number one singles

652. ‘A Little Time’, by The Beautiful South

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Let’s slow things down, with a little saloon-bar crooning…

A Little Time, by The Beautiful South (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 21st – 28th October 1990

1990 certainly is taking a mellower turn. After a spring of dance… I won’t say bangers, because I’m not sure that they were… but classics at least, we’ve arrived in an autumn of lower-case rock. ‘The Joker’, ‘Show Me Heaven’, and now the year’s most low-key hit, from The Beautiful South.

It’s a duet in the classic sense, as the male and the female vocals bounce off one another, telling a story. The guy is trying to wriggle his way out of a relationship: I need a little time, To think it over… A little space, Just on my own… His girlfriend is having none of it: Need a little room for your big head, Don’t ya, Don’t ya…?

Meanwhile a piano rolls, and some horns softly toot, and you’re left to wonder how this record found itself on top of the charts. A quiet week? The Beautiful South had already had hit singles, and this was the lead from their second album, so perhaps demand was there. And it’s far from unwelcome: it’s just very understated, and short, so that it’s over before you really start to appreciate how good it is.

By the end, the man has had the little time that he wanted, but the girl’s moved on. The freedom that you wanted bad, Is yours for good, I hope you’re glad… It’s sort of an earlier version of Beyonce’s ‘All the Single Ladies’; in sentiment, if not in sound. There’s a good amount of humour here too, while Briana Corrigan’s voice reminds me, somehow, of Cyndi Lauper.

Is this another late eighties’ ‘indie’ hit, to file alongside Fairground Attraction and The Housemartins? Or is it – bold statement incoming – the first Britpop #1? It’s probably the former, as it sounds nothing like your average Britpop hit (it’s got a woman on it, for a start) and the only reason I’m suggesting otherwise is due to the change of decade. But rock will be a constant, if never quite dominant, chart-topping force in the nineties, which it never really was for much of the eighties.

Speaking of The Housemartins, this record gives the second and third former members of the band a 1990 #1, after Beats International’s Norman Cook. Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway (the wantaway male singer here) had formed The Beautiful South in 1988 after their former band split. Their debut single ‘Song for Whoever’ had made #2 the year before this, their only chart-topper.

The reason I suggest this as ‘Britpop’, is that The Beautiful South had definitely been lumped in with that scene come the middle of the decade, when they were scoring hits like ‘Rotterdam’, ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘Perfect 10’. All of which were pop culture touchstones, a statement I’m basing on the fact that they were all popular in my school playground (especially ‘Don’t Marry Her’, with its incongruous swearing in the chorus). They would continue to have decent chart success until their split in 2007.

651. ‘Show Me Heaven’, by Maria McKee

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It’s been a while – a whole six months at least. Time for a power ballad!

Show Me Heaven, by Maria McKee (her 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 23rd September – 21st October 1990

I love the opening chords, like a wheezy accordion played by the fireside. I also like Maria McKee’s sultry voice, as if she’s just inhaled a lungful of smoke from said campfire. But most of all I love the bridge, a real gear-shift before the thumping chorus: I’m not denying, We’re flying above it all… I’ve never felt this way!

Then the chorus takes a surprising turn. Yes, the vocals are big and the sentiment overwrought: Show me heaven… Leave me breathless… etc. But under that there’s a folky edge to it, with what sound like banjos being lightly plucked. It’s a post-Enya power ballad, perhaps, with a new-age influence being felt in the background. It’s not much, but might I make the same bold claim I seem to make every couple of chart-years, that guitars are making a comeback…?

My favourite bit, though, is the middle eight: If you know what it’s like, To dream a dream… McKee breathes, before embarking on one of the most impressive ten seconds of singing we’ve ever heard in a number one single. I’m pretty sure she does it all in one breath, unless a more trained ear than mine can hear when she sneaks a gulp of air.

From there this most classy of ballads glides to a finish. As the eighties become the nineties, the power ballads are just going to get glossier. But ‘Show Me Heaven’ melds all the OTT fist clenching that we expect – nay, need – from a power-ballad, with genuine credibility and grit. 1990 has already given us ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, and this provides that record with some proper competition in the ‘ultimate power ballad’ stakes.

It probably helped that Maria McKee was an accomplished songwriter. who refused to record the song unless she could rewrite some of the original version’s ‘appalling’ (her words) lyrics. She already has one writing credit on a number one – Feargal Sharkey’s ‘A Good Heart’ – and had been the lead singer of country rock (or ‘cowpunk’, according to Wiki, which is amazing) band Lone Justice. None of her subsequent hits came anywhere near to matching her only #1; but she seems to be a free spirit, doing whatever she pleases, be it recording music, making short films, or writing fiction.

‘Show Me Heaven’ featured on the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman, NASCAR racing film ‘Days of Thunder’ (Cruise and Kidman met on set, and were married barely a year later.) This makes it the second song from a Tom Cruise movie to make #1, after ‘Take My Breath Away’ (sadly ‘Kokomo’ couldn’t replicate it’s US success on British shores…) And, lest we forget, Nicky Kidman has her own chart-topping moment in the sun to come…

650. ‘The Joker’, by The Steve Miller Band

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

If the most important chart trend of the late-eighties/early-nineties was the emergence and dominance of dance, then the second was surely the random re-releases…

The Joker, by The Steve Miller Band (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 9th – 23rd September 1990

Such as this! There are usually two reasons for a golden oldie like ‘The Joker’ making number one years after its original release: use in a movie, or use in an advert. Place your bets… Yes, it was an advert this time, for Levi’s, that gave the Steve Miller Band their biggest hit, a mere twenty-five years into their career.

There’s little point in analysing this record from a musical point of view. It’s a strange little country, bluesy, slightly psychedelic number, recorded in 1973; and so in terms of its style and its production values it sounds a world away from ‘The Power’ (I will leave you to decide whether or not that is a good thing). It’s also very silly, with one of rock and roll’s great opening lines: Some people call me the space cowboy, Some call me the gangster of love…

Who is Maurice (wheep whoop)? What is a pompatus? They are references to earlier songs by Steve Miller but also, perhaps, the real answer lies in the Eaglesy chorus: I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker… Yes, it’s an ode to ganja, and the joys of the doobie. It’s ironic that in 1990, as Britain’s youth raved their nights away, it took a seventeen year old AM radio staple to bring the drug references to the top of the charts…

It’s a fairly random, but very welcome, chilled-out, interlude in our countdown. There’s a great solo, played through some cool vocal effects, as well as the ridiculous cat-call effect in the verse. And a wonderfully filthy line towards the end: I really love your peaches, Wanna shake your tree… It didn’t make the UK charts in 1973, but it did make #1 on Billboard, meaning that Steve Miller Band now holds the record for longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers. (The ‘band’ is basically Steve Miller, and a revolving door of supporting musicians. He’s still going, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the mid-2010s).

They had already come close a decade earlier, when the equally fun ‘Abracadabra’ had peaked at #2. Except, in finally making #1, ‘The Joker’ caused some controversy. It sold what appeared to be exactly the same number of copies as that week’s number two single, Deee-Lite’s fabulous ‘Groove Is in the Heart’. But, rather than have two songs share the top position – as had happened often enough in the 1950s – Steve Miller won out thanks to having seen the largest sales increase over the previous week. You could bemoan the fact that a crusty old re-release beat a fresh and innovative dance number on a technicality – aren’t the charts supposed to be for what’s current and all that? – but ‘The Joker’ is fun and lively enough to get a pass from me. Plus, the chart compilers eventually confirmed, presumably after several recounts, that it had in fact sold a whopping eight copies more than Deee-Lite, and was there on merit. Just…

649. ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, by Bombalurina

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As with our last chart-topper, ‘Turtle Power’, I am fully convinced that I will hate this next #1 single…

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, by Bombalurina (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 19th August – 9th September 1990

But wait. As with the Turtles, I might have misjudged… This starts off like a proper, early-nineties dance track. There’s a looped female vocal – Go on girl-go-go-go on girl – and a fairly shameless cribbing of ‘Theme From S-Express’ in the Spanish countdown. This is not the song I vaguely remember from school discos of yore…

Oh wait. No. It is. In comes Timmy Mallett, with a cover of Brian Hyland’s #8 hit from 1960, all about a racy swimwear item, and suddenly it is novelty trash of the calibre of ‘Agadoo’ and ‘The Chicken Song’. As with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Mallett was another part of my childhood, although less so, because he was on ITV and my mum kept things strictly BBC whenever she could. (Years later, a former backing singer claimed that the vocals on the record were in fact his, and that Mallett couldn’t hit a single good note…)

Except, even at its cheesiest, it still sounds like someone with a working knowledge of dance music was present in the studio as this was being recorded. It never tips over into truly unlistenable territory, with lots of knowing touches and pastiches. (Imagine my surprise to find that one of said people in the studio was Andrew Lloyd-Webber (!), who produced the record in a bet with his wife. Bombalurina is a character from ‘Cats’…) The video too does a decent, if knowing, impression of a real dance track, with buff dancers cutting shapes on a fake beach. It’s nowhere near as creepy as a video featuring Timmy Mallett and a woman in a bikini could have been…

This is the second cover of a Brian Hyland original to make #1 in just over a year. He’s a fairly unlikely figure to have had a rediscovery, but there you go. And I’m not going to go as far as to claim that this is better than Jason Donovan’s ‘Sealed With a Kiss’, but I have enjoyed it more. Which is ultimately all that matters, I suppose.

This record is more than just a summer novelty, for me at least, as I believe it to have been at number one when I started school. I can’t be sure, and it would be much more fitting for it to have been ‘Turtle Power’, but dates-wise I assume it’s this. The big question is, though: do I hate it as much as I was expecting to…? Well, the last few paragraphs have probably given it away, but no. I don’t. It’s cheese, to be filed alongside the likes of ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’, and Renee and Renato’s ‘Save Your Love’. Pure drivel; but far too silly, and catchy, and most importantly tongue-in-cheek, to deny.

648. ‘Turtle Power’, by Partners in Kryme

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Cowabunga! God, I used to love the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. (Not, note, the Ninja Turtles, as the word ‘ninja’ apparently had too many violent connotations for UK audiences). Strangely, though, I was completely unaware of this song. Maybe because it was from the soundtrack to the Turtle’s first live-action movie, which I’ve never seen, rather than the far superior animated TV series.

Turtle Power, by Partners in Kryme (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 22nd July – 19th August 1990

Still, I was expecting this to be a remake of the classic theme tune (Heroes in a half-shell, Turtle Power!) I was also fully expecting it to be terrible. But… It’s neither of those things. It’s an actually quite funky rap track, with a new jack swing beat and creepy organs. It sounds a little, bear with me, like Dr Dre covering ‘The Monster Mash’.

The verses tell the story of the Turtles, and how they came to be. Splinter’s the teacher, Shredder the bad guy, while April O’Neil’s the reporter. (Partners in Kryme were clearly given a remit to mention every character at least once.) It also has to set up the movie: The crime wave is high with mugging mysterious, All police and detectives are furious, ‘Cause they can’t find the source, Of this lethally evil force… Plus one stanza is given over to ‘believe in yourself kids’ motivation: So when you’re in trouble don’t give in and turn sour, Try to rely on your, Turtle Power…

According to some sources, this is the very first hip-hop track to make #1 in the UK. I’m not sure that New Edition would agree with that, or Snap!, or Soul II Soul, or John Barnes. But I get the point: those acts had elements of it in their hit singles; this is pure hip-hop. Which means that when rap properly debuts atop the British charts, it arrives spitting rhymes like: Pizza’s the food that’s sure to please, These ninjas are into pepperoni and cheese…

I genuinely expected to hate this. But I don’t. The kid in me enjoys the heavily vocodered chorus: T-U-R-T-L-E power…, and then there’s also the nostalgia factor of it being from one of my favourite childhood cartoons. Lyrics aside, I think this might genuinely hold up, in a way that not all early rap does. Partners in Kryme were a duo from New York, made up of DJ Keymaster Snow and MC Golden Voice. I’m not sure if they were formed for this record; but they had no other hits, before or after, making them a classic one-hit wonder. (The ‘Kryme’ in their name stands for Keep Rhythm Your Motivating Element. Which is catchy.)

Whether or not this really was the first hip-hop chart-topper, 1990 was certainly the year it went mainstream. Snap!, John Barnes’ rap, as already mentioned, plus this, and a skinny, Queen-sampling white guy coming up very soon. It’s certainly going mainstream, but it’s still largely seen as a novelty. We’ll have to wait a while for a ‘serious’ rap #1, but when the time does come there’ll be no looking back for hip-hop as chart-topping force.

647. ‘Sacrifice’ / ‘Healing Hands’, by Elton John

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It’s amazing to think that Elton John went the entirety of the eighties without a number one single. It’s amazing to think that, twenty years into a stellar career, this was his first solo UK chart-topper. But perhaps most surprisingly, it’s amazing that this particular record was a hit at all.

Sacrifice / Healing Hands, by Elton John (his 2nd of ten #1s)

5 weeks, from 17th June – 22nd July 1990

It’s a decent enough song. Elton and Bernie could still knock out a good tune, even this far into their partnership. But it’s very middle-of-the-road, very made-for-Radio-2, very much Elton John reinventing himself for middle age (he was approaching forty-five when it eventually made #1).

And, given that this is adult-oriented soft rock, the lyrics are on a fittingly grown-up theme. Into the boundary, Of each married man, Sweet deceit comes calling, And negativity lands… Ergo, men are men, and they all cheat. I’m pretty sure he blames the frigid woman: Cold, cold heart, Hard done by you… Bernie Taupin was coming to the end of his second marriage at the time of writing, and you do wonder if that might have been an influence.

Away from the lyrics, this has all the glossy touches you’d expect of a soft rock ballad in 1990. I don’t dislike it – in many ways it’s a sophisticated piece of song writing befitting of the nation’s (second?) most prolific hit making partnership – but it also gives me the feeling of mineral water poured over ice: crisp, and clear, and pretty cold. Yet it’s lingered on in the Elton John canon, seemingly held in higher regard than I afford it, and the Cold, cold heart line formed the basis of a 2021 #1, thirty-one years on…

The flip side of this double-‘A’, ‘Healing Hands’, is a bit more lively. It’s a bouncy rocker: a little bluesy, a little gospel. It was apparently inspired by the Four Top’s ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’, and you can hear it in the chorus: Reach out, For her healing hands… Is it just me, or is he suggesting that God is a woman…? Anyway, it’s a great vocal performance from John and, while he gets plenty of praise for his showmanship and his presence, I’m not sure he always gets enough credit for his voice.

Again, though, it’s very mum-friendly. Why now? Why, on the verge of being a very old man (in pop star terms) did Elton score the biggest British hit of his career? We have time to ponder this as ‘Healing Hands’ meanders towards its conclusion (seriously, it has one of the longest fade-outs ever). ‘Sacrifice’ had been released nine months before, making a lowly #55. Steve Wright then started playing it on Radio 1 (crushing my Radio 2 theory from four paragraphs ago), it was re-released with ‘Healing Hands’, and the rest was history. Proceeds from the record’s sales went to four different AIDS charities, which again probably help boost sales.

We can perhaps see this record as a dividing point in Elton John’s career. Long gone were the hit-filled, rhinestoned, giant spectacled days of the seventies. The eighties had brought addiction, rehab, a doomed marriage, fewer hits… By 1990, he’d had one Top 10 single in five years. If this hadn’t caught fire, would Elton have faded into obscurity and the nostalgia circuits? Maybe that’s a stretch, but it definitely set him up for a huge career renaissance in the 1990s. Superstar duets, Disney themes, and the planet’s biggest-selling single of all time, were all about to follow…

646. ‘World in Motion’, by ENGLANDneworder

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Ah yes. It’s that time again in which I, a Scot, have to write about the English National Football Team, and attempt impartiality…

World in Motion, by ENGLANDneworder (New Order’s 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 3rd – 17th June 1990

OK, there’s only been one ‘England’ #1 before: the 1970 World Cup squad’s jaunty ‘Back Home’. (Scotland, meanwhile, have cracked the Top 10 several times – they just haven’t quite made it to the top. Which is quite fitting, really, given our footballing history…) But this record is a different beast to ‘Back Home’. This is no cheesy squad singalong, about trophies and triumph. This is actually quite cool.

It helps that New Order were a very good band, the band of ‘True Faith’ and ‘Blue Monday’, and of Joy Division before that, and that they created a credible piece of dance-pop. And it helps that they tried to write a song that could stand alone if separated from its footballing context: Express yourself, Create the space… Beat the man, Take him on… And of course the chorus: Love’s got the world in motion, And I know what we can do…

Sensibly, the actual players are limited to backing vocals. Until, of course, the rap. Liverpool winger John Barnes takes over for perhaps British hip-hop’s most iconic moment, written by comedian Keith Allen (who prances around in the video): Catch me if you can, Cos I’m the England man… Three lions on our chest, I know we can’t go wrong… And then boom! Suddenly, it’s a full on football song, with Eng-er-land chanting, and canned commentary from the 1966 final. But by that point, even Scots will have given in and started tapping their feet to the best, yes I’m committing right here and now, football single ever.

The back stories to this song are quite fun. New Order initially suggested a song called ‘E for England’, which was quickly rejected by the FA for its fairly blatant drug references. Star striker Gary Lineker didn’t want to feature as he was releasing his own World Cup single, the completely forgotten ‘If We Win It All’. Meanwhile, seventy-year-old Kenneth Wolstenholme re-recorded his ’66 commentary specially for the song (making him the oldest person so far to feature on a #1…?)

‘World in Motion’ came at an interesting time for football. The Hillsborough disaster had happened the year before, and the changes to stadiums and crowd management that would come out of that tragedy were about to be implemented. Meanwhile, at the World Cup in Italy, England put in their best performance since you-know-when and lost on penalties to West Germany in the semis: Gazza’s tears, Chris Waddle, Pavarotti and all that. (Scotland, naturally, went out in the group stages.) The video is charmingly low-budget, and the players a world away from the well-groomed, tattoo-ed, sculpted lads of today. It’s an interesting glimpse of a sport that I cannot quite remember, just two years before the Premier League/Champions League explosion.

But, that’s a story for a different blog. Musically, this was New Order’s only #1, though they scored eight Top 10s between 1983 and 2005 (including the best-selling 12” of all time). They were, still are, hugely influential and as fun as this record is, it’s somewhat bittersweet that it’s their biggest chart hit. And sadly, ‘World in Motion’ has since been relegated to the second division of football songs, behind a far more obnoxious, entitled, and frankly (without giving too much away) insufferable single from six years later…

645. ‘Killer’, by Adamski

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The first word that comes to mind as this next number one begins is ‘lumbering’. Like Godzilla trampling Tokyo underfoot, the beat here is heavy, and relentless…

Killer, by Adamski (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 6th May – 3rd June 1990

It’s a fourth consecutive dance #1, and each one has done something slightly different within the genre’s confines. ‘Dub Be Good to Me’, ‘The Power’, ‘Vogue’, this. They’ve all had one thing in common, though: pretty low bpm. There have been moments, while listening to each one, in which I’ve wondered whether you could do much dancing to them. The early ‘90s was the height of rave culture in the UK, of people off their tits and mad for it in a field in Hampshire, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it by listening to the most popular dance tracks of the time.

While ‘Vogue’ well and truly warmed up after a slow start, I’m not sure if ‘Killer’ ever quite rises above its plodding beat, decorated with creepy synth effects that sound like aliens trying to broadcast to the mothership. There’s a moment in the middle where some choppy trickery with the vocals turns them into a sort of dance Morse Code, and this kicks things into life. There’s a more traditionally ‘dancey’ piano riff after that, and a moment where you think this might be turning into a banger. But it doesn’t quite manage it.

Solitary brother… I like this line… Is there still a part of you that wants to live…? Again, not your run-of-the-mill dance lyrics. And while we should applaud strangeness, and creativity, and so on; it doesn’t mean that I particularly enjoy this record. I’d file in under ‘interesting’, rather than ‘fun’.

The vocalist was an at the time unknown bloke called Seal. (So unknown that the Official Charts didn’t credit him on the single, which seems a bit harsh.) He’d been a funk and soul singer in Britain and the Far East, and was sleeping on a friend’s sofa when he met DJ and producer Adamski, handing him a demo tape. The rest is history, though nothing he did after his big breakthrough hit has the same oomph. He went back down the smooth soul route, and along the way recorded one of my least favourite songs of all time: ‘Kiss From a Rose’. (It just gives me goosebumps, and not the good kind…)

What’s ‘Killer’ about, though? The lyrics, written by Seal, are an exhortation to freedom and to transcending whatever holds you back, according to the man himself. That sounds more like M People than this weirdly ominous record, while Adamski meanwhile thinks it sounds like the soundtrack to a movie murder scene. It ends with a message: Racism in amongst future kids can only lead to no good… Which is worthy, but which means the record ends on a strangely sombre note.

Seal released his debut solo album later that year, and has gone on to sell twenty million records around the world, and to marry Heidi Klum. Adamski, meanwhile, scored a #7 with the follow-up, before fading from popular view. He still records though, and tours as a DJ.

Of the past four number ones – the spring of dance, I’ll call it – I’d have ‘Vogue’ as my favourite, closely followed by Beats International. But I’d have ‘Killer’ in third, ahead of Snap! It’s a very odd song, an uncomfortable, edgy record; but there’s greatness there, buried somewhere deep. Up next, an act that are undoubtedly dance music pioneers, the daddies of all this electronic business, and one of the most influential bands of the 1980s… With Peter Beardsley.

644. ‘Vogue’, by Madonna

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What’re you looking at? snaps Madonna at the start of her seventh, and perhaps most iconic number one. You of course, Madge. You.

Vogue, by Madonna (her 7th of thirteen #1s)

4 weeks, from 8th April – 6th May 1990

At this point, Madonna was hitting at a rate of one #1 per year. 1989’s chart-topper, ‘Like a Prayer’, gave us Madonna the shocker, the church baiting provocateuse. 1990’s chart-topper was the other side of her coin: Madonna the trend-setter, the cultural chameleon (or bandwagon jumper, if you’re not a fan…) For she was off to the ballrooms of Harlem…

‘Vogueing’ as a dance movement had grown there during the 1980s, among black and Latino gay communities. The sudden, sharp movements were supposed to be an impersonation of Egyptian hieroglyphs, or of a star changing poses in a photoshoot for, yes, ‘Vogue’. Madonna had been introduced to it by her own dancers and choreographers. (*Insert complaints about Madonna milking the gay community for her own commercial advantage* Not that I’d at all agree: this was perhaps the start of ‘gay’ culture going mainstream, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and Madge has always been open about her support of LGBTs.)

Like ‘The Power’, the record it replaced at the top, ‘Vogue’s slick house rhythm doesn’t sound instantly danceable. But it creeps up on you, until two minutes in you realise that you’re shimmying. The tinny drums that lead up to each verse and chorus are very Hi-NRG (dare we say, very SAW?) and the short sharp horn blasts keep you on your feet. By the time she yells the Get up on the dancefloor! line, you’re there. Meanwhile the lyrics are fairly generic dance: Let your body move to the music… You’re a superstar, That’s what you are… etc. etc.

Of course many people at the time, unfamiliar with gay ballroom culture, would have assumed that the title referred to the fashion magazine. Madonna nods to that too, in the spoken word section, as she lists various women with an attitude and fellas who were in the mood from Hollywood’s golden age, on the cover of a magazine. And, just in case this record wasn’t gay enough, it includes the line: They had style, They had grace, Rita Hayworth, Gave good face…

Unlike ‘Like a Prayer’, ‘Vogue’ isn’t from a classic album. It’s the final track, tacked on to ‘I’m Breathless’: the soundtrack to the prohibition-era movie ‘Dick Tracy’. The follow-up single was the ridiculous ‘Hanky Panky’ (nothing like a good spanky!) But ‘Vogue’ has long-outlasted both album and film, to rank alongside Madonna’s very best songs. Whereas I didn’t enjoy listening to ‘Like a Prayer’ as much as I thought I would; the past hour has brought me to realise just how good ‘Vogue’ really is.

Believe it or not, this is the last we’ll be hearing from Madonna for eight whole years. She only has two #1s in the 1990s (while she has as many in the ‘00s as she managed in the ‘80s). Not that she’s going anywhere: aside from those two #1s, the decade will bring her a staggering twenty-two Top 10 hits, including four #2s. And ‘Vogue’, a number one in thirty countries and to date her biggest-seller worldwide, kicked it all off.

643. ‘The Power’, by Snap!

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The spring of 1990 truly was an age of interesting intros. Well, I don’t know if two songs quite make an ‘age’, but following on from Beats International’s famous rap, our next #1 kicks off with a burst of Russian LW radio. Something something transceptor technology…

The Power, by Snap! (their 1st of two #1s)

2 weeks, from 25th March – 8th April 1990

Then boom: a riff that sounds like an electric shock, and (another) dance diva with big lungs bellowing about having the power. So far so famous, a hook that pretty much everyone of a certain age knows. Unfortunately, the less-remembered remainder of the song struggles to match the energy of the title line.

It’s much lower-tempo than you’d think: I’d mis-remembered it as a madcap ride, akin to S-Express, but it’s nowhere near as fun. There’s a rapper – in fact this might be the most rap-heavy chart-topper so far, at the start of the decade in which hip-hop will finally go mainstream. Turbo B has a couple of good lines: Maniac, Brainiac, Winnin’ the game, I’m the lyrical Jessie James… and a real clunker: So peace, Stay off my back, Or I will attack, And you don’t want that… While Penny James, the female lead, has a voice that contrasts with him well.

Both the rap and the vocals were based on earlier songs, by a Chill Rob G and a Jocelyne Browne respectively, and for a while it seemed there might be lawsuits on the horizon when the producers tried to use the originals without permission. The record was quickly re-recorded by Turbo B and James, inadvertently setting up Snap! as an actual band with a hit making future rather than a one-hit wonder.

There’s another good moment, when the electric shock riff takes over and performs a bit of a solo; but for me, as a whole, this record struggles to build up a head of steam. I can’t imagine dancing to it, unlike recent dance bangers from Black Box and Beats International. Snap! (note the Wham!-like exclamation mark) were a German creation, and I get “Boney M for the ‘90s” vibes, what with their nationality, their take on Eurodance, and the questions over whose voices you’re actually hearing… (Though both Turbo B and Penny James were American.)

‘The Power’ was Snap!’s first release, and they would go on to have an impressive nine further Top 10 hits between 1990 and 1994. So popular were they that their fifth single was a medley of the previous four, which still made #10. And while this record may not reach the heights of ‘Ride on Time’, you could argue that it was just a warm-up for Snap!’s globe-humping second, and definitive, chart-topper: one of the biggest dance records of all time. Until then, then…