Ultimate 90s number one: It's getting, it's getting, it's getting kinda hectic

Here is the latest episode of the Ultimate 1990s Number One series. Of the 206 singles that topped the chart in the 1990s, I pick a group of ten(ish) and decide which ones go through to the Ultimate grand final.

I'm judging each track based on how much of a banger it is, and how much of a bleepy electronic treat it is. There are eleven contender's in this latest group. Which will be top of the pops, and which will be, er, flop of the plops?

Let's go.

The contenders

The Chemical Brothers: Setting Sun  |  Chesney Hawkes: The One And Only  |  Culture Beat: Mr. Vain  |  Eternal featuring BeBe Winans: I Wanna Be The Only One  |  Gabrielle: Dreams  |  Geri Halliwell: Mi Chico Latino  |  Manchester United F.C.: Come On You Reds  |  Peter Andre: Flava  |  Ronan Keating: When You Say Nothing At All  |  Snap!: The Power  |  911: A Little Bit More

Christian flashbacks

I remember selling BeBe Winans albums back in the distant days when I worked in a Christian bookshop. These flashbacks alone exclude Eternal from progressing further in this competition. Geri Halliwell's first solo number one single prevented Alice Deejay from getting to the top of the charts, which is unforgiveable. And there's no way I'm letting a football song proceed in this contest, despite Manchester United F.C.'s Come On You Reds technically being Status Quo's first chart-topper for two decades.

Songs to forget

There are three more tracks that can be easily dispensed with. In the waning months of their career, 911 finally scored a number one single with a sub-Steps ballad called A Little Bit More. I would rather have had a little bit less. Incidentally, 911 started off on an independent label, and their debut single Night To Remember was funded by a guy who ran a chain of opticians. There's a joke there somewhere, but I can't be bothered to write it.

I once interviewed Peter Andre for a magazine. He was fairly unmemorable, which also sums up all of his 1996 number one singles. And I know it's a cheesy dance classic, but Mr Vain by Culture Beat is a silly song. It's a pity this was producer Torsten Fenslau's big hit, and not something under his moodier Out Of The Ordinary alias.

Too many Chesneys

The next three tracks that I am chucking out of this competition are, without question, bangers in their own way. Well. Maybe not Keating...

No-one remembers the 1991 film Buddy's Song in which Chesney Hawkes starred alongside the shotgun-wielding Boon star Michael Elphick. However, they do remember his colossal hit The One And Only, which was written for him by Nik Kershaw. Did you know that jazz trumpeter Chet Baker's real name was Chesney? Now you do. Don't tell anyone.

Dreams by Gabrielle prevented Haddaway's What Is Love from getting to number one. I'm not sure what I feel about this. I suspect Gabrielle always covered up her right eye because she had a tattoo of Haddaway on her eyeball.

If I had to choose between listening to Ronan Keating's When You Say Nothing At All and having my nostrils bulldozed by a gun-raddled James May from Top Gear, I would choose Ronan. Just. But only just. 

For Chris' sake... 

That leaves us with two tracks, both chart bulldozers intent on flattening your ears into, er, little ear pancakes.

In 1996, The Chemical Brothers achieved their first number one single with Setting Sun. Although previous single Loops Of Fury should have been number one. And Life Is Sweet before that. And Leave Home before that. And all the stuff they did as the Dust Brothers. When Radio One DJ Chris Evans played Setting Sun, he immediately stopped the track, saying it was too much for his daytime listeners. What a banger.

Some records hit so hard, they form craters in the landscape of my musical upbringing. One single with such pockmarking power was, well, The Power by Snap!. By topping the charts with their debut single, Turbo B and his buddies denied The B-52s and Candy Flip their best and only chance at scoring a number one UK hit. And what a single it was. Discordant, robotic, soulful and uncompromising, The Power taught me that you could be defiantly weird and still achieve commercial and critical success. Another banger.

Both Setting Sun and The Power go through to the final of Ultimate 90s, mainly because if I met either track in a dark alleyway, they would definitely duff me up. This competition is, in the words of the Snap! track, getting, getting, getting kinda hectic. Stay tuned for future instalments.

More Ultimate 90s number ones

Bleepy chart treats from Sammy Virji, Calvin Harris, Sonny Fodera & Rudimental

Sammy Virji – If U Need It

Not that new a track from this UKG producer, having being released some time last year. It's currently bobbing around in the very lowest reaches of the UK top 100. Nice use of the Prince-style "U" in the title – I assume that's the reference, and not my A-Level maths result.

Calvin Harris / Ellie Goulding – Free

Another collaboration from these two. This piano house banger made a noted debut in Ibiza earlier this year. The track is yet to break the UK top 30. I can only assume Harris has annoyed the chart gods somehow.

Sonny Fodera – Somedays

This London-based EDM producer is building up a string of collaborative hits. At number 14 and threatening to break the top ten. He hot the top ten last year with the pretty similar-sounding Asking. Pretty good work for a guy named after a hat.

Rudimental & Karen Harding – Bring Me Joy 

A deliriously happy banger from the Rude boys, fronted by former X Factor contestant Karen Harding. Ten weeks in the chart and it's at its highest position of, er, number 63. Maybe we're just not in the mood for joy these days. Sigh.

[All these tracks are new entries or risers in the current UK singles chart, dated 30th August 2024]

A short short story about the Oasis reunion

Noel holds up the Gibson in his fat hand.

"What is?" blurts Noel.

Liam sighs a heavy sigh. "Not again. It's a guitar."

Noel licks the fretboard. Pulls a face.

"Guitar," says Liam, slowly. He points at the instrument. "Gui-Tar."

Noel bites a chunk out of the body of the guitar. Tries to chew. "Taste like sponge," says Noel, He reaches for the HP sauce.

"Sorry about this," says Liam as 28,000 fans tap their watches in the drizzling cold.

Happy birthday, Fat Roland (i.e. me)

It's my birthday, so I'm going to write a blog post about absolutely nothing at all, and you're going to read every word and be thankful for it.

I share my birthday with Howard Marks who wrote Mr Nice, the book that Jez is perpetually reading in Peep Show. I also share a birthday with Fidel Castro. I think this means I probably should be arrested for peddling all sorts of naughty substances.

I share a birth date with Alfred Hitchcock. Very pleased with that one. Also with Feargal Sharkey. A bit indifferent to that one. And also with singer-songwriter James Morrison. Crikes, this is getting duller with every sentence.

I am exactly the same age as someone called Eric Medlen, a Californian racing driver who was fairly decent at drag cars. He was also, according to Wikipedia, a champion calf roper. I reckon I could loop a string around a bullock. Dead easy.

My birth date is shared also with Stuart Maconie, he of Radcliffe and Maconie fame, and author of Pies And Prejudice, The Pie At Night and also some non-pie related titles. It's a special delight to share a candles day with another music journalist, so many happy returns to Stuart.

All of which is meaningless, of course. I have no time for astrology, even though I have the best star sign (the one with the lion). Apparently the constellation Leo is something to do with a mythological Greek lion called Nemean that had fur made of solid gold and a brother that was a dragon. Which is true for me too, which is nice.

I should finish with some wisdom, gained from my many years on planet Earth. Um. Don't be an idiot. Be nice to vulnerable people. Fight the fascists. Don't eat more than 12 eggs a day. Be kind to yourself. Embrace every moment, or don't if you need to chill out instead. Always eat more than 12 eggs a day.

Ultimate 90s number one: Not even better than the real thing

Hello blog idiot. Welcome to my ongoing Ultimate 1990s Number One series. I've not posted an Ultimate 1990s for a while because needed to take a break. I holidayed in faraway lands, swam in tropical seas, spaceshipped through distant nebulae, popped to the newsagents for a Twix. And now I'm back.

Each track featured in this series scored number one in the UK singles chart at some point between 1990 and 1999. I'm judging each one on a pair of criteria

(a) is it a banger, and 

(b) how bleepy is it? 

Only a select few will make it through to the grand final, in which I will anoint one of them as the ultimate 1990s number one single

Here are ten more contenders, out of a total of 200-and-something. Cue dramatic lighting change and serious theme music.

The contenders

Aqua: Barbie Girl  |  Blur: Country House  |  Cher: The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)  |  Elton John: Sacrifice / Healing Hands  |  Maria McKee: Show Me Heaven  |  Michael Jackson: You Are Not Alone  |  Stiltskin: Inside  |  Tony Di Bart: The Real Thing  |  U2: Discotheque  |  Vengaboys: Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!

Not fantastic 

Right from the off, let's axe Aqua and vanquish Vengaboys. These are silly songs for idiot-brains. Aqua would have us believe that being made of plastic is a desirable life goal, while Vengaboys insist on spending the night together "from now until forever". I would rather faceplant onto a rabid hedgehog.

Both are iconic singles, in a way. But do you know what else is iconic? The black death. Genghis Khan. The meteorite that annihilated the dinosaurs. Love Island. They may be bangers if you like that sort of thing, but I'm going to move on before another vein pops in my forehead.

The Shoop Shoop Song is terrible. Betty Everett's 1964 original US hit had its charm, especially with an endearingly shonky xylophone solo. But the Cher version lacks pizazz. It didn't make me want to shoop once, never mind twice.

We can also dispense with Jacko's You Are Not Alone. It's one of his more pedestrian singles, and prancing around in a loin cloth in the video did nothing to pep up this pop flop. It's not even his best single with "alone" in the title.

Now we've got rid of the worst ones, let's do some slightly less worse ones.

Commercial break

Do you want to buy this rusty nail? Go on, you really want to buy this rusty nail. It's hewn from the finest rust and, er, nails. Twenty bob and this rusty nail is yours. Please buy my rusty nail. I have children to feed. They don't know it yet, and they're not even my children, but this bucket of raw eggs isn't going to eat itself. [flashes up a premium rate phone number that asks for your bank details]

Nobody wants a commercial break in the middle of a blog post. Which brings us to Stiltskin's Inside, a grunge dirge written especially to sell Levi's jeans. Lead 'skinner Peter Lawlor went on to write music for BBC One idents and the Olympic games. This makes him the rock music equivalent of Siobhan Sharpe from the TV show Twenty Twelve.

And now let's look at Blur, Elton John and Maria McKee. Which is a nice coincidence because those are the exact three people that always turn up to my Christmas dinner uninvited.

Country House famously won the Blur vs Oasis battle of 1995. Britpop's crowning moment overshadowed was actually a very bleepy chart: top ten singles that same week included tracks by Clock, Corona, JX, and Original (I Luv U Baby). But no, we had to watch Damon and Liam duke it out in the Let's Pit Our Weakest Singles Against Each Other championship of 1995.

And now to Elton John. Sacrifice topped the UK chart three decades apart, which sounds impressive until you realise PJ & Duncan achieved the same feat with Let's Get Ready To Rhumble. And actually, the latter success of Sacrifice was in the form of the interpolated Dua Lipa collaboration Cold Heart. Nobody, absolutely nobody, remembers Sacrifice's AA-side partner, the gospel stomper Healing Hands.

Pansexual country pop queen Maria McKee is busy saving greyhounds in Tijuana. Not a sentence I thought I would write when I woke up this morning. But it's true: check her Instagram. As for the song, Show Me Heaven is a belter of a single, and deserves accolades alone for knocking Steve Miller Band's The Joker off the number one spot. Miller hasn't featured in my Ultimate 90s list yet. Just you wait. I'm so angry about it.

So well done Blur, Elton John and Maria McKee for your various contributions to number one-dom in the 1990s. And to Stiltskin for, um, selling jeans. But you can all get lost because none of you are bleepy enough for this competition.

Disco balls

We've sifted, sorted and sieved, and now we're down to two very different hot singles. Both of them are can lay claim to being bleepy dance music hits. But are they bangers?

Disco glitterball U2 arrived on the scene with Discotheque. The group had already transformed their image into postmodern leather daddies on Achtung Baby. This was a further transformation, and it arrived hot on the heals of Paul Oakenfold remixes, Batman soundtracking and Pavarotti partnering.

I will defend Pop-era U2 until the day I die and/or am kidnapped by the Illuminati. But actually I think Discotheque is one of their weaker singles. The whole Pop project didn't live up to Achtung Baby or Zooropa. 

AND ANOTHER THING. For the Leeds gig on their PopMart tour, U2 chose Cast to support them. This is unforgiveable. Other support acts on the tour included Ash, Longpigs, Skunk Anansie, even Rage Against The Machine. And there we were, being rained on, listening to Cast. Sad times indeed.

And finally, there's Tony Di Bart's The Real Thing (Tony pictured above looking sultry next to U2). A bathroom salesman from Slough has brief success as a Europop singer. It's.... fine.

Sorry to flatten your flan, but I don't think we have an out-and-out winner from this selection. None of these songs will be going through to the Ultimate final. Frankly, this whole thing was disappointing, and I'm now going to spend the rest of my day listening to Cast.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Pet Shop Boys create their own magical dreamworld at Co-Op Live

I visited Manchester's new mega-arena Co-Op Live to see a double-act called... [looks at notes]... the Pet Shop Boys. Have you heard of them?    

Dreamworld is the Pet Shop chaps' first ever greatest hits tour, which seems remarkable considering how long they've been farting out hit singles. And Dreamworld itself seems never-ending - the tour debuted in 2019, three prime ministers ago.

They were fabulous. Of course they were. Hit single after hit single after hit single. There is no point in listing all the songs here, suffice to say that the longest track title of the set was Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You), and the shortest track title was Rent. Is this helpful information? Probably not.

The concert began with Suburbia, a low-burning minor-key understatement of a track, and ended with Being Boring, a low-burning minor-key understatement of a track. Pet Shop Boys are forever on brand: even the track-listing is deadpanning us.

Some songs know they're good. They've got a glint in their eyes. Not that songs have eyes: that would be weird. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) had pompous energy. Jealousy was songwriting perfection. And how adorable was the carefree way that Neil threw away the final lines on What Have I Done To Deserve This?, as if he was at a karaoke night after a long day at the office. Big up Clare Uchima too, a perfect vocal foil throughout. 

It's A Sin has had a resurgence recently, helped by Olly Alexander's role in the TV series of the same name, and Alexander's band Years And Years warbling the tune at The Brits with Elton John. No surprise, then, that the song was the most triumphant moment of the gig. Also "Pet Shop Boys: It's A Sin" is an anagram of "Is it honest pop abyss?", which is a question we should all be asking ourselves.

A month previously, the Co-op Live was forced to delay its opening concerts after construction work got delayed. I did keep an eye out for men in orange jackets frantically welding bits of the building, but there was no sign of its earlier teething problems.

Is it a more intimate venue than, say, the Manchester Arena or the Etihad? Yeah, the layout is cleverly designed to mimic a smaller capacity. Is it Manchester's best new venue? No. Factory International's characterful Aviva Studios wins this one easily. Although it needs to bed in a little more, the Factory place has way more heart, as opposed to Co-op's cold boxiness.

A penultimate thought: The support act was some DJ bloke playing classic dance music tunes which we had all heard a million times before while his logo displayed on a big screen in endless uninspired permutations. Do better, concert planners.

And a final thought. If the Pet Shop Boys are pet shop boys, which one is on the till, and which one is looking after the animals? Answers on a postcard etc etc.

Further Fats: This is a review of an Aphex Twin gig (2011)

Further Fats: What was your first concert? (2019) 

Jez-Clackers and Groovy Andy are unlikely farm friends

You know that Jeremy Clarkson guy? The punchy old car bore man? Apparently he's got a television show about being on a farm, which is called Clarkson's Farm because he's called Clarkson and he's got a farm.

I wouldn't normally post about Jeremy Clarkson's farm. I have a negative-level of interest in learning about that Top Gear twerp muck-spreading or cow-bothering or whatever it is people do on farms.

But on series three of the programme, I notice that Clarkson has got a new friend. He's called Andy Cato, and he's an expert in sustainable farming. Something to do with regenerative planting, biodiversity, carbon storage, elephant taming, and similar green goals. Wait. Not the elephant taming: ignore that.

Andy Cato is better known as a member of Groove Armada, the electronic dance popsters famous for hits like Superstylin' and I See You Baby, at least one of which is about unnatural movements of human bottoms. They were dubby and fun and not quite as good as Basement Jaxx but we liked them anyway.

This is, of course, really annoying. Because this gives Jeremy Clarkson credibility in the electronic music community. We must now take J-Clark seriously, as if he was the third member of Erasure or the fifth member of Kraftwerk or the 493rd Aphex Twin (he gets secretly replaced twice a month, ssshhh don't tell anyone).

When Johnny Rotten started advertising butter, some people scoffed, but I took it very seriously. I ate only Country Life for six months. I bathed in the stuff. It was endorsed by a music legend, so it must've been good for you.

I suppose I'd better get into farming. Adopt a sheep; move into a one-bedroom combine harvester; brandish pitchforks at passers-by. I don't want to do it, but I want to be friends with Jez-Clackers and Groovy Andy, as they will be known from now on.

Goodness knows what'll happen next. Boards Of Canada opening up a tea shop? Fila Brazillia flogging tractors? Mint Royale running a countryside B&B where the residents go mysteriously missing but no-one complains because he sells special "meat" out of the back door when the police aren't looking? Honestly, any of this could happen.

Now excuse me while I write 20,000 words on how Jeremy Clarkson is the next Delia Derbyshire. [jumps balls-first into a thresher]

Picture: Wildfarmed / BBC News

Further Fats: Meet the Yamaha GX-1, the tractor's natural nemesis (2019)

Further Fats: It's got a cow as a logo (2022)

Banjo beats 'n' techno treats: oh my goodness, it's The Grid

What's your favourite kind of grid. Electricity? Drainage? Ordnance Survey map reference? Cattle?

My favourite grid is the electronic music duo The Grid, comprising David Ball out of Soft Cell and all-round knob-twiddling genius Richard Norris. You might think that cattle grids might be better at keeping cows in the correct field, but I've heard rumours that Ball and Norris are excellent bovine wranglers.

The Grid first dropped into my life with A Beat Called Love in 1990. This was a slice of sunny electronic pop that sat neatly alongside equally cheery popsters The Beloved. Its parent album Electric Head came out six weeks before Big Life put out The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, so this was pioneering, like when Hannibal built Stonehenge out of elephants or something.

Their second album 456 had big-name guest spots, with featured acts including Robert Fripp, Zodiac Mindwarp and Yello's Dieter Meier. They even had Sun Ra talk about how he liked the sun for a track called Face The Sun. You can't get sunnier than that, unless US emo band Sunny Day Real Estate decide to drive a Nissan Sunny into the heart of the sun.

Their 1993 single Crystal Clear remains one of my bestest favourite choons. It's so trippy and glistening and dubby and whoooah, and I still play it about 900 times a day. Alex Gifford plays Hammond organ on the track. Alex went on to form the Propellerheads, who famously turned Shirley Bassey into a big beat star on History Repeating.

Most people will remember The Grid for Swamp Thing, a banjo-jangled novelty techno track that hit the top ten singles chart in 1994. It was denied further success because it had the misfortune to be releaed during the dark reign of terror that was the eternal chart-topping snoozeathon Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet.

The Grid appeared on Top Of The Pops something like eight times. Often dressed in white, often doing silly dances, and not taking anything too seriously at all. It's worth looking them up: 1994's Rollercoaster may only have slightly scraped the top 20, but the performance is brilliant fun.

Let's finish this with a recommendation. Richard Norris's book Strange Things Are Happening reveals all about his (mis)adventures in music, and outlines the extraordinary career of a guy who has dabbled with but stayed pleasingly beyond the boundary of the mainstream. If I'm feeling egotistical, this blog piece will be headed by a photo of me meeting Richard at the Manchester launch of his book.

Other Griddiness to get you giddy? Their 2018 album of Moog meanderings One Way Traffic. Their debut single Floatation, which you can read about in Electronic Sound^. Richard Norris's Music For Healing series^, alleviating anxieties month by month. Or just stare at a cattle grid for half an hour and wait for it to become a musical genius.

Further Fats: Charts in crisis: here's why there are so few number one singles (2017)

Further Fats: A Full On Guide to Full On: Megatonk's Belgium and Frendzy's Can't Stop (these are real tracks, honest) (2020)