comic relief

818. ‘When the Going Gets Tough’, by Boyzone

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

From pop heaven, it’s back down to earth with a hefty bump…

When the Going Gets Tough, by Boyzone (their 5th of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st March 1999

Boyzone return with their penultimate chart-topper. Yes, we’re almost done with them. And, hey, at least this isn’t a ballad! Instead it’s that other modern pop group staple: the charity cover. From the late nineties onwards, charities desperate for your money made a clear shift away from novelty singles over to classic covers by the day’s big acts. There are similar crimes against pop to come from the likes of Westlife, Girls Aloud, and One Direction.

The synths are cheap and the production tacky on this version of Billy Ocean’s 1986 #1, while I think this might be Ronan Keating’s most grating vocal performance yet (a category with some very strong competition). In fact, this is pretty poor all round. I just don’t think Boyzone had the personality to do anything other than bland balladry. The fun and frivolity here sounds much too forced.

The best bit by far is that they keep the original’s saxophone solo almost note for note, which means we get a blast of sweet mid-80s sax – a sound I never realised I’d missed. And yes, the Billy Ocean version is a decent enough song (though not one I was overly hot on in my original post), and it’s hard to completely ruin decent source material. That original feels like a lifetime ago (in some ways it was, as I was born a few weeks before Ocean made #1), but the thirteen year gap between these versions means it’s the same as an artist in 2024 covering a song from 2011, which sounds like the blink of an eye…

This was the 1999 Comic Relief single, raising money for any number of good causes. So yes, yes, yes we shouldn’t be too harsh on it. (Though I would donate far more money than the price of a CD single to never hear Boyzone again). The video features the requisite plethora of celebs goofing around in the name of charidee. In fact, watching this was the most enjoyable part of this whole exercise, seeing people that hadn’t crossed my mind for many years: Will Mellor, John McCririck, Mystic Meg (RIP) and Saracen from Gladiators (as well as a very young Graham Norton).

762. ‘Mama’ / ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, by The Spice Girls

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Think ‘festive hits’, and your mind goes straight to Christmas, and then perhaps Halloween. Is there an Easter pop classic? Not that I can think of. What’s for certain is that the Spice Girl’s ‘Mama’ is the first, and only, number one single aimed at the Mother’s Day market.

Mama / Who Do You Think You Are, by The Spice Girls (their 4th of nine #1s)

3 weeks, from 9th – 30th March 1997

It’s a wonder why more acts haven’t tapped this under-used commercial seam… Or is it? Because ‘Mama’ pretty much ticks every box, sounding exactly how a pop song about how much we love our mothers should. ‘Mama’ killed the Mother’s Day hit off before it ever got going. It’s perfect.

But by perfect, I don’t mean it’s much good. It’s pleasant, with a nice minor-key melody, and is cleverly written as a letter of apology from a now adult child, for being such a little shit when they were growing up. I didn’t want to hear it then, But I’m not ashamed to say it now, Every little thing you said and did was right for me… And the Spices’ mums are in the video, holding pictures of the girls as kids, which is cute.

But by and large, it’s fairly bland. Plus, there are too many dated flourishes – scratchy fills between lines, and a strange organ riff – that distract from the actual song. It’s by far the weakest of their four singles so far. Luckily for us, ‘Mama’ is only half the main event here, and the record as a whole is redeemed by the other ‘A’-side.

‘Who Do You Think You Are’ is a fun slice of dance-pop: a tribute to the disco, funk and soul records of twenty years before. There’s a very funky bassline, and horns, and cheesy strings. There’s nothing particularly original in this pastiche, which means its only their second best song so far – still behind ‘Say You’ll Be There’ – but it’s become a wedding party staple. Plus it gave the world perhaps the ultimate Spice Girls image – Geri in her Union Jack dress, which she wore as the group performed the song at the 1997 Brit Awards.

‘Who Do You Think You Are’ was adopted as that year’s Comic Relief single, and a second video was made featuring The Sugar Lumps: a band comprised of French & Saunders, Kathy Burke, Llewella Gideon, and… Lulu. Who was a good sport because she’s actually, you know, a singer. This does mean, though, that she has been involved in the two biggest disco-pop hits of the nineties, after her feature on Take That’s ‘Relight My Fire’.

Charity records are at their best when they piggy-back on actual pop songs, and don’t inflict something ‘funny’ on the world in the name of a good cause. And this, with the Spice Girls at the height of their fame, probably made a lot more money than ‘The Stonk’. If I believed in such a thing as a ‘guilty pleasure’, then this would be one. Because who has not, at one point or another, belted out Mel C’s lines as the song closes? (She always got the best parts…)

The success of this pair of tunes confirmed a 100% chart-topping record for the Spices: four out of four. ‘2 Become 1’ had already lifted them into exalted company, as only the fifth act (and the first females) to reach #1 with their first three singles, behind luminaries such as Gerry & The Pacemakers, Frankie Goes to Hollywood… checks notes… Jive Bunny, and Robson & Jerome. And now this confirmed them as record breakers – chart-toppers with their first four, with many more to come.

717. ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’, by Cher, Chrissie Hynde & Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

Love Can Build a Bridge, by Cher (her 3rd of four #1s), Chrissie Hynde (her 2nd and final solo #1) and Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, from 19th – 26th March 1995

What this? Cher… Chrissie Hynde?… Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton? It can only mean one thing: charity single ahoy!

It probably means one other thing… That this record isn’t going to be much good. Not that it stinks – no, we’ve endured far worse chart-toppers in the name of a good cause. But following directly on from one of the all-time power-ballads, this one meanders by fairly blandly.

The three women gamely try to wring some cheer out of this tune, spending much of the video swaying arm in arm as if it was a trailer for ‘Steel Magnolia’s II’ (the fact that they do so while standing on a moving collage of famine victims seems slightly tasteless…) But really, a song with such an impressive cast-list should have little more life to it. The two moments that raise the pulse are the middle eight – When we stand together, It’s our finest hour… – and the solo, provided by one of the most famous guitarists ever to wield the instrument. File Eric Clapton under an ever-expanding folder titled: ‘legends poorly served by their ‘biggest’ hit’…

‘Love Can Build a Bridge’ was written and originally recorded by mother and daughter duo The Judds in 1990, with lyrics inspired by Naomi Judd’s battle against Hepatitis C. This version was the 1995 Comic Relief single, which is interesting, as there’s nothing ‘comic’ about this song. But considering that previous Comic Relief number ones have included Cliff and The Young One’s remake of ‘Living Doll’, and ‘The Stonk’, this comes as something of a relief (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Though this does mean that there’s not as much to write about here, compared to the truly heinous charity singles. The most noteworthy thing is that it is Clapton and Neneh Cherry’s highest-charting hit (it being the fourth of only five UK Top 10s for Cherry), and Chrissie Hynde’s final #1, after ‘Brass in Pocket’ with The Pretenders and a duet with UB40 (interestingly a cover of Sonny & Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’). The one contributor that we will be hearing from again is, of course, Ms Sarkisian, who has the small matter of releasing the biggest-selling hit by a solo female… ever… to come.

662. ‘The Stonk’, by Hale & Pace and The Stonkers

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

Hot on the heels of The Clash, can we also claim this next number one as part of the recent rock revival…?

The Stonk, by Hale & Pace and The Stonkers (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 17th – 24th March 1991

Hear me out! There’s a boogie-woogie rhythm, and a honky-tonk piano… The lyrics are somewhat anarchic, vaguely saucy even, if you try hard enough… OK. No, I admit. This isn’t rock and/or roll. This is the return of the chart phenomenon that brought us such treats as Cliff Richard and the Young Ones remake of ‘Living Doll’: the Comic Relief single.

Those of you who live beyond British shores may never have enjoyed this bi-annual TV fundraiser, in which the great and the good of British light entertainment come together for an evening of forced merriment. Hence why the video for ‘The Stonk’ features Bruce Forsyth, Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean, and (if my eyes didn’t deceive me) David Baddiel, while it opens with newsreader Angela Rippon being whacked out the way by a red-nosed Big Ben. (It is compulsory for Comic Relief to feature newsreaders doing stupid things. It’s funny, you see, because they are usually so serious.)

If this all sounds completely insufferable, then you’d be right. The gags, such as they are, all land flat. Ich bin ein Stonker… announces JFK, while Neil Armstrong claims one giant Stonk for mankind… Even Shakespeare isn’t safe: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s Stonk? someone asks, which makes no sense on any level. It’s shit, and completely unbothered about it. Proud of it, even. Maybe I’m a miserable sod, but I firmly believe that Red Nose Day would make even more money if people donated on the proviso that it would end an hour earlier for every million raised.

(Note the fact that this is advertised as a double-‘A’ side, alongside the much-loved Victoria Wood. The charts only mention Hale & Pace, however. Perhaps this record’s success had something to do with the other song on offer…)

And yet… I can’t list ‘The Stonk’ as one of the all-time worst chart-toppers. It’s not plumbing the depths alongside ‘Star Trekkin’ (which raised not a penny for charity) or ‘No Charge’ (the least humorous ‘novelty’ record of all time). That cheap, relentless boogie-woogie beat, and the chorus’s strong whiff of ‘The Timewarp’, does sort of hook me in. I didn’t want to, honestly I didn’t, but I’ve ended up tapping my feet.

It was written by comedy duo Gareth Hale and Norman Pace who, despite being TV mainstays throughout the 1990s, somehow never managed to become a part of my childhood. I couldn’t name a single one of their sketches or characters. Meanwhile, despite sounding as cheap and cheerful as a Butlin’s ‘knobbly knees’ contest, it does feature ‘proper’ musicians: British rock royalty even, in Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Black Sabbath’s Tommy Iommi, and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.

In wrapping this post up, I have no desire to ever hear this song again. I doubt anybody has actively listened to it since it left the Top 40 (as is the way with most charity singles). It isn’t on Spotify, and all that’s left as proof that this nonsense was, for one week in March 1991, the best-selling single in the country is this grainy YouTube video…