90s pop

786. ‘Frozen’, by Madonna

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

Of all Madonna’s thirteen number ones, ‘Frozen’ – her first in almost eight years – has to be the strangest…

Frozen, by Madonna (her 8th of thirteen #1s)

1 week, from 1st – 8th March 1998

It’s her longest for a start, and probably the least accessible. There’s no instant hook, as with ‘Into the Groove’, and no controversial gimmicks, as with ‘Like a Prayer’. Instead there’s a shimmering, undulating electronic beat, beefed up at intervals by strange, reverberating sound effects and drum fills. And there are the strings that add an air of grandiosity to the song, especially when they come to the fore midway through, like an ‘Arabian Nights’ film score. A Rolling Stone reviewer at the time described it as “arctic melancholy”, and I think that’s perfect.

Interestingly for Madonna, the lyrics are the least noticeable thing about ‘Frozen’. They seem to be about a lover who is closed off: You only see what your eyes want to see, How can life be what you want it to be, You’re frozen, When your heart’s not open… Or perhaps it’s more religious, with Madonna, who had begun taking an interest in Eastern spiritualism, singing as a sort of high priestess. The video would bear this interpretation out, Madge floating above a desert, all in black, as a sort of nun-slash-witch, before turning into a flock of crows, and then a large dog.

In fact, despite me claiming that this isn’t one of her gimmicky chart-toppers, the first thing that springs to mind when I think of ‘Frozen’ is Madonna – famously blonde for most of the past fifteen years – now with long jet-black hair. Always one for the visuals… The second thing I remember about this record is hearing it almost as often as ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at the pool bar in Lanzarote during my spring holiday that year.

And the fact that it was on such heavy rotation at the time perhaps proves that this isn’t as inaccessible as I suggested. In truth, there are just as many hooks here as in Madonna’s poppier numbers, they’re just buried in the trip-hop beats, and stretched out over six minutes. Of 1998’s seven number ones so far, three have now run on beyond five minutes – ‘Never Ever’, ‘All Around the World’, and this – while Celine Dion wasn’t far behind (and that one certainly feels longer than five minutes…)

Although this was her first number one since ‘Vogue’, Madonna hadn’t ever been away from the top of the charts. In fact, she’d casually racked up a further seventeen (!) Top 10 hits between ‘Vogue’ and now. At the same time, ‘Frozen’ was the lead single from her first studio album in four years, following a few years of compilations and soundtracks.

Undoubtedly then, we can class this is one of Madge’s famous re-inventions. She wasn’t just following current trends with William Orbit on production duty, she was setting them. Fifteen years is a lifetime for a female pop star, and this was a statement release, one that announced the Queen of Pop wasn’t going anywhere. ‘Frozen’ was an interesting choice for the lead-single though, especially considering that follow-up ‘Ray of Light’ is the much better remembered hit, but it makes for an interesting detour in Madonna’s chart history. This is her second and final ‘90s #1, making it by far her least successful chart-topping decade. However, she has five more ‘00s #1s to come, all perhaps owing a debt to how successfully she updated her sound here.

785. ‘Brimful of Asha’, by Cornershop

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Up next, a quirky little number one. An indie-pop tune about classic Indian movies, by a band who had never previously been higher than #60 in the charts…

Brimful of Asha, by Cornershop (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 22nd February – 1st March 1998

‘Brimful of Asha’ had originally been released in 1997, in a more pedestrian, lo-fi version. It’s nice – a different angle on British rock in the late-Britpop years – but it needed a sprinkling of stardust to turn it into a hit. Enter Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim. This is already Cook’s third chart-topping persona, following a spot as a member of the Housemartins in 1986, and with Beats International in 1990.

Compared to some of the other big dance acts of the time – think Prodigy or the Chemical Brothers – Cook’s work as Fatboy Slim has a much poppier, more accessible style. The production on this record – the chunky drum fills, the loops – is very late nineties. But it probably sounds ‘very late nineties’ because Fatboy Slim was one of the defining sounds of that era. ‘Brimful of Asha’ was the launchpad for him to enjoy several years of hits.

And while it does sound rooted in the late-90s, ‘Brimful of Asha’ also has nods back to the sixties in the guitar line, and the fact that Cook added a sample from ‘Mary, Mary’, by the Monkees. The ‘Asha’ in the title refers to Asha Bosle, a famous soundtrack singer and one of the most influential names in Bollywood. And of course there’s the famous hook: Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow, Everybody needs a bosom… It all comes together to create an intoxicatingly catchy song.

Cornershop were from Wolverhampton, and had been ploughing an alt-indie furrow since 1991. Their references to Indian cinema came from founders and brothers Tjinder and Avtar Singh (though Avtar had left in 1995), and the band’s name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the stereotypical line of work that Indian immigrants tended to take up in the UK. It’s actually quite a big cultural moment, this: British Indians topping the charts with a song celebrating their ancestral country. It’s also a surprisingly early nostalgic tribute to vinyl records (Brimful of Asha on the ’45…) just after the format had been largely killed off, and before hipsters rediscovered it.

Sadly, Cornershop would struggle for hits when Norman Cook wasn’t involved. The follow-up, ‘Sleep on the Left Side’, made #23, and their last Top 100 appearance came in 2004. They remain active, though, both recording and touring. Norman Cook, meanwhile, went from strength to strength after this. In the months following ‘Brimful of Asha’s success, he had his first hit as Fatboy Slim with ‘The Rockafeller Skank’, setting him up for several years of solo success. I have a feeling that his poppy, Big Beat style might have been looked down upon in more fashionable dance circles, but he was always undeniably catchy. And he’ll be back along with his own solo #1 very soon!

The 1997 original:

The Norman Cook Remix:

784. ‘My Heart Will Go On’, by Celine Dion

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

In which we don our lifejackets, fight our way out on deck, and try to find a lost child with whom to bribe our way onto a boat. Anything to avoid a collision with this hulking leviathan of a song…

My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion (her 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 15th – 22nd February 1998 / 1 week, from 8th – 15th March 1998 (2 weeks total)

‘My Heart Will Go On’ is one of those songs that has become such a cliché, such a meme, such a cornerstone of popular culture, that it is very hard to judge as a mere five-minute piece of popular balladry. But if you can separate it from what it’s become, and manage to hear it as people in 1997 did… Then you are still confronted with a truly horrifying song.

I always thought the opening notes were played on pan-pipes, but it’s actually a tin whistle. This vaguely Celtic, new-agey motif features throughout the three hours plus of the movie ‘Titanic’, a sort of Pavlovian signal that Something Romantic is happening. It existed as part of the soundtrack to the film before composer James Horner suggested using it in a song. James Cameron, the director, wasn’t sold. If only he’d stuck to his guns… Sadly, he gave in, and this monster was born.

My first impression upon sitting down and listening to this song properly for the first time in a quarter of a century is that it sounds dated for the late-nineties. Every power-ballad cliché is ticked: big drums, squealing guitars, echoey effects, and gloopy percussion. Add in the new-age feel, and it sounds like we’ve slipped back a decade. Then there’s the ‘Whitney’ moment – the pause, and the beat, before the key-change and the final sledgehammer chorus.

As Houston does in ‘I Will Always Love You’, Celine Dion bludgeons all emotion out of the song’s climax in a storm of howling bombast. Though that sounds like I’m suggesting that there’s emotion in the verses preceding the final chorus. There isn’t. It’s all just too huge, too overwhelming, to have any impact. It mirrors the way I feel about the movie, too. I’ve enjoyed it as a piece of entertainment, but the ‘sad’ scenes now come across almost as tongue-in-cheek. Again, this is possibly because we’ve seen way too many parodies of frozen Jack, and Rose clinging to the door; but it could also be because the film was complete fluff in the first place.

For all this talk of entertainment, though, one of this song’s biggest failings is its dullness. I first mentioned this phenomenon when we covered the ‘90s other big soundtrack hits: Houston’s, and Bryan Adams. Once upon a time power ballads were ridiculous pieces of theatre. Think ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, or ‘China in Your Hand’. Dion’s previous chart-topper ‘Think Twice’ was a much more recent example of a power ballad whose earnestness was delivered with a wink and a lot of scenery chewing. There’s no wink here, though, no sense of an in-joke. Just a dull plod punctuated by lots of serious fist clenching.

But you don’t need me to tell you that ‘My Heart Will Go On’, for all its God-awfulness, was fairly successful. A number one in more than twenty-five countries around the world, and currently the second-best selling single ever by a female artist (behind you-know-who). Celine Dion apparently disliked it at first – I mean, she would say that now – but it hasn’t stopped her milking it for all its worth. China in particular has a passion for the song, with state television inviting Dion to belt out her biggest hit several times over the years. For me, though, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ will always remind me of a family holiday in Lanzarote. It was the first time I had ever been on a plane, travelling for four hours across Europe just to hear this dirge being played every fifteen minutes at the pool bar…

783. ‘Doctor Jones’, by Aqua

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

Aqua, looking for all the world like they’d be one-hit wonders, surprise us all by returning with not just a second hit, but a second number one.

Doctor Jones, by Aqua (their 2nd of three #1s)

2 weeks, from 1st – 15th February 1998

Perhaps the trick was that they stuck to a clear ‘if it ain’t broke’ formula. Female and male vocals, Eurodance production, about five different ultra-catchy hooks… The demand was obviously there post-‘Barbie Girl’. The tempo is increased from their earlier hit, giving this a proper Hi-NRG bounce to it. And like its predecessor, this single is also based around a pop culture icon.

The ‘Doctor Jones’ of the title is Indiana Jones, as made clear by the video in which Lene (formerly Barbie) and the other two members of Aqua plough through the jungle in search of René (formerly Ken). Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones wake up now… prattles the chorus, and he does wake up just in time to save his bandmates from being boiled alive. As with the ‘Barbie Girl’ video it’s good camp fun.

This whole endeavour, is of course, complete cheese, and if your tolerance for cheesy Eurotrash is low then this record certainly won’t be for you. I’m fairly immune to it, but the ayypee-aieeooaayyoo-ayypeeay-eh (I believe that is the official transliteration…) line in the chorus is annoying even to me. And sadly, René’s role is much less than it was in ‘Barbie Girl’, with his gravelly voice being used mainly to echo Lene’s lead.

It’s not as good as their biggest hit, or as memorable, but it does successfully manage the difficult balancing act of replicating what made the former such a big smash, recycling it cleverly, but without simply churning out ‘Barbie Girl Part II’. That’s quite a hard trick to pull off, especially when their first hit had had such massive success but had been filed away quite firmly in the ‘novelty’ drawer.

I’m starting to sound like quite the Aqua apologist. But it wasn’t just me, honest! 1998 was their year! Not only did they manage this second number one, they will soon manage a third. A third that will prove them capable of writing a proper pop song, and not just novelty dance numbers.

782. ‘You Make Me Wanna…’, by Usher

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

January 1998, but we take a quick step into the early twentieth century…

You Make Me Wanna…, by Usher (his 1st of four #1s)

1 week, from 25th January – 1st February 1998

Since the mid-1990s, the British charts have been very British-led. This sounds like an obvious statement, but hear me out. In 1996, the only American acts to top the charts were the Fugees, twice (one of which was, to be fair, the year’s highest-seller), and Deep Blue Something. Back in 1994, it was only Prince and Mariah Carey. 1993 saw honorary American Shaggy, Meat Loaf, and a Will Smith-Jazzy Jeff combo. Compare that to 1990, when seven US acts made number one…

Clearly the fact that European-style dance music and Britpop were the big musical movements of the mid-nineties meant that the States didn’t get much of a look-in at the top of the charts. But 1997 saw a reversal of that trend, with #1 hits from the rogues gallery of R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Puff Daddy, plus No Doubt, Hanson, and Will Smith. 1998 will continue this way, starting with an up and coming eighteen-year-old called Usher.

I’ll admit that I padded this post out with the preceding couple of paragraphs because I’ve never found this sort of late-90s, twitchy, minimalist R&B very interesting. It’s very modern, sounding more like what’s to come in the early ‘00s than what’s come before, and Usher’s vocals are impressive. I do like his freestyles towards the end of the song, where he sounds like a more muscular Michael Jackson. He certainly doesn’t sound like a teenager here.

But it largely washes over me without really registering. This was the sound of the Billboard charts at the time, and there’s a significance to it topping the UK charts now. It reminds me of some early Destiny’s Child tracks from the same time, with the same jerky, pizzicato production. But I like ‘Bills Bills Bills’ much more than ‘You Make Me Wanna…’, which I can only explain through the fact that Beyoncé just makes things better.

Still, it introduces one of the big names of modern pop music. This was Usher’s first British hit, though he’d have to wait a couple more years to become a huge chart force. He’ll have four chart-toppers over an impressive twelve-year span (with at least one genuine banger) and a Top 10 career that will last the best part of two decades.

Again, this January is providing an interesting mix of one-week #1s that might not have made the top at any other time of year. A slow-burn girl group classic, Oasis at their most overblown, and a glimpse into the charts of the future. On a personal note, ‘You Make Me Wanna…’ (why the ellipsis?) was my twelfth birthday number one. Meh. Had I been born a day later I could have claimed the cheesy tune that is to come…

780. ‘Never Ever’, by All Saints

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Into 1998, then. The penultimate year of the century, the 46th year of the UK singles charts, and one with a thus-far record thirty number ones. And to start off, there are a few questions that I need to know…

Never Ever, by All Saints (their 1st of five #1s)

1 week, from 11th – 18th January 1998

To be honest, an opening line that clunky could kill lesser songs off before they’ve started. A few answers that I need to know, surely, scans just as well. Anyway, ‘Never Ever’ quickly recovers from that shaky start, by bringing us one of the great spoken word sections. Anyone of my vintage can probably still recite it word for word…You can tell me to my face, Or even on the phone… as well as adding all the backing harmonies.

It takes the sassy soul vibe of 1997’s final chart-topper, the Spice Girls’ ‘Too Much’, and ups both the sass and the soul. All Saints have very good voices, and great harmonies, to the point where you’re tricked into misremembering this as an a cappella track. But their voices are also flawed, like the Spice Girls’, so that you can hear their accents and dropped consonants.

‘Never Ever’ isn’t a cappella, of course, and the production is period-perfect late-90s R&B squelch (this is what we must refer to it as from now on, and we’ll be hearing it a lot as the century winds down). It’s also let down slightly by further clunky lyrics (flexin’ vocabulary… the alphabet runs right from A to Z) and simplistic rhymes: Free from pain/ Goin’ insane… So low/ Black hole… So sad/ Feelin’ really bad… But hey, at least the words stick with you. And by the end, as the harmonies build and the organs start to swirl, you forgive it. The outro is just as good as the famous intro, slipping into a hip-hop beat as the girls’ voices are filtered and distorted.

Having a pop single run over five minutes (six and a half in its album version) is always a risk, spreading a few decent lines and a hook too thin. But ‘Never Ever’ lasts the distance, thanks to the strength of the voices and the melodies, and the way that they continue to build. And talking of being long-running, the song had a particularly slow journey to the top of the charts by 1998’s standards. It first charted in November, then hung around the Top 10 for seven weeks before finally reaching the top in the post-Christmas lull. It set a record for the highest ever sales before making #1 (770,000), and it’s current total stands at 1.5 million. It is the 3rd biggest-selling girl group single of all time in the UK. (You can guess the top two in the comments below…)

It feels simplistic to call All Saints the female East 17 to the Spice Girls’ Take That, but I’m going to do it anyway. The Spice Girls were chaotic and silly, whereas All Saints were all glowering stares, pierced tongues and nose-studs, shacking up with Gallaghers. They were the girls a couple of years above you in the corridor at school, definitely not to be approached under any circumstances. ‘Never Ever’ was only their second single, but it established them as the ‘other’ girl group of the day. In 1998, they’ll even have one more #1 than the Spice Girls. In fact, they’ll have five chart-toppers in just under three years, and all but one of them will be great.

If you’ve been paying attention, you might be expecting a recap in my next post. However I’ve decided that as the turnover of #1s is ever-increasing, and to stop my all-time awards getting too skewed towards the late-‘90s/early-‘00s, I’m going to do recaps after every fiftieth chart-topper until things slow down a bit, sometime around 2003.

779. ‘Too Much’, by The Spice Girls

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

Happily preventing the Teletubbies from claiming a Christmas number one, the Spice Girls score their second of three festive chart-toppers in a row. And of the three, this is the best in my book…

Too Much, by The Spice Girls (their 6th of nine #1s)

2 weeks, from 21st December 1997 – 4th January 1998

It’s a ballad, of course (a girl group festive release will always be a ballad, there may be actual laws about this) but it’s not as straightforwardly sweet as ‘2 Become 1’, or as sentimental as the one to come next year. This is a sassy, soulful, fairly sophisticated, ballad that, with a little more oomph, could pass as a Bond theme.

It unfurls – that’s the perfect word – seductively, with plenty of horns and strings. Plus it has a couple of the Spice Girls’ best lines. As with all their good songs, they are the ones in charge, not the men. Unwrap yourself… Geri purrs… From around my finger… While in the middle-eight, Mel C unleashes the iconic: What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, I want a man, Not a boy who thinks he can…!

When you add in her harmonies in the second chorus, Mel C here cements herself not only as the star of this single but as the official ‘Spice who could sing’. I think this might be one of the group’s less well-remembered number ones, and it certainly passed me by at the time – twelve-year-old me having given up on them after the manic ‘Spice Up Your Life’. But listening to it now, I might be tempted to place it as their 2nd best chart-topper, after ‘Say You’ll Be There’ (clearly the singles where Mel C was allowed to unleash are the best).

‘Too Much’ was the girls’ 6th #1 in a row, maintaining their 100% record – a record that stands to this day (though it has since been matched by Westlife). Their next release, ‘Stop’, would be their first and only single not to make the top. As I mentioned in my last post on the Spice Girls, the returns from their second album were clearly shortening, although they remained a global phenomenon. This is also their final number one as a five-piece, as by the time of their seventh chart-topper, Geri will have famously called it a day.

In my last post I mentioned that late-1997 saw extremely high singles sales. It’s hard to say, as records vary, but this may have been the ultimate peak for physical singles in the UK. In the run up to Christmas ’97 there was a week in which the entire Top 5 all sold over 100,000 copies, and in the all-time highest-sellers table four songs from the latter half of the year remain in the Top 50 (‘I’ll Be Missing You’, ‘Barbie Girl’, ‘Perfect Day’ and the record-holding ‘Candle in the Wind 1997’). Why this is I’m not qualified to say… Cut-pricing, cultural relevance, the ubiquity of CD players are all decent reasons. The quality of music, in my opinion, is not. The autumn of 1997 has seen a bit of a drop-off compared to the first half of the year. Whatever the reason, we head into 1998 with sales still high, and the turnover at the top ever-increasing…

778. ‘Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!”, by The Teletubbies

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

From one of the classiest, most understated ‘novelty-in-inverted-commas’ #1s off all time… To the other end of the spectrum…

Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’, by The Teletubbies (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st December 1997

It’s a remix of the theme song to the biggest children’s TV show of the age: the Teletubbies. First aired in March 1997, by August it was reaching an audience of two million. I was one of them, I must admit, though I was a good decade older than the intended audience. I don’t know, there was just something grotesquely fascinating about the four… creatures (what the hell are they?) the grassy dome they lived in, the flowers that talked, the pink pancakes they ate… So huge was the programme that a spin-off single was inevitable, just in time for the Christmas number one race. They didn’t quite make it, but two weeks at number one plus over a million copies sold is pretty impressive.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, as a pop single this is utter garbage. It just about works as a theme-tune (though in these days of streaming you’d happily ‘Skip Intro’) but removed from the context of the show it sounds absolutely bonkers. And not good bonkers. There’s the babyish voices, the rather camp narrator, interludes in which some sheep sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and a matronly old lady sings ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’, and a prolonged bout of diarrhoea (which turns out to be the tubby custard machine, when you watch the video…) All set to a rinky-dink synthesised banjo riff.

At the same time, there’s not much point in getting annoyed about this. It is what it is. Crap, but also something of a time capsule, a glimpse back into those carefree, late-twentieth century days. You could raise an eyebrow at the ridiculous quantities of this record that were sold – well over half a million copies during its two weeks at the top – but then single sales were at their highest ever levels in late-1997, something we can perhaps explore in our next post.

The obvious comparison to make here is to cast your minds back four years, to Mr. Blobby’s similarly bizarre festive release. But Blobby’s song has an anarchic quality to it, a level of chaos and a tongue-in-cheek quality that ‘Teletubbies Say “Eh-Oh!”’ lacks. The only way you could find another level on which to enjoy this song is if you were seriously high.

Finally, I have to raise a hand and admit that I am, in my small way, to blame for this record doing so well. Or at least my younger brother is, as he bought me a cassingle copy for Christmas that year. I wonder how many other copies were bought as a joke, rather than for any love of the song. Teletubbies was only on our screens for four years (in its original run) but its cultural impact was massive. In fact, if you have a spare minute, why not remind yourself of the ‘Tinky Winky Controversy’, and feel a sense of relief that something so narrow-mindedly crazy couldn’t happen in today’s level-headed world…

776. ‘Barbie Girl’, by Aqua

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

One of the reasons that ‘Spice Up Your Life’, the Spice Girls hot new single, didn’t stay at number one for very long is perhaps because Spice mania was cooling off. But another is that one of the year’s (nay, the decade’s) biggest hits was waiting in the wings…

Barbie Girl, by Aqua (their 1st of three #1s)

4 weeks, from 27th October – 23rd November 1997

Hiya Barbie… Hi Ken… Before we get to the song’s subject, and the lyrics, we should note that otherwise this is fairly standard, late-nineties Eurodance beat and production. Synth strings and an airy keyboard line (I think the technical term is ‘Balearic’). Fill it with generic lyrics about reaching for the sky and living it large, and you’d have a standard dance hit, on a par with Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’, say. But the melody and the production are not why this was such a big hit.

‘Barbie Girl’ was so huge because of its subject matter, and how it somehow manages to be utterly dumb and yet quite clever; an annoying novelty and yet a total earworm. Take two of the song’s biggest hooks: Come on Barbie, Let’s go party… Ah, ah, ah, yeah… and Life in plastic, It’s fantastic… The first is stupidly simple, and yet it’s been in your head for the best part of three decades. The second is actually quite brilliant. The whole song succeeds because it constantly straddles this line between greatness and nonsense.

You could make too much of the song’s social commentary. It’s got some fun lines, and some borderline innuendo; but it’s hardly a feminist manifesto. The song’s best section is the second verse, because the way the beat rests before swishing into it is great, and because it contains the most ‘challenging’ lyrics. I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees… Barbie chirrups, before Ken ignores her with a Come jump in, Bimbo friend, Let us do it again… (Personally, René Dif’s gravelly, sleazy ‘Ken’ is the reason this song works. I think if it were all on Lene Nystrøm’s high-pitched ‘Barbie’ it would really start to grate.)

I think this also might be an example of the ABBA-factor, which I’ve mentioned before with non-English speaking acts. Because English wasn’t Aqua’s first language, the lyrics are perhaps simpler than someone with a native-level ability would have come up with. But this also means that the lyrics stick very easily. Aqua were Danish, and this was the third single from their debut album. They had been around since 1989, though the closest they’d come to success was as Joyspeed, with this truly spectacular happy-hardcore version of ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’.

Mattel, the creators of Barbie, were not amused by this global smash, claiming that it besmirched the doll’s image and turned her into a ‘sex object’. They embarked on a five-year lawsuit, while Aqua’s label filed a countersuit for defamation. Both were dismissed, the judge wrapping up with the brilliant line: “Both parties are advised to chill.” By 2009, Mattel’s stance had softened, and they were using the track in adverts. By 2023, they had licensed the song for use in the ‘Barbie’ movie, as well as a remake by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice. In fact, watching the video to ‘Barbie Girl’ now, it’s interesting to see just how similar it is to the world created for the movie.

You’d have gotten very long odds on Aqua having any follow-up hits, as this has ‘one-hit wonder’ written all over it. Well, not only did they not disappear, they have two further number ones to come…

775. ‘Spice Up Your Life’, by The Spice Girls

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Just thinking about the Spice Girls’ schedule for 1997 makes me feel tired. Live shows, sponsorship deals, a movie, adverts, awards ceremonies around the world… And, of course, a second album to record and promote.

Spice Up Your Life, by The Spice Girls (their 5th of nine #1s)

1 week, from 19th – 27th October 1997

‘Spice Up Your Life’ is classic pop group lead single fare. It’s brash, it’s catchy, it has the name of the band in the title… In fact, it’s basically a call to arms for Spiceys everywhere: When you’re feeling, Sad and low, We will take you, Where you gotta go… set to a pounding, gyrating samba rhythm. People of the world, Every boy and every girl… Spice up your life!

I may have mentioned in previous posts how much of a fan I was of the Spice Girls’ first album. And I distinctly remember hearing ‘Spice Up Your Life’ for the first time… and hating it. It was annoying, it was chaotic, it felt like ‘Wannabe’ (never my favourite Spice Girls’ song) times a hundred. Maybe it was my age? I was almost twelve by this point, approaching the too-cool-for-school stage… Or maybe the song was just a bit naff?

Listening to it now, I’d say it was the latter (I’ve never been too cool for anything). By the second verse, the chaotic energy starts to rip the song apart… Kung Fu fighting, Dancing queen, Tribal spaceman, And everything in between… Then there’s the gibberish of the middle-eight: Flamenco, Lambada, But hip-hop is harder… While it’s perhaps best not to get into the yellow man in Timbuktu…

What does redeem it for me, slightly, is the fact that the chorus is an earworm, and provides its own dance moves: slamming it to the left, shaking it to the right. Plus, the song in its entirety doesn’t outstay its welcome. It blows in, upends your furniture, and blows out all in under three minutes. It charged straight to number one, of course, just as it looked like Elton John’s Diana tribute might stay there for the rest of the year (that was #1 on the Billboard charts well into 1998).

At the same time, ‘Spice Up Your Life’ only stayed on top for one-week, compared to the seven weeks of ‘Wannabe’. Although the ‘Spiceworld’ album was a massive seller, and the singles off it all big hits, it didn’t quite match the impact of its predecessor. In the video to this single, the girls descend in a spaceship to a post-apocalyptic world in which everything is ‘Spice’d. It’s visually impressive, even with the dated CGI, but you wonder what the thought behind it was. If you were starting to feel Spice Girl over-saturation, then that video wouldn’t have changed your mind…