teenybop

846. ‘Born to Make You Happy’, by Britney Spears

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

I did warn you that despite kicking things off with the snarling ‘The Masses Against the Classes’, the year 2000 would not be ushering in any kind of rock renaissance. Here then, restoring order, is Britney.

Born to Make You Happy, by Britney Spears (her 2nd of six #1s)

1 week, from 23rd – 30th January 2000

I love Britney Spears. I feel I have to preface every post I write about her with this statement, in case anyone is expecting me to give her a critical mauling (I can’t). But if there was ever a Britney #1 I was lukewarm on, it would be this one. Or so I thought.

But actually, this is a decent pop song. It’s nowhere near as cutesy or saccharine as I’d mis-remembered. It’s got a cool, electro-pop edge, a moody piano riff, and delicate guitars embellishing the end of each line. It has probably been lost among the sugar-rush of her other, early hits (and it’s nowhere near as good as ‘…Baby One More Time’, or her next chart-topper) but it’s the most mature-sounding of the four singles from her debut album. Plus, it might be one of her best vocal performances (in an admittedly narrow field…)

It’s let down a little by its overwrought lyrics, though. I’ll do anything, I’ll give you my world, I’d wait forever, Just to be your girl… You can’t really appreciate them, I suspect, unless you were a sixteen-year-old listening to this song in real time. They certainly appeal to a teenage sentiment, but a song with the hook I don’t know how to live without your love, I was born to make you happy… did little to endear Britney to those of a more feminist leaning.

But then again, if you’re going to try to enjoy teen-pop, then you have to embrace it all, even the ridiculously emo side of it. A quarter of a century on, ‘Born to Make You Happy’ sounds like a relic. No young female star in 2025 would dream of claiming that she was born to make any man happy. Which is a good thing, and yet…

For some reason, at school we changed the lyrics of this song to I was born to wear a nappy… I have completely forgotten the reason for this, if there ever was one, but felt it needed mentioning here. As I wrote above, this was the 4th single from her debut album, and was only released in Europe. But like the Manics the week before, it took advantage of low January sales to score Britney her second #1, and to keep things ticking over nicely until her next big, brand new single.

827. ‘Bring It All Back’, by S Club 7

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

Normal service is resumed, after the strangest of detours courtesy of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Sunscreen’… Here’s some A-grade, late-nineties tween-pop.

Bring It All Back, by S Club 7 (their 1st of four #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th June 1999

I hear the Jacksons, I hear the Archies, I hear Disney themes… I hear a whole host of influences from classic sixties and seventies bubblegum. I’ve noticed that while listening to many of the recent pop number ones, I’ve ended up spending more time working out what they’re derivative of rather than hearing them as their own entities. And there isn’t a single note in ‘Bring It All Back’ that isn’t borrowed from somewhere else. Which means I want to sneer at it – my thirteen-year-old self certainly did – but dammit I can’t. It’s just too catchy, too packed with hooks, not to grudgingly admire.

Not that it’s at all clever, or that it isn’t cynical in the way it relentlessly hits each hook after hook, as if some modern day Pied Piper has designed a song that will lure in seven-year-olds across the land. I haven’t been able to listen to it for too long this morning without starting to feel queasy. Plus there’s no edge, no hint of an underlying melancholy, to the lyrics: Don’t stop, Never give up, Hold your head high and reach the top… It almost makes B*Witched sound punk. But still, as a pure pop song, it works.

Besides, I could never truly hate this. This is nostalgia. This is watching kids’ TV while still in my school uniform, looking forward to ‘Neighbours’ and ‘The Simpsons’, before, or perhaps after, playing football across the street, with my mum cooking dinner next door… Baz Luhrmann may have just warned us against the dangers of nostalgia, but I would pay a good sum of money just to spend five minutes back in that world.

This record is further evidence of a point I made a few posts ago, about British pop sounding, and looking, cheap and tacky next to the mega-watt US stars of the day. You can imagine Britney Spears’s team hearing five seconds of this, and dismissing it with a roll of the eyes and a “that’s cute”. And yet, ‘Miami 7’, the show for which this served as the theme song, was popular in the US. Clearly even their tweens had an appetite for British cheese.

S Club 7 were the brainchild of Simon Fuller, after he had been sacked by the Spice Girls in 1997. Presumably he wanted younger, more pliable charges (who wouldn’t rebel against him) which I guess fed through to the cuter, more upbeat music. It is said that the ‘S’ in the band name stands for ‘Simon’, which feels a bit cultish, but that’s never been confirmed. With Steps around at the same time, and with Hear’Say and Liberty X to come soon, it could be said that we are in the second golden age of mixed-gender pop groups, after the days of Bucks Fizz, Brotherhood of Man, and a certain quartet of Swedes (I hesitate to type out that band’s name, in case a casual skim-reader thinks I’m actually comparing them to S Club 7!)

I will happily admit, however, that S Club 7 have much better songs to come… At least two of which are genuine pop classics. Their sound matured, while their songwriters remained skilled at using strong reference points for their hits, be it Motown, disco, or even classical interpolations (see 2000’s ‘Natural’). Plus, I’ve met Bradley McIntosh – the only chart-topping artist I have ever touched – and he was cool.

817. ‘…Baby One More Time’, by Britney Spears

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

It’s Britney, bitch.

…Baby One More Time, by Britney Spears (her 1st of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 21st February – 7th March 1999

Sorry, couldn’t resist. That iconic intro is still eight years off. But let’s be real, the three note piano motif (the official term, apparently) that introduced the world to Britney Spears, and that underpins one of the all-time great pop songs, is even more iconic.

Yes, ‘all-time great’. Up there in the pop pantheon with ‘Cathy’s Clown’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘It’s a Sin’… You name a pop classic from any era, and ‘…Baby One More Time’ is up there holding its own alongside them. It has all the indefinable qualities – the ability to hook you instantly, the ability to remain catchy but never cloying, the ability to still somehow sound fresh after twenty-five years – which all classics need.

But, I hear you argue, is this not too bubblegum to be an all-time classic? Don’t Britney’s vocal, shall we say, limitations not detract? To the first charge I say no, for this has as much underlying melancholy as the best ABBA songs. What other teenybop songs involve lines about fatal loneliness? And to the second I say that sixteen-year-old Britney’s vocal stylings are perfect for a song about teenage lust and longing. Plus, she managed to influence the way an entire generation pronounced the word ‘baby’ (Bayba? Baybay? Byebuh?)

To reach truly magical heights though, a song needs a moment where everything just clicks. That moment of transcendence arrives in the middle eight, as the chorus lines are chopped up and loaded with emphasis: I must confess, That my loneliness, Is killing me now…

Of course, this was a massive smash across the world, and now stands as one of the best-selling singles ever. It’s most recent placing in the Rolling Stone Top 500 of all time was #205. It’s also been voted the greatest debut single of all time, and the UK’s 7th favourite number one. Britney aside, it also properly introduced the world to Max Martin, one of the most successful chart-topping writers and producers of all time. At last count I make this his first of twenty appearances in the credits of a chart-topping single in the UK.

‘…Baby One More Time’ also won awards for its video, in which Britney flaunts almost every school uniform rule in the book. It got criticism too, for sexualising both school uniforms and the teenage singer in them, as well as the suggestion that it was glamorising sexual violence. Martin has since argued that the ‘hit me’ in the lyrics refers to ‘hitting someone up on the phone’ (as the kids put it in 1999), and that any confusion stems from the fact that English isn’t his first language.

But frankly, who cares? A song this good doesn’t deserve to be caught up in tawdry speculation about its slightly risqué video. Having said that, while this might technically be the best of Britney Spears many singles, it is not my favourite. Britney has five more number ones to get through, and two of those songs can rival this for classic status.

804. ‘Girlfriend’, by Billie

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Right after B*Witched, the year’s second biggest teenybop act returns for another crack at the top…

Girlfriend, by Billie (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 11th – 18th October 1998

I thought ‘Rollercoaster’ was a big improvement on ‘C’est la Vie’, a record I detested. Is the same upswing evident with Miss Piper, bearing in mind that I didn’t find ‘Because We Want To’ anywhere near as bad as B*Witched’s accursed debut? Um… Not particularly. It’s more of the same, really.

It starts off fairly promisingly, though. Some excellent vintage record scratches, and some shoobydoobydoopdoops reminiscent of the classic girl groups. There’s a bit of sass in the verses, and I can certainly hear a bit of All Saints in there (as with B*Witched, Billie’s second single was clearly trying to add a little more edge). The song’s premise is that Billie has seen a boy that she likes, and she isn’t going to play it coy: Playin’ hard to get takes too long sugar, So I told my friends that I’ve found a man…

While I admire the confidence (very Girl Power), the song is let down by another chanty chorus. Do you have a girlfriend…? Can I have your number…? I don’t think it suits Billie’s voice particularly well, which adds to the grating effect. And I’m not sure this aggressive approach would have worked, romantically speaking.

I’ve lost count of how many pop songs in 1998 have had the same vaguely hip-hop backing beat and squelchy bass synths. It’s another step towards what I would call truly ‘modern’ pop music (i.e. the Max Martin sledgehammer approach). This is a bit more minimal than what’s to come, the simple beat decorated with various horn parps and string flourishes.

Billie Piper has an interesting post-pop career, but we’ll hold off on that for now. She has one final number one, with a big and beefy Y2K sound, and that will make an interesting contrast with her first two chart-toppers. It’s worth mentioning, before we go, that ‘Girlfriend’ put Billie out and clear as the youngest person to make #1 with their first two singles.

336. ‘Young Love’, by Donny Osmond

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

We’ve heard this one before, haven’t we…?

Young Love, by Donny Osmond (his 3rd and final #1)

4 weeks, from 19th August – 16th September 1973

Cast your mind all the way back to early 1957, when blue-eyed, all-American heartthrob Tab Hunter was crooning his way into the hearts of many with his own version of ‘Young Love’. I wasn’t keen on it then – and I quote: “I’ve listened to ‘Young Love’ several times now, trying to find something to like about it, but I can’t do it. It’s insipid. And that’s it” – and I ain’t much keener on it now.

It’s a pretty faithful cover – the same lullaby guitar and lyrics, with a few strings thrown in for that trademark Osmond schmaltz. Donny sounds like… Donny. It’s not as teeth-grindingly terrible as ‘The Twelfth of Never’, but it’s no ‘Puppy Love’. Who’d have thought, when I gave ‘Puppy Love’ it’s glowing review, that it would wind up being the best of Donny Osmond’s three chart-toppers!

No, I’m going to play nice. Yes, this is complete tripe, but as I say every time: I am not the target audience for it. Same way that I will not be the target audience for New Kids on the Block, Boyzone, Westlife or 1 Direction, when their times come. Plus, it’s a song by a fifteen year old kid. No way would I want any of the stupid things I did, said, wore, or released on 7” vinyl around the world, aged fifteen, held against me. I’ll let him be…

But then, oh Jesus, he starts talking. Even Tab Hunter didn’t go this far… Just one kiss, From your sweet lips, Will tell me that our love is real… Donny, son, you’re making it really hard for me to not write terrible things about you… You just know that this was the exact moment in the song where girls across the country leant in to give their Donny posters a good hard snogging.

It’s short, at least, two and a half minutes and we’re through. That’s it as far as this young man’s solo chart-toppers are concerned, though he does have one more #1 coming up soon with his brothers in tow. I feel we need write no more.

Except, I guess it’s interesting that back in the fifties, at the same time as Tab Hunter took this to the top first time around, right on the verge of the rock ‘n’ roll revolution, that it was common for artists to cover songs from the twenties and thirties. Connie Francis took ‘Carolina Moon’ to the top, Bobby Darin did the same with ‘Mack the Knife’, while Tommy Edwards used an old melody in ‘It’s All in the Game’. This disc marks the first time, of many, that a former #1 will return to the top as a cover version. And, scarily, the 1950s are to the 1970s what the 1930s were to the ‘50s…

327. ‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

I press play on this, the second part of Donny Osmond’s chart-topping trilogy, and the first word that comes to mind is ‘syrupy’. Listening to this record’s intro is like being dropped head first into a vat of treacle, and trying to swim to safety…

R-13845213-1562429675-6559.jpeg

The Twelfth of Never, by Donny Osmond (his 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 25th March – 1st April 1973

Second thing I notice is that lil’ Donny’s voice has broken. He’s become a man, or at least a proper teenager, and so, we wonder, will his music have grown up along with him? We last heard him chirping about his ‘Puppy Love’; is there any sign that Donny is pushing boundaries, experimenting on the lead single from his fifth (his fifth!) album?

No. If anything – and I have considered this statement very carefully – ‘The Twelfth of Never’ is worse than ‘Puppy Love’. (Meanwhile it makes his little brother Jimmy’s chart-topper sound genuinely enjoyable by comparison.) You ask how much I need you… Must I explain… I need you oh my darlin’, Like roses need rain… You really don’t need to hear any more of the lyrics to get the picture.

But, just in case you were enjoying it, he will love his girl until the roses don’t bloom, until the clover has lost its perfume, and until the poets have run out of rhyme… Until the twelfth of never, And that’s a long, long time… I’ll give this song one thing: it’s powerful. Certain songs make you sad, certain songs make you happy, certain songs make you nauseous. You can guess what category this one falls under…

I dunno. I feel a bit bad. He was only fifteen, and picking on this record feels a bit like taking candy from, well, a kid. I’m sure he was a nice young man, and your nan would certainly have approved (though she might have suggested a haircut), but Donny Osmond did release some utter shite. But then again, as I wrote in my post on ‘Puppy Love’, I am not and never have been a thirteen-year-old girl, and so am far, far away from being this song’s target audience.

‘The Twelfth of Never’, like ‘Puppy Love’, was a cover of an older hit. Johnny Mathis had released his version way back in 1956, and it is much less syrupy, almost gospel-ish. (Mathis, though, disliked the song and kept it as a ‘B’-side.) In the UK, Cliff Richard had had a #8 hit in 1964 with his own version…

Donny will have one last UK #1, coming up pretty soon, so brace yourselves. That one is interesting as it is not just a cover of an oldie, but a cover of an oldie that has already topped the charts! Until then, I need a glass of water and a ‘Rennies’…

Follow along with my #1s playlist…

316. ‘Puppy Love’, by Donny Osmond

/ UK #1s blog / 22 Comments

Oh man. It seems that for every great song we get at the moment, there’s a bloody awful one coming right up behind. ‘Metal Guru’ – transcendent, ‘Vincent’ – beautiful, ‘Take Me Back ‘Ome’ – gritty… ‘Puppy Love’… Oh…

5ef4de88e533c9dd50033fb8bf65da15

Puppy Love, by Donny Osmond (his 1st of three #1s)

5 weeks, from 2nd July – 6th August 1972

Well, we all know how this one goes, don’t we? I’m not sure how, because it’s not a song you will ever hear on the radio these days, but ‘Puppy Love’ has still somehow seeped into our collective conscience. And it’s a record that sets its stall out from the start – from the opening seconds you are left with no doubt that this song will be as saccharine and cloying as the title suggested.

The intro soars and pirouettes, like they used to in the fifties, before wee Donny goes for it: And they called it, Puppy love, Oh I guess they’ll never know, How a young heart really feels, And why I love her so… His voice doesn’t sound real. I don’t mean that it’s touched up with autotune, or any other kind of modern-day trickery. I mean that it’s impossible to imagine an actual human being sounding this soppy.

And they called it, Puppy love, Just because we’re in our teens… The song’s premise being that ‘puppy love’ is what you call the sort of chaste, pecks-on-the-cheeks-and-notes-passed-in-class crush you get in Year 6. While Donny is quite adamant that his love is for real, that he and his girl should be taken seriously: How can I, Oh how can I tell them, This is not a puppy love…? Which means, you realise with a shudder, that lil’ Donny – just look at those eyes up there! – is actually a randy little horn-dog.

I am clearly not the target of this song. I am not a thirteen year old girl from the early 1970s, for a start. But it is terrible. If you wanted to write a cheesy pastiche of a fifties pop hit, you’d write a song that sounds a lot like ‘Puppy Love’. The bit where the music drops off and Donny pleads: Someone, Help me, Help me please… is simultaneously one of the most annoying moments in a #1 single, and yet quite funny. If you don’t think too much, it is just about possible to get swept away by the stupid melodrama of this record.

donny-osmond-puppy-love-mgm

This is actually quite a significant moment at the top of the charts, I’d say. Of course, Donny Osmond is not the first teen-idol to trouble the hit parade, or the #1 spot. And ‘Puppy Love’ is not the first piece of schmaltz to catch the public’s imagination. But having the two thrown together so shamelessly? It feels very post-sixties. Very glam, in a way. A complete triumph of looks over substance. Though ‘Puppy Love’ was a much older song (almost older than Osmond himself) having been recorded by Paul Anka in 1960, making #33. Having listened to Anka’s version, it’s actually a relief to return to this cover…

Donny Osmond was fourteen when this hit top spot, making him the joint-youngest chart-topper, tied with Helen Shapiro. But for God’s sake, listen to Shapiro’s ‘You Don’t Know’ and compare it with this drivel. They do say girls mature quicker than boys… Would tweenage girls still fall for someone like Osmond in 2020? Probably, if their version of ‘Puppy Love’ was Tik-Tok friendly. I remember being at high school (so not that long ago) when the legendary S Club Juniors took a version of it back into the Top 10. And actually, my first thought when I saw the picture of Osmond above was that he looked just like a 2010 Justin Bieber. Which goes to show: a cute white boy with a bowl-cut always has, and always will, sell…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkn1kFmUW5E