pop charts

845. ‘The Masses Against the Classes’, by Manic Street Preachers

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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…

The studio version…

844. ‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife

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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…

841. ‘She’s the One’ / ‘It’s Only Us’, by Robbie Williams

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‘She’s the One’ is not Robbie Williams’ best known number one. Nor does it get the airplay of a ‘Rock DJ’, a ‘Feel’, or an ‘Angels’. But if you’ll let me, I’d like to suggest that it’s one of his very best.

She’s the One / It’s Only Us, by Robbie Williams (his 2nd of seven solo #1s)

1 week, from 14th – 21st November 1999

At least, I always thought so. Until today, when everything I believed was rocked to its core… ‘She’s the One’ is a cover. World Party, a project fronted by former Waterboys member Karl Wallinger, recorded and released the original in 1997, and it was an Ivor Novello-winning, film soundtrack appearing, performed-on-Jools-Holland sort of hit. I’m ashamed of myself for not discovering this much earlier…

Robbie Williams delivers a facsimile of this song – same instrumentation, same harmonies, same vocal range – and delivers it very well. It is a lovely song; a very late-Britpop, arms around your mates in the pub sort of tune. It could easily have been recorded by Oasis, which of course means it has lots of nice Beatlesy touches to it, in the drum-fills and the backing vocals. But I feel slightly cheated now, after all these years of enjoying this so-called Robbie Williams hit.

What the original doesn’t have is a Brit Award winning video set in the world of competitive figure skating, with Robbie playing a has-been skater given one last chance at glory. Plus, it means Barry Davies, the greatest football commentator of my lifetime, can claim a number one single. (My dream aged thirteen, when this song came out, was to be Barry Davies.)

There was some drama, and some fairly ungentlemanly behaviour from Williams, when he started claiming that ‘She’s the One’ was the best song he had ever written. Some of Wallinger’s band played on the cover, unknown to Wallinger himself, and he suffered a brain aneurysm around the time it was hitting #1. Still, he did well off the royalties, and in interviews has claimed that this record saved him from penury. Williams has also, more recently, finally admitted that he didn’t write the song.

What of the double-‘A’ side, ‘It’s Only Us’? The fact I don’t think I’d ever heard this suggests it was more of a jumped-up ‘B’-side than a true double-‘A’. It was written for the soundtrack to FIFA 2000 and, again, it’s very Britpop indebted, this time more Supergrass than Oasis. It rollocks along nicely with lyrics that namecheck Williams’ hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, as well as ‘Rock Me Amadeus’, and with a fun end-of-the-pier organ solo. It’s also one of those songs where Robbie makes a drugs reference – We’re just after cheaper thrills, Since the price went up on pills… – of the sort that always feels a little try-hard for a former boyband member, like a teenager trying to shock his parents. We get it, Robbie. We get it.

It’s worth noting that this was the fourth single from ‘I’ve Been Expecting You’, the album that had given us ‘Millennium’ well over a year earlier. Taking the fourth single from an already huge-selling album to number one requires some serious star power, something that Robbie had in abundance in the late ‘90s. In fact, this moment saw the breakout star from the decade’s biggest boyband knocking his female counterpart, Geri Halliwell, off top-spot. The following year the pair would even date for a couple of months. Geri and Robbie, top of the pops and pretending to be a couple for the tabloids… Pop culture doesn’t get any more turn-of-the-21st-century that that.

On This Day… 5th January

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A very Happy New Year to you all, and a warm welcome back to the UK Number Ones Blog. I hope you had a good festive period, managed to celebrate, relax, and (in my case) catch up with writing about some soon-to-come number ones. Before we resume our journey through the late, late-nineties, I’m debuting a new feature!

The Village People, group portrait, New York, 1978. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)

‘On This Day…’ will do pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I’ll intro a few of the records that have been top of the charts on a particular date in history, as well as mentioning a few births, a few deaths, and a few interesting occasions that tie into a particular chart-topper. The hope is that readers will be able to delve into my back-catalogue of posts, and find something I wrote long before they started following this blog. Or people can, y’know, just enjoy the tunes!

First up, number one on this day in 1962, we have a stone-cold classic:

‘Moon River’, from the soundtrack to ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is one of the great songs of that supposedly fallow period between rock ‘n’ roll and The Beatles. In the film it is sung by Audrey Hepburn, at the Academy Awards that year it was performed by Andy Williams, while an instrumental version by the song’s composer Henry Mancini and a version by Jerry Butler were hits in the US. In the UK, however, it was left to South African-born Danny Williams to have the most succesful version of all. You can read my original post on ‘Moon River’ here.

Meanwhile on this day in 1923, radio host, record producer, and founder of the legendary Sun Records label, Sam Phillips was born in Alabama. He is most famous for his work with a young Elvis Presley, although he also produced Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and many of the other early rock and roll stars. His only contribution to the top of the UK singles chart, however, was this banger:

Here’s my original post on ‘Great Balls of Fire’. If you’re only going to top the charts once, might as well make it good ‘un. Speaking of which, number one on this day in 1979 we have perhaps the ultimate guilty pleasure. There is not a soul alive who hasn’t done the dance to the ‘YMCA’, however grudgingly, and not even the recent gyrations of Donald Trump can truly sour this wedding reception classic. Even more recently, Village Person Victor Willis (AKA the cop) has been threatening to sue anyone who claims that ‘YMCA’ – a song with the lyric: They have everything for young men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys… – has any homosexual connotations. Whatsover. No sirree. To which we can all say, ‘Okay honey…’ (Original post here.)

In sadder news, on this day in 1998, Sonny Bono died following a skiing accident in Nevada. He was of course the singing partner, and former husband, of Cher, with whom he enjoyed his sole chart-topper ‘I Got You Babe’ in 1965. I wrote about it, the 201st #1 single, way back in 2019.

Finally, one of the least likely number one singles of all time was sitting astride the charts on January 5th 1991. Early January is a bit of a dead zone for chart-toppers, as in most years the Christmas leftovers are still clinging on top with little competition. Iron Maiden spotted an opportunity, and released ‘Bring Your Daughter… To the Slaughter’ in the final week of 1990. Their devoted fanbase, as well as the publicity of knocking the God-bothering Cliff Richard’s ‘Saviour’s Day’ off #1, delivered the heavy metal legends their biggest hit. (Original post here.)

I hope everyone enjoyed this new feature, and won’t mind if it pops back up ever few weeks. I’m also going to be doing more regular posts on cover versions, number two singles, ‘Remembering’ features, ‘Best of the Rests’ and ‘Today’s Top 10s’, as well as a new look at the ‘B’-sides to famous number ones. The main focus will of course still be on the chart-toppers; just a little more regularly interspersed with interesting detours through chart history!

Here’s to a great 2025!

839. ‘Keep on Movin”, by Five

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Our 5th (!) boyband of the year is, fittingly, Five. And of the seven boyband number ones so far in 1999 (eight, if we include solo Ronan Keating) ‘Keep on Movin’ is, for my money, the best.

Keep on Movin’, by Five (their 1st of three #1s)

1 week, from 31st October – 7th November 1999

Late-nineties boybands, or their management, had a clear choice to make: ballads, or bad boys? We know what direction Boyzone and Westlife went in, but Five took the opposite path. (And yes, I know that Five were styled as 5ive, but it’s something that I’ve always thought looked stupid. I will be referring to them as Five throughout, just as Pink will never be ‘P!nk’, nor Kesha ‘Ke$ha’.)

Of course, East 17 (bad boys) took ‘Stay Another Day’ (a classic ballad) to Christmas number one, but bear with my theory. Five played into a faux hip-hop, street fashions look, more like a young NKOTB than any of their British counterparts. Their debut single was, for example, the basketball referencing ‘Slam Dunk (Da Funk)’. In addition, all five looked like they could handle themselves in a pub brawl (Jay in particular, with the Desperate Dan jaw and the eyebrow ring, always looked like he’d gotten lost on the way from home from his shift at a building site). Even the cute ones, Abs and Ritchie, gave the impression that they’d gleefully steal a member of Westlife’s lunch money.

Not that ‘Keep on Movin’ is at all street, or hard-edged though. It’s a mid-tempo, perky pop tune about always looking on the bright side of life. Get on up, When you’re down, Baby take a good look around… No overwrought declarations of love, or grand statements about flying without wings. When the rainy days are dyin’, Gotta keep on tryin’, When the bees and birds are flyin’… Not lyrics to trouble the Nobel Prize committee, but still kind of sweet.

Musically it’s got a couple of interesting touches, in the verses that must have been influenced by Blur’s ‘Coffee and TV’, which had been a hit a few months earlier, and in the ear-catching, sitar-sounding riff. It sounds very modern for the late-nineties, both in the music and the down-to-earth, positive sentiment, like something One Direction might have put out a decade or more later.

It was also quite the departure from some of Five’s earlier hits, which were much more ‘90s R&B, Backstreet Boys influenced – tunes like ‘When the Lights Go Out’, ‘If Ya Getting Down’, and the Joan Jett sampling ‘Everybody Get Up’. Maybe this shift to a more mature, family-friendly sound is why they managed a belated number one single, but can we just take a moment to bemoan that none of those fun songs listed above made #1, unlike every turgid ballad Westlife ever crapped out.

Speaking of the Backstreet Boys, and by association Max Martin, we should mention the production credit here for his British equivalent, Steve Mac: a man who was putting his name on the third of what is now thirty UK chart-toppers. I should also mention that as much as I think this is a decent pop song, and Five a generally fun boyband, their next chart-topper is, shall we say, polarising…

838. ‘Flying Without Wings’, by Westlife

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Back, by unpopular demand, for one week only… Westlife.

Flying Without Wings, by Westlife (their 3rd of fourteen #1s)

1 week, from 24th – 31st October 1999

In earlier posts, I had mentioned the existence of two Westlife songs that I quite liked. (I then realised that ‘If I Let You Go’ was a bit of a bop, and had to admit to liking three Westlife records.) ‘Flying Without Wings’ was one of the original two, but question is: does it live up to my expectations…?

Well, sort of. It is a decent enough pop ballad, a three-minute long crescendo that builds to an actually quite stirring finale. And, credit where it’s due, I think a lot of that is down to the boys’ vocals, especially – and I’m going to attempt this without Googling – Shane (the plain, Gary Barlow-ish one) and Mark (the, um, gay one), who take the lead.

What lets the song down, and means it doesn’t quite manage to be the deep, soulful classic it wishes to be, are the clunky lyrics, and the cheap production. Unusually for a boyband song, the words focus partly on non-romantic love: friendships, parents, even the joy of being alone, all of which apparently make you feel like you’re flying without wings… Which is a pretty banal title, really. Meanwhile the production is pure ‘X-Factor winners single’ shlock, when a more stripped back backing might have worked wonders.

It’s records like this that make me wonder: who were Westlife’s fans? Ok, ‘If I Let You Go’ was teen-pop, but this and ‘Swear It Again’ are very middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road. I was thirteen when this came out, and don’t remember any Westlife fans at school (though maybe they were just keeping it quiet). Then again, three number ones in a row don’t lie. Though we should at some point, when we’ve truly run out of things to say about yet another one-week-wonder ballad, explore just how canny the band’s management were in securing them all these number ones.

So, ‘Flying Without Wings’: pretty good, compared to much of Westlife’s output, but not the classic it so clearly wants to be. And I’d say that there are plenty of their songs that are better remembered a quarter of a century on. Interestingly, though, in 2004 a live version of ‘Flying Without Wings’ made history by becoming the first ever #1 on the download chart (a chart that in 2005 would be combined into the regular singles countdown). What I would like to ask, though, is why oh why did they not save this record for their Christmas release a few weeks later, rather than the dross they did eventually serve up…? More on that soon enough.

837. ‘Genie in a Bottle’, by Christina Aguilera

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1999’s second biggest pop princess launches…

Genie in a Bottle, by Christina Aguilera (her 1st of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 10th – 24th October 1999

Despite both being former squeaky clean Disney Mouseketeers, it felt from the very beginning that Christina Aguilera was packaged as the anti-Britney, the bad girl, the girl next door if you lived in a slightly dodgier neighbourhood… And listening to ‘Genie in the Bottle’, you can see why.

Compared to ‘…Baby One More Time’ its edges are sharper, its beats more streetwise and sassy, and its lyrics a lot more steamy. My body’s saying let’s go, But my heart is saying no… One thing I’d never really notice before is the dramatic squelchy synth riff that underpins the whole shebang, that I quite like. But it’s not got the oomph of the Max Martin produced ‘…Baby’, and it has probably not gone on to be remembered as equally iconic.

Yet once it gets to the chorus, it can compete with anything any member of pop royalty could come up with. Christina has standards, and isn’t going to just give it up for anyone. If you wanna be with me, There’s a price you have to pay, I’m a genie in a bottle, You gotta rub me the right way… Conservatives frothed a little at all the rubbing – Debbie Gibson of all people claimed that it was inappropriate for a teen idol, suggesting that she hadn’t been paying much attention to the previous five decades’ worth of pop history – but really, it’s a song about abstinence: My heart’s beating at the speed of light, But that don’t mean it’s got to be tonight…

Although in terms of UK sales and chart success Christina fared less well than Britney, she trumped her in one fairly essential area. Christina can sing. There’s not much in this record to prove that fact, but towards the end she starts letting loose with some of her trademark yeaheayeahs. And to be honest, it’s enough. Less is often more with Christina, the over-singers’ over-singer.

Despite just now claiming that she can’t sing, I will not often hear a bad word against Britney. And yet, I do think that Christina has lived somewhat unfairly in her shadow. Who, for example, remembers that she also kissed Madonna at the VMAs…?? (This is all from my Western-slanted viewpoint. She is arguably a much bigger name in the Latin world, having recorded half her output in Spanish). Christina and her team clearly disliked this one-sided comparison too, as for her second English-language album she will return with one of the great pop comeback tunes, a song that will make ‘Genie in a Bottle’ sound incredibly tame by comparison. Xtina awaits…

836. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’, by Eiffel 65

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And so we come to this story, about a little guy who lives in a blue world…

Blue (Da Ba Dee), by Eiffel 65 (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October 1999

Blue his house, With the blue little windows, And a blue Corvette, Everything is blue for him… I warned you that we weren’t quiet done with the novelty dance hits, but it feels unfair to lump this in with the Vengaboys’ banal beats. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ has a strange depth to it, a deep melancholy in the piano line, and a compelling bizarreness to the verses’ revving bass and deliberately off-key vocals.

For a start, it’s clearly about someone in the middle of a depressive episode, wandering through a world where everything is blue, inside and out, cause he ain’t got nobody to listen… This guy needs help! ‘Dancing through the tears’ is a well-established dance music trope, but very few records can have mixed dance and depression like this. And really, can you actually dance to this song? The bpms are fairly low, and it doesn’t really have peaks and troughs, the moments of euphoria that dance records need. Just a steady trudge through a blue world.

I can see why this record annoys people (‘Rolling Stone’ have it as the 14th most annoying song ever), and yet I think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, it’s repetitive and sing-songy. Yes the chorus is just lots and lots of da ba dees. Yes, the video is spectacularly bad (I’m not sure what’s more dated, the CGI or the band’s frosted tips). But so what? Get beyond that, and listen to the moment in the verses where the autotune twists the lyrics to make it sound like the singer’s voice is breaking, and wonder if there might not be some depth to this record.

Plus, if nothing else, it has left the world with that piano hook, which has been sampled, remixed and interpolated many times in the past twenty-five years. A re-write by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, which tapped into the 2020’s nostalgia for all things ‘90s, made number one a couple of years back, while there’s not a Best of the Nineties compilation worth its salt without this tune on it, like it or not.

Eiffel 65 are an Italian duo (formerly a trio when this made #1), and this their first big hit. They managed a #3 follow-up, ‘Move Your Body’, which was more of the same without being anywhere near as memorable. They then vanished from most charts, though they were scoring Italian hits well into the 2000s. They are still active, and were recently seen trying to represent San Marino at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile the funny blue alien from the video, Zorotlekuykauo Sushik IV, AKA ‘Zorotl’ has also released music under his own steam (with a song written by the members of Eiffel 65). The more you know…

835. ‘We’re Going to Ibiza!’, by Vengaboys

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Bookending the summer of 1999, Vengaboys return with their second number one.

We’re Going to Ibiza!, by Vengaboys (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 12th – 19th September 1999

But in Vengaworld, summer isn’t over yet. We’re off to Ibiza. Or should I say ‘Ay-bizza’ – rhymes with ‘pizza’ – which I assume how the island is pronounced in Dutch. It is a re-write of Typically Tropical’s 1975 chart-topper, ‘Barbados’, complete with captain’s in-flight announcements, plus bonus nonsensical chanting.

The original was plenty catchy and so, yes, this is still an earworm. The Vengaboys’ producers knew what they were doing, creating records that stay with you no matter how much you’d wish they wouldn’t. And it’s a little more chilled than ‘Boom x4’, with it’s semi-calypso beats. But it’s still damn annoying, and the tacky synth line is jarring.

And while Typically Tropical’s original came in an age when air travel was still a luxury – and when the journey to Barbados described in the song would have been a fantasy for most – the Vengaboys’ version conjures up visions of a cheap EasyJet flight full of rowdy Glaswegians. It’s an interesting example of how even the most throwaway pop records can tell us something about society beyond the charts.

Most of you will probably be glad to learn that this is the last we’ll hear of the Vengaboys (though it’s far from the last novelty dance record of the year). They were amazingly popular despite the quality of most of their records, with their two chart-toppers coming in the middle of a run of seven straight Top 10 hits. I once went on a desert safari in Qatar, driving up and down sand dunes in a jeep at breakneck speed, during which our driver played Vengaboys Greatest Hits on a loop. You can’t properly appreciate the cold majesty of the desert unless it’s accompanied by an extended mix of ‘We Like to Party!’

Recently, as we’ve slowly stumbled towards the fag-end of the ‘90s, I’ve been wondering why pop music took such a turn towards the disposable, and the bubblegum, at the turn of the century. There are lots of sensible reasons, like the CD single being at the peak of its popularity, with discounts, and clever marketing all targeting teens and tweens; but I have an inkling that the impending unknown that was Y2K also brought out people’s hedonistic side, that they were literally partying like it was 1999. Why feel any shame about buying ‘We’re Going to Ibiza’ when the world might end in four months’ time…? I was there, though just a little too young to properly remember the prevailing public mood, and whether or not a fin de siècle over-indulgence is to blame for the popularity of the Vengaboys. But it might have been.

834. ‘Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)’, by Lou Bega

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Ladies and gentlemen…

Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…), by Lou Bega (his 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 29th August – 12th September 1999

…this is Mambo Number Five. Autumn may have begun while this record was at number one, but the Latin summer of 1999 is still going strong. As with both our previous Latin chart-toppers – ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ and ‘Mi Chico Latino’ – yes, this is cheesy, and yes, this is Latin music with all the raw edges softened. But I challenge anyone to listen to this and not smile, just a bit. And even today, you throw this on at any kids party, or wedding, hell even at a funeral, and the dancefloor will light up.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a mambo at number one. Forty-four years, to be exact, when Rosemary Clooney scored her second chart-topper with ‘Mambo Italiano’ (which was mambo in name more than anything else), and Pérez Prado had an instrumental smash with ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’. It was Prado himself, the King of Mambo, who originally recorded ‘Mambo No. 5’ in 1949. He had also been back in the charts in 1995, despite dying in 1989, when ‘Guaglione’ made #2 thanks to a feature on a Guinness advert.

Lou Bega, a German-born Italian-Ugandan rapper, had the idea to sample ‘Mambo No. 5’ and turn it into a modern pop-rap song while living in Miami, where he had been turned on to Latin music. The brass band, and the shouts, are that of Prado; but Bega added lots of ad-libs, and some wonderfully dated record scratches and tapes-getting-all-tangled-in-the-deck sound effects (kids these days will never know the pain…)

And of course, he also added the words. Seven ladies that went down in history. Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica. There is a particular joy in knowing someone by any of these names, and of trying to crowbar their accompanying line into conversation. I used to work with a Rita (all I need), while I also know a Mary (all night long), but my personal goal is to meet a Sandra (in the sun).

What’s interesting is not just how big this genre of music suddenly became in the summer of 1999, but how much songs like this and ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ remain in the public consciousness, far more than the Westlife’s many ballads and anonymous dance tunes. Lou Bega managed one more minor hit in the UK with the follow-up to this, ‘I Got a Girl’, in which he yet again lists his many girlfriends. He remains active, still dressing like Pablo Escobar on his summer holidays, still peddling his schtick (his most recent release on Spotify samples ‘Macarena’).

Still, he’ll always have ‘Mambo No. 5’. Stick a random pin on a map and chances are you’ll hit a country where this record made #1. In France it was there for a mind-blowing twenty weeks… The success wasn’t all positive though, as Bega and his producers spent seven years locked in a legal battle with Pérez Prado’s estate, before a judge ruled that the writing credits be split evenly. Meanwhile my favourite story connected with ‘Mambo No. 5’ is that it was originally chosen as the theme song for the US Democrats’ 2000 convention, before someone pointed out that having Bill Clinton walk out to A little bit of Monica in my life wasn’t such a hot idea…