uk singles chart

958. ‘Breathe’, by Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul

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Another 2003 #1 that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the time…

Breathe, by Blu Cantrell (her 1st and only #1) ft. Sean Paul (his 1st of two #1s)

4 weeks, 3rd – 31st August 2003

And another remix. Shall we dub this the summer of the remix, after ‘Ignition’, this, and the chart-topper up next? Compared to R. Kelly’s re-tuned hit, the differences between the original ‘Breathe’ and this chart-topping version are minor: a mix that brings the distinctive horns more to the front, and Sean Paul. (The best part of this ‘summer of the remix’ is that the fact they are remixes is introduced to the listener at the start of each track: Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell, Remix that gonna make yo’ head swell…)

It’s a pretty simple song. There are the big, brassy horns – a sample from Dr Dre’s 1999 hit ‘What’s the Difference’, which in turn had been borrowed, and slowed down, from a 1966 Charles Aznavour hit called ‘Parce Que Tu Crois’ (who thus features on an unlikely second #1) – and Cantrell’s big, brassy vocals. She has a very mid-nineties diva, why use one note per syllable when you can use ten, sort of voice. It’s impressive, and makes you wonder why she didn’t become a bigger star.

It is in direct contrast with Sean Paul’s deadpan rapped intro and verse. If Blu Cantrell felt like she’d appeared out of nowhere, then Sean Paul was already one of the breakout stars of the year, with three Top 10 hits of his own and a #2 alongside Beyoncé to come. I always think of him as the successor to Shaggy, in terms of his indecipherable patois and throaty delivery (though Shaggy always seemed to be having a bit more fun with it).

So, I like this song. It breezes by, and it has a wonderfully swinging hook. (Any song that brings Dr Dre and Charles Aznavour into the same room has to be worth something.) I do wonder if I am more disposed towards this song because, like the remix to ‘Ignition’, it was one of the songs of the summer between high school and university. I have a clear memory of this playing in a friend’s garden as we had a barbecue… But I also wonder if that matters. What is the point of music if we take memory out of the equation and dissect it on a cold, emotionless slab?

Sean Paul would go on to have a career of some longevity, though his next number one is a decade off and his biggest hit won’t come until 2016 (and whether or not he’s even credited on it is a bone of contention). Blu Cantrell meanwhile would release one more album, and enjoy one more Top 40 hit. Interestingly, her biggest hit in her native US (2001’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops)’) was a much smaller hit in the UK, as ‘Breathe’ was in the States. At the time there were rumours about her having had a career in porn prior to the musical success – to the point that I instantly remembered this fact twenty three years on – but it turns out she had had nothing of the sort. A photoshoot aged eighteen was as raunchy as she got. Maybe that counted as ‘porn’ in the more innocent days of 2003, or maybe it all stemmed from the fact her name was ‘Blu’…

957. ‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’, by Daniel Bedingfield

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In writing my post on Daniel Bedingfield’s previous number one, ‘If You’re Not the One’, I discovered that he claimed to not like that ballad. Too soppy, too Westlife-y, not a fair representation of him as an artist…

Never Gonna Leave Your Side, by Daniel Bedingfield (his 3rd and final #1)

1 week, 27th July – 3rd August 2003

So of course, he insisted that his label release something completely different as the album’s fifth single. Rap? Rock? Salsa? Nope. More of the same treacly schmaltz. I bet you could play this alongside ‘If You’re Not the One’, simultaneously, and they’d sync up pretty nicely. Gloopy synths, Spanish guitars, a string section. All very dull.

I do think the chorus here soars a little more, perhaps, and the heartbeat rhythm hints at something darker. But I also think I’m being generous. Overall, a dull, thankfully short-lived, interlude at the top in a year which has generally been filled with interesting chart-toppers. I have my next ‘Meh’ award in mind already.

Impressively, this was indeed the fifth single from Bedingfield’s debut album, a year and a half on from ‘Gotta Get Thru This’. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many fifth-single-from-an-album number ones. And I should clarify that this wasn’t the follow-up to ‘If You’re Not the One’. In-between he had released the far peppier ‘I Can’t Read You’ which peaked at #6. So what do I know? Clearly people wanted the ballads… Again, though, we can look to rapidly plummeting single sales clearing the way for some ‘easy’ number ones if you picked the right week to release.

Daniel Bedingfield would milk the debut album for a frankly greedy sixth single, before scoring just one further Top 10 from his second LP. He was a strange, flash-in-the-pan sort of pop star: three number ones in a year and a half, then very little else. He took an injury-forced hiatus following a bad car crash in 2004, but has never released a third album. Luckily for those already suffering from Bedingfield-based withdrawal symptoms, his sister will be along shortly to fill the void.

956. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé

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The song of the summer for 2003, for the noughties, perhaps for all time…

Crazy in Love, by Beyoncé (her 1st of six solo #1s)

3 weeks, 6th – 27th July 2003

It comes in strong. The way those horns slam in, taking the door off its hinges, making everyone withing a mile-radius jump to their feet. The first words uttered are Jay-Z’s Yes! It’s hard to imagine a more upbeat start to a pop song.

I’m not usually one to describe something as ‘joyous’, and would narrow my eyes at any song that someone described in that way. But it just fits as a description here. For a song that is about being head over heels in love, it ticks every box. From the blaring horns – a sample from the Chi-Lites’ 1970 recording ‘Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)’ – to the uh-oh-uh-oh-oh-no-no fills. From the grab you by the shoulders chorus to the glorious middle-eight, written by Beyoncé herself: Got me lookin’, So crazy my baby…

Hooks, hooks all the way. I’m listening to it now with a smile across my face, despite hearing it almost every day that summer and pretty regularly ever since. It’s the real litmus test of a classic: is it good in an art gallery stand-and-admire-it sort of way, or is it good in a still-gets-you-up-dancing-twenty-three-years-later sort of way? ‘Crazy in Love’ is firmly in the latter camp. It feels trite to say, but it still sounds fresh all these years on.

It also announces Beyoncé, who had of course enjoyed two #1s with Destiny’s Child, as the female star of the ‘00s. It wasn’t her debut solo single – that had been ‘Work It Out’, a #7 from the ‘Austin Powers: Goldmember’ soundtrack, and a perfectly serviceable soul-funk track – but it did feel like it. Plus there was the intrigue of Jay-Z guesting, and the rumours about their relationship being more than just purely musical.

*I must admit to having to add an edit here, as after writing the entire post I have just discovered that Jay-Z is NOT credited on the single, or by the Official Charts Company… I had always just assumed this was ‘Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z’!*

In fact, it’s interesting to approach this from the angle of Jay-Z actually being the bigger solo star at the time. He’d first appeared in the Top 10 back in 1997, and had enjoyed several big feature hits over the years, as well as his own #2 ‘Annie’ remake, ‘Hard Knock Life’ in 1998. ‘ft. Jay-Z’ became a pop song cliché in the ‘00s, as ‘ft. Pitbull’ would in the ‘10s, but he was a genuine chart force. In fact, ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde’ had been a #2 hit a few months earlier, as Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé, as a sort of soft-launch of their romantic-slash-professional relationship.

From this point on though, Beyoncé would be the bigger star. The biggest female pop star of the century? Possibly, though I would argue that she has never produced a moment bigger than this, her ‘debut’ solo single. That’s not a criticism; it would be hard for anyone to top a track as good as this. The only one of her following five chart-toppers that comes close to this is… Well, I won’t give that away. All I’ll say is that it’s a duet with the one woman who can rival her for the ‘female star of the century’ title…

955. ‘Bring Me to Life’, by Evanescense

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It’s becoming a bit of a theme with 2003’s number ones. They come along, and you go ‘Huh?’

Bring Me to Life, by Evanescence (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, 8th June – 6th July 2003

Evanescence making number one is the biggest ‘huh’ of all. Mainly because rock music has been pretty absent from the top of the charts in the 21st century. Huge fanbase acts like U2, Oasis and the Manics aside, the truly only contemporary rock chart-topper in four years has been Limp Bizkit.

So how, and why, did this record spend a month on top of the charts? It wasn’t a breakthrough moment for a band who’d put in the hard miles; this was their debut single. Was it the last hurrah of nu-metal, with a very Linkin Park-ish mix of overwrought vocals and rapping? Was it because it is really a pop song in disguise, with a very catchy call and response chorus? Was it the novelty value of a woman singing lead vocals on a rock track? Was it a beneficiary of the low sales climate?

I’m going to be a proper historian and do the hedge my bets, all of the above move. Plus it had featured on the soundtrack to the movie ‘Daredevil’, which had been released that February, giving it several months of free promo. Basically, it was a ‘lightning in a bottle’ moment, the stars aligning and returning rock music to the top of the charts.

Sadly, despite this being a moment, I’ve never really liked ‘Bring Me to Life’. It’s just too much. Too overwrought, too serious, too emo. The one bit that speaks to me is the even-more-bombastic-than-the-rest middle eight. Frozen inside… And I say this as a big fan of My Chemical Romance, the ultimate emo band. But MCR always managed to give the feeling of deliberately going OTT with a knowing wink. Evanescence don’t. I had it in my mind that they had a Christian rock background… They don’t (though singer Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody met at a Christian youth camp), but they have that vibe. Meanwhile the shouty rap parts were delivered by Paul McCoy, who wasn’t even a full-time member of the band (sometimes he’s given a ‘ft’ credit).

If you’ve been listening carefully, there have been hints that rock music has been planning a return to the mainstream. Pink’s ‘Just Like a Pill’ used the same emo influences in a much poppier way. 2003’s version of a boyband, Busted, freely wield guitars. Girls Aloud had surf guitars on their reality TV winners single… Okay, it might be a tenuous link from ‘Sound of the Underground’ to this, but when you view things from a distance it does start to make sense. Pop music in 1999 or 2000 didn’t even feature fake guitars.

Evanescence enjoyed two further Top 10s from their debut album, before Moody left under a cloud. This song’s success did not herald the start of a huge chart career, or indeed a prolonged return for rock music to the top of the charts. They are still active though, with a couple of hiatuses along the way, and with Lee as the only remaining original member.

Cover Versions of #1s… Britney Spears

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For our latest covers special, we bring you two covers. One of the legendary Miss Britney Spears, and one by the legendary Miss Britney Spears….

In 1999, Britney was the big new pop superstar on the block, while Travis were the big new indie band. Travis were either part of the tail-end of Britpop, or part of the start of the ’00s indie revival, or a bridge between the two, and were hugely popular. They were also divisive, part of a group, alongside the likes of Coldplay, Embrace and Starsailor, who many felt compared poorly to the big Britpop acts, and whom Oasis’s manager Alan McGee had infamously dubbed ‘indie bedwetters’. I always quite liked Travis though, as they had a great ear for catchy melodies, and weren’t as whiny as Chris Martin and chums.

And in covering Britney’s ‘…Baby One More Time’ they kick-started something that would define British pop music in the 21st century. I’m not sure if it was definitely the first ever ‘Live Lounge’ performance for Radio 1, but the novelty of it went viral, by the standards of 1999, and helped create a phenomenon which carries on to this day. It is a simple enough premise for a radio feature: a popular act of the day perform a live version of their current single, and a live cover of a song in a genre with which they aren’t usually associated. Which in the early days of Live Lounge usually meant guitar bands doing goofy and knowing covers of pop tracks (see above).

On the one hand, it could be fun to hear, say, Arctic Monkeys covering Girls Alouds’ ‘Love Machine’. It was all part of the blurring between rock and pop, mainstream and indie, cool and uncool, that happened during the 2000s. And occasionally a Live Lounge track would go on to become a bona-fide hit single, such as Jamie Cullum’s cover of Pharrell’s ‘Frontin’. There have been Live Lounge tours, and Live Lounge compilation albums. Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Taylor Swift have all done Live Lounge. Walls have broken down, genres blurred, love has reigned…

But I was a regular Radio 1 listener in those days, and half the time I turned off when Live Lounge came around. Not because the covers were bad, but because the tone of it was so bloody self-congratulatory and back-slappy. Jo Whiley purring in reverential tones, as if she’d been on the rooftop with the Beatles in 1969, when in actual fact she’d just heard the Zutons covering the Scissor Sisters. They’re musicians, I’d think to myself, of course they can pull a half-arsed cover out of the bag.

So, I chose this Travis version of Britney’s biggest hit precisely because it is so half-arsed, and also because it sparked a genuine British pop music phenomenon, for better or worse. Anyway, to prove that I’m not precious about pop acts going rock, or vice-versa, here’s Britney herself. Covering the Stones.

Brit’s version of ‘Satisfaction’ is ten-times better than Travis’s barroom singalong of ‘…Baby’ because a) she’s treating the source material with respect, and because b) she does something different with the song, seamlessly updating the sound for the Y2K generation.

It’s not as good as the original, of course it isn’t, not even close. But it is a worthwhile exercise. It was also fairly well-received by critics. At the same time, it annoyed rock snobs who probably didn’t even listen to it before railing against popular music going to hell in a handcart.

The year after this cover, Britney and Mick Jagger met at the VMAs for a slightly awkward interview in which Britney looked like she wasn’t 100% sure who the old man next to her was, and Mick claimed unconvincingly that she did ‘very well’ covering ‘Satisfaction’. Then Britney went off and performed with a snake around her neck. It was quite the time to be alive…

Our regular posts will resume in a couple of days…

954. ‘Ignition (Remix)’, by R. Kelly

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Okay. This is not the first time we’ve met a sex offender at the top of the charts, and it won’t be the last. As with Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, P Diddy, and Michael Jackson, and probably every rockstar active in the 1960s and 70s, we take a moment to acknowledge the crimes…

Ignition (Remix), by R. Kelly (his 2nd of three #1s)

4 weeks, 11th May – 8th June 2003

We also take a moment to acknowledge that this is a proper old school jam. It’s the freakin’ weekend baby I’m about to have me some fun… R. Kelly would like us to leave our credibility, and our clothes too, before entering the Stretch Navigator, for three minutes of soulful R&B silliness. There’s crystal poppin’, there’s coke and rum, there’s an after party, there are toot toots and beep beeps… If you’ve ever seen an episode of ‘Trapped in the Closet’, R. Kelly’s hip-hopera, this record is much the same vibe.

The original ‘Ignition’ had been recorded a year previously, but had existed for several years before that, perhaps explaining its retro sound. Due to an album leak, Kelly decided to remix several of its tracks. It was a good decision, as the original ‘Ignition’ is dull and treacly. It also adds to the feel of 2003 as a retrospective year, with big hits like ‘Make Luv’, ‘Loneliness’, and ‘Beautiful’ harking back to various different eras (plus a cover of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ for good measure).

So yes, this song is fun and goofy. I am nostalgically attached to it as it was number one when I finished high school, and was one of the songs of that long summer before I went to university. However, it has to be said that a song about getting a girl drunk and taking her back to a hotel, as well as select lines – I’m about to take my key and stick it in the ignition – leave a certain ickiness knowing what we now know.

Although, Kelly’s crimes were already well known in 2003. Rumours had been around since he’d ‘discovered’ fifteen-year-old Aaliyah in the mid-nineties, even before his 1st chart-topper ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ and in 2002 he was prosecuted on child pornography charges. Thus, the remix to ‘Ignition’ made #1 with the public in full knowledge of Kelly being a wrong ‘un. There’s no way that would happen today. (I am going to cast no moral judgement on this. Listening to a criminal’s songs does not mean you endorse the crimes, but I respect those who refuse to.)

Before we finish, note how this is already the fourth number of the year to stay at the top for a full month, with another four-weeker along straight after this. In my last post I mentioned plummeting sales, which might have contributed to these longer-running #1s (the early ‘90s was another time of low sales and long stretches at the top). But compared to a few years ago, when the year 2000’s fifty-two weeks gave us forty-two number ones, it’s another big shift.

953. ‘Loneliness’, by Tomcraft

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Writing this blog has changed me, in many ways, but none so thoroughly as how it’s enhanced my understanding of dance music.

Loneliness, by Tomcraft (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, 4th – 11th May 2003

I’m still not 100% on top of the terms – it’s a process – but I’m confident in labelling this next number one as ‘techno’, or maybe ‘trance’. It’s not ‘house’, and definitely not ‘drum n bass’, or ‘ambient’, and probably not ‘breakbeat’ (though there’s a chance it could be).

I’m on safer ground when I stick to saying ‘I like it’. A good song is a good song, regardless of the genre. ‘Loneliness’ is churning, and ominous, with a bassline that vibrates right through you. The distinctive, throttled riff is memorable. Unlike other recent dance hits, it’s not an old song sampled and mashed up (a la ‘Make Luv’), and it’s not an old song backed by a basic sledgehammer beat and high-pitched vocals (a la ‘Heaven’). In fact, I’d say that ‘Loneliness’ is pretty dated by 2003 standards. It reminds me more of something from the late nineties, Wamdue Project maybe, or even Eiffel 65, and is indeed based on an excerpt from a 1998 track, ‘Share the Love’.

It’s quirky. Depending on which mix you listen to the structure of the song changes, curling itself in different ways around the main, industrial beat. Some mixes have a distinctive piano motif. The UK single edit, which for our purposes is the version attached below, has a rainfall break in the middle. It’s not a predictable dance track, and for a number one single it is fairly hardcore. Look at me, a regular Pete Tong, sprinkling this post with all the dance genres…

I remember this topping the charts, appearing out of nowhere to spend a week on top. And it seemed to vanish as quickly as it appeared, remaining fairly forgotten, with fewer than two millions views on YouTube. Tomcraft, a German DJ known to his parents as Thomas Brückner, only managed one follow-up #43 hit. He remained active and influential though, until his death in 2024, aged just forty-nine.

One other thing worth noting, and perhaps an explanation for tracks like this making number one, is how quickly single sales were plummeting in 2003. The downward trend had begun as far back as 2001, despite huge sales from reality TV acts like Hear’Say and Will Young bucking the trend, and by May 2003 Tomcraft needed fewer than 37,000 sales to make #1. Back in 2000, anything less than 100k per week for a number one was unusual. Sales will only drop further over the next couple of years, until the introduction of downloads in 2005 helps steady the ship. What these low sales will do, though, is give the charts an interestingly unpredictable feel.

952. ‘You Said No’, by Busted

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I’d better come clean from the off. I really liked Busted back in the day. And was ready to head off down a rabbit hole of reminiscence this afternoon…

You Said No, by Busted (their 1st of four #1s)

1 week, 27th April – 4th May 2003

But listening to their first number one now, it sounds very lightweight. It sounds very processed, very studio engineered. Their faux-American accents grate. The lyrics, in which they whine like a bunch of snotty incels about the girl that turned them down (You’re so fit, And you know it, And I only dream of you, Cause my life’s such a bitch…) jar. What happened?

I’m reminded of an article I read at the time in a friend’s ‘proper’ rock magazine – ‘Guitar World’, maybe – which claimed to have studied and proved that the opening riff from ‘You Said No’ couldn’t possibly have been played on a real guitar. Now, to be fair, magazines like ‘Guitar World’ had a bit of an agenda against pop punk puppets like Busted, but they had a point. Is this how rock music had to debase itself to be a relevant chart force in the year 2003?

It’s still a catchy song, and isn’t without its charms. The na-na-nanas and the chorus are earworms, and it really has a sound that is very much of its time. Busted were the biggest male pop group in Britain between 2003 and 2004, and it’s right that they feature on top of the charts. But it isn’t hard to argue that this was a belated #1 – a ‘shadow #1’ I’ve called them, in previous posts – after their signature tune, and genuine pop culture moment, ‘Year 3000’ (which had stalled at #2 behind David Sneddon). It did guarantee, though, that Busted became the first act to have their first three singles enter the charts in ascending order: #3, #2, #1…

Maybe it’s just age. I was seventeen when this made number one (admittedly already several years beyond their target audience) and I am approaching a big birthday starting with four as I write this. Maybe it’s also because Busted, for all their charms, were to soon be eclipsed by their prodigies McFly, who started out in the same pop-punk mould but who proved to be a far more expansive band.

One final question that needs answering before we move on: were Busted a boyband? Well, the lyrics to ‘Year 3000’ show that they certainly didn’t think so, and I agree. They wrote their own songs, in part at least. They held (and presumably did sometimes play) their own instruments. And they didn’t have dance routines, or key changes. So no. What they do represent is how the mid-noughties indie and rock revival, which will start to feature eventually at the top of the charts, had filtered down to pop acts. And in my book any guitar, computer-enhanced or not, is always welcome on top of the charts.

951. ‘Make Luv’, by Room 5 ft. Oliver Cheatham

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Cast your minds back to 2013, when ‘Get Lucky’ by Daft Punk’s Pharrell and Nile Rodgers-featuring ‘Get Lucky’ was everywhere…

Make Luv, by Room 5 ft Oliver Cheatham (their 1st and only #1s)

4 weeks, 30th March – 27th April 2003

Well, I always thought that mega-hit was just a poor man’s ‘Make Luv’. Ten years earlier, Italian producer Room 5 had sampled US R&B singer Oliver Cheatham’s 1983 hit ‘Get Down Saturday Night’, had it featured in an advert for Lynx deodorant, and enjoyed one of those huge, slightly random, hits that 2003 would be remembered for.

This is the other side of mid-noughties dance, away from the trance heavy beats of DJ Sammy: an old sample, tarted up with some swooshes, drops and fades. There’s not much to it, and lyrics like I like to party, Everybody does… were never likely to win an Ivor Novello, but it doesn’t take much detective work to see why it was such a big hit. It is catchy, just the right side of cheesy, and remixed with a lightness of touch that lets it float by. Plus, it has that all-important multi-generational appeal.

And if this isn’t yet another disco revival! We’ve only just got past the turn-of-the-century disco revival, to the point that we should probably just acknowledge that disco never really needed reviving. ‘Make Luv’s success won’t lead to many other disco chart-toppers in the near future, but the charts of 2003-2006 were stacked with fairly cheap knock-offs. Oliver Cheatham found himself co-writer of another similar hit the year after this, for example: Michael Gray’s #7 smash ‘The Weekend’.

Who was Oliver Cheatham, the man who had only ever featured once before on the UK singles chart, when the original from which this was sampled made #38? He’d been recording throughout the eighties, with little chart success, and had spent much of the nineties as a backing singer for various artists. He was fifty-five by the time this became an unexpected #1 smash, and he embraced it with gusto, appearing with Room 5 as they promoted it. I believe this made him the third-oldest (living) male to top the charts, behind Elton John and Louis Armstrong. 2003, in fact, will be a year of old men making number one…

Room 5, meanwhile, also struggled for further hits, teaming up again with Cheatham for a much less successful (and very similar sounding) follow-up ‘Music & You’. He had more success as his alter-ego Junior Jack, and scored a number of Top 30 and Top 20 hits under that name, before and after his one and only chart-topper.

Best of the Rest… Boybands

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If you’ve been following this blog over the past few weeks, you’ll have seen that I claimed December 2002, and Blue’s cover of ‘Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word’, featuring Elton himself, as marking the end of the Golden Age of the Boyband…

I’ve gone into discussions, and answered questions on: what makes a boyband (dance routines, key changes), who the first boyband were (NKOTB), and whether or not Blazin’ Squad were a boyband (they weren’t, it’s official). In total, we’ve covered, enjoyed and/or endured forty boyband #1s over the course of thirteen chart years. Most have been ballads. Many have been garbage. A few have been classics.

So, in this post, I am going to offer you an alternative history. A ‘what might have been’. Six non-charttopping hits from six charttopping boybands. Six choons. Not a ballad in sight.

Color Me Badd – ‘All 4 Love’ (reached #5 in 1991)

Color Me Badd made #1 with the icky ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’. But, later in 1991, they returned with the genuinely catchy ‘All 4 Love’. It’s a cheesily soulful love song, with a looped piano riff and a funky horn section. Knight in shining armour, I’ll be your fairytale… are lyrics that in a ballad would have you swallowing back vomit; but that in an uptempo number like this are forgiveable. This record made top spot in the US (bravo America), but was their final Top 10 pretty much everywhere.

East 17 – ‘Deep’ (reached #5 in 1993)

To be honest, East 17 have nothing to prove. Their one chart-topper is probably the best boyband single ever released. On the one hand, this is quite an experimental boyband single, with an ominous squelchy bass, a floaty piano line, and a strange operatic vocal loop, mingling to make an atmospheric backing track. On the other, this is preposterously horny nonsense. East 17 were almost instantly cast as the Stones to Take That’s Beatles, and it is impossible to imagine Gary Barlow uttering lines like I wanna do it ’till my belly rumbles... or I’ll butter the toast if you lick the knife…

911 – ‘Bodyshakin’‘ (reached #3 in 1997)

911 had to wait a long time (by boyband standards) for a #1. Eleven singles over three years until their cover of Dr. Hook’s ‘A Little Bit More’ finally made it all the way. But what a damp squib that was. Especially when a banger such as ‘Bodyshakin” stalled at #3. In 1997, this was very a modern sounding pop song, something that Max Martin and Backstreet Boys would be churning out to great a success by the end of the decade. (Dare I say that 911 managed this because they completely ripped off ‘We’ve Got It Goin’ On’?) I struggled between this and ‘Party People… Friday Night’, which is a much cheesier disco number, so I attach that here for your pleasure.

Five – ‘Everybody Get Up’ (reached #2 in 1998)

‘Keep on Movin” aside, I found Five’s (sorry, 5ive’s) number ones underwhelming. Especially when earlier in their career they were releasing singles like this ‘I Love Rock n Roll’ sampling 1998 smash. I think, having slogged through all these boybands, Five were probably the most fun, and the most light on ballads. In classic ’90s music video fashion, the boys disrupt a school exam, tossing test papers willy-nilly, and deliver era-defining lines like I’m the bad boy that you invite for dinner, Ain’t got no manners ’cause I eat with my fingers…

Blue – ‘All Rise’ (reached #4 in 2001)

In a way, for Blue to wrap the Golden Era of the Boyband up was fitting, as they had offered a vision of the future of the genre. They were less concerned with dance routines and key changes, and more with slick R&B production and more mature lyrics. When boybands returned to the charts in the late ’00s, quite a few of them looked and sounded like Blue. Their second single (and first #1) ‘Too Close’ told a tale of trying to hide an erection, while their debut single ‘All Rise’ presented a breakup as a court case: I’m gonna tell it to your face, I rest my case... Less a boyband, more a young adultband.

A1 – ‘Caught in the Middle’ (reached #2 in 2002)

For their 3rd and final album, A1 also went for a more grown-up sound, a world away from their pointless cover of ‘Take on Me’. This was another way in which boybands adapted for the 2000s, incorporating guitars and moodier themes, and sheepskin jackets. By the middle of the decade, as Take That returned and Westlife kept plodding on, we’d be talking about ‘manbands’. Anyway, this is a catchy, minor key number. I think it would be fair to suggest it owes a certain debt to Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and A1 were hardly the first boyband to borrow a sound.

Up soon, we’ll be launching into our next fifty chart-toppers, which will take us from spring 2003 to early 2005. It will also take us to the 1000th UK number one, and I have some special posts planned when we get to that milestone. It will all be boyband-less, however. Celebrate or mourn as you see fit. Unless you count Busted and McFly as boybands… but let’s not go there just yet!