As last week's was relatively successful, by which we mean it didn't kill anyone, here's another World Cup-related old chart, logically centring on Three Lions. It's not worth doing 1996 as we've covered a chart featuring the original already, so here's 4th July 1998's movers/shakers:
40 The Corrs - Dreams
Both simple and difficult to imagine how big the sisters and brother briefly were before moving off into ignored solo albums, theatre work and conspiracy theorising. Course, nothing cooler twelve years on than covering Fleetwood Mac.
39 Eric Clapton - Circus
One solo career never, ever set for hipster appropriation.
38 Public Announcement - Body Bumpin' (Yippie-Yi-Yo)
A poor man's 3T.
37 Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply
Commercial radio support meant this will sapping balladry stayed on the chart for what seemed like forever, this being its final week, although they had it worse in America, where it remains the only one-sided single ever to spend a full year in the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100. Darren Hayes now spends his time being a post-modern pop star, so much so he never has any huge hits.
36 Bamboo - The Strutt
There's a Will Mellor single at 47.
35 All Saints - Under The Bridge/Lady Marmalade
Bastardised ("city of cities" indeed) upbeat cover of downbeat song featuring post-Longpigs pre-Pulp Richard Hawley on session guitar, backed by unsexy version of sexy song. Although by no means the least sexy cover to be released, eh, "X"tina?
34 Steps - Last Thing On My Mind
Their second single, which is already notable given they were supposed to be a one single affair to cash in on the brief but devastating line dancing craze. From here: Thank ABBA For The Music, Steps To The Stars, that palms-out-by-side-of-head move, Pete Waterman as a DJ in the Tragedy video, the "raunchy relaunch" (the girls wore leather outfits in a video), splitting on Boxing Day, H & Claire reportedly being signed for £4m.
33 Tina Arena - Whistle Down The Wind
Because pop law states a new Australian MOR singer must come around every few years.
32 DJ Rap - Bad Girl
Overambitious 'British Madonna' notices were made around the sometime drum'n'bass DJ (and glamour model) turned accidental Sonique inventor. And then she went straight back to the decks and to running labels.
31 Metallica - Fuel
Quite difficult to take them seriously in this mood and at this time, isn't it?
30 The Tamperer feat. Maya - Feel It
The one with "what's she gonna do with a chimney on her?", lifted from Urban Discharge's Wanna Drop A House (On That Bitch) and later covered by Mulligan & O'Hare.
29 Janet Jackson - Go Deep
28 Mariah Carey - My All
27 LCD - Zorba's Dance
Greek techno by an allegedly all-computerised group, of the type every label and svengali failed to get off the ground despite much effort in 1999-2000.
26 Wimbledon Choral Society - Pavane By Faure
The BBC theme for the occasion, presaging a month's worth of Des' verandah, Jimmy Hill's England bow tie, Ally McCoist with blonde hair and of course...
This was really the first big year for football songs, seeing Del Amitri via Scotland's self-defeating Don't Come Home Too Soon at 53, a recording of the England Supporters' Band's The Great Escape - picked up at the crucial qualifier in Rome the previous November, which as Bob Mills pointed out you don't need to play all the way through a game because logically you're not escaping from anything - at 60, and at 54 Rise Up by Jamaica United, the inevitable collaborative reggae effort including Ziggy Marley, Buju Banton, Diana King, Shaggy, Maxi Priest, Ini Kamoze and Toots Hibbert.
25 Bus Stop Featuring Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting
All Around The World Records is the biggest label you've never heard of, responsible for four number ones and 30 top ten singles in the last fifteen years, almost all in the chancer dance category. Including N-Dubz.
24 Dana International - Diva
Not especially hilarious transvestite winner of Eurovision, possibly not set for a long and fulfilling career and last really seen the following year pretending to collapse under the weight of the Eurovision trophy before promptly actually doing so.
23 Hanson - Thinking Of You
One of them's a girl, you know. Nowadays they peddle AM radio arena blues-rock and Taylor's in a side project with ex-Smashing Pumpkin James Iha and Fountains Of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger. Funny the things that happen to pop kids.
22 Blue Pearl - Naked In The Rain '98
House classic, and essentially Youth and 808 State's Graham Massey in disguise. That's in its original form. Why it needed a reboot is uncertain.
21 Space - Begin Again
The overchirpy Scousers whose label just decided not to release their next album's penultimate charting single, and if you recall Bad Days then you're better than us.
20 Leann Rimes - How Do I Live
Alongside Shania Twain that decade's attempts to pop-popularise country in the UK, last seen with Taylor Swift.
19 Lutricia McNeal - Stranded
The American Shola Ama.
18 Aaron Carter - Surfin' USA
The Mark Wahlberg of the late 90s, only without the successful career change.
17 The Mavericks - Dance The Night Away
More country, heavily supported by Radio 2 and TOTP2 and fronted by one Raul Malo, who Phill Jupitus used to claim he was often confused with.
16 Ultra - Say It Once
Instrument playing boy band who proved why boy bands had to die, until JLS revived them.
15 Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank
Lord Finesse bootleg plus Northern Soul rarity Sliced Tomatoes by the Just Brothers and a bit of Beat Girl by John Barry means... well, means Norman gets no royalties at all from its backing music ubiquity, let alone PRS from when Frank Black covers it.
14 Des'ree - Life
But what if the toaster was somehow haunted?
13 Lighthouse Family - Lost In Space
The Power Of Love-style activity around the title Lost In Space was remarkable, three charting singles with that title within three months. And suspicious, given the film version of the TV series also came out around this time.
12 Dario G - Carnaval De Paris
Named after Dario Gradi - that's not a joke, they were from Crewe - this is the one that adds a keyboard/MIDI's worth of electronic instruments to the same tune as that you'll find at number two.
11 Brandy And Monica - The Boy Is Mine
Two teen prodigy R&B singers, both still going, produce a song there's really not much of wryness to impart about.
10 911 - How Do You Want Me To Love You?
Lee Brennan was on Soccer AM as a Carlisle fan last season. One way of getting back towards the limelight, we suppose.
9 Karen Ramirez - Looking For Love
One hit late 90s dance-pop, and what it sounds like you can probably guess.
8 Five - Got The Feelin'
Undisputed most hilarious reunion of all time holders - they held a major press conference, recorded an album with Guy Chambers, won an MTV series, then failed to get a deal and split again eight months later. According to one fansite, dated 10th June, "Fiona spotted Abz at a "Band of Horses" gig."
7 Mousse T Vs Hot 'N' Juicy - Horny
Instant punchline material and subject of one of the best Mark & Lard pastiches
6 Eagle-Eye Cherry - Save Tonight
Former Big World Cafe host, sister of Neneh and peddler of drivetime smoothness that, while no New Radicals, we quite liked at the time.
5 Beastie Boys - Intergalactic
Video spot: at the end of the line "when it comes to envy y'all is green" the green screen behind them returns very briefly to normal.
4 Pras Michel Featuring ODB And Mya - Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)
"Staaaaaaaaar!"
3 B*Witched - C'est La Vie
Irish dancing, denim, accented aphorisms and penny whistle soloing. Simpler days.
2 Fat Les - Vindaloo
After he'd reached career bottom with The Big Big Talent Show Jonathan Ross kind of retreated from front line showbiz for a few years, content for a while with a Sunday morning Virgin Radio show in the days when Evans ran the station. Actually it was great, far more freewheeling then anything he subsequently did on the Beeb, and one week Rowland Rivron popped in with a Keith Allen-fronted World Cup song he'd drummed on and that they were going to record the video that afternoon with a load of Max Wall impersonators. We thought it was a convoluted joke. Well, knowing nothing else and with Rivron's reputation you would, wouldn't you. It's loosely based on what was known in football circles as the Utrecht song, after the Dutch club the rhythm had been picked up from, and which Allen first heard played by drummers at a Fulham game. Latter day Pink Floyd bassist Guy Pratt is on it and a thirteen year old Lily is both on backing vocals and in the video (we reckon 0:57-0:59 in the light blue top). A seventeen year old Lily is definitely in their 2002 flop Who Invented Fish And Chips? (the uploader's added her presence to the title and description since we first mentioned this on Twitter, we note), presumably the source of the deal her dad got her with London Records that she wheedled her way out of before recording anything and musically took a couple of years getting over.
1 Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds - Three Lions '98
"We can dance Nobby's dance, we can dance it in France!" Quick, what was the official England song in 1998? No? England United, it was, the then current iteration of Echo and the Bunnymen with him from Space, him from Ocean Colour Scene and the Spice Girls on backing vocals. As he is wont to do about most music Ian McCulloch reckoned it was better than everything else because it had "soul". Nobody agreed, least of all those who only sent it to number nine, and some sort of campaign pressed Frank and David to rewrite the lyrics to, we dunno, gee up the nation. Skinner now says they should never have done this. He says that, but he was still perfectly happy with allowing Horn, Brand and Williams to re-record it. Broudie doesn't tend to dwell on the song these days but on special occasions, like two weeks ago at Wychwood Festival...
3 comments:
i am 20 and summer 1998 was my cultural awakening - i can't think of many time periods i remember as clearly as this, what with charts like these and the world cup and that. ace.
Love that Brandy and Monica track!
Of course, Last Thing On My Mind was a Bananarama cover, and on A Song For Europe this year one of the acts performed it, and it was referred to throughout as a 'rams song, even though they only got to number 71 with it.
Bad Days by Space was actually an EP, with a cover of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place as the lead track, and I only remember it because my flatmate misheard the title and was convinced it was called "The Bad Daisy P". That's the ONLY reason.
The complaints about England United were that "you can't sing it on the terraces", which until Three Lions had never been a requirement anyway.
The only Savage Garden song I like is I Want You, which I bought on original release having been suckered by the drumbeat which Caitlin Moran, I think, brilliantly described on Collins and Maconie's Hit Parade as "The Mick Jagger and Kate Bush beat", because it went "MickjaggerkateBUSH!"
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