number one singles

966. ‘Leave Right Now’, by Will Young

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Will Young and Gareth Gates’ final chart-toppers (of four each), neatly sum up their post Popstars careers.

Leave Right Now, by Will Young (his 4th and final #1)

2 weeks, 30th November – 14th December 2003

Gareth’s final #1 was a cheesy, charity affair for Comic Relief. He then went on to release more cheese, before going into musical theatre and reality TV. He’s made the most of limited resources, and is just about still active in the industry. Will Young’s final #1, meanwhile, was a much bolder statement of intent.

It starts off with a folksy, acoustic backing, allowing his voice to do all the work. Yes, it’s light, a little reedy. But the lyrics require vulnerability, and vulnerability is what Will Young’s voice brings. The song then grows, with strings and a backing band of real instruments, to a subtly orchestral climax, before ending on Young’s wavering voice once again, singing the title line. I think I better leave right now…

It’s grown-up, and real, compared to the hits from his first album. The themes are mature too, about unrequited love, and about knowing when you have to follow your head over your heart. One contemporary review made me chuckle, claiming it to be one of the most English songs ever, a ‘Brief Encounter’ for the 21st century, complete with Young’s posh vowels and quivering restraint. (Years later, Young revealed that he had re-recorded his vocals multiple times because record executives thought he sounded too ‘gay’.)

That restraint goes, briefly, in the middle eight, when he even allows himself a throaty rasp on the I wouldn’t know how to say, How good it feels seeing you today… line. But that is overshadowed by the catchy simplicity of the chorus, which I remember going viral by the standards of 2003. This was the first moment when it really became clear to the general public that a TV talent show contestant could have some musical chops, and some hopes at longevity.

Though it should also be said that ‘Leave Right Now’ wasn’t written by Young, and was still released under Simon Cowell’s supervision. In fact, he released five albums in total under his original contract, only leaving in 2012. Beyond his four #1s, he’s scored seven further UK Top 10s, and has never had any of his nine studio albums chart outside the Top 5. Will Young probably isn’t the best solo artist unearthed by a reality TV singing show, and he’s definitely not my favourite, but he was the first to show that there was life beyond the usual bland covers and the cheese.

965. ‘Mandy’, by Westlife

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Blame me. I mentioned them in passing in my last post and, like a vengeful demon, that is all it takes to summon Westlife…

Mandy, by Westlife (their 12th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, 23rd – 30th November 2003

You might be wondering why I made a fuss about the end of ‘the golden age of boybands’, when Busted are the biggest pop group in the land, and Westlife are still cranking out the number ones. Well, I’ve explained why Busted weren’t actually a boyband, and in this post I’ll explain why Westlife were no longer one either.

Actually, the this cover of Barry Manilow’s 1974 UK #11 (and US #1) hit does the explaining for me. Westlife have renounced the boyband mantle, and any attempts to woo the traditional teenage girl market, and become full-on granny baiters. (Westlife, for all their many musical crimes, were not initially very cover-version heavy. This was only their fourth non-original #1 from twelve.)

And the fact that they are now mining a rich seam of proudly cheesy, easy-listening hits means that this is actually one of their more enjoyable chart-toppers. After the dirges that were ‘Unbreakable’, and ‘Queen of My Heart’, a cover of a Manilow classic is a pleasant surprise. Plus, they’ve added a strangely interesting sitar riff. And a key change, naturally.

Giving up any pretence at being relevant was probably a sensible career move for Westlife, and the run of MOR covers that started with ‘Mandy’ probably extended their chart careers for a good few years (and set them up nicely for a post-chart career touring Asia, where people’s love of a soppy ballad knows no bounds). This was the second single from their fourth studio album, ‘Turnaround’. The lead single – the slightly more contemporary and actually quite upbeat ‘Hey Whatever’ – had done the unthinkable and stalled at #4 in September. Which proves my point about this being the right move for a boyband almost five years into their careers, as back to #1 they went.

A couple of interesting things about ‘Mandy’ before we finish. It was originally written as ‘Brandy’, and had reached #12 in the UK in 1971 for Scott English. Manilow changed the name to avoid confusion with Looking Glass’s big hit ‘Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)’. And Westlife’s version technically has the biggest climb to #1 in chart history, after a handful of copies were made available a day early by mistake. It had charted at #200 the week before, then rocketed to #1 when properly released. The OCC only acknowledge the Top 100, however, and so it is officially a new entry at number one.

964. ‘Crashed the Wedding’, by Busted

/ UK #1s blog / 2 Comments

Busted’s first chart-topper, ‘You Said No’, burst a nostalgic bubble for me by being fairly lightweight, and pretty irritating.

Crashed the Wedding, by Busted (their 2nd of four #1s)

1 week, 16th – 23rd November 2003

But here’s the lead-single from their second album, and this is a little more like the Busted that I remember. Silly, peppy, catchy. Not as snotty or whiny as their earlier #1, perhaps because here they get the girl in the end. True love lasts forever, And now we’re back together, You might as well forget her, And walk away… She’s glad I crashed the wedding.

It’s still lightweight – I’ll accept that Busted were generally quite lightweight – but it zips along, has a brilliantly jarring final chord, and some funny lines (I like the idea that the girl sacks off the nuptials because she didn’t want a silly second name). It does also have some clunkier lines, and rhymes that are forced together with all the willingness of opposing magnets: He’s always hated me, Because I never got a J.O.B…

But that, presumably intentional, dumbness was part of Busted’s teenage charm. The utter chaos of the video is an even greater glimpse into why Busted were, for a year or so, Britain’s biggest boyband. It’s based on the wedding scene from ‘The Graduate’, and features food-fights, spanking, and plenty of drag. Gone are Westlife’s stools, and Blue’s tight dance routines. Even when more traditional boybands returned in the early 2010s, a lot of what Busted brought to the party remained. You could easily see One Direction starring in a (slightly more kid friendly) version of this video.

Having said that, I’m still not enjoying Busted as much as I did back in 2003. This may well be down to now being miserably middle-aged, but it might also be down to the fact that McFly were on their way to overtake Busted as Britain’s bigger (and musically more accomplished) pop-punkers. Foreshadowing this is the fact that McFly’s Tom Fletcher co-wrote ‘Crashed the Wedding’, and Harry Judd played drums in the video.

And B-sides… Manics, Boomtown Rats & Wizzard

/ UK #1s blog / 2 Comments

Time for another peek at what was on the flip-side of some classic number ones. Usually my ‘And B-sides…’ posts have been themed around a particular artist, but I’ve decided to every so often throw in some different flip-sides, from acts whose chart-topping careers are too short to fill a whole post.

First of all, a little something to blow the cobwebs away…

‘Rock and Roll Music’, by Manic Street Preachers – B-side to ‘The Masses Against the Classes’

This Chuck Berry standard has been covered by the great and the good, from the Beatles, to the Beach Boys, from Tom Jones to Showaddywaddy, and any decent garage band in-between. But I doubt it has ever lived up to its title more then when in the hands of the Manics. Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music… they demand, then deliver three minutes of blistering, gonzo, balls-to-the-wall rock and, yes, roll music.

‘It’s All the Rage’, by Boomtown Rats – B-side to ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’

Another spiky track, inspired apparently by a fight that Bob Geldof got into with another band. Out in the street, They’re usin’ their feet… This is a proper B-side: a very different track to the A-side, not a remix or a retread, a song that could easily have been the single, and a glance back to the Rats’ punky origins. The glorious middle-eight meanwhile, ripped straight from an sixties doo-wop track, shows their musical range. (Thanks to regular reader/commenter John Van der Kiste for suggesting this one!)

‘You Got the Jump on Me’, by Wizzard – B-side to ‘Angel Fingers’

Completing this trio of hard rocking flip-sides, ‘You Got the Jump on Me’ is another song that sounds nothing like the sixties-inspired, glam rock track that made #1. This is potentially as close as Led Zeppelin came to a chart-topper… Written by bassist Rick Price, it has the feel of an extended jam session, especially when the driving riff gives way to a boogie-woogie piano for the last minute or so of its six and a half minute run-time.

Again, most of this information comes from John Van der Kiste, who knows more about Wizzard than I could ever hope to learn. Like many of his peers, Roy Wood was a genuine Led Zep fan. He, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan (drummer for ELO and the Move) attended John Bonham’s funeral, which Bevan said afterwards was one of the most miserable, depressing funerals he had ever been to. There was an affinity between them as Bonham and Robert Plant were also from the Black Country. When The Move were being formed late 1965 Bonham, as one of the most renowned drummers in the area and possibly up for grabs, was suggested by someone as a suitable member, but Carl Wayne, who was the eldest of them all, had heard things about him and said no. How different things might have turned out…

Thanks again, John! If any other readers have suggestions for B-sides I can feature in future posts, then do let me know in the comments!

963. ‘Slow’, by Kylie Minogue

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

And so Kylie manages to squeeze one more chart-topper out of her early ‘00s comeback.

Slow, by Kylie Minogue (her 7th of eight #1s)

1 week, 9th – 16th November 2003

Some chart-watchers dismiss number ones such as this, bought by Kylie’s fans rather than the general public, but I think they are a valuable chart asset, helping songs to the top that might not make it otherwise. Okay, we can blame most of Westlife’s endless parade of bland #1s on this phenomenon, but still. I’ll stand my ground. Instead of calling them ‘non-number ones’, as many do, I like to think of them as ‘fanbase hits’.

It’s especially appreciated when it sends songs as sexy and slinky as this to the top. Of all Kylie’s chart-toppers, this is the furthest left-field. The monotonous beat, the cool sheen, the fluttering heartbeat synths. And Kylie purring into the mic as if she were a tiger about to devour its prey. ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ was a weird record (as massive smash hits go), and ‘Slow’ is that song’s even weirder cousin. Had it been recorded by a cool electronic act like Goldfrapp or Hot Chip – and it could have been – then it wouldn’t have come anywhere near number one. Hence why ‘fanbase hits’ can be a good thing.

In fact, her singing style here is very different to the earlier versions of Kylie – a sort of breathy, doll-like style – and is one that she’s used for the best part of two decades now. Maybe it was age getting the better of her voice, though she was only thirty-six when this made #1, but it has grown even more nasal as the years have gone by. (And that, readers, is as close as you’ll ever hear me get to bad-mouthing Kylie.)

Though I will also admit to finding ‘Slow’ a bit slow at the time. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe I was still too busy spinning Fatman Scoop, but it felt a little like a non-event. Listening now, I can see how wrong I was. ‘Slow’ is an interesting pop record, an experimental pop record, another fascinating detour in the long career of Kylie (the almost sixteen years between this and ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ was a record for a female act at the time).

‘Slow’ also features a fabulous middle eight. In a career littered with camp moments, Kylie has never sounded gayer than when uttering the read my… body language line. What makes it even better is that it’s basically a well-placed plug for the album. Kylie breaking the fourth wall: iconic. In fact, ‘Body Language’ is regarded as one of her very best LPs, and the two later singles from it were also great (‘Red Blooded Woman’ and the even slower and sexier ‘Chocolate’), though it is generally over-looked for the two, better-selling albums that came before.

For two decades and more, this appeared to have been Kylie’s seventh and final UK chart-topper. But then a Christmas miracle occurred, and she managed an eighth, twenty-two years on. Which was amazing. Though also slightly annoying, because I’ll have to postpone my ‘Kylie Best of the Rest’ post until around 2030…

962. ‘Be Faithful’, by Fatman Scoop ft. the Crooklyn Clan

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

First up, an apology. I bought this next #1 on CD single, and so played my part in a truly moronic record making the top of the charts…

Be Faithful, by Fatman Scoop ft. the Crooklyn Clan (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, 26th October – 9th November 2003

…yet I regret nothing. And I can’t even blame it solely on youthful exuberance. I thought this record was dumb at the time, and still do. It is loud, obnoxious, and vulgar. But somehow that is part of its ‘charm’ – though using a term like ‘charm’ to discuss a song like this feels wrong.

‘Be Faithful’ is essentially a mish-mash of samples, at least six, with rapper and hype-man Fatman Scoop bellowing stupid lyrics over the top, in his harsh New York accent. Scoop, it’s fair to say, has a voice that goes right through you. He makes a foghorn sound subtle.

There are lots of chops and changes of rhythm and tempo – this isn’t a record that unfolds slowly – and lots of call and response parts. A personal favourite was always the Engine, engine, number nine, On the New York Transit Line… (an old school hip-hop sample from Black Sheep) and, naturally, the following Who fuckin’ tonight, Oh, Oh! lines. Forgive me, I was but a child…

Part of the reason why I rushed to buy this record is that the song had been around for years, and had been played in nightclubs since I first blagged my way through their doors. The original had been recorded in 1999, and had been a minor hit in the US. Sample clearance issues meant that a proper release took years, though bootleg copies were circulated widely, hence how I first heard it.

The main sample involved Faith Evans, whose pleasant tones provide much needed relief from Fatman Scoop’s hollering, and her 1998 song ‘Love Like This’. Complicating things further was the fact that most of these samples were samples of samples, in Evans’ case from Chic’s ‘Chic Cheer’. It means that she does feature on a second UK chart-topper, though uncredited (a theme of the year), after ‘I’ll Be Missing You’.

So, after almost five years, Scoop and his Crooklyn Clan production team managed to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s, and get a proper worldwide release (everywhere but the US) for ‘Be Faithful’, and scored a number one. And it is yet another remix, in a year stacked with them. I make it five now, or six if we include ‘Loneliness’…

Scoop’s long trek to the top didn’t kick off any prolonged success. He managed one further Top 10 hit, though he did stay very active in the music business with guest spots and remixes. He also appeared in various reality TV shows in the 2010s, before his death from heart issues in 2024, aged just fifty-six.

961. ‘Hole in the Head’, by Sugababes

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Sugababes return for their third album, and a third chart-topping single. But is this the forgotten Sugababes #1?

Hole in the Head, by Sugababes (their 3rd of six #1s)

1 week, 19th – 26th October 2003

On the face of it, not much has changed since their chart-topping double whammy of the year before. Same catchy, street-smart beats (musically this is an interesting mix of an R&B rhythm with an almost banjo-ey twang). Same sass. Seven hours since you closed the door, Started a diet, Got a manicure… They miss that boy like a hole in the head, to the point where they would kiss their own arses before thinking of him. The logistics of which escape me, but I like the sentiment.

Yet, this business-as-usual approach makes the song, decent as it is, come across as a little basic when compared to ‘Round Round’, and especially to ‘Freak Like Me’. Those two hits were at the forefront of a shift in pop music, from turn of the century bubblegum to beefier 21st century beats. Since then we’ve seen great pop records from Christina, t.A.T.u, Beyoncé, among others, and so you might have hoped for something bigger and bolder from the Sugababes’ return. Not to mention that Girls Aloud were threatening their ‘biggest girl group in the land’ crown.

If this had come out a year earlier I might have hailed it as revolutionary. As it is, I hail it as a decent pop record, but a bit of a retread. The Sugababes had done better, and have better to come. Also, and perhaps this is intentional, even the lyrics creak under a bit of scrutiny. The sass is almost performative. They are so adamant that they don’t miss this ex, that you start to wonder if the ladies doth protest too much.

Sugababes third album was, for me, a little bit of a step backwards, especially in terms of its singles. None of the others would make #1, meaning that it’ll be a couple of years before they return to these pages. Meanwhile, Girls Aloud had started churning out pop classic after pop classic. Not that it was much of a rivalry, except in the fevered minds of now middle-aged gay men (myself included), but GA did feel like the fresher force back in 2003. Interestingly though, ‘Hole in the Head’ was produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania, who were much better known for their work with, yes, Girls Aloud.

960. ‘Where Is the Love?’, by The Black Eyed Peas

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Straight after asking if we’re ready for love, we’re asking where it’s gone already…

Where Is the Love?, by Black Eyed Peas (their 1st of five #1s)

6 weeks, 7th September – 19th October 2003

A song called ‘Where Is the Love?’, that opens with the line What’s wrong with the world mama, People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas… might come across a little preachy. But I’ve never found this record insufferable, even after living through its six weeks at number one (more on that later). It is of its time, post 9/11 and Iraq, and at a remove of twenty-three years it feels impossibly idealistic that a band would record a song like this, or that it would be a massive hit.

Also, I do like that within the first thirty seconds the Black Eyed Peas have called the CIA ‘terrorists’, and compared them to the KKK. So this is immediately very different from the flood of patriotic guff that came (mainly in the US) straight after the September 11th attacks. It hasn’t really got a political bent; instead asking simply why we can’t be kinder to one another. A sentiment hopefully most of us can agree with.

Sure, some it comes across a bit like something you might hear at a school assembly, especially the chorus begging for divine intervention. But other bits still ring very true today, in lines like a war’s goin’ on but the reason’s undercover… and wrong information always shown by the media, negative images is the main criteria… The difference between 2003 and 2026 is that no pop stars today would dare make a record this ‘political’, much less have a big hit with it, as they’d get sucked into the culture wars meat-grinder and get cancelled, by one side or the other.

I try to keep my politics out of this blog but, when a #1 like this comes along it can be hard not to. Let’s get back to the music. Black Eyed Peas were a hip-hop trio throughout much of the nineties, and added the vocal talents of Stacy Ferguson AKA Fergie in 2002 to aid in a move to a more pop-leaning sound. It clearly worked, although the real vocal star on ‘Where Is the Love?’ is an uncredited Justin Timberlake, singing the chorus. His record company allowed his vocals to be used, but insisted he be uncredited as they feared over-exposure with his debut solo album having been launched a few months earlier. It meant that, after two #2 hits, he was denied a first chart-topper on a technicality, like Jay-Z a few weeks earlier. He’d have to wait three more years.

Apparently will.i.am, founder member of Black Eyed Peas, worried that ‘Where Is the Love?’ was a sell-out after their straight-up hip-hop albums in the ‘90s. The success of this track clearly turned his head, because within two years BEPs were releasing songs like ‘My Humps’. Then there are the group’s moronic late ‘00s hits, and will.i.am’s even more moronic solo career to come…

On a personal level, this song was #1 when I started university. In fact it was on top of the charts for the first month and a half of my living (and ‘studying’) away from home for the first time. The six weeks this record spent at number one was the longest stretch since Cher’s ‘Believe’ five years earlier, and no song had spent more than four weeks on top in-between. It is the fifth-longest stay at #1 of the decade, and so naturally this record went on to be 2003’s biggest-selling hit. However, the fact that it is only the decade’s twenty-fifth highest seller goes some way to showing how low sales had fallen by the autumn of 2003.

959. ‘Are You Ready for Love’, by Elton John

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Another chart-topping remix, in a summer full of them…

Are You Ready for Love, by Elton John (his 6th of ten #1s)

1 week, 31st August – 7th September 2003

Although, I think calling this a remix is generous. It’s more of a remaster, a sharpening of the mix, cleaning the tapes, that sort of thing. Even though it has been ‘remixed’, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the 2003 chart-topping version and the 1977 original.

Which is a good thing. This is a slice of late seventies disco, almost unknown and unearthed, crashing incongruously to the top of the charts twenty-five years too late. All the flourishes that we remember from the golden age of disco are present and correct: a frisky beat, a natty bassline, swooshing strings… It begs the question why this didn’t do better than reaching #42 at the time.

John had recorded it in ’77, but released it in 1979 on an E.P. of songs recorded with legendary soul producer Thom Bell, during a period in which he and Bernie Taupin were not working together. The Spinners recorded a version, and also guested on a special mix of the song with Elton.

Fast-forward to 2003, and a remixed version of the song was being used to advertise Sky Sports’ coverage of the coming football season. Demand built up and, hey presto, Elton had his sixth chart-topper. It was also his third, and final, completely solo number one (though Ashley Beedle, the DJ who remixed it, might argue with that).

This great but slightly random #1 adds to the sense of 2003 as being the year for great but slightly random #1s… From Russian lesbians, to disco remixes from adverts for Lynx deodorant (and Sky Sports), to Bollywood covers of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ and proper heavy, emo rock, there’s a feeling of falling sales allowing the charts to breathe, and indulge in something more fun, rather than being an endless week-by-week parade of the biggest names in pop.

It also adds to the sense of Elton John’s later career being marked by slightly strange hits, such as this. It follows on sharply from his duet with Blue a few months earlier, the first time he had ever had two chart-toppers within a year. Stranger number ones are to come for Elton, before very long…

958. ‘Breathe’, by Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Another 2003 #1 that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the time…

Breathe, by Blu Cantrell (her 1st and only #1) ft. Sean Paul (his 1st of two #1s)

4 weeks, 3rd – 31st August 2003

And another remix. Shall we dub this the summer of the remix, after ‘Ignition’, this, and the chart-topper up next? Compared to R. Kelly’s re-tuned hit, the differences between the original ‘Breathe’ and this chart-topping version are minor: a mix that brings the distinctive horns more to the front, and Sean Paul. (The best part of this ‘summer of the remix’ is that the fact they are remixes is introduced to the listener at the start of each track: Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell, Remix that gonna make yo’ head swell…)

It’s a pretty simple song. There are the big, brassy horns – a sample from Dr Dre’s 1999 hit ‘What’s the Difference’, which in turn had been borrowed, and slowed down, from a 1966 Charles Aznavour hit called ‘Parce Que Tu Crois’ (who thus features on an unlikely second #1) – and Cantrell’s big, brassy vocals. She has a very mid-nineties diva, why use one note per syllable when you can use ten, sort of voice. It’s impressive, and makes you wonder why she didn’t become a bigger star.

It is in direct contrast with Sean Paul’s deadpan rapped intro and verse. If Blu Cantrell felt like she’d appeared out of nowhere, then Sean Paul was already one of the breakout stars of the year, with three Top 10 hits of his own and a #2 alongside Beyoncé to come. I always think of him as the successor to Shaggy, in terms of his indecipherable patois and throaty delivery (though Shaggy always seemed to be having a bit more fun with it).

So, I like this song. It breezes by, and it has a wonderfully swinging hook. (Any song that brings Dr Dre and Charles Aznavour into the same room has to be worth something.) I do wonder if I am more disposed towards this song because, like the remix to ‘Ignition’, it was one of the songs of the summer between high school and university. I have a clear memory of this playing in a friend’s garden as we had a barbecue… But I also wonder if that matters. What is the point of music if we take memory out of the equation and dissect it on a cold, emotionless slab?

Sean Paul would go on to have a career of some longevity, though his next number one is a decade off and his biggest hit won’t come until 2016 (and whether or not he’s even credited on it is a bone of contention). Blu Cantrell meanwhile would release one more album, and enjoy one more Top 40 hit. Interestingly, her biggest hit in her native US (2001’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops)’) was a much smaller hit in the UK, as ‘Breathe’ was in the States. At the time there were rumours about her having had a career in porn prior to the musical success – to the point that I instantly remembered this fact twenty three years on – but it turns out she had had nothing of the sort. A photoshoot aged eighteen was as raunchy as she got. Maybe that counted as ‘porn’ in the more innocent days of 2003, or maybe it all stemmed from the fact her name was ‘Blu’…