funk

917. ‘More Than a Woman’, by Aaliyah

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

We start 2002 with two posthumous number ones, almost like how at the Oscars they do an ‘In Memorandum’ segment. Which pop stars did we lose in the past year?

More Than a Woman, by Aaliyah (her 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th January 2002

Well, we had lost prodigal R&B star Aaliyah in a plane crash back in August, aged just twenty-two. ‘More Than a Woman’ was her first single to be released in the UK since her death, and is a very modern, very of the moment slice of American pop.

It’s cut from the same cloth as earlier Destiny’s Child and Jennifer Lopez #1s, with an almost classical riff playing over a staccato beat. One reviewer at the time described it as ‘Baroque liquid funk’, which is a great description, if a little over the top. It does though, have a bit more beef to it than DC and J-Lo. I especially like the dirty, squelchy synths, which elevate this above some of the other US recent R&B tracks I’ve struggled to enjoy, and which take centre-stage in an extended, funky fade-out.

I was going to accuse this record of not having a real hook, but the more I play it the more it grows on me. And I’ll admit that the strange, slightly off-kilter chorus has stayed in my brain ever since it was in the charts. It’s oddly catchy. In the very ‘of its time’ video, Aaliyah and her backing dancers work it in what looks to be the inside of a combustion engine, and the churning pistons fit the thick and deliberate beat nicely.

Although this probably only got to number one as a tribute, it isn’t hard to imagine ‘More Than a Woman’ spending a January week at #1 even with Aaliyah alive and well. She had been a regular chart presence since her debut in 1994, aged just fifteen. (She was R Kelly’s protégé, something that’s come under more scrutiny since his offences came to light). Her biggest song, ‘Try Again’, had been her only US #1, and only previous British Top 10 hit, in 2000.

She was also a long-time collaborator with Timbaland, meaning that this is the first chart-topping appearance for one of the 2000’s defining producers. After ‘More Than a Woman’, for sadly obvious reasons, the hits dried up for Aaliyah. Her legacy seems to be one of what might have been, for an experimental and talented artist who had already been dubbed the ‘Princess of R&B’.

In part two of our posthumous double-header, she was replaced at the top by another recently deceased artist, whose legacy had long since been established…

809. ‘Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)’, by Chef

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Falling short behind the Spice Girls in Christmas-week, but thrusting to number one for the new year… A funky ode to some sweet, yet salty, confectionary.

Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You), by Chef (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 27th December 1998 – 3rd January 1999

Part-recipe, part funk-soul masterpiece… Could we argue that ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ is the first and perhaps only true funk song to make number one in the UK? Naturally everyone came for the innuendo, but they stayed for the fact this is actually a great song, with a nasty funk riff. Plus, the voice is Isaac Hayes – soul, funk, Stax Records legend – becoming one of the oldest chart-topping artists, aged fifty-five.

In all honesty, these balls do be sounding delicious. Cinnamon, butter, brandy, vanilla, and chocolate (though, interestingly, no salt)… Grease up the cooking sheet, (Cause I hate when my balls stick)… Then pre-heat the oven to 350, And give that spoon a lick…! It all leads to a frenzied ending, in which Chef’s balls start to burn, and a piano takes a pounding like nothing we’ve heard since Jerry Lee Lewis was at number one.

If you’re going to do a novelty song – if you really must – then use records like this as your ‘How To’. Ridiculous innuendo, a genuinely good tune, and a proper singer that doesn’t mind taking the mickey out of themselves. Some might blanche at a soul legend like Hayes only making number one by growling Now suck on my balls! I am not one of those people. And it’s not like he’d come especially close in the previous three decades: a #10 in 1975 with ‘Disco Connection’, after a #4 in 1971 with the iconic ‘Theme from ‘Shaft’’.

Chef was of course a character in 1998’s breakout cartoon, ‘South Park’. I was slap-bang in the middle of the show’s target demographic, and the playground that year had been full of kids shouting ‘Oh my god, you killed Kenny!’ (though I wasn’t allowed to watch the show myself). ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ had featured in an episode a few months earlier, and proved memorable enough to be released as a single, pushing the actual Spice Girls all the way in the race for Christmas number one, and finishing only eight thousand copies behind them. (In doing so it recorded the highest weekly sale for a #2 since 1984.)

‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ isn’t the only chart hit to come from South Park. The following year ‘Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo’ made the festive charts, peaking at #4. A funny postscript to this record, though, is the fact that Isaac Hayes had joined the Church of Scientology in the 1990s, and left South Park in 2005 after an episode satirising said Church. He also presumably disowned his sole British chart-topper. Hayes died in 2008, following a stroke.

796. ‘Deeper Underground’, by Jamiroquai

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

And so Jamiroquai, a nineties chart mainstay, score their only number one single. Should we class them alongside Dusty, Quo, and a-Ha, as one of the great one and only #1 acts? Or is one chart-topper par for their course…?

Deeper Underground, by Jamiroquai (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 19th – 26th July 1998

‘Deeper Underground’ isn’t the first record you’d think of as Jamiroquai’s only #1, and it’s not a record I’ve heard much over the years. So two things strike me as I listen to it now. First, that it’s obviously from a movie soundtrack, as no normal pop single has this much time to open, with strings and ominous chords, never mind a monster’s roar. It was from the big 1998 summer blockbuster ‘Godzilla’, which was fairly successful at the box office but was panned by critics.

The second thing I notice is how heavy this record is. By the time I was a teenager, Jamiroquai were a byword for naffness, mainly brought about by lead singer Jay Kay’s collection of silly hats. Many of their other big hits veered towards a disco cheeriness, but ‘Deeper Underground’ has an edge to it, underpinned by a scuzzy funk riff. They had been acid funk pioneers in the early nineties, and this is definitely not their most commercial moment. When the lyrics finally arrive, Jay Kay almost freestyles over the aggressive beat.

As a soundtrack hit, the lyrics have to relate to the movie they feature in. But Jamiroquai manage to twist lyrics about going deeper underground to escape a massive, city-smashing monster, into what seems like a song about paranoia: Something’s come to rock me, And I can’t keep my head, I get nervous in the New York City streets, Where my legacy treads… The video takes a more literal approach to the subject matter, with Jay Kay dancing his way around death as Godzilla, and any number of crashing taxis and helicopters, destroy a cinema, all with very dated CGI.

I had thought that this record sampled Led Zeppelin, and although the riff is cool it’s not quite at Led Zep standards. This is because I was confusing it with the other big hit from the ‘Godzilla’ soundtrack, Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page’s ‘Come With Me’, which is based around ‘Kashmir’. That one made #2 around the same time (and is Page’s only Top 10 hit in the UK, either with or without Led Zeppelin).

As ‘Deeper Underground’ descends into even nastier, funkier territory, the synths grow harsher and harsher until it sounds a bit like I imagine electro-shock therapy would. It’s cool. I like it. I’m glad that this is Jamiroquai’s only #1, over the much more mum-friendly ‘Canned Heat’ or ‘Cosmic Dancer’. Though their greatest moment remains ‘Virtual Insanity’, which was one of my favourite tracks on ‘Now 37’ back, as they say, in the day.

In my intro I called Jamiroquai a ‘nineties mainstay’, but that wouldn’t seem to do them justice. I’ve just discovered that they were the 3rd best-selling UK act of the decade, behind Oasis and The Spice Girls. Which is very impressive for a band that many write off as one guy and some hats (though as much as I’ve enjoyed writing this review I was probably hasty in naming them alongside Dusty and Status Quo…) ‘Deeper Underground’ remains forgotten amongst their back-catalogue it seems, as it is nowhere to be seen on their Spotify popular tracks. On the same platform’s ‘This Is Jamiroquai’ playlist, it is buried away as track twenty-eight.