Hurray! Our first random dance hit of the new century! From the mid-nineties onwards these have become a common occurrence, and they aren’t letting up in the early years of the 2000s.
Don’t Give Up, by Chicane (his 1st and only #1) ft. Bryan Adams (his 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 12th – 19th March 2000
This is blissed-out, late-afternoon by the pool sort of dance. Background dance, if there is such a thing. Which begs the question, how did this middling record end up on top of the charts? What’s the USP? Is it the fact that it’s rock music’s Bryan Adams croaking his way through it?
Maybe it was a bigger deal than it seems now, a middle-aged rock star appearing on a fresh dance track. Nowadays nobody bats an eyelid at a rock-cum-dance remix. I initially wondered if it was a sample of an old Adams’ track, but no – it was written by Adams in 1999, then mixed and produced by Chicane (British DJ Nicholas Bracegirdle). Vocally, Adams does a Cher and is heavily vocoded and autotuned. And yet, you can instantly tell it’s him. I never would have pegged him as having such a distinctive voice.
Other than the novelty of Bryan Adams’ featuring on it, there’s not much here to catch the ears. It picks up a bit from the midway point, with some higher tempo trance touches, but it remains fairly repetitive. I can’t escape the feeling that this sounds like the sort of remix that would usually have been tucked away as the third track on a CD single.
Perhaps the success of this record was due to the fact that Chicane had been responsible for the single edit of Adams’ 1999 #6 single ‘Cloud Number Nine’ (a much better song than this). View ‘Don’t Give Up’ as the follow-up and its success starts to make more sense. Chicane didn’t have too many big hits, but when they did it was usually with someone interesting. His single before this featured Máire Brennan, sister of Enya, while his 2006 hit ‘Stoned in Love’ was with Tom Jones.
Bryan Adams meanwhile was no stranger to chart success. This was his 11th Top 10 hit since arriving on these shores in the mid-eighties. It is interesting to see the difference in his two chart-toppers though, both in terms of their sound, and in their presence at the top. ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ holds the record for consecutive weeks at number one; while a decade later ‘Don’t Give Up’ squeaked a solitary week on fairly low sales, just over a thousand copies ahead of Madonna in the end.
It’s been a while since I did a ‘Remembering’ post, so here’s two for the price of one. Two big stars of the pre-Beatles age, both of whom died within a couple of weeks in February 1990.
Before starting this blog, I knew Johnnie Ray by name and not much else. He after all is referenced in the opening line of ‘Come On Eileen’ (Poor old Johnnie Ray…) But I will now be forever grateful to him, for making the earliest years of the charts bearable, when it sometimes felt like one po-faced ballad after another, after another. His first #1 was the incredibly steamy (by 1954 standards) ‘Such a Night’, and he had a seven-week run with the whistle-tastic ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’ before ending things with the zippy ‘Yes Tonight, Josephine’. All three are well worth a listen if you’ve not heard them before, and proof that pop music could be fun in the prehistoric era. Below I’ll highlight a few of my other favourites of his.
Released in 1951, before Britain even had a singles chart, we can assume that ‘Cry’ would have been a multi-week number one. The missing link between Sinatra and Elvis, Ray’s wonderfully histrionic performance shows why he was known as the ‘Nabob of Sob’ and the ‘Prince of Wails’, surely two of pop music’s best nicknames. His exaggerated, stagey way of singing may have been linked to the fact that he was partially deaf.
‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a standard, recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, to Robson & Jerome. And while I’ll admit to not having heard every version, I’d suggest that you’d struggle to find a performance more committed than Johnnie Ray’s. The man was the epitome of the phrase ‘sing it for the back row’.
Fond of a whistle, Ray made #10 with ‘You Don’t Owe Me A Thing’ in early 1958, a perfect example of how rock ‘n’ roll was making its presence felt in records that weren’t actually rock songs.
By the early 1960s, like so many fifties stars, Ray’s career had tailed off. It’s surprising that he managed to have a career in the first place, after he was arrested for soliciting an undercover policeman in a public toilet in 1951. Rumours about Ray’s sexuality continued, but didn’t seem to harm his sales until another arrest in 1959. He was openly bisexual to many in the music industry, and married a woman named Marilyn Morrison in 1952, who claimed she would ‘straighten him out’. They separated after a year.
Ray also had problems with alcohol, which worsened in the sixties. He would sporadically tour small venues and appear on television in the States, while commanding much larger audiences in the UK and Australia (where he remained most popular) right up until his death from liver failure on February 24th 1990. He was sixty-three.
Del Shannon scored his sole chart-topper a few years after Ray’s time at the top. And what a chart-topper it was. ‘Runaway’ is possibly the most inventive, most exciting, most propulsive #1 of that supposedly fallow period between Elvis and The Beatles. It made top spot in the summer of 1961, and features an innovative Musitron solo, making it arguably the first electronic hit. But even if that solo was played on a clapped out old piano it would take nothing from the record’s innate quality. Anyway, I discussed all this in more detail in my post on ‘Runaway’ here.
‘Runaway’ is so good that it tends to completely overshadow anything Del Shannon released afterwards. But ‘Little Town Flirt’ is another great slice of malt shop pop, making #4 in early 1963. He had a good line in heartbreak, and woman shaming, usually singing about runaways and flirts, and in ‘Hats Off to Larry’ he indulges in a bit of schadenfreude as his ex is dumped and left as heartbroken as he had been.
Shannon had a style, and came pretty close to shamelessly ripping himself off on some records (check out how close ‘Two Kinds of Teardrops’ is to ‘Little Town Flirt!) But on ‘So Long Baby’ he managed to recycle the energy of ‘Runaway’ into a deranged oompah beat and create a #10 hit that sounds both frivolous and terrifying.
Like Johnnie Ray, Del Shannon’s career slowed down towards the end of the sixties and into the seventies as he battled alcoholism. He worked with Tom Petty and Dave Edmunds, and by the ’80s he had sobered up and started something of a comeback. He worked with Jeff Lynne, and was touted as a replacement for Roy Orbison in The Travelling Wilburys. Sadly, though, he shot himself on February 8th 1990, apparently after having a negative reaction to the Prozac he was taking for depression. He was just fifty-five.
This past fifty has taken us from September 1998 through to the earliest months of 2000. How to sum up, then, the number one singles that saw out the second millennium?
Boybands, random dance acts, and a whole lot of bubblegum. That should just about do it. Take the boybands first. Five groups of lads, responsible for nine different number ones. The biggest of whom have been Westlife, whose total of four in 1999 matched a record that Elvis had held for almost forty years.
Then there’s been the former boyband members. Ronan Keating launched a solo career, while Robbie Williams scored the first two chart-toppers of his hugely successful post-Take That life. We could also throw Ricky Martin in with this lot too, although most British people wouldn’t have known him as an ex-boyband star.
What of the girl groups? Not quite as successful as the boys, but we’ve had three #1s from B*Witched, the return of All Saints, as well as The Spice Girls’ third Christmas number one in a row. Plus, the launch of two solo Spices: Mel B got in first but was soon eclipsed by Geri. All in all, that’s a lot of pop.
And that’s before we mention the other bubblegum acts, like S Club 7, Vengaboys, Billie, and Steps. For large swathes of this run I’ve been desperate to hear a guitar, rather than that late-nineties pre-set drumbeat and the usual post-production tinkles and record scratches. Rock acts have popped up now and then, more as novelties than anything else. The Offspring, Lenny Kravitz, Manic Street Preachers and Oasis Mk II all tried their best to cut through, but most surprising of all was the return of Blondie, almost twenty years on from their previous number one.
That leaves the random dance acts. They may not technically have all been one-hit wonders, but they all have one hit for which they are best remembered. Spacedust, Mr. Oizo, ATB, Eiffel 65, Wamdue Project… All legends for fifteen minutes. The two dance acts that can lay claim to having much of a chart career beyond 1999 are Fatboy Slim (who finally scored a #1 under his own steam) and Armand Van Helden, who will top the charts again a decade later.
These have been the main storylines that the most recent chart-toppers have played out, but in and around them some other fascinating tales have been told. Two pop stars for the 21st century, Britney and Christina, debuted straight at the top, while a pop star from the eighties – Madonna – proved she still had the power to provoke (covering ‘American Pie’) and to succeed (scoring the ninth #1 of her career). Meanwhile a star of the ‘60s, Cher, scored her biggest hit, and became the oldest female artist to the top the charts, with ‘Believe’.
There has been the emergence of garage – another sound that will dominate in the early years of the ‘00s – through Shanks & Bigfoot and, to a lesser extent, Gabrielle’s ‘Rise’, which also brought Bob Dylan as close to a British chart-topper as he’s ever likely to get. And of course there was the Latin summer of ’99, when Spanish briefly became the lingua franca of the charts thanks to Ricky, Geri, and Lou Bega’s horny mambo-ing.
But perhaps the most important chart story of all has been the continued speedy turnover of number ones. This fifty took us a year and a half to get through (the previous fifty took almost two years), while the next fifty will be the quickest of all. Of the past bunch, only five records spent more than a fortnight at the top, and an amazing thirty-two of them only managed a single week.
To the awards, then. Starting with the Meh Award for being completely unmemorable. The two records that I was most neutral on were ‘You Don’t Know Me’ (basic dance) and ‘Rise’ (basic soul-pop). But I’m going to give this to a boyband ballad. I’m choosing Boyzone’s ‘You Needed Me’ cover not because it was any duller than the rest, but because it would feel wrong if Boyzone escaped without earning at least one of my more negative awards.
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else is always a fun one to decide, and this time we aren’t short of candidates. There’s ‘Gym & Tonic’, the aerobics routine as dance track, and Chef from South Park, voiced by soul legend Isaac Hayes. There’s Mr. Oizo and Flat Eric, and Eiffel 65 with their animated blue aliens. All worthy winners at any other time. But when Baz Luhrmann’s fully spoken ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, based on a fictional graduation speech, is a contender then the others might as well pack up and go home.
On to the big awards, then. TheVery Worst Chart-Topper for this recap is a straight shoot-out between two truly rotten songs. ‘The Millennium Prayer’ and Westlife’s festive double-A ‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, both of which ensured that the 1990s ended on a very low note. I am aware that I have previously given Cliff Richard a ‘worst’ award way back in 1965 (which seems harsh in hindsight) and so my hand is forced slightly into awarding this to Westlife. Luckily, they are very worthy winners. I am also aware that they have ten more #1s to come, and that I will have to break my own rules if I want to punish them further, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Finally, The Very Best Chart-Topper Award. I have enjoyed chart-toppers from B*Witched (yes, B*Witched!) with ‘Rollercoaster’, Five with ‘Keep on Movin’ (the best of the boyband #1s by far), and the Manics with the blistering ‘The Masses Against the Classes’. I adore ‘Maria’, and had Blondie not already won for ‘Heart of Glass’ I might have been tempted to argue its case. But no. Instead we have two pop icons: one at the very start of her career, the other three decades deep into it. Britney versus Cher.
‘…Baby One More Time’ is objectively the better song, I think. But for the sheer brilliance of a fifty-two year old woman spending seven weeks at number one, filling the dancefloor, as well as making us ask what the hell she was doing with her voice, then Cher wins. Plus, I have a feeling Britney may well be in contention again a couple of recaps down the line…
To recap the recaps:
The ‘Meh’ Award for Forgettability:
‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
‘What’s Another Year’, by Johnny Logan.
‘A Little Peace’, by Nicole.
‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police.
‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 with Chrissie Hynde.
‘Who’s That Girl’, by Madonna.
‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins.
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II.
‘Please Don’t Go’ / ‘Game Boy’, by KWS.
‘Dreams’, by Gabrielle.
‘Forever Love’, by Gary Barlow.
‘I Feel You’, by Peter Andre.
‘You Needed Me’, by Boyzone.
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else:
‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush.
‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
‘Shaddap You Face’, by Joe Dolce Music Theatre.
‘It’s My Party’, by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.
‘Save Your Love’ by Renée & Renato.
‘Rock Me Amadeus’, by Falco.
‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)’, by M/A/R/R/S.
‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords.
‘Sadeness Part 1’, by Enigma.
‘Ebeneezer Goode’, by The Shamen.
‘I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, by Meat Loaf.
‘Spaceman’, by Babylon Zoo.
‘All Around the World’, by Oasis.
‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, by Baz Luhrmann.
The Very Worst Chart-Toppers:
‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, by Charlene.
‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie.
‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, by Foreigner.
‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm.
‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros.
‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers.
‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, by Bryan Adams.
‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)’, by The Outhere Brothers.
‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson & Jerome.
‘C’est la Vie’, by B*Witched
‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife.
The Very Best Chart-Toppers:
‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry.
‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex.
‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud.
‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie.
‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer.
‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie.
‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA.
‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz.
‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive
Just before our next recap, do we have a contender for the Worst Number One award…?
American Pie, by Madonna (her 9th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 5th – 12th March 2000
It’s fair to say that Madonna’s version of Don McClean’s ‘American Pie’ is much maligned. I’m guilty for some of this maligning, as I’ve pre-dissed it in earlier posts and comments, despite not having heard it for a quarter of a century. So, question is: is it as bad as everyone seems to think?
No, not at all. If this was the original version of ‘American Pie’, then it might be quite a fairly innocuous entry to the Madonna canon. But it’s not, of course. I think critics are more offended by the idea of this track than the song itself. Madonna? That cone bra wearing, Jesus humping, sex book publishing harpy, daring to cover one of the pillars of rock and roll?? And I’d guess that Madonna was fully aware of this, and that her deciding to cover this classic is an act every bit as provocative as the time she went down on Black Jesus.
At the same time, there’s nothing amazing about this version. It’s as if deciding to record it was bold enough, because Madonna forgot to make it particularly interesting. Sensibly, she doesn’t do the full eight minute version, and she uses McClean’s final verse, which most radio edits of the original skip. Perhaps she was attracted by the reference to the Father, Son, And the Holy Ghost, in keeping with her usual religious schtick.
‘American Pie’ was produced by William Orbit, just like the previous chart-topper from All Saints. This puts ‘American Pie’ in the unenviable position of sounding quiet a lot like its predecessor, but being not as good. All the Orbit swishes and swirls are there, but it ends up sounding like the B-side to ‘Pure Shores’. I’d have like Madge to have gone full, crunching electro – much like her second #1 of the year 2000 – just to truly give the purists a heart attack.
Madonna recorded this cover – and she’s not someone who has recorded very many covers during her career – for the soundtrack to her romcom ‘The Next Best Thing’ (her co-star Rupert Everett cavorts with her in the video, which also acts as an ‘America at the turn of the millennium’ time machine, with firefighters, body builders, blended families and kissing lesbians). It’s becoming something of a trend in the late nineties/early noughties for famous #2 hits make #1 in inferior cover versions. We’ve had ‘A Little Bit More’, and ‘I Have a Dream’. Now this, with a few more to come soon.
Perhaps, though, the final word should go to Don McClean himself, who was whole-hearted in his support for Madonna’s cover. ‘I have received many gifts from God’, he said, ‘but this is the first time I have ever received a gift from a goddess.’ (By ‘gifts’ we can only speculate that he meant ‘royalty cheques’.)
In other news, I recently wrote another guest post for Keith’s Nostalgic Italian blog, about books from our childhood. Check it out here.
The fifties had rock and roll, the sixties had beat bands and psychedelia. The seventies had glam, disco, and punk, while the eighties had new wave and new romantics. The nineties had hip-hop and Britpop, not to mention dance. The 2000s have… What do the 2000s have? In fact, what musical movements of any sort does the 21st century have…?
Pure Shores, by All Saints (their 4th of five #1s)
2 weeks, from 20th February – 5th March 2000
The new millennium provides an interesting dividing line, after which the Pop River reaches its delta, loses momentum, and splits into lots of little tributaries. It’s all to do with something called ‘the internet’, I think, taking power away from record companies and radio stations, and letting people discover all the music they could ever have dreamed of at the whir of a dial-up modem and the click of a mouse. The death of the monoculture, and all that. (Which isn’t to suggest that pop music’s journey had been relentlessly forward-moving over the first fifty years of the singles chart. Glam owed a debt to rock ‘n’ roll, Britpop owed a debt to the sixties, and so on …)
Anyway. That’s my long-winded way of getting around to saying that if the 21st century has a musical movement, I’d argue that it’s not so much a sound as a gender. Women. Female pop stars. Britney, Beyoncé, Gaga and Swift, to scratch but the tip of the iceberg. (And again, this is not to suggest that Connie Francis, Dusty Springfield, Diana Ross and Madonna were all figments of the 20th century imagination. Just indulge me…)
The dominance of the female pop star also meant – especially in the case of Britain in the 2000s – girl groups. In a few years I’ll be going wild for the cutting-edge pop of Sugababes and Girls Aloud, who even the likes of the NME will be rushing to anoint as the new avant-garde. All of which starts here, with the return of All Saints.
Phew. Having almost used up my regular wordcount with that intro, I’d better crack right into the song. ‘Pure Shores’ is described as ‘dream pop’, and it is definitely a step away from the group’s R&B-focused 1998 hits. The verses are laid-back, ambient, with a thrumming bass and lots of shimmering effects. We take detours between the verses for some whale calls and echoey backing vocals. It’s a pop song with the confidence to take its time, and to take us to some odd places. It was produced by electronic pioneer William Orbit, who is most famous perhaps for his work with Madonna around the same time, and who also worked with Blur, Prince, and U2.
But it is still a pop song, and the success of such things hinge on choruses. ‘Pure Shores’, for all its unusual soundscaping, remembers to click things into gear for a memorable I’m movin’, I’m comin’, Can you hear what I hear… Perhaps I’m of just the right age, but there are few choruses that transport me to a particular place and time like this one. It’s calling you my dear, Out of reach… The best bit of the song, though, is the hard-edged middle-eight, all industrial synths, and the following key change to take us home.
‘Pure Shores’ was written to order for the Leonardo Di Caprio movie ‘The Beach’, hence the Take me to my beach… line (the title doesn’t appear in the lyrics but certainly fits in with the film’s theme). Shaznay Lewis wrote most of the lyrics on a transatlantic flight, which is impressive, and not something many girl group members would be capable of doing, adding another layer of respectability to this tune.
Having said all that, and as good as ‘Pure Shores’ is, I think All Saints’ final chart-topper is even better. Both tracks, bookending the year 2000, set the tone for what pop music, specifically pop music fronted by women, could achieve in the years to come…
I mean ‘new’ in the sense that they had lost Bonehead, their rhythm guitarist, and bassist Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan’, as well as forming their own record label, Big Brother. I don’t mean it in the sense that the Gallaghers had made many huge changes in sound for the year 2000. It’s largely business as usual.
There is a drum loop, but that’s as big a nod to the sounds of the new millennium as we get. The rest is pure Oasis: big, dumb chords; big, dumb lyrics; and some tricks nicked from the Beatles circa 1967. From this album, ‘Standing on the Shoulder of Giants’, onwards, every one of their lead singles will follow the same formula. To be as loud and as instantly recognisable as possible, announcing to everyone within earshot that the boys are back in town.
So ‘Go Let It Out’ is big, and loud, and Liam is on sneery form. It ticks all the boxes, demanding to be belted out by lads in pubs, with lyrics like We’re the builders of our destiny… But it never manages to rise above the faux-psychedelic sludge. There are some nice touches: the squealing guitars and whistle that introduce the final chorus, the wind-up riff in the fade-out, and the bit where Noel announces Feel the bass… (I have a soft spot for bands introducing their instruments and guitar solos). But overall, I’d say that this is my least favourite of Oasis’s eight chart-toppers.
Meanwhile, ‘Standing on the Shoulder of Giants’ is surely everyone’s least favourite Oasis album. (I have defended ‘Be Here Now’ in my earlier Oasis posts, and am prepared to do so again!) It has a couple of good tracks – ‘Gas Panic’ is a paranoid gem, while ‘Fuckin’ in the Bushes’ is perhaps their second best album opener after ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ – and a pretty decent single in ‘Sunday Morning Call’, which made #4 later in 2000. But it also has ‘Little James’, so…
Probably the most important thing about ‘Go Let It Out’ was it confirmed that the Oasis of 1994-1996, the biggest band in the land, were not coming back. This is the start of Oasis living on past glories. Noel Gallagher has gone on record as regretting how many good songs he used up as B-sides back in the mid-nineties, such as the three on ‘Some Might Say’ which I featured a couple of weeks back. The thing is, though… the B-side to this record, ‘Let’s All Make Believe’, is genuinely one of the best things Oasis ever recorded. Had it featured on ‘Standing…’ it would have been the best track by a mile. Let’s face it, Noel’s just loves being a contrarian.
If there was an award for the artist that has flirted most with the number one spot on the UK charts without ever getting a date – the ‘nearly number one’ award – then Bob Dylan would be hot favourite to win. ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘The Mighty Quinn’ were written by him, he sang a couple of lines on ‘We Are the World’, while ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ made it in a cover version. All we need now is for someone to sample Dylan on a chart-topping single…
Rise, by Gabrielle (her 2nd and final #1)
2 weeks, from 30th January – 13th February 2000
Well wouldn’t you know… Here is the Bob Dylan-sampling number one. He liked this record so much that he allowed Gabrielle to use the sample – the guitar chords and his vocal harmonies from ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ – free of charge. This sample adds a certain excitement to ‘Rise’, but I’m not quite sure what about the song convinced the often cantankerous Dylan to donate his work for gratis.
It’s a delicate, pretty ballad, nicely sung and sparingly arranged, with the gentlest of garage beats. In the ultra-processed, ultra-poppy early days of the 21st century it is a pleasant change of pace at the top of the charts. But ‘Rise’ never quite, ahem, rises above that word: ‘pleasant’. It’s nice enough to hear when it comes on Smooth FM (it has probably been on their playlists for twenty-five years straight), but I’d never rush to search it out.
I’m pretty sure I wrote much the same about Gabrielle’s first #1, ‘Dreams’ (in fact, I gave that a ‘Meh’ Award). There is something safe and very mum-leaning about her two biggest hits. I’ll argue that ‘When a Woman’ (the retro-pop follow-up to ‘Rise’), ‘Out of Reach’ (the ‘Bridget Jones’ soundtrack hit from 2001), or 1996’s big, brassy ‘Give Me a Little More Time’ – would have been worthier number ones.
As much as neither particularly excites me, it is worth noting the near seven-year gap between Gabrielle’s two number one singles. So much musical water has gone under the bridge since 1993 (for a snapshot: ‘Dreams’ knocked UB40 off the top, while ‘Rise’ displaces Britney Spears) that it is impressive how she managed to come back with such a big hit. She would go on scoring Top 20 hits until 2004, and released her most recent album just last year.
So, two number ones for Gabrielle, the most famous eye-patch wearing pop star since Johnny Kidd. And only ten letters between both titles, ‘Dreams’ and ‘Rise’. Has any singer managed to get more success out of even shorter song names? Nichest of niche pop knowledge, but let me know in the comments if you can think of one!
I did warn you that despite kicking things off with the snarling ‘The Masses Against the Classes’, the year 2000 would not be ushering in any kind of rock renaissance. Here then, restoring order, is Britney.
Born to Make You Happy, by Britney Spears (her 2nd of six #1s)
1 week, from 23rd – 30th January 2000
I love Britney Spears. I feel I have to preface every post I write about her with this statement, in case anyone is expecting me to give her a critical mauling (I can’t). But if there was ever a Britney #1 I was lukewarm on, it would be this one. Or so I thought.
But actually, this is a decent pop song. It’s nowhere near as cutesy or saccharine as I’d mis-remembered. It’s got a cool, electro-pop edge, a moody piano riff, and delicate guitars embellishing the end of each line. It has probably been lost among the sugar-rush of her other, early hits (and it’s nowhere near as good as ‘…Baby One More Time’, or her next chart-topper) but it’s the most mature-sounding of the four singles from her debut album. Plus, it might be one of her best vocal performances (in an admittedly narrow field…)
It’s let down a little by its overwrought lyrics, though. I’ll do anything, I’ll give you my world, I’d wait forever, Just to be your girl… You can’t really appreciate them, I suspect, unless you were a sixteen-year-old listening to this song in real time. They certainly appeal to a teenage sentiment, but a song with the hook I don’t know how to live without your love, I was born to make you happy… did little to endear Britney to those of a more feminist leaning.
But then again, if you’re going to try to enjoy teen-pop, then you have to embrace it all, even the ridiculously emo side of it. A quarter of a century on, ‘Born to Make You Happy’ sounds like a relic. No young female star in 2025 would dream of claiming that she was born to make any man happy. Which is a good thing, and yet…
For some reason, at school we changed the lyrics of this song to I was born to wear a nappy… I have completely forgotten the reason for this, if there ever was one, but felt it needed mentioning here. As I wrote above, this was the 4th single from her debut album, and was only released in Europe. But like the Manics the week before, it took advantage of low January sales to score Britney her second #1, and to keep things ticking over nicely until her next big, brand new single.
The new millennium. The 21st century. The two thousands. The noughties. Here we go. Off with a bang.
The Masses Against the Classes, by Manic Street Preachers (their 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 16th – 23rd January 2000
Could it be any more Manic to combine rushing punk rock, some of the most instant chord progressions of this entire year’s run of #1s, and extracts from Noam Chomsky and Albert Camus? All in a song named after a quote by Victorian-era Prime Minister William Gladstone.
Whatever you make of the their politics (the sleeve art for this was literally the Cuban flag), you can hopefully admire the way the Manics unashamedly used it in creating some of the day’s best rock music. Their first chart-topper ‘If You Tolerate This…’ referenced the Spanish Civil War, but the band had also received criticism from some of their die-hard fans for allegedly selling out with a softer, more pop-leaning sound.
Which means that ‘The Masses Against the Classes’ works as a socialist anthem, but also as a middle finger to those that accused them of discarding their punk roots. Hello it’s us again… sneers James Dean Bradfield, after a distorted rip-off of the Beatles’ ‘Twist and Shout’… We’re still so in love with you… Success is an ugly word, Especially in your tiny world… It all culminates, as the guitars splinter and distort, with that Camus quote: A slave begins by demanding justice, And ends by wanting to wear a crown… Which, if you think about it, is the best description of toxic fandom going.
For such an influential genre, punk rock has been very poorly served at the top of the charts. Which makes sense, for what could be less punk than having commercial success? I have at various points argued for ‘School’s Out’, ‘Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)’, and even Mr. Blobby, being the most punk number ones. Add to that stellar list, then, ‘The Masses Against the Classes’. Punk aside, it’s just nice to hear some freaking guitars back at the top of the charts!
Not this record’s success indicates in any way that the year 2000 is going to see a rock resurgence after the pop-heavy late-nineties. Sorry, things are going to stay just as poppy over the course of this year’s forty-two chart-toppers (a record turnover of #1s). The Manic Street Preachers were one of the few guitar acts that could break through to the top at this time, and they did so by releasing in dead mid-January, and by publicly deleting the single from production on the Monday it was released (which is also very punk, to be fair).
All this also means that it stands out as a bit of an oddity in the Manics’ back-catalogue. One of their two #1s, that very few casual listeners could sing the chorus to. There are far better known songs by the band that didn’t make it so high in the charts, but then isn’t that the way with so many acts? They would go on scoring Top 20 hits until the early 2010s, and are releasing their 15th studio album later this month. I feel a Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Best of the Rest’ is a post I’ll be doing soon enough…
The only video made was this live version, recorded in Cardiff on the Millennium’s Eve…
I’m sure many readers think I’ve been a little soft on Westlife in my posts on their first three chart-toppers. ‘Swear It Again’ was fairly bland, but I enjoyed ‘If I Let You Go’ more than I was expecting to, and ‘Flying Without Wings’ has an overblown charm to it. But no more. The Westlife love-in stops here!
I Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun, by Westlife (their 4th of fourteen #1s)
4 weeks, from 19th December 1999 – 16th January 2000
Just five seconds into ‘I Have a Dream’ and I’m feeling nauseous. The sleigh bells, the tinkles, the choking clouds of saccharine. It is so cynically programmed for the festive season that I’m imagining a big red button on a mixing desk, sealed in a glass box, with a sign that reads ‘Smash for Boybands in Desperate Need of Christmas Number One’. I’d make my usual comparison to karaoke backing tracks, if that wasn’t a horrible insult to the people who make karaoke backing tracks.
It doesn’t help that it’s an ABBA cover. Even though ‘I Have a Dream’ has never been one of my favourite ABBA songs, this feels like an act of sacrilege. But then it’s not so much a ‘cover’, more a pillaging mission that would make even the blood-thirstiest Vikings blush, leaving behind a smouldering ruin where once stood a much-loved ballad.
With grim inevitability a choir appears, for the second chart-topper running, as we lurch towards what the producers must have hoped would be a soaring climax. The best bit of the entire business are the closing two seconds; not just because the song is ending, but because one of the boys finishes on an oh-woah-owah that I think was meant to sound profound, but that sounds to me like the noise a murderer would make as they drop their bloody knife, realising exactly what a terrible crime they have just committed.
‘I Have a Dream’ finishes, yet we barely have time to rinse the sick from our mouths. There’s another massacring of a seventies hit to contend with. ‘Seasons in the Sun’ was a fairly shite record to begin with, so this cover doesn’t offend the ears quite as badly. Still, it tries its best. To kick off, we get a blast of the ol’ Oirish pipes, in the finest B*Witched tradition, to remind us exactly which nation to blame for this offence.
The rest of the song plods by fairly slowly, and the Westlife boys sound largely bored. The production is just as cheap and tacky. I’ve tried, in the comments, to defend late-nineties pop music from accusations that it was too ‘push-button’, but I can offer no defence here. All the worst pre-programmed touches and flourishes of the era are on display here. We end the decade on the lowest of low notes…
Again, I wonder if Westlife actually counted many teenage girls among their fans, as this seventies double-header seems unerringly aimed at the mum market. And the tactic, of course, worked. As terrible as this record is, it was an inevitable Christmas number one, and the only Westlife single to spend more than two weeks at the top. It was also the last number one of the decade, of the century, and of the millennium. It meant that Westlife joined the Spice Girls and B*Witched in reaching #1 with their first four releases. It also meant that they scored four number ones in a calendar year, a feat managed just twice before, by Elvis in 1961 and ‘62.
So, here end the 1990s. I wouldn’t call it the best chart decade (the 1960s will never be topped), but was it the most interesting? It was a decade of extremes: the longest continuous run at #1, the best-selling #1 of all time (and some of the lowest selling #1s too), as well as the two longest-playing #1s. We’ve had classics that have come to define modern British pop culture, and some of the most notorious novelties. We’ve had Take That, Oasis, and the Spice Girls. We’ve had our first ‘fuck’ on top of the charts. I will be doing a deeper dive into the decade very soon, when we do our ‘Nineties Top 10’.
But I’ll leave things here, on an important question. There’s no doubt that the ‘90s have ended at a tragically low ebb. But what record is worse? This, or ‘The Millennium Prayer’? It is probably a question best answered when I hand out the next ‘Worst Number One’ Award, but for me there’s only one winner…
The UK Number Ones Blog 