This is the latest epsiode in an ongoing series called Ultimate 1990s Number One. How does it work? I write about every number one hit of the 1990s, and select a few of them to go through to a grand final, in which I will pick the bestest ultimate chart-topper of the decade.
My two judging criteria are: (a) it has to be bleepy, able to be categorised as electronic music. And (b) it has to be a banger. A choon. A bona-fide pop classic. Also, I am writing this while riding a unicycle through a hoop of burning flames just to make it more difficult.
Here is the latest randomly-selected batch from the full list of 206 number one hits.
The contenders
Cher: Believe | Dunblane: Knockin' on Heaven's Door | Geri Halliwell: Lift Me Up | Mark Morrison: Return of the Mack | Michael Jackson: Earth Song | Take That: Babe | The Beautiful South: A Little Time | Westlife: Flying Without Wings | Wet Wet Wet: Love Is All Around | Whigfield: Saturday Night |
Load of old gubbins
King of pop weirdness Michael Jackson hid under the mixing desk while Earth Song was being recorded because he was paranoid about his face. He was right to do so because Earth Song is a whiny sentimental load of old gubbins. I'm chucking this out of the competition. The Dunblane track is worthy too, but I don't really understand Bob Dylan songs.
Flying Without Wings was probably Westlife's most iconic single, and was one of five number ones scored in a single year by the Dublin crooners. Love Is All Around gave Wet Wet Wet a 15-week marathon run at the top of the charts, making history. These achievements do not impress me. Marti Pellow's lot prevented Kylie's Confide In Me from getting to number one, and I'm still upset about this. Seriously. I feel upset in my fingers and in my toes.
Very descript
Here's a fact for you. No-one in human history has listened to Geri Halliwell's Lift Me Up more than once. Have you? No, I didn't think so. One NME reviewer called it "astoundingly nondescript", which is like calling something "averagely brilliant". Pretty spot on.
Do you know what isn't nondescript? Babe by Take That. Those boys had an ear for a tune. It was a downbeat number that needed a string section to beef up Mark's weedy vocals, but it worked. Not bleepy enough for this competition, but I doff my hat to Babe, especially since it knocked Mr Blobby off the number one spot.
Booty scores again
There a many things that people think are good, but about which I could not give a fig. Football, for one. I understand the euphoria of watching Belchford United's nail-biting 3–2 win against St Flatulence Athletic, especially with star striker Booty Nosepowder getting sent off for doing the Macarena. But football fandom is for other people, like tabletop roleplaying games, mushroom foraging and promiscuity. You do you.
Which brings me to Leicester bad boy Mark Morrison. Return of the Mack arrived to huge fanfare, without him actually ever returning from anything. The song has been sampled, interpolated, copied and ripped off in a zillion hits since. And despite Mr Morrison's requests for me to "come on" and "pump up the word", I remain unmoved.
There's also The Beautiful South, a band formed by two Housemartins by which I don't mean the bird. I'm glad The Beautiful South exist: they bring an indie sensibility to pop music, and they seem old fashioned yet switched on, like a sparky grandpa or Thomas Edison. I can't get that excited about their music, but they know how to write a banger.
Keep your Whig on
As with previous Ultimate countdowns, we are left with the bleepiest selection of the bunch, and our best contenders for qualification through to the Ultimate 90s grand final.
Long-faced emoji-addled pop princess Cher changed music forever when Believe brought autotune to the mainstream in 1998. Do you believe in life after love, she asked rhetorically, her voice elegantly mangled by producer Mark Taylor. A dance music classic that laid the ground for pop queens turning into house music divas. Looking at you, Kylie Minogue.
If you don't know the Whigfield dance, please go away and learn it. Done? Good, we can continue. This daft Eurodance number is perhaps the most 1990s record featured in this blog series: it has a kooky indie sensibility, a heavy level of novelty, and lots of "da ba da dan dee dee dee da nee na na na" nonsense lyrics. And yes, that's a copy-and-paste from Lyrics.com.
In conclusion
I'm going to put Whigfield through to the final. It's not a convincing win: none of this selection of tracks are bleepy / techno enough for me. but Whiggy is the best of a non-bleepy bunch. The song contains, embedded deep within its bouncy beat, a sample of the Amen break. There are bonafide bleepy credentials at work here, even though I can'r see the Chemical Brothers dropping it into a DJ set any time soon.
How many more singles are there to go in this series? Lots. Will we be done by the end of 2024? No chance. Are people still reading these blog posts? Probably not. Am I going to continue despite everything? Of course I am. Stay tuned.
While you're hear, read more Ultimate 90s number one.
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