Mambo No. 5, by Bob the Builder (his 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 9th – 16th September 2001
Gone is Lou Bega’s list of women that he’s shagged, replaced with more child-friendly construction items and a lengthy to do list. A little bit of timber and a saw, A little bit of fixing that’s for sure… A little bit of tiling on the roof, A little bit of making waterproof… Bob’s a little bit of a taskmaster, that’s for sure, but his gang seem to be up to the job.
It’s largely more of the same as ‘Can We Fix It?’, just to a different tune. It sounds so much like Bega’s version that I wonder if they aren’t singing over the same backing track. But like the first hit, there’s an enjoyable amount of energy and love put into it. It’s a novelty, but it doesn’t overly grate, and the lyrics are genuinely tight and cleverly put together.
We’ve just had two versions of ‘Lady Marmalade’ at number one with just three years in between, and here are two versions of ‘Mambo No. 5’ in top spot exactly two years apart. Not counting the 1950s habit of releasing different versions of a song at the same time (as with ‘Answer Me’, ‘Singing the Blues’ and ‘Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White’) this must be a record for shortest time between two chart-topping versions of the same song. Though is it the same song? Same title and tune, yes, but completely different lyrics. After ‘3 Lions ‘98’ this is only the second song to make #1 twice with (significantly) different words.
Bob the Builder and his gang would have one further hit, with rave anthem ‘Big Fish Little Fish’, from their brilliantly titled second album ‘Never Mind the Breeze Blocks’, making #81 in 2008. Leaving seven years between albums was clearly a gamble that backfired… Bob the Builder remained on TV until 2008, before being relaunched in 2010. I can’t be alone in finding the CGI animation of the reboot slightly sinister compared to the original stop-motion version. The CGI Bob has never attempted a singing career, and it’s probably for the best. Good to go out on a high.
Much like the Dalai Lama, when one boyband dies another is born…
Too Close, by Blue (their 1st of three #1s)
1 week, from 2nd – 9th September 2001
And it’s fitting that Blue depose Five’s final number one, because in many ways they were their true successors. A bit street, a bit cool, not too heavy on the ballads… They were the Westlife, perhaps, to Five’s Boyzone; or the N*Sync to Five’s Backstreet Boys.
And their number one debut – their second single – is a fun track. Like ‘Let’s Dance’, it’s a slice of disco-revival pop, but a slinkier, sexier, slower jam. ‘Too Close’ had been a US #1 just three years earlier, recorded by R&B trio Next. Their original wasn’t completely unknown in the UK, making #24, but there was plenty of room for a bigger version of what is a fun song. What’s interesting is that covering such a recent hit probably delayed any chance of Blue making it in the US (Lee Ryan’s comments on 9/11 probably didn’t help either…)
While the Next version is a much purer, more minimal ‘90s R&B record, I enjoy the quicker tempo and the poppier touches used in Blue’s cover. They retain the somewhat risqué lyrics, though, and I can’t ever imagine a Westlife #1 opening with the line: All the slow songs you requested, You’re dancing like you’re naked… Ooh it’s almost like we’re sexin’… Despite my general revulsion for the term ‘sexing’, I can enjoy this record, and its tale of trying to hide an erection while slow dancing.
An unnamed female singer, listed only as Awsa in the credits, feels a little bump coming through… The Blue boys protest that you’re making it hard for me! It’s all fairly childish, but I do appreciate any attempt at double entendre in chart-topping singles. Again though, it’s interesting that straight off the bat Blue weren’t cultivating a particularly kid-friendly image. Rewind ten years and it’s impossible to imagine Take That trying something similarly saucy. Is it indicative of deep societal change across the turn of the millennium? Or did Blue’s management just assume the kids wouldn’t pick up on the innuendo?
It’s also interesting, to return to the Five vs Blue comparison, to hear a late-nineties boyband next to a noughties boyband. Five, for all their pierced eyebrows and swagger, were still very goofy, and very pop-leaning on songs like ‘Slam Dunk da Funk’. Blue were a more grown-up proposition from the off, with this record’s slick, very Americanised R&B. Not that Blue were the first boyband to discover sex – think ‘Deep’ by East 17, or Another Level’s ‘Freak Me’ – but that it’s still interesting to note how pop music is slowly settling into its 21st century sound.
Five (sorry, 5ive) return for album number three, and in boyband years three albums equals… Well let’s just say it’s almost time to go to that big boyband concert in the sky.
Let’s Dance, by Five (their 3rd and final #1)
2 weeks, from 19th August – 2nd September 2001
‘Let’s Dance’ is a swansong, then, and as a swansong it ticks all Five boxes. Rapped verses, catchy chorus, a hint of disco, cheeky swagger, Abs’ bucket hat in the video… Job’s a good ‘un. There’s even a spot of very du jour Daft Punk-influenced vocoding, perhaps borrowed from S Club 7 (and their far superior disco reboot) a few months earlier.
It’s a decent enough tune, then. But it’s all a bit calculated, fairly 2001-pop-song-by numbers. It lacks the personality, the vim and vigour of Five’s earlier hits, and again I’m left to lament that they had to wait so long for a #1, and that the likes of ‘Everybody Get Up’ and ‘If Ya Getting’ Down’ fell short.
It has the feel of a boyband on their last legs, basically, and that’s before you get to the fact that one of them, Sean Conlon, had already left the band due to exhaustion. This hadn’t been announced to the fans, and so he’s represented by a cardboard cutout in the video. Something that Conlon felt was a bit insulting, and that’s probably fair enough.
And on their last legs they were, as the split was announced just a month after this record had been sitting at number one. Various reunions took place over the next couple of decades, but always with one or two members missing. Earlier this year, though, they announced they’d be getting properly back together for a tour. News that was greeted more excitedly than most pop reunions, because I think Five were generally well liked by everyone, even those who were usually immune to boybands’ charms. They were fun, they were fresh, and they were – let’s be real for a moment – all pretty fuckable. And, most importantly of all, praise be: they kept the ballads to a minimum!
Garage music continues on its mission to be as annoying a genre as possible…
21 Seconds, by So Solid Crew (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 12th – 19th August 2001
The three hardcore UK garage number ones – ‘Bound 4 da Reload’, ‘Do You Really Like It?’, and now this – feel like the musical equivalent of a teenager playing their music out loud at the back of the bus.
I could argue that I’m just an old fogey; but actually, I was fifteen when this made number one. I could easily have been that twatty teen. And while I’m sure me and my schoolmates were plenty obnoxious, none of us were ever into garage music. It felt very inner-city London; not small-town Scotland.
Like the two earlier garage #1s, this has lots of MCs spitting rhymes over a minimal 2-step production. The title refers to the fact that each performer gets twenty-one seconds to deliver their verse. Which at least keeps things quite fast-paced, and if one rapper doesn’t grab you then you know they won’t be on for long. Problem is, none of them grab me. And this isn’t me speaking as someone who doesn’t like rap music. There are rap songs I love. I named a rap song as my most recent Very Best Number One. It’s just that none of the rappers involved on this track have anything interesting to say.
What the title doesn’t refer to is there being twenty-one MCs on this track, though it starts to feel like it. There was actually a mathematical formula involved in creating the record. According to Wikipedia: “21 seconds is arrived at as the song’s tempo is approximately 140BPM, has a key of G minor, and each rapper has 12 bars of 4 beats (48 beats at 140BPM, when worked out to the nearest integer, rounds to 21 seconds).”
So Solid Crew had, at any one time, somewhere between nineteen and thirty members. Which makes them by far the biggest group to reach #1, although fewer than ten were involved in this track. The one member of So Solid that I can name with any confidence is Lisa Maffia, who is the only MC who sings her verse. Turns out I also recognise Romeo and Harvey, who had decent-ish solo careers away from the Crew. Interestingly, Oxide & Neutrino (of ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ fame) were So Solid members but didn’t feature on this track.
Of the three garage chart toppers that I mentioned, I would rank this in the middle. It’s not as intentionally annoying as DJ Pied Piper, and there is a lot of cultural relevance here. It’s punk for the new millennium, the sound of rebellious youth. It’s extremely modern, and there’s a clear line from this through to modern UK rap hits from the likes of Stormzy or Central Cee, while the I got twenty-one seconds to go, I got twenty-one seconds to flow chorus went just as viral, by 2001 standards, as Do you really like it, Is it is it wicked... I don’t like this record, but that’s down to personal taste. I must say, when I reviewed ‘Bound 4 da Reload’ I never thought I’d be placing it top of any list, but there was a joie de vivre in its ‘Casualty’ sampling novelty that is lacking in this song’s charmless slog through five minutes’ worth of identikit rapping.
One other thing worth mentioning here is the first appearance of the N-word in a number one single, in Megaman’s opening verse. I’m a big fan of tracking offensive language in chart-topping singles, from Lonnie Donegan’s ‘bloomin’’, to John Lennon’s ‘Christ!’, to Paul Weller’s ‘bullshit’. It feels like a switch was flicked the moment we hit the 21st century, with Oxide & Neutrino, and then of course Eminem, cramming their chart-toppers with vulgarity. All that’s left is the debut appearance of the c-word on top of the charts (and I don’t mean Coldplay…)
I admitted to a nostalgic appreciation of the cheap and cheerful production on Atomic Kitten’s first number one, ‘Whole Again’. It worked fine on an original composition…
Eternal Flame, by Atomic Kitten (their 2nd of three #1s)
2 weeks, from 29th July – 12th August 2001
But to replace the iconic, tingling intro to ‘Eternal Flame’ with the exact same pre-set drumbeat is sacrilege. And all three Kittens combined cannot compare to Susanna Hoffs tremulous vocals. We’ve heard a lot of inessential covers cropping up at number one in recent years, many of them re-dos of eighties classics, and I’d say that this rivals A1’s ‘Take on Me’ for cheapening banality.
Ironically for a song widely believed to have brought about the end of the Bangles, this version of ‘Eternal Flame’ was the official relaunch of Atomic Kitten, Kerry Katona having been replaced by Jenny Frost during the promotion of their previous number one. It set the tone for several more years of mid-level balladry and cheap covers, none of which were a patch on the catchy, playful singles from their first album. We can once again conclude that Kerry ‘That’s why mum’s go to Iceland’ Katona was the genuine creative force in the group…
What’s interesting-slash-alarming to realise is that there were only twelve years between the two versions of ‘Eternal Flame’ making number one. Yet to my ears, considering I was aged three for one and fifteen for the other, they sound as if they’re from completely different millennia. Which they technically are, but that’s not what I mean… Whatever is beyond your living memory is automatically ‘ancient’, and anything you can remember is ‘modern’, even if there’s but a year between them. It’s the same as how I can watch ‘Top Gun’, or footage from the 1986 World Cup, and struggle to believe that I was alive at the same time…
Apologies for that tangent, but is there a better place to get lost in contemplation of the perception of time than in a post on Atomic Kitten’s butchering of ‘Eternal Flame’? And luckily for us, this isn’t the last eighties chart-topper that the Kittens are going to get their claws stuck into. Their final chart-topper awaits…
I’ve always liked the yearning simplicity of ‘Eternity’, Robbie Williams’ fourth solo chart-topper. It’s a tender song, telling of a fond farewell to a former lover (Geri Halliwell, if rumours are to be believed), with a pleasant piano line and some echoey, country guitars (played by Brian May).
Eternity / The Road to Mandalay, by Robbie Williams (his 4th of seven solo #1s)
2 weeks, from 15th – 29th July 2001
I’d also say it’s been largely forgotten among some of Robbie’s bigger hits, in both a bombastic and in a sales-figures sense, even if this was the first of his #1s to spend more than a week on top. And that’s a shame, as this is a pretty decent ballad. The middle-eight and the backing vocals remind me of Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Goodnight Girl’, and it’s definitely got the same mum-rock vibe as that hit from nine years earlier.
Is mum-rock a genre, in the same way that dad-rock is? Or have I just invented it? Another good question: why is ‘Eternity’ five minutes long? It loses its way somewhere past the three-minute mark, and by the end feels dragged out. Again, though, I do like it. We’ve met plenty of artists poorly served by their number ones, but I think Robbie’s first four have been a pretty balanced overview of his early solo career. Two in-your-face swagger anthems (‘Millennium’ and ‘Rock DJ’), two heartfelt ballads (this and ‘She’s the One’). And, thankfully, no ‘Angels’!
‘Eternity’ was a stand-alone single, released between Williams’ third and fourth albums, but as a double-‘A’ it had what was technically the fifth single from ‘Sing When You’re Winning’: ‘The Road to Mandalay’. Which becomes surely the one and only chart-topping single to be partly-inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem (Telly Savalas’s ‘If’ doesn’t count!)
Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ was first published in 1890, and had been set to music various times in the early 20th century, right up until Frank Sinatra had his way with it in the fifties, much to the annoyance of Kipling’s family. But, sadly, William’s ‘version’ seems to share nothing but a title with these earlier songs. According to Robbie, he wanted to record something ‘French sounding’, and so composed a chorus made solely of ba-bum-ba-bum-bums-bums, which I suppose has a sort of Gallic jauntiness to it.
My general rule when it comes to double-‘A’ is that the two sides should sound different. But although it’s much more upbeat than ‘Eternity’, ‘The Road to Mandalay’ is still quite light and acoustic. I’m not sure it adds enough to the record to warrant its inclusion, even if it is pleasant.
At least it does add to the list of places to feature in #1 singles, alongside Paris, San Francisco, Massachusetts and Liverpool (there must be more, that was just off the top of my head…) And if ever there was a Pointless answer to ‘Places that feature in number one singles’, then Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, must be it.
As the nineties progressed I – far from your usual raver – found myself enjoying dance music more and more. Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers incorporated rock into it, trance brought a banging immediacy to it, while I’m always susceptible to a bit of Euro-dance cheese.
Another Chance, by Roger Sanchez (his 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 8th – 15th July 2001
But if 2001’s dance #1s are anything to go by, house is making a comeback. And I always feel that house music sounds good for setting a tone, giving a bar a vibe, soundtracking a sunset cocktail… But that it lacks the oomph to stand out. And I feel it here, once again, as I let ‘Another Chance’ wash over me. Perfectly pleasant, fairly up-tempo, full of lush, dreamy touches; but nothing to grab a hold of.
The vocals are deep in the mix, and filtered through several layers of echoing reverb. Does the song title feature? I had genuinely no idea. Turns out it does, because this is built around a sample of Toto’s 1982 hit ‘I Won’t Hold You Back’, featuring the line If I had another chance tonight… which I didn’t recognise because eighties soft rock leaves me as cold as house music.
Of course we’re not meant to be singing along to a song like this, so the lyrics don’t really matter. It begs the question though, who feels compelled to buy records like this? What do you get out of listening to this on your home stereo rather than a nightclub’s speakers? It does have a nice couple of drops, and I like the wistful piano line that briefly takes over, but other than that…
And yet if writing this blog has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t always understand the motivations of the British record buying public. And this record is far, far from their worst offence. It’s just not my thing. Roger Sanchez did well off it anyway, scoring by far his biggest hit. He has produced and remixed for a star-studded array including Diana Ross, Kylie, Madonna and No Doubt (his remix of ‘Hella Good’ won a Grammy). He remains a DJ, and has maintained an Ibiza residency every summer since 2000.
Every time I come across a #1 that I haven’t heard before I assume it will be the last such occasion. And I genuinely thought that I would have remembered something – a chorus, a line – from every 21st century chart-topper. But no, Hear’Say’s second number one has me stumped.
The Way to Your Love, by Hear’Say (their 2nd and final #1)
1 week, from 1st – 8th July 2001
Though it makes sense that this was such a flash in the pan, and has been completely forgotten. The knock-off Max Martin production (Britney wouldn’t even have had this as an album track), the predictable chord progressions, lyrics like your heart is my home… It’s just so damn basic. If this is the best the year’s big new pop group can do for their second single then you start to fear for their longevity…
The two boys in the band, Noel and Danny, take more of a lead role here. And while I don’t want to be mean, I always thought they looked like two of the least likely pop group members ever. The three girls? Fine. I can see them as a sort of Atomic Kitten level girl group. But those two boys look more suited to refitting your kitchen. They can sing though – they all can sing, having gone through multiple audition rounds on ‘Popstars’ – and don’t let the side down.
Midway through, the song improves slightly, and morphs into a peppy Disney theme. A straight to VHS Disney movie, maybe. It’s still undeniably lame. And although this made number one, it did so on fairly low sales and went on to be the second lowest selling chart-topper of the year, ahead only of J-Lo’s January #1 ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’. Most tellingly, it sold but a tenth of ‘Pure and Simple’s total.
Hear’Say would release only one more single (the #4 hit ‘Everybody’) before the ‘Popstars’ winning line-up was ripped in two by Kym Marsh’s departure in January 2002, citing a rift in the group. She was quickly replaced, by backing dancer Johnny Shentall, for one final single. By then, public opinion against the group had turned, and they were being booed off stage and harassed at motorway service stations. They called it quits in October 2002, just twenty months after launching.
Of the five, Kym Marsh and Myleene Klass launched solo music careers (Marsh making #2 in 2003 with ‘Cry’ and Klass releasing two classical crossover albums) before moving into TV, acting and presenting. Suzanne Shaw went into stage and screen acting, as did Noel Sullivan, who I’m pretty sure I saw playing Danny in ‘Grease’ in the West End. Danny Foster is a wedding/pub singer. And to be honest, that all counts as a fairly successful end for a bunch of reality TV show contestants. Far sadder post-fame tales have been told…
First thing to note here is that, despite changing my recaps from every thirty to every fifty, we have still covered barely a year’s worth of number ones. March 2000 to June 2001. We have been through the longest stretch of one-weekers in chart history (twelve), with another run of ten for good measure. In total, an amazing thirty-eight of the past fifty #1s stayed on top for just one week. (And, fittingly, one of those was called ‘7 Days’.)
What treats has this hectic turnover brought us, though? What have been the main themes of the past fifty? Well, I’ll start by saying that while I hated the fast turnover at the time, I’ve enjoyed covering it in blog terms. There was a lot of variety – some good, some bad, some so-so – and variety is, as they say, the spice of life. And I’d say that the two main themes have been 2-step garage, and nu-disco.
Garage has been the most pervasive, probably, with that 2-step beat appearing on fairly hardcore rap numbers by Oxide & Neutrino and DJ Pied Piper, as well as poppier offerings from Craig David, and even Bob the Builder’s Christmas #1. While many of my favourite recent #1s have owed a debt to disco: Madison Avenue, Spiller, even S Club 7. While Steps, God love ‘em, scored their second chart-topper with a full-on disco extravaganza. In fact, I think Barry White and Chic have appeared on at least four recent #1s between them, all sadly uncredited.
In pop terms, we’ve slowly been moving away from that Max Martin, uber-pop sound that typified the turn of the millennium to the lighter, more R&B inflected stylings of Destiny’s Child and Jennifer Lopez. Still, there has been plenty of the former too: Britney, and LeAnn Rimes, and some decent British attempts to keep up from Billie Piper and A1.
There’s been some very modern hip-hop, not least the introduction of the biggest rap artist of all time. ‘The Real Slim Shady’ felt like a game changing arrival, with precision delivery, cutting insults, and the most swears ever heard in a number one to date. Then came ‘Stan’, and proof that Marshall Mathers wasn’t just here to piss your parents off.
What of rock music? Well, it still has a pulse, just about. If you consider Limp Bizkit – our first and only nu-metal #1 – worthy of following in the tradition of earlier rock chart-toppers. Or U2, who made a grab for stadium-filling ubiquity with ‘Beautiful Day’, selling a lot of records but leaving me cold. Apart from that, the next most rocking chart-toppers were probably from the Corrs and Emma Bunton, and (as good as those two records are) if they’re representing the rock faction then the genre is probably on life-support…
In other news, we’ve bid farewell to the Spice Girls, both as a group (with the dull ‘Holler’) and as a solo concern. Their recent solo #1s have been eclectic, from Geri’s camp fluff to Mel C’s trance banger. We’ve also welcomed back the icon that is Ms Kylie Minogue for her huge second act, and while ‘Spinning Around’ isn’t a favourite of mine it is always good to have her in the conversation. There’s also been a second (or is it third?) act for Shaggy, with the highest-selling single out of the past fifty, and the last appearance of Queen on this countdown. Though the less said about that the better… And, of course, there’s been a lot of Westlife. Four out of the past fifty to be exact. And I will hold my hands up and admit to enjoying at least one of them.
Before we get to the awards, we have to mention possibly the most significant of all the recent chart-toppers: the first reality TV #1, from Hear’Say. ‘Pure and Simple’ was an okay pop song, but what it represents is actually quite terrifying. The first tremor from a fifty-plus chart-topper mega-quake…
To the latest awards, then. The 28th edition. And it’s the Meh Award that we grapple with first. What has been the least memorable of the past fifty? My shortlist includes a couple of low-key house #1s from Chicane and Rui Da Silva, as well as whichever of the four Westlife hits took my fancy. But instead I’m going to betray ten-year-old me and give it to the Spice Girls, for the double-dullness that was ‘Holler’ / ‘Let Love Lead the Way’. From the zany fun of ‘Wannabe’ to carbon-copy R&B. How the mighty fell.
There are a decent bunch of candidates for this WTAF Award too. The ‘Casualty’ and Guy Ritchie sampling ‘Bound 4 da Reload’. Or the fake Barry White on ‘You See the Trouble With Me’? Or the incongruity of Five and Queen sharing a stage (with the background stylings of Freddie Mercury slowly rotating in his grave)? Or should I give it to the nu-metal #1? I’m probably going to reveal my struggle with garage as a genre over the next couple of awards, but I’m giving this one to Oxide & Neutrino.
Which means that The28thVery Worst Chart-Topper must be the truly execrable ‘Do You Really Like It?’ (no we really do-on’t) by DJ Pied Piper and his Masters of Ceremonies. Worse even than A1’s borderline criminal cover of ‘Take on Me’. I did briefly consider giving this to ‘Beautiful Day’, just to really put the cat among the pigeons, but that would have just been petty. Plus I’m fairly sure Bono doesn’t actually read this blog.
We end, as per tradition, with The Very Best Chart-Topper Award. I have a shortlist of five. That’s probably more of a longlist, to be fair, but they are… ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, by Britney. ‘Groovejet’, by Spiller and the delectable Sophie E-B. All Saint’s ‘Black Coffee’, which I’ve always rated higher than the better-remembered ‘Pure Shores’. ‘Stan’, by Eminem. And the irresistible ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’.
‘Oops!…’ for the nostalgia factor. ‘Spiller’ because no other #1 sums up the turn of the millennium better. ‘Black Coffee’ because All Saints are just generally underrated. And ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ because it’s great pop. So, by that barometer, I should give it to S Club, as the most lacking in ulterior motive. But over them all looms ‘Stan’. Not a particularly enjoyable number one. Not one I long to hear very often. By an artist that I have my moral struggles with. But it’s a towering work of art, not something you can say about many pop songs; and art should sometimes by unpleasant and confronting. So I think I’m going to go with my head here, and name ‘Stan’ as the latest Very Best number one.
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.
We are officially 900 number ones not out! Thanks to everyone who has ever read, commented, liked and followed. I’m not sure that I ever imagined when I started writing these posts back in November 2017 (!) that I’d ever get this far. But, to paraphrase an old football cliché, I’ve just been taking it one number one at a time…
Lady Marmalade, by Christina Aguilera (her 2nd of four #1s), Lil Kim, Mýa & Pink (her 1st of three #1s)
1 week, from 24th June – 1st July 2001
Our 900th is not the most original of chart-toppers, a cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’ coming barely three years on from the last chart-topping cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’. Have two other versions of the same song ever made #1 so close together? Anyway, while All Saints’ take played fast and loose with the LaBelle original, this all-star re-imagining is much more faithful.
One big difference, though, is that Lady Marmalade no longer plies her trade down in old New Orleans. She’s been transferred to the Moulin Rouge in Paris, just in time for the big glossy Baz Luhrmann movie musical of the same name. Different brothel, same story. Kitchy kitchy kitchy yaya dada. Mocha chocolatey yaya… Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
It would be easy to look down on this OTT, fairly superfluous take on a seventies classic, in which four bad-ass chicks from the Moulin Rouge try to out-diva one another. And I won’t claim that it is better than LaBelle’s. But I enjoyed it back in 2001, and I still do enjoy it now. It strips all subtlety from what was already a fairly unsubtle song, adds a grinding industrial synth riff, and some well-placed cowbells. Mýa warms things up with the first verse, Pink (feeling quite out of place here, and in her suspenders in the video) ups the ante with the second. Clearly things were being set up for Christina, by far the biggest name of the four at the time, to blow everything out of the water for the finish.
Except, for my money, the show is stolen by Lil Kim’s rapped verse, the song’s one big change from the original, in which she delivers the immortal line: We independent women, Some mistake us for whores, I say why spend mine, When I can spend yours…? It’s a very modern female rap, a full decade ahead of Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, that even Xtina’s explosive belting can’t overshadow. But boy, does she try. And it works, doesn’t grate, because, again, this ain’t the time for subtlety.
This record is a lot like the movie it came from, and like a lot Baz Luhrmann’s filmography: good fun, as long as you don’t stop and think about it too much. My biggest issue with it is why Missy (Misdemeanour here) Elliott, who acts as the MC for the outro, doesn’t get a credit, and therefore her second number one single?
It’s been customary, every hundred number ones, for me to look back at the marker posts that have gone before. But there’s a recap up next, and I’d like to save any retrospection for then. What is worth noting is how short the gaps between each hundred are getting. There were over seven years between the first chart-topper and the hundredth (November 1952 to April 1960), but less than three between numbers 800 and 900 (September 1998 to June 2001).
The UK Number Ones Blog 