vengaboys

Today’s Top 10 – December 31st, 1999

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

For my final post of the year, let’s go back twenty-six years. Back to the final day of the 20th century. The Millennium. I was thirteen and remember it well: the day long coverage on TV, the fireworks, the fear that society might collapse at midnight, that I got to drink sparkling wine…

But, did the final UK singles chart do justice to the millennium just past? Did it manage to sum up the sounds of a century? Did we go out with a bang? Well….

10. ‘Back in My Life’, by Alice Deejay (up 1 / 5 weeks on chart)

The record at #10 on this week sets the scene beautifully. This was the sound of the late nineties: a Dutch Eurodance ‘project’ with some basic beats, basic lyrics, and a basic ‘dancing in front of a waterfall’ video. It’s ‘basically’ a slightly harder-edged Vengaboys. This was the follow-up to Alice Deejay’s better (and better known) breakthrough #2 ‘Better Off Alone’, and had been as high as #4 in the charts in early December.

9. ‘Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)’, by Vengaboys (up 1 / 3 weeks on chart)

Oops. Like summoning an evil spirit by the mere mention of its name, here are the Vengaboys. Following up their two 1999 #1s, ‘Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)’ had made #3 a couple of weeks before this. It is a little less in one’s face compared to, say, ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom’. Which is maybe why it didn’t do as well… Or maybe Vengaboys fatigue had set in? In earlier posts, I posited a theory that disposable tripe like this was so succesful at the turn of the millennium because we were all worried that the world would end, and just wanted to party. The first two records in this Top 10 do seem to give my theory some credence…

8. ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’ / ‘Better the Devil You Know’, by Steps (down 1 / 2 weeks on chart)

No turn of the millennium chart would be complete without some Steps, an ever-present between ’97 and 2001. ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’ is a pleasant pop tune, but it’s nobody’s favourite Steps song. The video is a nice time-capsule of late nineties movie parodies: ‘Romeo + Juliet’, ‘Titanic’, ‘Austin Powers’, and a fairly daring recreation of the ‘hairgel’ scene from ‘There’s Something About Mary’.

Steps did love a double-‘A’, and on the other side of the disc was this camp cover of a Kylie classic. The devil horns and long red coats are, I’m just going to say it, iconic. They do not outdo Kylie’s version, but they stick so close to it that they can’t really go wrong. This record entered at a fairly lowly (by Steps’ standards) #7 in Christmas week, but would climb to #4 in the new year to keep up an unbroken run of Top 5 hits for the group.

7. ‘Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia’, by the Cuban Boys (down 3 / 2 weeks on chart)

Right. Y2K might not have brought about the end of the world, but two minutes into this next record you will perhaps begin wishing for it. There’s a lot to unpack here. It’s based around a sped-up, soundalike sample of Roger Miller’s ‘Whistle Stop’, AKA the minstrel’s tune from Disney’s ‘Robin Hood’. It had been the soundtrack to one of the earliest internet memes, ‘The Hampster Dance’, and there was a copyright controversy which delayed the release date. It had been promoted on, of all places, John Peel’s Radio 1 show, and had been at #4 for Xmas. And in some ways this is perfect for our dawn of the 21st Century Top 10: striking, modern, rooted in internet culture, completely and utterly banal…

6. ‘Two in a Million’ / ‘You’re My Number One’, by S Club 7 (down 1 / 2 weeks on chart)

We’ve had Steps, let’s have S Club. ‘Two in a Million’ isn’t one of their classics, and I struggled to remember it even after the chorus came along. It’s a nice enough slice of medium-tempo soul pop, but let’s skip forward to the flip-side…

…because this sort of breezy, Motown-lite pop is what S Club excelled at. ‘You’re My Number One’ was like a warm-up for their massive smash ‘Reach’ the following summer, but I’m enjoying it more today because it hasn’t been overdone. And I’m not one for nostalgia, but by God that video – with it’s crap choreo, its tomfoolery, its outfits – is so of its time it hurts. This double-A would rocket up to #2 in the new year, keeping S Club’s 100% Top 5 record intact.

5. ‘Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)’, by Artful Dodger ft. Craig David (up 1 / 4 weeks on chart)

Peaking at #2 before and after the festive period, though slumping temporarily on this week’s chart, here is the sound of the new millennium. Those staccato 2-step garage beats would go on to be one of the sounds of 2000-2001, while seventeen-year-old Craig David would be the first big breakout star of the 21st century, scoring two #1s in the coming months. I wouldn’t say I love this as a piece of music, but as a scene setter few songs take you back to the turn of the millennium as effectively as this.

4. ‘Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo’, by Mr. Hankey (up 4 / 2 weeks on chart)

Clearly released with the Christmas number one in mind, here’s a cartoon character which Wikipedia nicely sums up as a ‘sentient piece of feces’. Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo had featured in a South Park episode way back in 1997, but a combination of the series taking off a little later in Britain, plus Chef’s success the year before, led to this release in late 1999. Mr Hankey, The Christmas Poo, He’s small and brown and comes from you… It has the sound of a classic fifties festive tune-slash-television theme and did, I will confess, raise a smile on these unwilling lips. It is not a patch on ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ however, and was nowhere near as succesful. (Though it would obviously have been somewhat satisfying if this had peaked at number two…)

3. ‘Imagine’, by John Lennon (non-mover / 2 weeks on chart)

Many will be holding their heads in their hands at the thought of ‘Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo’ rubbing shoulders with ‘Imagine’. But I like to see this juxtaposition as the magic of the charts… Anyway, we all know ‘Imagine’, and would all probably be happy never hearing ‘Imagine’ again, despite it being a beautiful song. It had been re-released ahead of the new year, presumably with the aim of making it the millennium’s final #1. It fell a couple of places short, but this did mark the third occasion on which it had made the Top 10.

2. ‘The Millennium Prayer’, by Cliff Richard (non-mover / 6 weeks on chart)

This weird Top 10 sees arguably Britain’s two biggest pop acts represented in the Top 3, with Cliff joining a Beatle as the century drew to an end. It also sees one of the worst Top 2s of all time. I wrote all about Cliff’s final number one here, and have no wish to revisit it….

1. ‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife (non-mover / 2 weeks on chart)

Ditto the record that was at number one, Westlife’s fourth of their breakout year and the previous week’s Christmas chart-topper. I have tried to be as kind as possible about some of Westlife’s many #1s, and have enjoyed a couple, but this double-‘A’ is as syrupy, saccharine, and cynical as you can get. Read my full post on it here, and discover why I named it as one of my very worst number ones here.

What strikes me about this chart is how normal it is, considering the looming spectre of Y2K. I thought that would have been more of a theme in this Top 10 but, aside from Cliff and John Lennon, it’s mainly just a routine run-down of Eurodance, disposable pop and Christmas novelties. It’s refreshing , however, to see a festive chart that isn’t just a replica of the Spotify ‘Christmas Hits’ playlist, as the modern charts now are.

Our regular blog will resume early next week, where we left it in December 2002. I hope everyone has a great new year, and that 2026 is full of health, wealth and happiness… and great music!

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

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

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

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

1 week, from 12th – 19th September 1999

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

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

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

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

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

828. ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’, by Vengaboys

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Back in 1995, the Outhere Brothers took a track called ‘Boom Boom Boom’ to number one. Surely, we thought, that was the limit for chart-topping songs featuring ‘Boom’ in the title? How wrong we were… Four years on, the Vengaboys did what nobody imagined possible: they added the fourth ‘Boom’…

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!, by Vengaboys (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th June 1999

If you thought our previous number one, ‘Bring It All Again’ by S Club 7, was cheap and cheesy then you might as well stop reading now. Everything here, from the title, to the lyrics, to the mid-tempo beat, is banal. There are no hidden layers, no sense of irony, no subtlety. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

And yet here I am. Enjoying it. How depressingly predictable. One of history’s most moronic number one singles, and I’m having a good time. What a sad excuse for a music blogger. I will not attempt to justify it. I will not use nostalgia as an excuse. I am ashamed.

Actually no, wait. I will make a couple of attempts at justification. I’ve just discovered the first verse of ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’ interpolates ABBA’s seminal late-disco classic, ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ (strain your ears and you can just about hear it). ABBA! That certainly clears off a layer of muck. Plus, it could be argued that this is actually a gritty, confrontational number one single, written from the point of view of a sex worker – If you’re alone, And you need a friend… I’ll be your lover tonight… – about which social studies theses could be written. (And if you’re not convinced with this hooker theory, just watch the video…)

Like all Eurotrash acts, Vengaboys simply had to be from either Germany or the Netherlands. Place your bets… Yes, they were Dutch. Still are, I should say, as they are going strong on the nostalgia circuit. Like most of these acts, the sexy young stars on the CD sleeves and in the videos were not the brains behind the songs, Vengaboys having been put together by two of the most Dutch sounding men in existence: Wessel van Diepen and Dennis van den Driesschen.

Before I finish, let me indulge in a spot of reminiscing. ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’ is forever imprinted on my conscience thanks to a school friend. (We’ll call him Richard, because that was his name.) He claimed that he had lost his virginity to a girl who had seduced him by singing a version of this song with his name in the chorus. It happened, he promised, at a summer camp for arthritic teenagers. The girl’s surname was, he swore blind, Paradise. There are very few occasions in my life in which I have laughed more than the day he tried to sell us this story.