nineties pop music

839. ‘Keep on Movin”, by Five

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Our 5th (!) boyband of the year is, fittingly, Five. And of the seven boyband number ones so far in 1999 (eight, if we include solo Ronan Keating) ‘Keep on Movin’ is, for my money, the best.

Keep on Movin’, by Five (their 1st of three #1s)

1 week, from 31st October – 7th November 1999

Late-nineties boybands, or their management, had a clear choice to make: ballads, or bad boys? We know what direction Boyzone and Westlife went in, but Five took the opposite path. (And yes, I know that Five were styled as 5ive, but it’s something that I’ve always thought looked stupid. I will be referring to them as Five throughout, just as Pink will never be ‘P!nk’, nor Kesha ‘Ke$ha’.)

Of course, East 17 (bad boys) took ‘Stay Another Day’ (a classic ballad) to Christmas number one, but bear with my theory. Five played into a faux hip-hop, street fashions look, more like a young NKOTB than any of their British counterparts. Their debut single was, for example, the basketball referencing ‘Slam Dunk (Da Funk)’. In addition, all five looked like they could handle themselves in a pub brawl (Jay in particular, with the Desperate Dan jaw and the eyebrow ring, always looked like he’d gotten lost on the way from home from his shift at a building site). Even the cute ones, Abs and Ritchie, gave the impression that they’d gleefully steal a member of Westlife’s lunch money.

Not that ‘Keep on Movin’ is at all street, or hard-edged though. It’s a mid-tempo, perky pop tune about always looking on the bright side of life. Get on up, When you’re down, Baby take a good look around… No overwrought declarations of love, or grand statements about flying without wings. When the rainy days are dyin’, Gotta keep on tryin’, When the bees and birds are flyin’… Not lyrics to trouble the Nobel Prize committee, but still kind of sweet.

Musically it’s got a couple of interesting touches, in the verses that must have been influenced by Blur’s ‘Coffee and TV’, which had been a hit a few months earlier, and in the ear-catching, sitar-sounding riff. It sounds very modern for the late-nineties, both in the music and the down-to-earth, positive sentiment, like something One Direction might have put out a decade or more later.

It was also quite the departure from some of Five’s earlier hits, which were much more ‘90s R&B, Backstreet Boys influenced – tunes like ‘When the Lights Go Out’, ‘If Ya Getting Down’, and the Joan Jett sampling ‘Everybody Get Up’. Maybe this shift to a more mature, family-friendly sound is why they managed a belated number one single, but can we just take a moment to bemoan that none of those fun songs listed above made #1, unlike every turgid ballad Westlife ever crapped out.

Speaking of the Backstreet Boys, and by association Max Martin, we should mention the production credit here for his British equivalent, Steve Mac: a man who was putting his name on the third of what is now thirty UK chart-toppers. I should also mention that as much as I think this is a decent pop song, and Five a generally fun boyband, their next chart-topper is, shall we say, polarising…

838. ‘Flying Without Wings’, by Westlife

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Back, by unpopular demand, for one week only… Westlife.

Flying Without Wings, by Westlife (their 3rd of fourteen #1s)

1 week, from 24th – 31st October 1999

In earlier posts, I had mentioned the existence of two Westlife songs that I quite liked. (I then realised that ‘If I Let You Go’ was a bit of a bop, and had to admit to liking three Westlife records.) ‘Flying Without Wings’ was one of the original two, but question is: does it live up to my expectations…?

Well, sort of. It is a decent enough pop ballad, a three-minute long crescendo that builds to an actually quite stirring finale. And, credit where it’s due, I think a lot of that is down to the boys’ vocals, especially – and I’m going to attempt this without Googling – Shane (the plain, Gary Barlow-ish one) and Mark (the, um, gay one), who take the lead.

What lets the song down, and means it doesn’t quite manage to be the deep, soulful classic it wishes to be, are the clunky lyrics, and the cheap production. Unusually for a boyband song, the words focus partly on non-romantic love: friendships, parents, even the joy of being alone, all of which apparently make you feel like you’re flying without wings… Which is a pretty banal title, really. Meanwhile the production is pure ‘X-Factor winners single’ shlock, when a more stripped back backing might have worked wonders.

It’s records like this that make me wonder: who were Westlife’s fans? Ok, ‘If I Let You Go’ was teen-pop, but this and ‘Swear It Again’ are very middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road. I was thirteen when this came out, and don’t remember any Westlife fans at school (though maybe they were just keeping it quiet). Then again, three number ones in a row don’t lie. Though we should at some point, when we’ve truly run out of things to say about yet another one-week-wonder ballad, explore just how canny the band’s management were in securing them all these number ones.

So, ‘Flying Without Wings’: pretty good, compared to much of Westlife’s output, but not the classic it so clearly wants to be. And I’d say that there are plenty of their songs that are better remembered a quarter of a century on. Interestingly, though, in 2004 a live version of ‘Flying Without Wings’ made history by becoming the first ever #1 on the download chart (a chart that in 2005 would be combined into the regular singles countdown). What I would like to ask, though, is why oh why did they not save this record for their Christmas release a few weeks later, rather than the dross they did eventually serve up…? More on that soon enough.

837. ‘Genie in a Bottle’, by Christina Aguilera

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1999’s second biggest pop princess launches…

Genie in a Bottle, by Christina Aguilera (her 1st of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 10th – 24th October 1999

Despite both being former squeaky clean Disney Mouseketeers, it felt from the very beginning that Christina Aguilera was packaged as the anti-Britney, the bad girl, the girl next door if you lived in a slightly dodgier neighbourhood… And listening to ‘Genie in the Bottle’, you can see why.

Compared to ‘…Baby One More Time’ its edges are sharper, its beats more streetwise and sassy, and its lyrics a lot more steamy. My body’s saying let’s go, But my heart is saying no… One thing I’d never really notice before is the dramatic squelchy synth riff that underpins the whole shebang, that I quite like. But it’s not got the oomph of the Max Martin produced ‘…Baby’, and it has probably not gone on to be remembered as equally iconic.

Yet once it gets to the chorus, it can compete with anything any member of pop royalty could come up with. Christina has standards, and isn’t going to just give it up for anyone. If you wanna be with me, There’s a price you have to pay, I’m a genie in a bottle, You gotta rub me the right way… Conservatives frothed a little at all the rubbing – Debbie Gibson of all people claimed that it was inappropriate for a teen idol, suggesting that she hadn’t been paying much attention to the previous five decades’ worth of pop history – but really, it’s a song about abstinence: My heart’s beating at the speed of light, But that don’t mean it’s got to be tonight…

Although in terms of UK sales and chart success Christina fared less well than Britney, she trumped her in one fairly essential area. Christina can sing. There’s not much in this record to prove that fact, but towards the end she starts letting loose with some of her trademark yeaheayeahs. And to be honest, it’s enough. Less is often more with Christina, the over-singers’ over-singer.

Despite just now claiming that she can’t sing, I will not often hear a bad word against Britney. And yet, I do think that Christina has lived somewhat unfairly in her shadow. Who, for example, remembers that she also kissed Madonna at the VMAs…?? (This is all from my Western-slanted viewpoint. She is arguably a much bigger name in the Latin world, having recorded half her output in Spanish). Christina and her team clearly disliked this one-sided comparison too, as for her second English-language album she will return with one of the great pop comeback tunes, a song that will make ‘Genie in a Bottle’ sound incredibly tame by comparison. Xtina awaits…

836. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’, by Eiffel 65

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And so we come to this story, about a little guy who lives in a blue world…

Blue (Da Ba Dee), by Eiffel 65 (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October 1999

Blue his house, With the blue little windows, And a blue Corvette, Everything is blue for him… I warned you that we weren’t quiet done with the novelty dance hits, but it feels unfair to lump this in with the Vengaboys’ banal beats. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ has a strange depth to it, a deep melancholy in the piano line, and a compelling bizarreness to the verses’ revving bass and deliberately off-key vocals.

For a start, it’s clearly about someone in the middle of a depressive episode, wandering through a world where everything is blue, inside and out, cause he ain’t got nobody to listen… This guy needs help! ‘Dancing through the tears’ is a well-established dance music trope, but very few records can have mixed dance and depression like this. And really, can you actually dance to this song? The bpms are fairly low, and it doesn’t really have peaks and troughs, the moments of euphoria that dance records need. Just a steady trudge through a blue world.

I can see why this record annoys people (‘Rolling Stone’ have it as the 14th most annoying song ever), and yet I think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, it’s repetitive and sing-songy. Yes the chorus is just lots and lots of da ba dees. Yes, the video is spectacularly bad (I’m not sure what’s more dated, the CGI or the band’s frosted tips). But so what? Get beyond that, and listen to the moment in the verses where the autotune twists the lyrics to make it sound like the singer’s voice is breaking, and wonder if there might not be some depth to this record.

Plus, if nothing else, it has left the world with that piano hook, which has been sampled, remixed and interpolated many times in the past twenty-five years. A re-write by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, which tapped into the 2020’s nostalgia for all things ‘90s, made number one a couple of years back, while there’s not a Best of the Nineties compilation worth its salt without this tune on it, like it or not.

Eiffel 65 are an Italian duo (formerly a trio when this made #1), and this their first big hit. They managed a #3 follow-up, ‘Move Your Body’, which was more of the same without being anywhere near as memorable. They then vanished from most charts, though they were scoring Italian hits well into the 2000s. They are still active, and were recently seen trying to represent San Marino at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile the funny blue alien from the video, Zorotlekuykauo Sushik IV, AKA ‘Zorotl’ has also released music under his own steam (with a song written by the members of Eiffel 65). The more you know…

835. ‘We’re Going to Ibiza!’, by Vengaboys

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Bookending the summer of 1999, Vengaboys return with their second number one.

We’re Going to Ibiza!, by Vengaboys (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 12th – 19th September 1999

But in Vengaworld, summer isn’t over yet. We’re off to Ibiza. Or should I say ‘Ay-bizza’ – rhymes with ‘pizza’ – which I assume how the island is pronounced in Dutch. It is a re-write of Typically Tropical’s 1975 chart-topper, ‘Barbados’, complete with captain’s in-flight announcements, plus bonus nonsensical chanting.

The original was plenty catchy and so, yes, this is still an earworm. The Vengaboys’ producers knew what they were doing, creating records that stay with you no matter how much you’d wish they wouldn’t. And it’s a little more chilled than ‘Boom x4’, with it’s semi-calypso beats. But it’s still damn annoying, and the tacky synth line is jarring.

And while Typically Tropical’s original came in an age when air travel was still a luxury – and when the journey to Barbados described in the song would have been a fantasy for most – the Vengaboys’ version conjures up visions of a cheap EasyJet flight full of rowdy Glaswegians. It’s an interesting example of how even the most throwaway pop records can tell us something about society beyond the charts.

Most of you will probably be glad to learn that this is the last we’ll hear of the Vengaboys (though it’s far from the last novelty dance record of the year). They were amazingly popular despite the quality of most of their records, with their two chart-toppers coming in the middle of a run of seven straight Top 10 hits. I once went on a desert safari in Qatar, driving up and down sand dunes in a jeep at breakneck speed, during which our driver played Vengaboys Greatest Hits on a loop. You can’t properly appreciate the cold majesty of the desert unless it’s accompanied by an extended mix of ‘We Like to Party!’

Recently, as we’ve slowly stumbled towards the fag-end of the ‘90s, I’ve been wondering why pop music took such a turn towards the disposable, and the bubblegum, at the turn of the century. There are lots of sensible reasons, like the CD single being at the peak of its popularity, with discounts, and clever marketing all targeting teens and tweens; but I have an inkling that the impending unknown that was Y2K also brought out people’s hedonistic side, that they were literally partying like it was 1999. Why feel any shame about buying ‘We’re Going to Ibiza’ when the world might end in four months’ time…? I was there, though just a little too young to properly remember the prevailing public mood, and whether or not a fin de siècle over-indulgence is to blame for the popularity of the Vengaboys. But it might have been.

832. ‘If I Let You Go’, by Westlife

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Westlife’s first number one was knocked off top spot by Backstreet Boys, demonstrating the gulf in quality between glossy, Max Martin produced uber-pop and its rather limp and sickly British equivalent. So, for their second chart topping single, they took a leaf out of the American boyband playbook…

If I Let You Go, by Westlife (their 2nd of fourteen #1s)

1 week, from 15th – 22nd August 1999

First a disclaimer: I know Westlife are not British, and that calling an Irish act ‘British’ risks pissing off an entire nation, as well as ignoring a lot of recent, bloody history. But they were very popular in the UK, and we’re going to count them as one of us. We have a lot of Westlife number ones coming up, so it’s better to clarify things early on. Plus, geographically speaking, Ireland is part of the British Isles, so there.

To the music. ‘If I Let You Go’ is a much better song than ‘Swear it Again’. It sounds like it’s aimed at actual teenagers, not their aunties. I can imagine this being sung by Backstreet Boys, something I couldn’t say about Westlife’s debut hit. They’ve taken that faux hip-hop drumbeat which any pop song worth its salt was using in 1999, they’ve added a hugely effective bridge, and some classic boyband Oooh babys and Oh yeahs. Plus, we have a key change! Westlife were not often good; but when they were a key change was never far away.

Other enjoyable moments include the overblown drumbeat before the choruses, and the electric guitars that bring the song to something of a soaring climax. Electric guitars! Blimey. It’s all a bit… fun! Plus, it sounds as if the boys themselves are having a good time singing it, which always makes a song more enjoyable for the listener. I think we should take a moment to appreciate all this, knowing some of the horrors to come from these five lads.

Here I am, defending Westlife! I had mentioned in earlier comments that there were two Westlife songs I can tolerate. I wasn’t thinking of this one when I wrote that, and so file a third tune under ‘Westlife Songs I Don’t Mind’. It’s still a fairly basic pop song, but at least it’s not their usual syrupy crap. Or, rather, it is still their usual syrupy crap, but dressed up in a manner which could give Backstreet Boys a run for their money.

831. ‘When You Say Nothing at All’, by Ronan Keating

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I did warn you… Just because Boyzone’s chart-topping days are over, we’re far from hearing the last of Groanin’ Ronan.

When You Say Nothing at All, by Ronan Keating (his 1st of three solo #1s)

2 weeks, from 1st – 15th August 1999

Barely three months on from ‘You Needed Me’, and before his band had even released their final single, Keating launched a solo career, with immediate success. Of course, he was helped in this by having his debut single included on the soundtrack to the year’s biggest romcom, ‘Notting Hill’, but still. I’ll admit, quietly and grudgingly, that I’ve always quite liked this…

It’s got a nice country lilt to it, and a decent chorus. Some of the production is very late-nineties bells and whistles, and it could have done without the overpowering backing singers. Plus the tin-whistle chorus is better not mentioned. Still, I’d tentatively state that this is better than at least four out of Boyzone’s six number ones.

The worst thing about it is… Yup, you guessed it. The singer. Ronan Keating is not a bad singer. He hits the right notes, he holds them, and you can make out what he’s saying (a quality my late gran held above all else). But his vocal affectations, his growls and lisps, his insistence on pronouncing his ‘ch’s and ‘sh’s like Sean Connery… He doesn’t speak like that. It’s put on when he sings. It’s annoying! And it was a huge risk for him to tempt every comedian in the land by releasing a record with the crucial line: You say it best, When you say nothing at all…

I’ve had various people commenting on Keating’s voice in previous posts. One has suggested that he might have had an alternate career as a grunge singer, which I can understand. Another has suggested that he is better on upbeat numbers, a theory that his performance on ‘When the Going Gets Tough’ doesn’t hold up but that we can put to the test again with his next chart-topper. Further thoughts on his vocal stylings are always welcome.

This was the fourth time in just over a decade that ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ had been a hit. Keith Whitley took it to the top of the Billboard Country Charts in 1988, while Alison Krauss & Union Station took it to the lower reaches of the Hot 100 in 1995. Both of those versions are a lot rawer, and less polished. Frances Black then took it to the Irish Top 10 in 1996, which is when Ronan first heard it. He upped the Irishness – perhaps inspired by B*Witched’s recent dedication to all things Celtic – and scored the biggest hit of all.

830. ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’, by Ricky Martin

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In my last post, on ATB’s ‘9PM’, I wrote about how rooted in the late-nineties that song seemed. I get a similar feeling about this number one, although they sound nothing alike. It’s just so 1999…

Livin’ la Vida Loca, by Ricky Martin (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 11th July – 1st August 1999

And I don’t mean that as an insult. This is a fun slice of Latin-pop, played at breakneck speed. It’s got ska horns. It’s got surf guitars. Not enough number ones feature surf guitars! In one of the most pure-pop years in chart history, ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ can count itself as one of its catchiest, and poppiest, number ones. But it also manages to do so with selling its soul to cheese – there is something respectably real about this, sounding like it was recorded by an actual band, with actual instruments.

It also has some memorable lyrics, about a fairly unhinged femme fatale, who’s into superstitions and voodoo dolls. She’ll make you take your clothes off, And go dancing in the rain… So fun are the words, and so fast do they rattle by – this really is a breathless song – that we don’t mind when she slips Ricky a sleeping pill and nicks his wallet in the second verse. Plus I’d argue that the title entered the wider pop culture for a good few years after this had been a hit.

I don’t whether this sounds so of its time because a) it’s a classic, b) because it reminds me of being thirteen (that devil nostalgia again…) or c) because it kicked off a big latin pop resurgence at the turn of the century. Think Santana’s ‘Smooth’, a Geri Halliwell #1 soon to come, as well as a bit of Mambo No. 5, not to mention J-Lo, Shakira, and Enrique Iglesias. This record’s popularity cannot be denied, though, and can be proven in one simple statistic: we’re over halfway through 1999 and ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ is the first chart-topper to spend more than a fortnight at the top!

From Puerto Rico, Ricky Martin had been a star in the Spanish-speaking world since the age of twelve, when he’d joined boyband Menudo. They had been going since the seventies, and had a policy of chucking members out when they reached sixteen, though Martin survived until he was seventeen. He clearly had something special… In 1991 he released his first solo album, while ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ was from his English language debut (though he’d had a smaller hit the year before with his ’98 World Cup theme ‘The Cup of Life’.)

I have a friend who is somewhat Ricky Martin obsessed, and have been with her to see him live in concert, in the front row. He put on a great show, and my friend is still a big fan of his, despite him announcing in 2010 that she is officially not his type… Meanwhile ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ may be his biggest hit, and his only UK #1, but I’ve always had an even softer spot for the similarly chaotic ‘She Bangs’, a #3 in 2000.

828. ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’, by Vengaboys

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Back in 1995, the Outhere Brothers took a track called ‘Boom Boom Boom’ to number one. Surely, we thought, that was the limit for chart-topping songs featuring ‘Boom’ in the title? How wrong we were… Four years on, the Vengaboys did what nobody imagined possible: they added the fourth ‘Boom’…

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!, by Vengaboys (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th June 1999

If you thought our previous number one, ‘Bring It All Again’ by S Club 7, was cheap and cheesy then you might as well stop reading now. Everything here, from the title, to the lyrics, to the mid-tempo beat, is banal. There are no hidden layers, no sense of irony, no subtlety. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

And yet here I am. Enjoying it. How depressingly predictable. One of history’s most moronic number one singles, and I’m having a good time. What a sad excuse for a music blogger. I will not attempt to justify it. I will not use nostalgia as an excuse. I am ashamed.

Actually no, wait. I will make a couple of attempts at justification. I’ve just discovered the first verse of ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’ interpolates ABBA’s seminal late-disco classic, ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ (strain your ears and you can just about hear it). ABBA! That certainly clears off a layer of muck. Plus, it could be argued that this is actually a gritty, confrontational number one single, written from the point of view of a sex worker – If you’re alone, And you need a friend… I’ll be your lover tonight… – about which social studies theses could be written. (And if you’re not convinced with this hooker theory, just watch the video…)

Like all Eurotrash acts, Vengaboys simply had to be from either Germany or the Netherlands. Place your bets… Yes, they were Dutch. Still are, I should say, as they are going strong on the nostalgia circuit. Like most of these acts, the sexy young stars on the CD sleeves and in the videos were not the brains behind the songs, Vengaboys having been put together by two of the most Dutch sounding men in existence: Wessel van Diepen and Dennis van den Driesschen.

Before I finish, let me indulge in a spot of reminiscing. ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’ is forever imprinted on my conscience thanks to a school friend. (We’ll call him Richard, because that was his name.) He claimed that he had lost his virginity to a girl who had seduced him by singing a version of this song with his name in the chorus. It happened, he promised, at a summer camp for arthritic teenagers. The girl’s surname was, he swore blind, Paradise. There are very few occasions in my life in which I have laughed more than the day he tried to sell us this story.

827. ‘Bring It All Back’, by S Club 7

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Normal service is resumed, after the strangest of detours courtesy of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Sunscreen’… Here’s some A-grade, late-nineties tween-pop.

Bring It All Back, by S Club 7 (their 1st of four #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th June 1999

I hear the Jacksons, I hear the Archies, I hear Disney themes… I hear a whole host of influences from classic sixties and seventies bubblegum. I’ve noticed that while listening to many of the recent pop number ones, I’ve ended up spending more time working out what they’re derivative of rather than hearing them as their own entities. And there isn’t a single note in ‘Bring It All Back’ that isn’t borrowed from somewhere else. Which means I want to sneer at it – my thirteen-year-old self certainly did – but dammit I can’t. It’s just too catchy, too packed with hooks, not to grudgingly admire.

Not that it’s at all clever, or that it isn’t cynical in the way it relentlessly hits each hook after hook, as if some modern day Pied Piper has designed a song that will lure in seven-year-olds across the land. I haven’t been able to listen to it for too long this morning without starting to feel queasy. Plus there’s no edge, no hint of an underlying melancholy, to the lyrics: Don’t stop, Never give up, Hold your head high and reach the top… It almost makes B*Witched sound punk. But still, as a pure pop song, it works.

Besides, I could never truly hate this. This is nostalgia. This is watching kids’ TV while still in my school uniform, looking forward to ‘Neighbours’ and ‘The Simpsons’, before, or perhaps after, playing football across the street, with my mum cooking dinner next door… Baz Luhrmann may have just warned us against the dangers of nostalgia, but I would pay a good sum of money just to spend five minutes back in that world.

This record is further evidence of a point I made a few posts ago, about British pop sounding, and looking, cheap and tacky next to the mega-watt US stars of the day. You can imagine Britney Spears’s team hearing five seconds of this, and dismissing it with a roll of the eyes and a “that’s cute”. And yet, ‘Miami 7’, the show for which this served as the theme song, was popular in the US. Clearly even their tweens had an appetite for British cheese.

S Club 7 were the brainchild of Simon Fuller, after he had been sacked by the Spice Girls in 1997. Presumably he wanted younger, more pliable charges (who wouldn’t rebel against him) which I guess fed through to the cuter, more upbeat music. It is said that the ‘S’ in the band name stands for ‘Simon’, which feels a bit cultish, but that’s never been confirmed. With Steps around at the same time, and with Hear’Say and Liberty X to come soon, it could be said that we are in the second golden age of mixed-gender pop groups, after the days of Bucks Fizz, Brotherhood of Man, and a certain quartet of Swedes (I hesitate to type out that band’s name, in case a casual skim-reader thinks I’m actually comparing them to S Club 7!)

I will happily admit, however, that S Club 7 have much better songs to come… At least two of which are genuine pop classics. Their sound matured, while their songwriters remained skilled at using strong reference points for their hits, be it Motown, disco, or even classical interpolations (see 2000’s ‘Natural’). Plus, I’ve met Bradley McIntosh – the only chart-topping artist I have ever touched – and he was cool.