their work with, yes, Girls Aloud.

957. ‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’, by Daniel Bedingfield

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In writing my post on Daniel Bedingfield’s previous number one, ‘If You’re Not the One’, I discovered that he claimed to not like that ballad. Too soppy, too Westlife-y, not a fair representation of him as an artist…

Never Gonna Leave Your Side, by Daniel Bedingfield (his 3rd and final #1)

1 week, 27th July – 3rd August 2003

So of course, he insisted that his label release something completely different as the album’s fifth single. Rap? Rock? Salsa? Nope. More of the same treacly schmaltz. I bet you could play this alongside ‘If You’re Not the One’, simultaneously, and they’d sync up pretty nicely. Gloopy synths, Spanish guitars, a string section. All very dull.

I do think the chorus here soars a little more, perhaps, and the heartbeat rhythm hints at something darker. But I also think I’m being generous. Overall, a dull, thankfully short-lived, interlude at the top in a year which has generally been filled with interesting chart-toppers. I have my next ‘Meh’ award in mind already.

Impressively, this was indeed the fifth single from Bedingfield’s debut album, a year and a half on from ‘Gotta Get Thru This’. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many fifth-single-from-an-album number ones. And I should clarify that this wasn’t the follow-up to ‘If You’re Not the One’. In-between he had released the far peppier ‘I Can’t Read You’ which peaked at #6. So what do I know? Clearly people wanted the ballads… Again, though, we can look to rapidly plummeting single sales clearing the way for some ‘easy’ number ones if you picked the right week to release.

Daniel Bedingfield would milk the debut album for a frankly greedy sixth single, before scoring just one further Top 10 from his second LP. He was a strange, flash-in-the-pan sort of pop star: three number ones in a year and a half, then very little else. He took an injury-forced hiatus following a bad car crash in 2004, but has never released a third album. Luckily for those already suffering from Bedingfield-based withdrawal symptoms, his sister will be along shortly to fill the void.

956. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé

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The song of the summer for 2003, for the noughties, perhaps for all time…

Crazy in Love, by Beyoncé (her 1st of six solo #1s)

3 weeks, 6th – 27th July 2003

It comes in strong. The way those horns slam in, taking the door off its hinges, making everyone withing a mile-radius jump to their feet. The first words uttered are Jay-Z’s Yes! It’s hard to imagine a more upbeat start to a pop song.

I’m not usually one to describe something as ‘joyous’, and would narrow my eyes at any song that someone described in that way. But it just fits as a description here. For a song that is about being head over heels in love, it ticks every box. From the blaring horns – a sample from the Chi-Lites’ 1970 recording ‘Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)’ – to the uh-oh-uh-oh-oh-no-no fills. From the grab you by the shoulders chorus to the glorious middle-eight, written by Beyoncé herself: Got me lookin’, So crazy my baby…

Hooks, hooks all the way. I’m listening to it now with a smile across my face, despite hearing it almost every day that summer and pretty regularly ever since. It’s the real litmus test of a classic: is it good in an art gallery stand-and-admire-it sort of way, or is it good in a still-gets-you-up-dancing-twenty-three-years-later sort of way? ‘Crazy in Love’ is firmly in the latter camp. It feels trite to say, but it still sounds fresh all these years on.

It also announces Beyoncé, who had of course enjoyed two #1s with Destiny’s Child, as the female star of the ‘00s. It wasn’t her debut solo single – that had been ‘Work It Out’, a #7 from the ‘Austin Powers: Goldmember’ soundtrack, and a perfectly serviceable soul-funk track – but it did feel like it. Plus there was the intrigue of Jay-Z guesting, and the rumours about their relationship being more than just purely musical.

*I must admit to having to add an edit here, as after writing the entire post I have just discovered that Jay-Z is NOT credited on the single, or by the Official Charts Company… I had always just assumed this was ‘Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z’!*

In fact, it’s interesting to approach this from the angle of Jay-Z actually being the bigger solo star at the time. He’d first appeared in the Top 10 back in 1997, and had enjoyed several big feature hits over the years, as well as his own #2 ‘Annie’ remake, ‘Hard Knock Life’ in 1998. ‘ft. Jay-Z’ became a pop song cliché in the ‘00s, as ‘ft. Pitbull’ would in the ‘10s, but he was a genuine chart force. In fact, ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde’ had been a #2 hit a few months earlier, as Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé, as a sort of soft-launch of their romantic-slash-professional relationship.

From this point on though, Beyoncé would be the bigger star. The biggest female pop star of the century? Possibly, though I would argue that she has never produced a moment bigger than this, her ‘debut’ solo single. That’s not a criticism; it would be hard for anyone to top a track as good as this. The only one of her following five chart-toppers that comes close to this is… Well, I won’t give that away. All I’ll say is that it’s a duet with the one woman who can rival her for the ‘female star of the century’ title…

952. ‘You Said No’, by Busted

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I’d better come clean from the off. I really liked Busted back in the day. And was ready to head off down a rabbit hole of reminiscence this afternoon…

You Said No, by Busted (their 1st of four #1s)

1 week, 27th April – 4th May 2003

But listening to their first number one now, it sounds very lightweight. It sounds very processed, very studio engineered. Their faux-American accents grate. The lyrics, in which they whine like a bunch of snotty incels about the girl that turned them down (You’re so fit, And you know it, And I only dream of you, Cause my life’s such a bitch…) jar. What happened?

I’m reminded of an article I read at the time in a friend’s ‘proper’ rock magazine – ‘Guitar World’, maybe – which claimed to have studied and proved that the opening riff from ‘You Said No’ couldn’t possibly have been played on a real guitar. Now, to be fair, magazines like ‘Guitar World’ had a bit of an agenda against pop punk puppets like Busted, but they had a point. Is this how rock music had to debase itself to be a relevant chart force in the year 2003?

It’s still a catchy song, and isn’t without its charms. The na-na-nanas and the chorus are earworms, and it really has a sound that is very much of its time. Busted were the biggest male pop group in Britain between 2003 and 2004, and it’s right that they feature on top of the charts. But it isn’t hard to argue that this was a belated #1 – a ‘shadow #1’ I’ve called them, in previous posts – after their signature tune, and genuine pop culture moment, ‘Year 3000’ (which had stalled at #2 behind David Sneddon). It did guarantee, though, that Busted became the first act to have their first three singles enter the charts in ascending order: #3, #2, #1…

Maybe it’s just age. I was seventeen when this made number one (admittedly already several years beyond their target audience) and I am approaching a big birthday starting with four as I write this. Maybe it’s also because Busted, for all their charms, were to soon be eclipsed by their prodigies McFly, who started out in the same pop-punk mould but who proved to be a far more expansive band.

One final question that needs answering before we move on: were Busted a boyband? Well, the lyrics to ‘Year 3000’ show that they certainly didn’t think so, and I agree. They wrote their own songs, in part at least. They held (and presumably did sometimes play) their own instruments. And they didn’t have dance routines, or key changes. So no. What they do represent is how the mid-noughties indie and rock revival, which will start to feature eventually at the top of the charts, had filtered down to pop acts. And in my book any guitar, computer-enhanced or not, is always welcome on top of the charts.