UK number ones of 1997

Blur!

voted without second's thought for the helden professional widow

chems

Compiling this list brought back a few memories, to say the least. Firstly, Blur coming back with 'Beetlebum' after many seemed to have written them off completely circa 'Charmless Man', U2 coming back with 'Discotheque' and the Pop LP, and the gap between the ending of the cycle for the first Spice Girls LP and the beginning of the cycle for their second LP was shorter than I remembered.

Also, Oasis' "big comeback single" displaced Puff Daddy at the top spot... but only for a week, after which Puff Daddy reclaimed the top spot again. That must have sent the alarm bells ringing around Supernova Heights, surely.

Also, that freak White Town single that came out of nowhere.

Oh, oh, oh! Also, this was the year John Harris claims everyone reacted to the death of a certain member of the royal family by lostening to dour music with acoustic guitars... this of course explains the presence of such dour, downbeat slabs of gloom such as 'Spice Up Your Life', 'Barbie Girl' and 'Teletubbies Say "Eh-Oh!"'

*listening

Teletubbies - Teletubbies Say "Eh-Oh!"

WTF is this? British peeps always have strange novelty hit singles.

You think that's fucking bad, Mr. Blobby was at number one in 1993!

I probably would have voted for something else in 1997, but in 2017 I'm voting for 'Your Woman'

Gary Barlow - Love Won't Wait

^ This is the only track here I have absolutely no memory of, and I sure as hell ain't gonna Youtube it.

not even gary barlow remembers it

Ha, it's possible!

Also, Michael Jackson getting to number one with 'Blood On The Dancefloor' ... at this stage he'd been through a zillion controversies and was still selling a fuckload of records.

You think that's fucking bad, Mr. Blobby was at number one in 1993!

teletubbies i get, but i will never understand the appeal of anything attached to noel's house party

Even more incredible is that Take That's 'Babe' knocked it off the number one spot, but it still climbed back to number one to take the Christmas number one slot. I have to wonder who the fuck was buying it.

mums, dads, grannies etc for their toddlers

"awww look at richard dancing to teletubbies isnt that cute, I'll get that for him" says the 2 year olds granny

Generally a mix of the most po-faced and boring of indie and the most tasteful and boring of electronic. Voted for Aqua.

barbie girl

this is, in fact, blur vs oasis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz_8TdakNgg

HONEY BRING IT CLOSE TO MY LIPS YEAH

"don't speak" is a pretty close 2nd

The Armand mix of 'Professional Widow' may as well have a different title, IMO... it has very little in common with the original track aside from one or two vocal samples.

Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix)
White Town - Your Woman
Michael Jackson - Blood On The Dancefloor
Spice Girls - Too Much

Blur.

White Town. Still good

voted Aqua

kinda wish "Doctor Jones" was on the list instead. that went to #1 somewhere. I thought it was the UK. oh well, I'm too lazy to look it up.

my lord you do

Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix)
White Town - Your Woman
Michael Jackson - Blood On The Dancefloor
Spice Girls - Too Much

― insidious assymetrical weapons (Eric H.), Wednesday, March 8, 2017 8:21 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah these are the choices with which i was grappling (after impulsively voting for the star trunk funk)

voted white town

kinda wish "Doctor Jones" was on the list instead. that went to #1 somewhere. I thought it was the UK. oh well, I'm too lazy to look it up.

― frogbs,

About 90% sure it was the UK. Must've been 98.

Though real heads know My Oh My, which sadly missed the top spot, is Aqua's finest hour.

You think that's fucking bad, Mr. Blobby was at number one in 1993!

Yeah, at least the Teletubbies had nothing to do with Noel Edmonds.

This is a tough one between Blur and No Doubt.

Recently found out* that two-thirds of Olive had been involved in the Durutti Column.

*From reading Kevin Pearce's great A Cracked Jewel Case, which I'd highly recommend to anyone wanting a non-Britpop/rock overview of leftfield '90s music.

Yeah, that White Town track is still great, and it seems to me at this stage that it was a track that was a bit out of its time. A synthpop track created on a shoestring budget by a British Asian man in his bedroom with a lyric that, according to its writer, can either be about a straight guy in love with a lesbian, or a straight girl "in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-arse Marxist" to name two ways in which the lyric can be interpreted. It feels like the kind of song that slots in more with this decade than the '90s.

About 90% sure it was the UK. Must've been 98.

ok, I looked it up. you're right. guess I know what I'm voting on that poll

can't believe Aquarium produced 7 singles, and that "Calling You" was not one

oh i think i briefly wrestled with voting for "beetlebum" bc i had a huge crush on damon albarn at the time

White Town, Blur and No Doubt are the three main contenders for me.

My main assoication with Don't Speak is my friend putting the cassingle on in his tiny car, another friend who was in the front seat ejecting it and throwing it out of the window because he hated it so much, and the first friend booting the second out of the car on the North Circular as a result.

White Town, but huge soft spot for Barbie Girl.

don't really love any of these. voted for don't squeak

Very nearly voted Hanson in protest at everyone ignoring it but Don't Speak hits me in my heart. Block Rockin' Beats has aged quite badly compared to other Chems singles of that era, White Town and Tori/Armand still great.

Block Rockin' Beats has aged quite badly compared to other Chems singles of that era

Sadly true - would've voted for Elektrobank in a heartbeat.

Olive - You're Not Alone

^^^ underrated

(voted Chems, hasn't aged badly for me even though it's no "Setting Sun" or "It Doesn't Matter")

In a just world they'd have gotten Elektrobank to number 1 so I could have voted for it here

lotsa good ones

the best one is:
Puff Daddy & Faith Evans featuring 112 - I'll Be Missing You

I hate every single thing about that misbegotten travesty of a "tribute" song

White Town

Olive - You're Not Alone

^^^ underrated

― Rachel Luther Queen (DJP), Wednesday, March 8, 2017 9:03 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah crap, missed this when reading the list

I remember 'You're Not Alone' being inescapable at the time... the follow-up single 'Outlaw' I seem to remember feeling a bit lightweight by comparison.

I hate every single thing about that misbegotten travesty of a "tribute" song

Haha... well, I can see how the song as a tribute to a close friend can seem... weird. But for me, despite always (I think) knowing it was about biggie, I never really thought of it as much other than a slightly melancholy/spiritual really groovy song - beat is just undeniable. First time i heard the 'Police version' I was like, who sucked all the fun out of this song?

I have a 12" single and remember djing one time for a big crowd, I put it on late in my set, people went pretty crazy, and once it got to the outro, I kinda felt like the song wasn't going anywhere and so I mixed in something else - and so many people in the crowd turned at me with angry eyes saying NO YOU DIDN'T STOP THIS JAM

must say it heightened my regard of the tune

bizarre

"Who sucked all the fun out of this song about the heartbreak felt after the murder of the main rapper's best friend and the hook singer's husband?"

(Not getting into the issues with the tribute itself, which is incredibly half-assed and sounds bored with even having to say something about Biggie's death)

Bettelebum!

Although it was close with the Tori Amos remix

Eternal featuring BeBe Winans - I Wanna Be The Only One

No memory of this at all, although I'm surprised Eternal were still going in 97.

It's the Eternal song I have the most memory of! Their biggest hit, no?

personal fav chart show back to back moment was when they followed 'elektrobank' with portishead 'all mine'

x-post:

It was the second most played track on UK radio in 1997, so I'm very surprised that Matt DC doesn't have any memory of it. It was easily Eternal's biggest hit, although they'd start to disintegrate further in '98 when the sisters fired Kelle. Louise had long left the group at this point and gone solo. Eternal were notoriously one of those girl bands that had a tense relationship with each other.

Eternal featuring BeBe Winans - I Wanna Be The Only One

No memory of this at all, although I'm surprised Eternal were still going in 97.

― Matt DC, Thursday, March 9, 2017 10:38 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the song that I call 'Ah-wallywally Wally-wally Woooo woo'. I have to endure it about 20 times a week on local radio

Come to think of it, wasn't there another track released that year that also used the bass riff from the 'Professional Widow' remix?

Yes, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels mash-up of Prof Widow with Lisa Stansfield's 'People Hold On' vocal - went top 5 around the same time as Tori did.

Block Rockin' Beats had possibly the best Chems b-side (Morning Lemon).

That's the one! I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was.

Someone did a risible version of I Wanna Be the Only One on The Voice the other week actually.

I liked the Spice Girls, Teletubbies and Aqua from that list, but I was six years old and didn't speak English. It's surprising, and quite sweet, how well that list catered to my fairly unique demographic.

Block Rockin' Beats had possibly the best Chems b-side (Morning Lemon).

^^^^^^^^^ yes

such a simple concept too, and yet I can't think of another track quite like it

None of the Spice Girls' tracks here compare to the hits they had the previous year ('Who Do You Think You Are?' probably being the best of the bunch) ... I don't think they really had a truly killer single after '2 Become 1' until 'Stop', which strangely didn't make it to number one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoa!

Your Woman is a great little indie hit and was really refreshing for a time when the likes of The Verve, Texas, Reef, Six Colours Red and lots of other trad-rock was dominating the indie mainstream. Beetlebum was also very welcome after the bloat of The Great Escape. Never really got into the Amos remix but I see why people like it. So a good top 3 at least.

The non-remix version of Professional Widow is.. strange.

Beetlebum is such a clumsy-sounding record, literally everything about it.

I think that's what's good about it. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking 'whoa wait what are you doing?' but it was nice to hear Blur come back with something so understated and awkward after all the bombast

I remember them playing it on Top of the Pops and when the music stopped and Damon sang "and when she lets me slip away", the audience cheered as if they were expecting some kind of big Blur chorus moment, but 'Beetlebum' doesn't really have much of a chorus. The guitar riff is really the hook of the song. I thought it was an odd choice of single, but perversely one which seemed to work.

yeah a bold move for a band at that stage in their career. Albarn's ego had been dialled right back and it was Coxon's guitar that was doing the (literal) grunt-work.

I actually thought Blur were done by the middle of '96 - I seriously thought they were going to break up because it seemed like they were dealing with fame and the whole Oasis thing really badly, and there were always reports of tension within the band. But they then back to their more exploratory side and were as successful as ever!

The big change for me at this point was Albarn's vocal approach - from 1997 there seemed to be more feeling in his vocals and the mockney accent was dialled down a hell of a lot.

Yeah I even gave sold all my Blur CDs to the secondhand shop at the time because I'd become so disenchanted by them immediately following TGE. Bought them all back again of course.

I remember there being a lot of talk of Blur being their attempt to scare away their audience, but large portions of that record was actually quite melodic and even poppy in hindsight, I think, just in a different way to the two or three records before. I don't recall have any difficulty with that record at all.

13 was the real challenge, I thought. I hated that record at first.

I liked it a lot and thought it was a significant improvement on the Great Escape stuff. Just dug up the Blur poll from 2011 to see where it was in my ballot (third).

Edit: 'it' = 'Beetlebum', not '13'

It was the right thing for them to do after the 'Life' trilogy. I think it's probably their most bearable album nowadays. And yeah, things like 'Look Inside America' aren't that radically different from what came previously. 'On Your Own' is the secret gem of course. I think everyone likes that one.

The three way tie of R. Kelly, Olive and Hanson is just weird

x-post:

'On Your Own' and, weirdly, 'Death of a Party' kinda point the way to Gorillaz.

The non-remix version of Professional Widow is.. strange.

― LimbsKing, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 20:34 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i got the clear vinyl release of 'boys for pele' on launch and played it to death assuming i was in a tiny minority, so imagine my surprise when suddenly everyone's listening to a barely-recognisable boppy remix of this song, complete with brand new video featuring tori herself doing some jazzercise and having a bath

Beetlebum has (probably) my favourite Blur track as its b-side, All Your Life.

But I voted for White Town. I think.

White Town - Your Woman 18
Blur - Beetlebum 13

you people are sick

There aren't all that many Blur B-sides that could have been album tracks, but 'All Your Life' definitely one of 'em, even if it is yet another one of Damon's Bowie rips.

There is only four years between the self-titled Blur and the self-titled Gorillaz. That somehow seems weird now.

"Damon Albarn: the smackhead years"

Crazy.