A Different Beat, by Boyzone (their 2nd of six #1s)
1 week, from 8th – 15th December 1996
By going down a new-age, world music path, that is. There have been few more distinctive intros to number one singles than this one, with its thunderclaps and African chants. This could be a very interesting song, we think, and hope… and are then left disappointed when it slides into much more predictable, pre-Christmas saccharine
The lyrics are very much of the season: Let’s not neglect our race… Life on earth be one… We are all grains of sand, apparently. At least it’s not Ronan Keating on lead vocals this time, as Stephen Gately’s clear and gentle tones guide us through the verses. Groanin’ Ronan, as we must now and forever refer to him, does get to let rip on the middle eight. He’s seen the rain fall in Africa, and touched the snow in Alaska… And let’s not get into how he pronounces ‘Niagara’, just so the line scans.
It’s easy to be cynical about songs like this, especially coming from bands as lightweight as Boyzone. I salute the message, even if the video – in which the lads descend from the heavens to dance with African children – gives off an iffy, white-saviour message. I have a feeling they were taking their cue from ‘Earth Song’, last year’s messianic Christmas Number One; but neither the song, nor the video, can compete with Michael Jackson’s irrepressible bombast.
This was the only one of Boyzone’s six chart-toppers that the band had a hand in writing, and one of only two that weren’t cover versions. It was also produced, in part, by Trevor Horn of Buggles fame. So, there are much blander offerings to come from Boyzone. There is a decent song buried in here – the title-line hook is good – but it’s smothered in far too much boyband dressing. And it doesn’t build to the big finish that a song like this needs to succeed; it just fizzles out to a simple drumbeat.
I’d assume they were aiming for the festive top spot with this release. But that was never going to happen, what with a record with an even more important message coming up next, and the third single from a certain female five-piece hovering on the horizon.
After partying all night on ‘Flava’, Peter Andre aims for the flip-side of ‘90s R&B: a sickly slow-jam…
I Feel You, by Peter Andre (his 2nd of three #1s)
1 week, from 1st – 8th December 1996
I assumed that by late-1996, as we near my eleventh birthday, there wouldn’t be any number ones that I’d never heard before. But I reckoned against the fact that, as chart-topping turnover increases, there will be lots of one-week wonders to contend with. Like this.
‘I Feel You’ has some nice Boyz II Men style chord changes, a funky bassline and, if you squint your ears (you know what I mean…) you could just about mistake Andre for Michael Jackson. It also has, as most songs of this ilk do, some unintentionally stomach-turning lyrics: I’m thinking about the bedroom, baby, We’d be making love…Making love! As well as a very steamy video featuring, naturally, Andre’s six-pack as one of the main characters.
By and large, though, this song is dull. Spotify only hosts an extended five-minute mix, which is a slog when it comes to a song of this quality. And it’s sexiness is so forced, that anyone who isn’t Pepe Le Pew will be turned off. It’s custom made for horny teenagers to put on their make-out mixtapes, and they were presumably one of the song’s main customer bases in getting it to the top.
This should have been the last we hear from Peter Andre. His star shone brightly, but briefly: seven Top 10 hits between 1996 and 1998. Fate had different ideas, however. It does mean that, in seven years or so, he will reappear, and his best single will belatedly make #1… But at what cost?
Since this is looking like being a very short write-up, I’ll mention something that I’ve hinted at in earlier posts. Late-’96 is the moment that the singles chart became the chart I grew up with – not just in terms of the songs sounding like modern pop, as I’ve discussed before, but in the way they started entering at #1, and staying there for just seven days at a time. As I said above: ‘one-week wonders’, like this one, and the next song we’ll be featuring…
Post-recap, we delve into the next thirty. And it’s a very strong start to the next bunch: more headbanging nastiness from The Prodigy.
Breathe, by The Prodigy (their 2nd and final #1)
2 weeks, from 17th November – 1st December 1996
Is ‘Breathe’ better than ‘Firestarter’? Or is it just more of the same thing? Not that more of the same thing, when the thing in question is ‘Firestarter’, is a bad thing, but still… It’s definitely built around the same foundations: a Drum and Bass beat, a heavy riff, a distinctive sample (that sounds to me like someone throwing nunchuks around), and some pretty aggressive lyrics.
Come play my game… growls Keith Flint, like the villain in a particularly twisted fairy-tale. Inhale, Inhale, You’re the victim! responds rapper Maxim, who also gets the song’s best line: Psychosomatic! Addict! Insane! As with ‘Firestarter’, the lyrics are kept to a minimum, but it seems to be a panic attack set to some Big Beats. The video, featuring lots of creepy-crawlies, darkened rooms, and crazed gurning through holes in walls, certainly emphasises this.
I’d say that if it does pale in comparison with the Prodigy’s previous single, it’s because it lacks the shock factor. Would ‘Breathe’ have been the one that got the tabloids in a tizz, and be better remembered today, if it had come first? Or is it a shadow number-one, that wouldn’t have made it without the controversial predecessor? It’s certainly even heavier than ‘Firestarter’, and less commercial sounding, meaning that it really stands out as one of the angriest, most brutal chart-toppers the UK has ever had.
Again, the song was built around a couple of eclectic samples: a drum fill from Thin Lizzy, and ‘whiplash swords’ (AKA the nunchuks) from the Wu-Tang Clan. It was the 2nd single from the massive ‘Fat of the Land’ album, but it gets overshadowed by the songs released either side of it. Following this came the still-controversial ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, which some say glorified drug use and domestic violence.
But if ‘Breathe’ is overshadowed, then it’s to the song’s benefit. It remains fairly fresh, and still packs a big old punch through your headphones. And whether or not it is better or worse than ‘Firestarter’ is beside the point, really. I’m just glad the Prodigy have been around to add some nasty, punk energy to the top of the charts for 1996.
After this the band took a break for several years, before releasing their fourth album in 2004. They have been putting out new music fairly regularly ever since, though the only consistent member has been founder Keith Howlett, and they scored their most recent Top 10 hit in 2009. Keith Flint, who had struggled with depression and addiction over the years, was tragically found to have hanged himself in 2019.
A Happy Easter to all who celebrate it. I’m launching a new feature this Easter Sunday, something to enjoy while rendered immobile by one too many chocolate eggs… ‘Today’s Top 10’! My blog focuses very intently on every song that’s made #1 in the UK, and I often try to draw conclusions on how popular music has been shaped, and has shifted, over the years based on one tune alone. Which is actually quite limiting, because the singles charts have always been about more than just the number one. Over the 70-plus years of the singles chart, we’ve had a weekly Top 12, a Top 30, a Top 40, a Top 75, and now a Top 100.
So I want to, every so often, single out a random Top 10 from history, to look at in more detail. My version of ‘Pick of the Pops’, if you will. Cue the music….! Completely at random, using an online date generator, the first to come out the hat was 1970: the singles chart as it stood fifty-four years ago today. It features, inevitably, a #1 we’ve met before (plus one former #1), as well as songs by some of the biggest acts of all time. So let’s crack on…
#10 – ‘Don’t Cry Daddy’, by Elvis Presley (down 1 / 6 weeks on chart)
The early-seventies was a sort of musical wilderness: after the post-sixties comedown, a year or so out from the glam rock takeover of 1972-73. Speaking of musical wildernesses, here’s Elvis with a maudlin ballad about a break-up (or is it a mother’s death?) written from the POV of the couple’s daughter. Elvis croons the life out of it, and that voice could sell anything, but even he struggles to imbue lines like Daddy you’ve still got me and little Tommy, Together we’ll find a brand new mommy… with any sort of gravitas. He was still capable of greatness in the early seventies – in a few months he’d be back on top with one of his biggest hits, ‘The Wonder of You’ – but this is pretty saccharine.
#9 – ‘Everybody Get Together’, by The Dave Clark Five (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)
The DC5 had scored their one and only #1, the stomping ‘Glad All Over’, more than six years earlier. So it is impressive that they were still hanging around the Top 10, when so many of their ’60s contemporaries had already faded away. This is a call-to-arms, a song with a message: Everybody get together, Try to love one another right now… Originally written as a folk song, and a hit in 1967 for the Youngbloods at the height of flower-power, The Dave Clark Five clearly felt that the sentiment was worth one more go. But there’s a droning, heavy feel to this version that feels weary, as if they’ve given up on the message even before the end of the song. It’s appropriately downbeat, perhaps, for the end of the sixties and the start of an uncertain new decade. Fitting too, as this was the Five’s final Top 10 hit. They would disband by the end of the year.
#8 – ‘Something’s Burning’, by Kenny Rogers & The First Edition (up 3 / 9 weeks on chart)
New to this week’s Top 10, and maintaining our run of hits by artists that we’ve already met in the #1 position, it’s Kenny Rogers and The First Edition with a sexy, sexy song. The verses are soft and slinky, lines like You lie in gentle sleep beside me, I hear your warm and rhythmic breathing… but it builds to a heated crescendo in the chorus. Kenny growls Here it comes, Can’t you feel it baby… and we know he’s not talking about the No. 42 bus. Lord have mercy…! It’s a world away from his much more gentle, much more ‘country’, solo hits like ‘Lucille’.
#7 – ‘Let It Be’, by The Beatles (down 3 / 4 weeks on chart)
Some of you may have heard this one before… The last single released before Paul McCartney’s departure heralded the end of history’s greatest group. There’s nothing new I can say about the record as a whole, so I’ll single out my two personal favourite moments. George Harrison’s snarling solo (especially on the album version) and the way Paul’s scouse accent sneaks through in the word ‘trouble’. Perhaps I’m just used to the streaming age, where songs hang around the charts for……ever, but for a song as legendary as ‘Let it Be’ not to make #1, and then be slipping down to #7 after just four weeks, seems surprising.
#6 – ‘That Same Old Feeling’, by Pickettywitch (down 1 / 6 weeks on chart)
I can’t say I’ve ever heard this one, though it had been as high as #5. It’s a nice enough, Motown-leaning tune done in a late-sixties, bubblegum style. Pickettywitch – I can’t decide if that’s a great or a terrible name – are another sign that though we may be in March of 1970, we’re still in the sixties going by much of this Top 10. Lead singer Polly Brown has a decent voice, reminding me of Diana Ross.
#5 – ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, by Bob & Marcia (up 1 / 4 weeks on chart)
I’ve made many a reference to the fact that reggae is the most indestructible of genres on the UK singles chart. Never the defining sound of an age, but always popping up when you least expect it. In 1970, it really was a new sound, Desmond Dekker having scored the first ‘official’ reggae #1 (if you ignore The Equals, and ‘Ob La Di…’) the year before. This is reggae + , with lots of strings, and rocking drums, but I’d say it still counts. More significant, though, are the lyrics: In the whole world I know, There’s a million boys and girls, That are young, gifted and black… And that’s a fact! Written and originally recorded by Nina Simone a few months earlier, right at the end of the decade that had brought the Civil Rights Movement to a head, for this to make the Top 10 in the UK feels very significant, and the second song in this rundown that could be described as a ‘rallying cry’.
#4 – ‘Wand’rin’ Star’, by Lee Marvin (down 2 / 9 weeks on chart)
A former number one – which I go into much more detail on here – that had kept ‘Let It Be’ from top spot a few weeks before. It was taken from the movie version of ‘Paint Your Wagon’, which was a box office flop. A bizarre #1 at the start of a decade full of bizarre #1s, Lee Marvin officially has the lowest voice ever heard on a chart-topping single (*disclaimer – may not be true*), and uses it brilliantly on this anti-social anthem: I never seen a sight that didn’t look better lookin’ back…
#3 – ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’, by Andy Williams (non-mover / 4 weeks on chart)
Elvis makes a second appearance in the Top 10, in spirit at least, with Andy Williams’ belting cover of the King’s 1962 #1, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’. If it was impressive that the DC5 were still having hits in 1970, then we should also give a nod to the fact that Williams debuted with ‘Butterfly’ – his sole chart-topper – in 1957. But then again, crooners like Williams are timeless, much less prey to shifting trends than pop groups. The video above, which I think comes from later in the decade, is a spectacular glimpse into ’70s variety shows: the multi-coloured steps, the giant ‘ANDY’, the cardigan…
#2 – ‘Knock, Knock Who’s There?’, by Mary Hopkin (up 5 / 2 weeks on chart)
Venture deep enough into a springtime chart, and there’s a good chance you’ll meet a Eurovision Song Contest entry. ‘Knock, Knock Who’s There?’ was the UK’s 1970 offering, finishing second on the night to Ireland’s Dana. This is very schmaltzy, very middle of the road – not a patch on Hopkin’s huge breakthrough #1 ‘Those Were the Days’ – but it’s a darn sight better than the horrible ‘All Kinds of Everything’. This was a big departure from Hopkin’s usual, folky offerings, and she wasn’t a fan: “I was so embarrassed about it. Standing on stage singing a song you hate is just awful.” Hate it though she might have, it brought about her final Top 10 hit.
#1 – ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, Simon & Garfunkel – (non-mover / 7 weeks on chart)
In the middle of a three-week run at the top, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was just the 3rd number one of the 1970s, but is probably one of the decade’s biggest and best-loved songs. Simon wrote it, while Garfunkel gave one of the great vocal performances (something that apparently irks Paul to this day…) You can read my original post here.
In a way, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ is the perfect number one for this chart. March 1970 wasn’t the sixties, but it’s wasn’t the seventies as we remember it either. ‘Bridge…’ is timeless, not beholden to many of the styles of the time, and could have been a #1 at most points in chart history. Elsewhere in the Top 10, we tick a few common chart boxes: soundtrack hits, Eurovision, Elvis, The Beatles… Maybe the two most relevant songs, though, are ‘Everybody Get Together’, and ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, which represent the social and civil rights movements that had defined the latter part of the 1960s. The hippy dream may have died, Dr King may have been killed, but hope springs eternal…
That was fun, and hopefully worthwhile. I’ll do another one sometime, as a break from our normal proceedings. Next up it’s back to 1996…
Let’s recap, then. And it’s a landmark: our the 25th, the Silver Recap!
The past thirty #1s have taken us across a regulation year and a half of chart-topping history, from spring 1995 to late autumn 1996. This spell has run pretty much concurrent with the very height of Britpop but, as I discussed in a special post, very little of it actually made the top. We’ve had one each from Oasis and Blur – the latter of whom won the ridiculously hyped ‘Battle of Britpop’ – and not much else.
Away from the Big Two, you could argue that the Lightning Seeds were a Britpop band, and that almost thirty years on their Euro ’96 anthem ‘Three Lions’ is the genre’s most enduring hit. You could also argue that the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers, while primarily dance acts, had strong Britpop elements in their two #1s (especially ‘Setting Sun’, with Noel Gallagher on vocals). We could even really stretch things and claim Babylon Zoo’s ‘Spaceman’ for Britpop, as there were elements of it mixed in amongst the techno and the grunge. I won’t go so far as to claim Texas-based Deep Blue Something for Britpop; but they did give us our one other rock-based chart-topper, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.
Britpop aside, one of the other big recent stories was Take That – the decade’s biggest boyband – bowing out after eight number ones in less than three years. They did so with the overblown ‘Never Forget’ and a fairly phoned-in cover of ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, before frontman Gary Barlow launched a solo career with the instantly forgettable ‘Forever Love’. Don’t worry, Take That will be back – just not for a few recaps yet.
1995-6 can also be pinpointed as the moment when rap went mainstream. It’s a genre that has been cropping up in the top spot, every now and then, since the mid-eighties. Often, though, hip-hop has been treated as a novelty: think Vanilla Ice, or Partners in Kryme, or the jarring rap from ‘Rhythm Is a Dancer’. Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ was uncompromisingly real, though, and had an important message; while The Fugees’ take on Roberta Flack’s ‘Killing Me Softly’ showed how to incorporate rap into a pop song without taking away its edge. This pair remain two of the highest-selling hip-hop records of all time, and paved the way for the likes of ‘Ready or Not’, the Fugees’ much less commercial-sounding follow-up.
Elsewhere, Michael Jackson had his most successful chart period, many years after his true artistic peak, scoring two #1s in four months with the sappy ‘You Are Not Alone’ and the messianic ‘Earth Song’. Another pop superstar, George Michael, bowed out from chart-topping duty with the touching (if a little dull) ‘Jesus to a Child’, and a much more uplifting ode to casual sex in ‘Fastlove’. Shaggy gave us our now mandatory shot of ‘90s reggae, Livin’ Joy provided the dance-banger (though our dance-banger ratio is much down on recent recaps), and Gina G brought us the latest camp Eurovision classic.
One other thing I should mention before we get to the awards is that in the second half of 1996 a pretty big shift occurred. Pop music started to sound very modern. Ground Zero is the Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’, which introduced us to a genuine pop phenomenon, and to a breezy, streetwise nineties-bubblegum sound that will set the standard for pop as we barrel towards the new millennium. But it wasn’t just the Spice Girls. Mark Morrison, Peter Andre, and Boyzone, all made the top with songs that sound like pop music will, for better or for worse, from now until the mid-00s. The fact that I was almost eleven at the time of this recap, and for the first time fully aware of what was in the charts, perhaps makes this moment seem bigger than it does for somebody older or younger than me. But I think there’s something in my take on mid-1996 marking a shift into ‘modern’ pop.
Anyway, to the awards. Starting as is now traditional with The ‘Meh’ Award, we peruse the songs that stirred us very little. I have a shortlist that includes MJ’s ‘You Are Not Alone’, George Michael’s ‘Jesus to a Child’, and Boyzone’s simpering cover of ‘Words’. But for the winner I’m choosing Gary Barlow’s utterly underwhelming ‘Forever Love’, which was so dull it basically killed his solo career before it had even begun.
The WTAF Awardfor being interesting if nothing else has a few decent choices this time around. There’s another MJ contender, the overblown ‘Earth Song’. There’s the latest Levi’s Jeans chart-topper: Babylon Zoo’s zany, genre-hopping ‘Spaceman’. There’s the intense ‘Firestarter’, which had Middle England clutching their pearls. There’s even ‘Wannabe’, a phenomenon, yes; but also a truly bizarre pop song when you actually sit down and listen to it. Of the four, ‘Wannabe’ is a stretch, ‘Earth Song’ is a little too well-intentioned, and ‘Firestarter’ a little too good, for this award. Which leaves Babylon Zoo’s nihilistic anthem for the win!
You may have noticed that I haven’t yet mentioned the one act that have dominated the past year and a half of chart action… That’s because I was saving them for TheVery Worst Chart-Topper award. I am talking, of course, about Robson & Jerome, the first (though sadly not the last) of Simon Cowell’s crimes against music. Three #1s, thirteen weeks at the top, seven cover versions spread across their various discs… They are the only contender here, it’s just a question of which record to choose. It makes sense to go for the first one, ‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, because it was A) terrible, B) number one for the longest stretch, and C) it is currently the best-selling single of the entire decade…
Finally, then, the latest Very Best Chart-Topper. Four contenders spring to mind, all from 1996. (It has been a much better year for #1s than 1995, which could probably go down as one of the very worst…) In chronological order we have: Oasis’s soaring ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, the Prodigy’s incendiary (gettit?) ‘Firestarter’, the Chemical Brothers’ Beatles-based banger ‘Setting Sun’, and ‘Say You’ll Be There’, AKA The Spice Girls best song.
I’m torn. This is probably my only chance of giving the award to my two favourite childhood groups, Oasis and the Spice Girls. But I think the Spice’s would be a stretch – as fun as SYBT is – and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ has simply been done by this point. ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Setting Sun’ are cut from the same cloth, and going by my write ups I enjoyed the latter more. ‘Firestarter’ was a huge cultural moment, but I think ‘Setting Sun’ is the better record. Plus, with Noel G on vocals it means Oasis still get a look in (and that the Beatles do kind of claim their second ‘Very Best’ award…) The Chemical Brothers it is!
To recap the recaps:
The ‘Meh’ Award for Forgettability
‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
‘What’s Another Year’, by Johnny Logan.
‘A Little Peace’, by Nicole.
‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police.
‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 with Chrissie Hynde.
‘Who’s That Girl’, by Madonna.
‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins.
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II.
‘Please Don’t Go’ / ‘Game Boy’, by KWS.
‘Dreams’, by Gabrielle.
‘Forever Love’, by Gary Barlow.
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else
‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush.
‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
‘Shaddap You Face’, by Joe Dolce Music Theatre.
‘It’s My Party’, by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.
‘Save Your Love’ by Renée & Renato.
‘Rock Me Amadeus’, by Falco.
‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)’, by M/A/R/R/S.
‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords.
‘Sadeness Part 1’, by Enigma.
‘Ebeneezer Goode’, by The Shamen.
‘I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, by Meat Loaf.
‘Spaceman’, by Babylon Zoo.
The Very Worst Chart-Toppers
‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, by Charlene.
‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie.
‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, by Foreigner.
‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm.
‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros.
‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers.
‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, by Bryan Adams.
‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)’, by The Outhere Brothers.
‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson & Jerome.
The Very Best Chart-Toppers
‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry.
‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex.
‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud.
‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie.
‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer.
‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie.
‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA.
‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz.
‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive
‘Stand by Me’, by Ben E. King (Honorary Award)
‘It’s a Sin’, by Pet Shop Boys.
‘Theme from S-Express’, by S’Express.
‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinéad O’Connor.
‘Would I Lie to You?’, by Charles & Eddie.
‘Stay Another Day’, by East 17.
‘Setting Sun’, by The Chemical Brothers.
Up next, we’ll briefly pause the regular countdown. I’m going to launch a new series, and take us back to the 1970s…
Robson & Jerome return for their third and final number one, and bow out with a 100% chart-topping record. Which is something that can’t be sniffed at. Unlike their records, which can. Because they stink.
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted / Saturday Night at the Movies / You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Robson & Jerome (their 3rd and final #1)
2 weeks, from 3rd – 17th November 1996
It’s more of the same: more granny-baiting covers of sixties classics, more cheap and tacky production, more dodgy vocals… Much more, in fact, because they end things with the first and only triple ‘A’-side to make #1. Three songs, give me strength… (How does a triple ‘A’ even work? It’s simple geometry: discs don’t have three sides! Was this released as a triangle?)
The ‘lead’ single from the three is a cover of Jimmy Ruffin’s ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’. As with last time, and the pair’s take on ‘Up on the Roof’, there is an element of this being a good thing. ‘What Becomes…’ is an all-time classic, and even in this highly diluted version it’s good to see it having a moment on top of the charts. And this isn’t as heinous as some of their other chart-topping moments. The production is quite lush and substantial, and they sensibly rope a gospel choir in to do much of the actual singing.
If only they had left it at that… The Official Charts Company lists just the one song, though maybe they simply don’t have the space to squeeze in three fairly long titles. All other sources have this as a threesome though, and so we’ll have to give the other two a spin. Starting with a case of GBH on The Drifters’ ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’. The synthesisers are set for ‘jaunty’, as Jerome Flynn does his best Johnny Moore high-notes… The less said the better. (I will admit that the video is quite fun…)
We end with a song that’s already been #1 twice and that really didn’t need to return, especially not in a version as lightweight as this. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is a technically demanding song and, although the producers try very hard to drown out Robson & Jerome’s reedy vocals with lots of bombast, we can sadly still hear them. You can see why the OCC has been tempted to erase it from history. Elsewhere on their second album, ‘Take Two’, lurk covers of ‘Oh Pretty Woman’, ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’ and – presumably because Christmas was just around the corner – ‘Silent Night’.
We can perhaps be glad, then, that they decided to end their music careers rather than release any further singles. They had, after all, been reluctant to do it in the first place, and not even the offer of three million pounds from Simon Cowell could persuade them to do a third album. I can forgive them almost everything, music-wise, knowing how much that must have annoyed Cowell. Unfortunately, he discovered an even more lucrative way of unleashing terrible music on the masses. More on that soon…
To be honest, it’s easy to forgive Robson and Jerome most things, as they both seem like decent blokes. Green has been a fixture on British TV ever since, both in acting and in presenting travel and fishing documentaries. Flynn laid-low for a few years, before returning to the spotlight with a scene-stealing turn as Bronn in ‘Game of Thrones’. The pair are, you’ll be very glad to hear, still firm friends.
Up next, a recap. And I have a feeling that this pair may well be up for an award…
Forget ‘Wannabe’, and all its gimmicky, chanting, in your face-ness… This is the moment that the Spice Girls announced themselves as a genuine phenomenon.
Say You’ll Be There, by The Spice Girls (their 2nd of nine #1s)
2 weeks, from 20th October – 3rd November 1996
To me anyway, as this was the song that caught my ears and made me a fan at the time; its charms less obvious but running much deeper than its shouty predecessor. Should I go as far as to claim, less than four sentences into this post, that it is the Girls’ one true classic record?
It’s a pop song. Pure pop. Peak-nineties, sugar-filled, bubble-gum. The production dates it almost to the month, with the squelchy synths and the scratchy cuts. But it’s just hook, after hook, after hook. Within the first minute we’ve already gone through three levels of catchiness: Emma Bunton’s verse, Mel B’s pre-bridge, and Victoria on the bridge proper. And then there’s a timeless chorus.
But it doesn’t stop there – any downtime, any moment that could have been dead air is crammed with something ear-catching. Mel B’s little rap, the Yeahhh I want you, the Stevie Wonder harmonica solo… (Not actually by Stevie Wonder, but by Judd Lander, who also contributed the iconic intro on ‘Karma Chameleon’.) The best bit, though, is Mel C’s harmonies on the final chorus, in which she announces herself as The Spice Girl who could genuinely sing…
The lyrics are more female empowerment, with the girls this time setting the rules for a relationship: This time, You gotta take it easy, Throwin’ far too much emotion at me… I’m not sure if they’re making the imagined man swear his undying faithfulness, or just roping him in for a one-night stand, but it’s clear that they’re the bosses. Girl-power, indeed…
I’ve come out with some grand statements already, so here’s another for good measure: ‘Say You’ll Be There’, not ‘Wannabe’, set a pop-song template that will be followed for the next decade, or more. Listen to All Saints, S Club 7, Five, or Atomic Kitten when they come along, and you will hear elements of ‘Say You’ll Be There’s lightly-funky, mildly-soulful, gold-standard pop. Max Martin must have been taking notes too, as US pop sensations like Britney Spears and NSync will also borrow from the Spice’s sound.
I know that I’m prone to over-nostalgia when it comes to the Spice Girls, so I will assure readers that I won’t be so gushing over any of their remaining seven #1s. ‘Say You’ll Be There’ is not their only great record, but it is their best. One more thing to say before I finish – and this really puts me into ‘back in my day’ territory – but the campy, ninja-inspired video, in which the Girls are dressed very sexily (but not all that sluttily), feels a world away from modern pop videos. I won’t wade into whether or not this is a good thing – I’m not sure where I stand, to be honest, and I enjoy many current female stars who writhe around in next to nothing. I just thought it was worth noting…
We wake up, post-Chemical Brothers, with a bit of a headache. Bleary-eyed, we reach for the play button on our next #1… And it’s one hell of a comedown.
Words, by Boyzone (their 1st of six #1s)
1 week, from 13th – 20th October 1996
Not for the first time this year, a boyband reaches for the Bee Gees songbook. ‘Words’ was one of the Gibb Brothers’ first chart hits, their third record to reach the Top 10 back in 1968. The original is a very much a late-sixties ballad, drenched in strings and heavy piano chords, but it doesn’t feel overblown, with Barry Gibb’s voice right out at the front of the mix. Boyzone’s producers decide to up the drama, up the rolling drums and the layered vocal tracks, and drag a full extra minute out of the song.
It’s a bit stodgy, a bit lumpy. On their cover of ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, Take That stripped things back, and I was also a bit sniffy about it, so maybe I’m just picky. Or maybe it’s just very hard to do justice to a Bee Gees original. This take on ‘Words’ isn’t terrible (and Boyzone have some real crimes against pop to come), but that’s because the quality of the source material shines through.
One thing I do find particularly annoying about this is Ronan Keating, Boyzone’s main man, on lead vocals. He just has an annoying voice, like he’s constantly trying to add gravitas to each and every syllable rather than just singing the damn song. Alas, it’s a voice that we’ll have to get used to on top of the charts for the time being.
For all the fuss I made about Take That as the boyband of the ‘90s, for folks of my age group they were just a little too old. No, it was Boyzone that the girls in my Primary 6 class were obsessed with. To this day I remain conditioned to hate them, after getting into trouble for sending a classmate into floods of tears just because I told her how terrible they were…
But honestly, they weren’t a patch on Take That, who had some genuinely good pop songs, many of them originals. Boyzone relied too heavily on bland covers, that cynically targeted both the tweens and their mums. ‘Words’ was the group’s first number one but their sixth Top 5 hit, and they’d already had their wicked way with the Osmonds’ ‘Love Me for a Reason’, and Cat Stevens’ ‘Father and Son’.
Robson & Jerome gave us our introduction to the chart crimes of Simon Cowell, while Boyzone were managed by his henchman in the vanilla-isation of ‘90s and ‘00s pop, Louis Walsh. Not that Boyzone were the only Irish five-piece that Walsh unleashed on the world, but we’ll try not to think about them until we have to….
There’s no doubt that ‘Firestarter’ was the big, banging dance-rock crossover hit of 1996; but that song’s infamy probably means that it has unfairly overshadowed the year’s other big, banging dance-rock crossover hit…
Setting Sun, by The Chemical Brothers (their 1st of two #1s)
1 week, from 6th – 13th October 1996
Because ‘Setting Sun’ hits even harder than ‘Firestarter’, and it hasn’t been tamed by years of ubiquity. I hadn’t heard it properly for ages, and was genuinely taken aback by how nasty it sounds. Take the relentlessly monotonous, boldly uncommercial, one-minute long intro for a start. These are big beats with a capital ‘B’.
The shrieking klaxons and the gut-dropping bass hold the track together, and are very nineties. But in the droning sitar, and the vocals played in reverse, there’s also more than a nod to the original tape-looping, Eastern-looking, psychedelic game-changer: the Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. At one point lawyers looked like getting involved, before a musicologist was brought in to prove that the song was merely inspired by, and didn’t sample, The Beatles. The fact that it was used as a template for a dance track thirty years later surely just proves how incredibly ahead of its time ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was.
And what could be more Beatlesy, back in 1996, than to have Noel Gallagher on vocals? Uncredited, and filtered through layers of feedback, but still recognisable from the off, he even manages to rip-off his own lyrics from ‘Half the World Away’… You said your body was young but your mind was very old… And I have to say that this is probably the best #1 single that he features on, as much as I do enjoy many of Oasis’s chart-toppers.
Other brilliant moments include the intense break half-way through, which sounds like a helicopter landing on your head. (I was going to call it the ‘middle-eight’ but I don’t think traditional terms like that apply to boundary pushers like this.) And then there’s the completely unhinged outro, in which the song disintegrates before our ears. The video I’ve attached below is the radio edit, but it’s worth hearing the full five and a half minute version, to drag out the exquisite nastiness…
Another thing that’s interesting about this record is that, unlike The Prodigy when they unleashed ‘Firestarter’, The Chemical Brothers had only a couple of minor hits to their name before ‘Setting Sun’. According to most sources, airplay was limited too. So it seems to have been a genuine underground, word of mouth smash (with Noel G for added clout) that set the duo up to become one of the biggest dance acts of the late-90s and early-00s.
The Chemical Brothers (yet again, like the Walkers, the Righteouses and the Outheres, they are not actually brothers!) had met at the University of Manchester in 1989, and had bonded over their love of rave culture. There can be few chart-topping DJs with a degree in late-Medieval history, but the Chem’s Ed Simons is one. They have one further chart-topper to come, but it will have to go some to match the power of this.
I’ve made a big deal about British rock (‘indie’, ‘Britpop’, call it what you will) not getting its fair share of airtime at the top of the singles chart in the ‘90s. I even did a special post on it. But here’s an even rarer sighting of the US equivalent…
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Deep Blue Something (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 29th September – 6th October 1996
When I think of US alternative rock, post-grunge, in the mid-1990s, I think of REM, the Chili Peppers, Hootie & the Blowfish, and… I’m struggling, to be honest. Britain was bursting at the seams with their own alt-rock, and not many American acts broke through. Here then is US indie, alt-, college (again, call it what you will) rock’s one week in the sun. I might even go as far as suggesting that this is the first such #1 since The Highwaymen in 1961, though that might be pushing things slightly.
It’s a catchy record, with jangly verses which contrast against the power chords in the chorus. It’s a very different sound to Oasis, or Blur – there’s an earnestness to US rock that its British equivalent often deliberately avoids – but I’m sure the prevalence of Britpop benefitted this in making it to #1. And, though I was still young at the time, I can remember it being everywhere on the radio…
The most interesting thing about this record is the lyrics. Even the title intrigues… ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’? I make it only the second number one single to share its name with a book, after ‘Wuthering Heights’, but I’ll happily be proven wrong if I’ve forgotten one! It’s about a dying relationship, that the singer tries to save by thinking of one thing the pair have in common. And I said, What about, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s? She said I, Think I, Remember the film… I think we’re meant to assume that this is enough for them to give it another go. I always thought that the next line was And as I recall, I read the book and I liked it… with the film and the book versions of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ being pretty different and a sign of the couple’s ill-suitedness… Except it turns out that the real line is as I recall I think we both kinda liked it… Call me a cynic, but my subconscious didn’t want them to stay together.
I see a lot of hate for this song online, hate that was also around at the time. And I can kind of see it, the fact that it’s cookie-cutter mid-nineties soft rock. The lyrics could also be seen as contrived, though I think they’re endearingly clumsy. It’s certainly not worthy of #6 on the ‘50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever’ list, as VH1 and ‘Blender’ named it!
Deep Blue Something were from Denton, Texas and, despite forming in 1991 this was their first hit. Their only hit in much of the world, apart from in the UK. We felt sorry for them, and allowed their follow-up ‘Josey’ to make #27, sparing them a one-hit wonder tag. They split in 2001, but reformed in 2014. The members juggle being in Deep Blue Something with other day jobs in the music industry. Apart from, that is, guitarist Clay Bergus, who is a manager of Eddie V’s Prime Seafood restaurant in Fort Worth. Which is great.
The UK Number Ones Blog 