nineties pop music

Never Had a #1… Sash!

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I thought my ‘Never Had a #1…’ series had reached a natural end. I’d gone through the main suspects: The Who, Bon Jovi, Janet Jackson, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, among others, and was struggling to think of many other significant acts that hadn’t topped the UK singles chart. Until I remembered the act that can lay claim to being the unluckiest in chart history… Sash! (The exclamation mark is theirs, not mine…)

Between 1997 and 2000, Sash! scored five #2 singles without managing a single chart topper. Of course, plenty of acts have finished as runner-up more often than that. Madonna has twelve number two hits to her name, Cliff and Kylie have eleven… Elvis has seventeen if you include his 2005 re-releases. But the difference is that those legends also managed plenty of number ones between them. Not Sash!

Sash! were – still are – a German DJ and production four-piece, formed in 1995. They had a distinctive Euro-trance sound, and a clear ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach to hit-making, so this rundown of their tunes might start to sound like a spot-the-difference exercise…

‘Encore Une Fois’ – #2 in 1997

If you only listen to one of these, then make it this one. This is a banger, and the only one of Sash’s hits that I truly remember. The female vocalist has always made me think of a station announcer. The French title translates as ‘one more time’, which is fitting because…

‘Ecuador’ ft. Rodriguez – #2 in 1997

They came back with more of the same. For their follow up hit, they swapped a woman shouting in French for a man shouting in Spanish. Rodriguez, presumably. This is still pretty catchy, a little lighter, a little more House-y.

‘Stay’ ft. La Trec – #2 in 1997

Completing their hat-trick of #2s in 1997, we get an intro in a 3rd language. English! By this point it’s getting hard to tell one trance riff from the next, but at least this one does have verses and choruses, and not just shouting.

‘Mysterious Times’ ft. Tina Cousins – #2 in 1998

The second single from their second album (the lead only made #3!) is a little more subtle. I’d also say a little more bland. I actually miss the shouting.

‘Adelante’ – #2 in 2000

We return to something a little more banging, with a little more Spanish, for Sash’s final UK #2. ‘Adelante’ means ‘forward’, which is fitting for a song released in February 2000, with a whole new millenium stretching out promisingly ahead of us… I would struggle to tell any of their non-‘Encore Une Fois’ hits from the other, although this track has to be praised for the novel use of accordions in a dance song.

If anyone has any other suggestions for acts that would merit a ‘Never Had a #1’ post (as in acts with lots of hits but no chart-toppers, rather than a band you really like but that have never been above #23) then let me know in the comments!

Next up, we prepare to party like it’s 1999…

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

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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.

808. ‘Goodbye’, by The Spice Girls

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Managing a Beatles-matching three Christmas number ones in a row, it’s the Spice Girls…

Goodbye, by The Spice Girls (their 8th of nine #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th December 1998

Could we argue that this is a more impressive feat than that managed by The Beatles, as the Fab Four’s three festive chart-toppers came before the Christmas Number One © became a thing? Perhaps. But that’s a discussion for another day. On to the ballad at hand.

For it is, of course, a ballad. My favourite of their three Xmas #1s, by far, is ‘Too Much’, because it desperately didn’t want to be a ballad. But this is much more traditional fare. Listen little child, There will come a day… To be honest, I’m not sure what this is about. A break-up, I guess? With children involved?

Of course, with lines like Goodbye my friend… and I never dreamt you’d go your own sweet way… many at the time saw this as the remaining Spice Girls making their peace with Geri, after she’d abandoned them several months before. It was, after all, the first song they recorded as a four-piece, and wouldn’t appear on an album until two years later. Others saw it as the Girls bowing out entirely, which wasn’t a strange assumption given that Mel B had already enjoyed a solo chart-topper.

Musically this is lush and atmospheric, though perhaps a little more predictable sounding. coming straight after B*Witched’s Celtic-influenced ‘To You I Belong’. I like the squelchy bass – a little out place at first – while the beat is very American R&B, very Destiny’s Child. I can’t find too much to love, though. And coming two years after I’d outgrown my tweenage passion for the Spice Girls, I’m not sure I’ve ever properly listened to ‘Goodbye’.

It’s not as good a ballad as ‘Viva Forever’, that’s for sure. But you can tell that they had access to the best songwriters of the day, as evidenced by Mel C’s genuinely memorable chorus-within-a-chorus: So glad we made it, Time’s never, ever gonna change it… She always did get the best parts… I also like the fact that none of their Xmas number ones have gone down the cliched sleigh bells and choirs route (although the video to ‘Goodbye’ does involve a lot of snow, and people frozen like ice sculptures).

So, after two and a half years, two albums, eight singles yielding seven number ones, the Spice Girls… went on a break. There was still a tour, and solo projects to invest in. But there were also still plans for a third album, that will come about eventually, and give them a final footnote of a number one. It would have been cleaner, somehow, if they’d just bowed out with ‘Goodbye’, their record-matching third consecutive Christmas #1. Pushing them all the way in the charts that week was an animated chef, voiced by a soul legend, who would have his moment in the sun soon enough…

807. ‘To You I Belong’, by B*Witched

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A blast of Celtic pipes meets our ears, heralding the arrival of our next number one. Because heaven forbid we forget just for one second that B*Witched. Are. Irish!

To You I Belong, by B*Witched (their 3rd of four #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th December 1998

Girl group rules dictate that the 3rd single must be a ballad, especially if said single is being released at Christmas. So in some ways, ‘To You I Belong’ is a fairly predictable, low-tempo, pop smoocher (with a strangely old-fashioned sounding title, grammatically speaking). In other ways, though, it’s actually quite interesting.

For such a generic girl group ballad, there are plenty of touches that I wasn’t expecting. The tin whistles and strings give it a New Age feel, with hints of Enya even, and the girls’ floaty, trembly voices are quite soothing. Turns out that B*Witched could properly sing, something that was lost amongst all the bubble-gum silliness of their first two singles!

It’s unexpectedly classy, and even if I don’t automatically love all the Celtic flourishes at least it’s something a little different from what the other girl groups of the time were offering. I would say, though, that it could have done with a more stripped-back production – maybe just the girls’ voices and a couple of guitars – as all the layers of computer generated synths and tinkly bits make it sound cluttered.

Three #1s from their first three singles catapulted B*Witched into exalted company: Gerry & The Pacemakers, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Jive Bunny and The Spice Girls. And they’ll go one better than the first three of those acts, by making it four out of four. Speaking of The Spice Girls, B*Witched sensibly released ‘To You I Belong’ a week before the festive number one race, rather than going up against the Queens of Christmas. However, with this giving the Irish girls their third chart-topper of 1998, compared to the Spice Girls’ one (so far), it could be argued that at this point B*Witched were the bigger group…

Finally from a chart-geek angle, this record kicks off a run of ten one-week #1s in a row, through until late February 1999, as the chart-topping turnover continues to ramp up. (The previous longest run of one-weekers was five, in early 1997.)

806. ‘Believe’, by Cher

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What is this fantasy world, in which a fifty-two year old woman can score the biggest hit of her career, well over thirty years into it..?

Believe, by Cher (her 4th and final #1)

7 weeks, from 25th October – 13th December 1998

Well the autumn of 1998 was no fantasy. Was it the novelty factor? Was it the autotune? Or was it just the fact that ‘Believe’ is a simply great pop song? Yes, yes, and yes; but I also think that it’s the contrast between the low-key, melancholy verses, with lines like No matter how hard I try, You keep pushing me aside… And the soaring, positive chorus. Do you believe in life after love…? Well, do you?

It’s also a modern sounding pop song, with all the late nineties flourishes, sound effects and, yes, a version of that synthesised drum beat. Quite a departure from the MOR rock that Cher had been recording for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s; sounding like it could have been recorded by one of the much younger poppettes of the day.

But we do have to address the Auto-Tuned elephant in the room. ‘Believe’ is often credited with introducing the world to the tool, which had been invented just one year before. But it’s use here is gimmicky, and fun. Nobody doubts that Cher can sing, and the way she belts the middle-eight out here, all natural, leave us in no doubt. Other, less vocally capable, singers’ use of Auto-Tune is a subject we can save for another day…

‘Believe’ truly was a behemoth of a song. Seven weeks at number one in the late-nineties was a huge achievement, a run that will not be matched again until 2005. In some ways we could see it as the last of the 1990’s ‘event’ singles, songs that went beyond the chart and entered the lives of the general public, like Bryan Adams, Whitney Houston, Wet Wet Wet, and Elton John before. I certainly remember it being everywhere in the school playground that autumn, and it remains the biggest-selling single of all time by a solo female.

I wrote earlier about the novelty factor of having an old(er) pop star like Cher at number one, but the truth is that this was her third chart-topper of the decade, after ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ and ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’. The ‘90s is by far her most successful chart era, after her initial ‘60s successes and a fairly barren twenty years in between. So perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise that she was capable of pulling a hit like this out of the bag in her fifties.

Since ‘Believe’ Cher hasn’t managed too many more hits, but she reached #18 last year – aged seventy-seven! – with her festive ‘DJ Play a Christmas Song’. She will probably outlive us all. An interesting footnote here is that the week in which ‘Believe’ made #1 – the final week in October – the Top 5 of the singles chart was famously superannuated. George Michael was #2 with ‘Outside’, U2 were at #3, and a recently reformed Culture Club sat at #4.

804. ‘Girlfriend’, by Billie

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Right after B*Witched, the year’s second biggest teenybop act returns for another crack at the top…

Girlfriend, by Billie (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 11th – 18th October 1998

I thought ‘Rollercoaster’ was a big improvement on ‘C’est la Vie’, a record I detested. Is the same upswing evident with Miss Piper, bearing in mind that I didn’t find ‘Because We Want To’ anywhere near as bad as B*Witched’s accursed debut? Um… Not particularly. It’s more of the same, really.

It starts off fairly promisingly, though. Some excellent vintage record scratches, and some shoobydoobydoopdoops reminiscent of the classic girl groups. There’s a bit of sass in the verses, and I can certainly hear a bit of All Saints in there (as with B*Witched, Billie’s second single was clearly trying to add a little more edge). The song’s premise is that Billie has seen a boy that she likes, and she isn’t going to play it coy: Playin’ hard to get takes too long sugar, So I told my friends that I’ve found a man…

While I admire the confidence (very Girl Power), the song is let down by another chanty chorus. Do you have a girlfriend…? Can I have your number…? I don’t think it suits Billie’s voice particularly well, which adds to the grating effect. And I’m not sure this aggressive approach would have worked, romantically speaking.

I’ve lost count of how many pop songs in 1998 have had the same vaguely hip-hop backing beat and squelchy bass synths. It’s another step towards what I would call truly ‘modern’ pop music (i.e. the Max Martin sledgehammer approach). This is a bit more minimal than what’s to come, the simple beat decorated with various horn parps and string flourishes.

Billie Piper has an interesting post-pop career, but we’ll hold off on that for now. She has one final number one, with a big and beefy Y2K sound, and that will make an interesting contrast with her first two chart-toppers. It’s worth mentioning, before we go, that ‘Girlfriend’ put Billie out and clear as the youngest person to make #1 with their first two singles.

803. ‘Rollercoaster’, by B*Witched

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I was very down on B*Witched’s debut single, ‘C’est la Vie’. So down that I named it as a Very Worst Number One. At the same time, I’ve long been touting their second chart-topper as a lost classic…

Rollercoaster, by B*Witched (their 2nd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 27th September – 11th October 1998

Which was risky, considering I hadn’t listened to ‘Rollercoaster’ in two decades or more. What if I actually hate it? Well here we are, and I am happy to announce that this is a decent little pop record. Yes, another spoken word intro had me fearing the worst, but this one actually makes sense, with the girls on their way up a rollercoaster (I can’t believe I’m doing this…!) And thankfully there’s not an Irishism in earshot!

The verses are okay, lilting guitars and organs, and lines about sailing the seven seas. The bridge is great though: very, um, Beatlesy. Seriously, it’s ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. And then the chorus has hints of T. Rex (Come on, Get it on, Riding in a rollercoaster of love…) Beatles! T Rex! No ‘begorrahs’! What’s not to love? This is light years better than ‘C’est la Vie’.

Okay, there is another Irish fiddle interlude, presumably contractually obliged in case listeners even briefly forget where the band come from. But this one is bearable, enjoyable even. The complete opposite of the demented jig from ‘C’est la Vie’. And there is also still a lot of double-denim in the video, but fashion faux-pas can be forgiven when the songs are good.

Is ‘Rollercoaster’ a lost classic, though…? I guess, probably not. I perhaps oversold it slightly. It’s not the greatest pop song ever. Or of the decade. Or even of the year. But it has an understated charm that its predecessor completely lacked, and a couple of really catchy hooks.

I suppose when your debut is so gimmicky, then you have to come back with something strong as a second single. More of the same; but not quite the same. Aqua managed it with ‘Doctor Jones’, and B*Witched managed it here. They wouldn’t be one-hit wonders. There are even signs that their team were trying to add a bit of edge to them, with lines like You’ll soon be high… Though I’m not sure anyone was convinced by the We’re not nice, We’re cool as ice line… It may be an enjoyable pop song, but B*Witched were still teenyboppers through and through.

802. ‘I Want You Back’, by Melanie B ft. Missy Elliott

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Straight on the back of Robbie Williams first solo #1, we have our first Solo Spice…

I Want You Back, by Melanie B ft. Missy Elliott (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th September 1998

I’m not sure Mel B would have been many peoples’ choice for the Spice Girls most likely breakout star and, in truth, though she struck early she wasn’t the most successful of the five. But this is in fact the perfect solo Spice Girl number one: cool, edgy, and unlike anything the group had released in their two album career…

I’m the M to the E, L, B… Melanie Brown announces. As iconic raps go, it is not on the same level as her Now here’s the story from A to Z… moment in ‘Wannabe’, but it does the job. She tells the story of how she may think her ex is a bit of a dick, how he’s driven her to drink and distraction, but how she still wants him back…

The sharp strings and the ominous guitars over a hip-hop beat do sound pretty cutting edge for 1998, and a huge step away from what we’ve heard so far from the Spice Girls. But what roots this record in the late nineties is the very dated rap lingo. I admire the use of the term ‘wack’ in the chorus, but can’t help grimacing at lines like I know I talk mad junk, But I know what I want… And even though you’re a mack true dat, I want you back…

Still, bringing true street cred we have Missy ‘Misdemeanour’ Elliott on board, for her only credited appearance on a UK #1 single. (She will also feature, uncredited, on ‘Lady Marmalade’ in a few years time.) She does little more than spell out her name and then go ‘uh uh uh’, but hey. I think this might be the very first example of a pop star A ft. a rapper B record to make number one, with many to follow in the coming decades. To reduce Missy Elliott, a hip-hop pioneer, to the status of rent-a-rapper feels wrong though, and I do wish she’d been given more to do.

According to Mel B, this was Missy Elliott’s song, and she the one who invited the Spice Girl to duet on it. Incongruously, it also featured on the soundtrack to the Frankie Lymon biopic ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’. Elliott was far from a household name in Britain at this point, and wouldn’t make the Top 10 under her own steam until 2001’s ‘Get Ur Freak On’.

Mel B meanwhile peaked early in her solo career, and while she would go on to score two more Top 10 hits she will not be returning to the number one position without the help of her bandmates. ‘I Want You Back’ may not be the best remembered of the Spice Girls’ solo efforts, but I’d go as far as to say that it is not the wackest piece of music any of them have put their name to.

801. ‘Millennium’, by Robbie Williams

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Into the eight hundreds, and we do so with a bold statement of a number one…

Millennium, by Robbie Williams (his 1st of seven solo #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th September 1998

The biggest British pop star at the turn of the century, the black sheep of the ‘90s biggest boyband, finally scores a solo number one. It’s a cocky, swaggering track, making nice use of a sample from Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’. (Though in actual fact it is a rerecording in a slightly higher key, which was cheaper than paying for the original.) Anyway, it slams the door open, sweeps into the room chorus first, declaring ‘I’m here!’

After that comes a state of the nation address, over a hip-hop beat. Live for liposuction, Detox for your rent, Overdose at Christmas, And give it up for Lent… We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars, that sort of thing. It’s very zeitgeist grabbing, very of-the-moment, less than a year and a half before Y2K, all delivered with a sense of theatre by Robbie Williams. We’re praying it’s not too late… he sings in the chorus… Millennium…

Even if you’re stuck behind a dead end desk job in Slough, the appeal of an idea that we’ve got stars directing our dishevelled fates is clear. My favourite bit though is the nonchalantly loutish Come and have a go if you think you are hard enough… chant. It is this that sums up the post-Britpop nineties, the lads and the ladettes, the alcopops, all that. It’s clever, and catchy, somehow deep without really trying.

Some pop stars don’t seem to care about their chart fortunes, about whether or not a song will be a hit, but I don’t think Robbie Williams is one of them. At this point in his career at least, he seemed to relish being famous, being on stage, on TV, on the radio. And he released songs that were big and catchy, that appealed to the widest possible audience, like this one. He certainly had charisma, the X-factor that the best pop stars need. But he also had a clever team around him, and a songwriting partner in Guy Chambers who guided him through this imperious phase from 1998 to the early years of the 2000s.

‘Millennium’ was the lead single from Williams’ second album, ‘I’ve Been Expecting You’, but to pinpoint the moment he became Britain’s biggest pop star we need to rewind a few months to when ‘Angels’ was dominating the charts and the airwaves, to the extent that it began to feel like the country’s unofficial national anthem. Despite peaking at #4 it remains his biggest selling single. Following that his now signature tune ‘Let Me Entertain You’ made #3, and the rest is history.

It had been a long time coming, though. Williams had left Take That over three years before, and spent a year fighting a clause in his contract preventing him from launching a solo career while his former band were still recording. Fittingly, his first release was a cover of George Michael’s ‘Freedom’, which made #2 in July 1996, around the same time his bandmate Gary Barlow was releasing the dull ‘Forever Love’. Compare and contrast Barlow’s two forgettable number ones with this one, and it’s not hard to see why Williams went on to be the far bigger solo star.

It’s also hard to overstate how big Robbie Williams was becoming when this record went to the top. I wouldn’t count myself a huge fan, and I’ve never bought any of his music, but it turns out I knew all the words to ‘Millennium’ through sheer osmosis. He will have a nice and steady drip-feed of #1s for the next few years, so I’ll have plenty of time to test my knowledge of his other lyrics as we go on.

Random Runners-Up: ‘Children’, by Robert Miles

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Day 3 of our Random Runners-up weekend, and it’s time for a ’90s dance classic.

‘Children’, by Robert Miles

#2 for 2 weeks, from 10th – 24th March 1996 (behind ‘How Deep Is Your Love’)

In terms of number one singles, we’re only two and a half years ahead of Robert Miles’ ‘Children’. But to ears attuned to the sounds of 1998, this already sounds quite old-school. It is pure mid-nineties trance, house, Eurodisco… whatever. You know I’m terrible at labelling dance tracks. I usually have my own two labels for dance music: ‘good’, and ‘not so good’. But this record confounds such reduction.

‘Children’ has all the touches you’d expect from a mid-nineties dance record: a techno beat, synthesised strings, electronic squiggly bits… So far, so basic. But ‘Children’ also has one of the most recognisable riffs in modern popular music. A piano line so instant, so memorable, so strangely affecting, that it feels like it must have existed for all eternity. I can’t help feeling that it’s a waste for it to have been used on an otherwise fairly middling song like this.

I’ve mentioned this phenomena before, but dance music fans have a tendency to treat dance music like a religion, and the club as church. (I blame the ecstasy…) ‘Children’ is one of the few songs that helps someone like me to understand this point of view. Even as a dance music outsider, and as someone who doesn’t particularly love this song, I could see myself raising my hands to the sky if this came on. Having it large. Nice one! Chooooon…!

Robert Miles was an Italian DJ and composer, who had recorded ‘Children’ in 1994 after seeing pictures of child victims of the war in Yugoslavia. He also wanted to record a slower, more sedate form of dance music to play at the end of a night, to calm clubbers down and send them home less likely to crash their cars. (This was a real problem in Italy at the time, known as ‘Saturday night slaughter’, which to me sounds like a great lost glam rock track…) This more sedate sub-genre became known as ‘Dream House’.

‘Children’ was a huge hit across Europe, selling over five millions copies, and even making the Billboard 100. In the UK it spent a fortnight behind Take That’s farewell cover of ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, but in the long run was the year’s 8th biggest selling hit. Robert Miles managed three further Top 20 hits before setting up his own record label in the early 2000s. He died in 2017, aged just forty-seven.

Join us again tomorrow, when we’ll be heading back to the future. 1955 awaits…