Ultimate 90s number one: Several tragedies, a scally elf, and a bedroom musician saves the day

As I was ploughing through my daily plate of 15 full-size scotch eggs this morning, I was reflecting on the latest contenders in Ultimate 1990s Number One, my series in which I rate every number one in the 1990s UK singles chart.

Do you know what I concluded? Scotch eggs are great. I really love these scotch eggs. The ten chart-toppers I'm about to feature have some interesting aspects, but these crumb-smeared porky eggballs really are hitting the mark.

I think I might vomit. Bring on the contenders!

The contenders

All Saints: Never Ever | Blondie: Maria | East 17: Stay Another Day | Freddie Mercury: Living on My Own | Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) | Oasis: D'You Know What I Mean? | Spacedust: Gym and Tonic | Steps: Heartbeat / Tragedy | The Verve: The Drugs Don't Work | White Town: Your Woman

I won't do these

It is a well-established fact that Meatloaf would do anything for love. As the best-selling single of 1993 clearly states, he knows it's true and that's a fact. However, the one thing Meatloat won't do for love is proceed any further in my Ultimate 90s competition. His histrionic handkerchief-clutching has no place here.

Like the Meatloaf song, I found Oasis's third chart-topper D'You Know What I Mean? to be excessive. With its overbearing strings and uninspired lyrics, it represented Oasis's descent into their OASIS period (Overblown And Stale Indie Sludge). They gain points for using morse code, but dash dash / dot / dot dot dot dot.

An actual tragedy

I would like to eliminate two further contestants. Steps' take on Tragedy is, compared to the BeeGees original, a tragedy. In the video for its other A-side Heartbeat, they battle a bunch of dwarfs. This was back in the 1990s, in the socially careless era of Friends' casual homophobia, but surely that was a, er, Steps too far.

By the time The Verve hit number one with the maudlin melodrama The Drugs Don't Work. they had lost some of their, er, verve. In your face, previous paragraph, that was way better than the Steps joke. Still, it's a bit of a tune, and sometimes the drugs don't indeed work, and we are greateful for their medical wisdom. It is eliminated because I'm looking for bleepy hits not weepy hits.

Hacienda flashback

The following tracks are undoubtedly tunes, indeed possibly bangers, but none of them progress in this competition because their bleepiness is either absent or inadequate.

I have a vague memory of seeing the early, unsuccessful version of All Saints. It may have been a ZTT Records showcase, and I think it was at the Hacienda. They were the best band of the night, but they wouldn't enjoy success until the Appleton sisters joined. Although Never Ever was made amid song writing tensions, it achieved more pre-sales than any other song in UK history. A banger.

Knocking The Offspring off the number one spot wasn't on my bingo card for Blondie. They hadn't topped the singles chart since the early 1980s. Maria came with dance remixes by Talvin Singh and NYC producers Soul Solution, with Singh totally ripping the track into fractals of drum 'n' bass tabla goodness.

As I was saying to Santa Claus the other day, we haven't had a decent Christmas number one hit for ages. East 17's Stay Another Day was a banger with baubles on. Scally elf Brian Harvey has cut quite a trouble figure in recent years. You should check out The Black Dog's Conspiracy Tapes featuring Brian's wilder rants – I think it's great, although Santa hates it because he only likes 15th century madrigals and mumble rap. 

We are (not) the champions

It would be awful to make you wade through this whole blog post only for me to tell you that none of these contenders are good enough to continue in the Ultimate 90s competition. It would be a waste of your time, it would be a waste of my time, and it probably contravenes some kind of blogging law. Fingers crossed...

When Bob Sinclair fluked a number one in summer 1998, it rode a wave of energetic French house music. But Gym & Tonic has problems. Small problem: it is inferior to the track it samples, Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You. Bigger problem: it is inferior to the original Gym Tonic by Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter which featured workout vocals by Jane Fonda. Sorry, Bob, it's a no.

I never thought I'd say this, but here's a thumping dance tune from Freddie Mercury. Everyone's favourite moustachioed prancer dug out Living On My Own from his 1985 solo album, asked Belgian production outfit No More Brothers to remix it, and lo and behold he's knocking Take That off the number one spot. Shame he wasn't around to appreciate the song's new-found success. My only issue is that's it's annoying. Really annoying. The bit when he goes all scat? The way he says "monkey business"? Proper rubs me up the wrong way.

Please, let's have one good track. Please. I bow to the blogging gods, deliver us from musical mediocrity. PLEASE.

Worth Whiting for (sorry)

Just when I thought all was lost, here comes White Town (pictured) with the glorious Your Woman. I remember getting this sent before release, and it was so lo-fi, I wouldn't have predicted the success it had. Adamski had popularised the 'keyboard wizard' DIY synth thing years earlier, but here was a bedroom musician knocking Tori Amos off the top spot. Jyoti Mishra's still going strong, posting music programming videos, and with singles varying from sunny pop rock to dirty acid techno.

Thank you, White Town, you've saved it. Your Woman goes through to the Ultimate 90s final.

See more Ultimate 90s number ones 

Ultimate 90s Number One: Livin' the ABBA Dream

Here is a new edition of everyone's 4,980,337th favourite blog series, Ultimate 1990s Number One. I am trawling through every UK number one single of the 1990s and deciding which is the bleepiest banger, the king of the beats, the bossest of the boss drums.

Here are 11 more hopefuls.

The contenders

Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds: Three Lions | Bombalurina: Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini | Boyz II Men: End of the Road | Erasure: Abba-esque (EP) | Gary Barlow: Forever Love | Jamiroquai: Deeper Underground | Lenny Kravitz: Fly Away | Livin' Joy: Dreamer | Partners in Kryme: Turtle Power | Westlife: Swear It Again | Wet Wet Wet: Goodnight Girl

Turtles versus Timmy

Who's better? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Timmy Mallet? The Turtles are named after Italian renaissance painters, while Timmy is pretty nifty with a paintbrush. The Turtles love wielding nunchucks, while Timmy has a huge mallet. They all dress like an explosion in a Dulux factory.

The answer is neither. The heroic half-shelled Partners In Kryme and Mr Mallet's Bombalurina outfit both produced terrible songs, so they can be eliminated immediately. Incidentally, check out Timmy's cycling adventures online – they're lovely.

No, no, no

I have a whole bunch of songs I want to dismiss next. I shall try to be polite, even though the following songs make me want to rip my ears off.

I've checked the lyrics, and apparently Boyz II Men's End Of The Road isn't about roadworks. They're still going, apparently, doing reality television and performing the national anthem at sporty sport games. It's anyone's guess whether they ever completed their transition from boyz to men.

Cheshire's cheesiest pop cat Gary Barlow scored ten number one singles in the 1990s, either solo or as part of Take That. Despite his obvious songwriting prowess, I wouldn't recognise a single note of Forever Love even if you whispered it into my lughole while pantomime horsing together.

"I wish that I could fly," said Orville the du-- er, I mean, Lenny Kravitz on his 26th single Fly Away. Flying was a common theme for 1990s number one singles, with flying-themed chart toppers from R Kelly, Westlife and U2. Even Offspring reckoned they were pretty fly. Fly Away is perhaps the most asinine of the lot of them.

Here is a list of things I would rather do than listen to Westlife's Swear It Again. Chew razor blades. Snort spiders. Wear a cheese grater as underpants. Have a gong bath with Ann Widdecombe. Listen to Swear It Again twice.

Oh and Wet Wet Wet? No no no.

Eyeballs and guns  

I remember watching the Euro '96 match in which Gareth Southgate fudged a crucial penalty. I remember because, until a couple of years ago, it was the only football match I have watched all the way through. I'm not a footie lad. However, I do love The Lightning Seeds and standup comedy, so Three Lions was alright by me. The song is remarkable in that it has spent three weeks at number one in three totally separate weeks across 22 years.

I suppose, objectively speaking, Deeper Underground is a banger of a tune. However, on this blog in 2008, I wrote "There is no excuse for Jamiroquai: he makes me want to smash in my eyeballs with guns." Crikey, so much body horror on this blog. My ire has dissipated over the years, but his blend of furry-hatted squeaky cheese still misses the mark with me. Deeper Underground is from the Godzilla (1998) soundtrack, which has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 20%. Enough said.

Showing some love

Which leaves us with two electronic music contenders (pictured above). Will either of them get through to the final, or will I do my usual thing of being sniffy about both of them?

Dreamer was Paolo and Gianni Visnadi's attempt to emulate Robin S's Show Me Love. Fact: it was voiced by Snap!'s live vocalist Janice Robinson. Between Dreamer's first foray into the top 20 in 1994 and its eventual number one spot eight months later in 1995, the duo also had a smash hit as Alex Party (Don't Give Me Your Life). Livin' Joy are the real deal, and they go through to the next round.

While Erasure's tribute to Abba seemed frivolous, with the pair dragging up for the promo video, the Abba-esque EP is a chunky bit of electronic music. An unashamed analogue bleepfest. Their version of SOS is one of the best headphone listens of the 1990s. Novelty be damned, this easily goes through to the next round.

Thank goodness. A happy result.

See more Ultimate 90s number ones 

Ultimate 90s number one: It's like that (and that's the way it wiggle wiggles)

Here is another episode of Ultimate 1990s Number One. In each edition of this long-running blog series, I pick a bunch of number one singles from the 1990s UK singles chart. I pit them against each other, guided by two unclear and slightly unhelpful criteria, namely:

1. Is this song a banger?

2. Is this song bleepy, i.e. an electronic music track.

Once have have gone through all of the 1990s number ones, there will be a grand final. Probably.

The contenders

Aqua: Doctor Jones | The Bluebells: Young at Heart | Fugees: Ready or Not | Hale and Pace and the Stonkers: The Stonk | The Outhere Brothers: Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) | Queen: Innuendo | R. Kelly: I Believe I Can Fly | Robson & Jerome: I Believe / Up on the Roof | Robson & Jerome: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted / Saturday Night at the Movies / You'll Never Walk Alone | Run-DMC vs. Jason Nevins: It's Like That | Take That: How Deep Is Your Love

Let's not stonk

As with previous listings, I am more than happy to discard some contenders immediately.

Young At Heart by The Bluebells is a beige-dotted line painted down the middle of a road to nowhere. Its 1993 chart-topping rerelease was for a Volkswagen Golf advert, which is about right. A mid song for a mid car. Bananarama's Northern Soul-inspired original is way better.

"Let's stonk to the rhythm of the honky tonk," sang Hale & Pace. "Stick a red nose on your conk and let's stonk." No. I don't want to stick anything on my conk, or on my donk, or my badonkadonk. Thanks anyway Gareth and Bertrand, or whatever your names were.

I don't know if it's because I walked under a ladder or I saw 13 black cats pretending to be a magpie, but for some reason this latest random selection of hit singles has given me two Robson & Jerome singles. I reject your weedy krap-aoke.

I'm also discarding R Kelly into a pit of fire that is on a spaceship that is crashing into the heart of the sun while the universe explodes and all of time and space vortexes in on itself causing every shred of reality to cease to exist until all we are left with is an eternal silence unto infinity in which we can hear precisely zero R Kelly songs.

Doctor who?

The next few tunes are all bangers in their own right, but not bleepy enough to progress in this competition.

If I want medical drama, I'll watch Casualty or House. In fact, Aqua's Doctor Jones barely had any medical content. A bog standard love song, dressed up as a pretty decent pop tune. Very 90s, very bouncy, and the first clue we had that Aqua were going to be more than a plastic-coated one-hit wonder.

The BeeGees' version of How Deep Is Your Love failed to top the charts: it was eclipsed by the tartan juggernaut that was Mull Of Kintyre. Take That's somewhat supine version did achieve number one status, and it was their final swansong before their 90s split. It's what I would describe as a proper pop tune, like a Volvo is a proper car or cheddar is proper cheese.

 

Hi Freddie, can you please give us a single that is somewhere between Bohemian Rhapsody, Faith No More, prog rock and Spanish flamenco? Queen's final chart-topper before Mercury's death was a banger and then some. Although you wouldn't think it, the song contains a notable use of a Korg M1 synthesiser. What it's named after a motorway, I have no idea.

Pass the toilet paper

At this point in my Ultimate 90s write-ups, I'm left with a handful of bleepy tunes. Tracks with electronic music credentials. I'm not convinced that these final three tracks fit the bleepy bill. Let's see,

It sampled Enya. It made Lauren Hill cry. It was Barack Obama's favourite song. Ready Or Not is a classic that humanised hip hop music, and felt like a much deeper dive than the Fugees' other number one Killing Me Softly. Its chorus also makes the childhood game of hide and seek sound as sinister as heck. "Ready or not, here I come." "Aaaaaaargh!" 

In contrast, The Outhere Brothers' Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) is silly. Super silly. As silly as a silly string portrait of Mr Silly on holiday in the Isle of Scilly. The two Outhere singles released before this are titled Pass The Toilet Paper and F*k U In The Ass. Grubby stuff.

And finally, we have those chain-dangling trilby-topped rappers Run-DMC. It's Like That is an old hit of theirs rereleased by house Jason Nevins for boomboxin' breakdancin' cool kids. It's perhaps most notable to stopping the Spice Girls' chart dominance by stopping Stop from clogging up the top spot.

In conclusion? Nothing from this track selection is bleepy / banging enough to go through to the next round of this competition. Yet again, an Ultimate 90s blog post has amounted to nothing. I would be disappointed, if I were you, reader. I'd demand your money back. What a swizz.

The series continues. Not long until the grand final! See more Ultimate 90s number ones 

Ultimate 90s number one: Everybody's Free (To Read This Blog Post And Wear Sunscreen But Mainly The Blog Post Thing)

Welcome to another edition of Ultimate 1990s Number One. In this long, long series, I trawl through every UK number one single of the 1990s and decide which is the best. There are over 200 number one singles of that decade, so I'm taking about ten at a time and choosing (possibly) one to go through to a final.

My judging criteria? The single has to be a banger. And the single has to be bleepy, i.e. it has to tickle my electronic music tentacles. I'm a strict judge, and my hammer is ready.

Let's have a look at another bunch of randomly-picked '90s number ones.

The contenders

Baz Luhrmann: Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) | Elton John: Candle in the Wind 1997 / Something About the Way You Look Tonight | Madonna: Vogue | Martine McCutcheon: Perfect Moment | Michael Jackson: Blood on the Dance Floor | Sinéad O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U | Various artists: Perfect Day | Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff: Dizzy | Wamdue Project: King of My Castle | Westlife: I Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun

A load of old wind

When Elton John did away with Diana in 1997 in order to get to number one-- oh, wait, hold on, that's just a rumour I read on the internet. Let's start again. Elton's cathartic Princess Di tribute Candle In The Wind is the second bestselling single in history, behind Bing Crosby's equally morose Santa tribute White Christmas. It sold two-thirds of a million units in its first week of sales.

That is only impressive thing about Candle In The Wind '97. I see it as a sister track to Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer or Wings' Mull Of Kintyre. A stately anthem with little artistic merit, with as much credibility as a retired Tory councillor taking part in a rap battle. Let's move on.

Of Michael Jackson's numerous number one singles, Blood On The Dance Floor is the one I remember least. Was it as Sophie Ellis-Bextor cover? Was it inspired by a night out at Jilly's Rockworld? It was a reject from his Dangerous from several years earlier, and sounds several degrees worse than any tracks from that album.

Not so perfect

I might have my figures slightly wrong. but Westlife had five billion number one singles. Their double a-side Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun was a Christmas number one, and came while the band was at their at the peak of their powers. Their other powers were (a) being bland and (b) having no place in an Ultimate 90s series. Harrumph. 

What's better? Martine McCutcheon's Perfect Moment or Various Artists' Perfect Day? It's a tough question. Both songs claim to be perfect, but for varying lengths of time. 

Perfect Day is clearly the superior song. The Lou Reed version soundtracked the heroin antics of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting film. Duran Duran and Kirsty MacColl have done their own versions. The 1990s chart-topping version is probably the most iconic take on the song, starring Bono, Bowie, Boyzone and some people beginning with other letters.

Perfect Moment was by an Eastenders actress. McCutcheon's character Tiffany has been cheated on, has disowned her own mother, has been gaslit, has been betrayed by her friends, has planned blackmail, and has been splatted by a car. "This is my moment," sings Tiffany as another flaming meteorite lands on her head.

The truth is, I'm not bothered by either song, and the last couple of paragraphs have been a waste of time.

And now we come to some genuine bangers. Let's allow the fresh breeze of good songwriting waft into the guff of this blog series.

A haddock that looks like Norway

A traffic cone on top of submarine! A walrus wearing a cravat! Erm... A ghost made of toenails? Yes, I'm being surreal, just like Vic Reeves' classic comedy series Big Night Out. Aside from this groundbreaking and brilliant show, Reeves was a musician and artist, so his bid for pop success with The Wonderstuff with Dizzy was no surprise. And it's great.

The shape-throwing fashionista anthem Vogue knocked Snap!'s The Power off the number one spot, so I'm conflicted about Madonna. But it's undoubtedly a banger. "Greta Garbo and Monroe, Dietrich and Fat Roland." Such great lyrics. She was knocked off number one by Adamski, which feels like Snap! karma.

The brilliant and missed Sinéad O'Connor deserved more than one paltry top ten single. On Nothing Compares 2 U, she stares into the camera like you've done something wrong. The song is double-tracked, so she's actually singing it twice at the same time, which is twice the work.

Dizzy, Vogue and Nothing are all bangers. But they are not bleepy enough for this competition, so they can all bog off. Sorry.

Bazzin'

The 1990s became known for leftfield chart-toppers. The leftest of the leftfields came when an essay called 'Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young' became the basis of a number one single by film director Baz Luhrmann. Which reminds me, if Martin Scorsese wants to have an electronica hit with my essay 'How to squeeze the last bit out of a toothpaste tube', then get in touch.

You would think that King Of My Castle would be a more straightforward hit, but even this one was based on Freudian theory. Something to do with the ego or the id or that kind of gubbins. Incidentally, Wamdue Project's song was nominated for a 'Best British single' Brit award, but then was immediately dropped because Wamdue Project is, as it turns out, American.

The Wamdue jam is bouncy, and a real banger. But I'm going to allow Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) through to the Ultimate 90s final. Congratulations, Bazzer, It's a perfect distillation of quirky 1990s electronic music. It's wistful, amusing, and I really like the part when he says "dance". Go on, listen to it. "Dance." There. I like that bit.

Is there more to come in this series? Oh yes. This never ends. It's a moebius strip but made of words.

See more Ultimate 90s number ones 

Ultimate 90s number one: Da ba da dan dee dee dee da nee na na na

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.

Ultimate 90s number one: Things can only get Doopier

As I write this latest instalment of the Ultimate 1990s Number One contest, the world seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket. Which is a phrase that is thought to have originated from the practice of guillotined heads that land in baskets, as featured in an 18th century book by Winslow Ayer about civil war. Thanks, Wikipedia.

So with that bloody backdrop in mind, let's turn our attention to the painfully trivial task of deciding, of all 1990s UK number one singles, which was the bleepiest banging tune. Here are the latest contenders in this never-ending chart battle. Of the 120+ featured so far, only 15 tracks have made it through to the next round.

The contenders

B*Witched: Blame It On The Weatherman  |  Billie: Because We Want To  |  Boyzone: When The Going Gets Tough  |  Boyzone: You Needed Me  |  Chaka Demus & Pliers: Twist And Shout  |  Cliff Richard: The Millennium Prayer  |  D:Ream: Things Can Only Get Better  |  Doop: Doop  |  Puff Daddy and Faith Evans featuring 112: I'll Be Missing You  |  Robson & Jerome: Unchained Melody / White Cliffs of Dover 

God's number one

In a 2010 blog post about Christian music, I described Cliff Richard's The Millennium Prayer as "stripping the charts of all that is good and holy". This belch of Satanic nonsense paired the words of the Lord's Prayer with the tune of Auld Lang Syne, with all the grace of a vicar performing a baptism on roller skates. The song must be exorcised from this competition, like wot they did with that spinny head girl in that Tubular Bells movie.

 

Now, I'm not saying Boyzone are Beelzebub: that's for you to decide. Two of Boyzone's six 1990s number one singles appear in this selection. One is a Comic Relief cover of a Billy Ocean song, and one prevented Geri Halliwell's Look At Me from getting to number one. So mixed fortunes. But they have no place in a bleepy banger contest.

Not a massive tune

Here is another clutch of singles that I will gladly eliminate from this competition.

Despite versions by the Beatles, the Isley Brothers, the Tremeloes and Salt N Pepa, Chaka Demus & Pliers is the only group to get Twist And Shout to the top of the UK singles chart. Its one redeeming grace is that it knocked Mr Blobby off the top spot.

I described Unchained Melody as a "massive tune" in a March 2024 edition of Ultimate 1990s Number One. However, a cover of Unchained Melody by two blokes from the TV series Soldier Soldier that, incidentally, made Simon Cowell a millionaire cannot, on any level, be described as a "massive tune". Robson & Jerome? Nope.

In the video for B*Witched's Blame It On The Weatherman, the inoffensive songsters fanny about on a soggy juggernaut. In the week this topped the charts, Underworld's Push Upstairs made a brief appearance at number 12. Underworld should have been number one. They weren't. I blame this on the B*Witched women.

Time crime

The next two tracks are bangers. They are bangier than an old banger driven by a sausage which is also known as a banger.

Is Billie Piper a better Billy than Billies Joel, Ocean or Bragg? Yes, because she went and did time travel with that phone box doctor guy who wasn't a real doctor. The music video for Because We Want To had Billie prancing about in a UFO, which is way more impressive than a Tardis. Anyway, definitely a banger. But not bleepy.

Sting sued Puff Daddy after the rapper ripped off The Police for the Notorious BIG tribute I'll Be Missing You. This is not Mr Puff's worst crime. The lyrics are appalling as is his clunky rap flow. Also not his biggest crime. He prevented Bitter Sweet Symphony from getting to number one. Also not the biggest crime. Somehow, the song is still a banger.

Is it the best thing?

This leaves us with two chart-topping acts with electronic music credentials. But are they banging enough to get through to the next round of this competition?

The Dutch duo Doop had a massive smash hit for their electro swing take on the Charleston. Their follow-up singles appropriated easy listening and ska. The video for their single Huckleberry Jam had a fart joke. Nothing good came from Doop by Doop.

And finally, you can walk my path, you can wear my shoes... After its release in early 1993, D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better took a full year to reach number one in the charts. It then lingered in our consciousness for years thanks to New Labour. However... 

Their debut single U R The Best Thing is a better song, with Cunnah's breathless vocal delivery (Cunnah pictured above). If that had been the single under consideration here, they'd be straight through to the next round. But Better? It's almost a banger, it's almost bleepy. But not quite there.

No-one makes it through to the next round of the Labour leadership conte-- er, I mean, Ultimate 1990s Number One. Shame. And I didn't even mention Professor Brian Cox.

More Ultimate 90s number ones 

Ultimate 90s number one: The Steve Miller Band ruins everything

Pull up a chaise longue. You're just in time to suffer through the latest edition of my Ultimate 1990s Number One competition.

This is a blog series in which I attempt to wheedle out the best number one single of the 1990s, and handful of chart-toppers at a time. Only the ultimate bestest tunes will go through to the final. 

My twin judging criteria are (a) is it bleepy and electronic, and (b) is it a banging tune. I don't really show my workings-out. Rather, I just waffle until we all lose interest.

Let's take a peek at the latest batch of contenders.

The contenders

Bryan Adams: (Everything I Do) I Do It for You  |  Cornershop: Brimful Of Asha  |  George Michael and Queen with Lisa Stansfield: Five Live (EP)  |  Kylie Minogue: Tears On My Pillow  |  Manic Street Preachers: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next  |  New Kids on the Block: Hangin' Tough  |  No Doubt: Don't Speak  |  Shaggy: Boombastic  |  Steve Miller Band: The Joker  |  Vanilla Ice: Ice Ice Baby

You must be joking

Let's start with some excellent humour. Steve Miller Band?! Yeah, he certainly should be. Banned, that is. See what I did there? That is clever wordplay; the kind of linguistic acrobatics you've come to expect from someone who uses a big hardback dictionary as a pillow.

Steve Miller. Steve flipping Miller. There he is in the photo above. In a 2021 blog post, I said The Joker was "one of the worst songs ever written". In another 2021 blog post, I described the single as "one of the worst singles of all time" and "I want this song to die". This sounds like I've only formed this opinion in the last few years. Quite the contrary. My loathing for this song has been burning within me since the beginning of time.

For a start, the lyrics are naff. He "loves your peaches". And "lovey dovey, lovey dovey". He loves smoking and he's a "gangster of love". If he talked like this on a first date, I'd walk straight out of the Greggs without warning.

What's with the wolf-whistling guitar? I know the song is partly based on a song penned in the 1950s, but surely we can leave lazy sexism in the past. Nobody wants to listen a guitar sound like it's winking at you while rubbing its crotch. Gross.

And another thing. The Joker stopped Deee-Lite from getting to number one with Groove Is In The Heart. This is the worst injustice that has happened in the history of humankind. Yes, I see you reaching from your dusty hardback book of historical disasters, but you know I'm right. Steve Miller made Towa Tei sad. And nobody should make Towa Tei sad.

Also. Yes, there's more. Also, The Joker is roughly the same age as me. Not the exact month, but close enough that we'd probably share a birthday cake. I cannot accept the fact that there is something the same age as me that is as annoying as me. That is not acceptable. Steve Miller makes me ill-er.

Everything's ruined

Oh great. Thanks to Miller, I don't have enough time to properly cover all the other songs in this list. Sorry, George Michael, there are barely any column inches left to let you know that I found your Queen covers somewhat dull. And no, Kylie, I haven't got the energy to explain that your Imperials doo wop cover was one of your weaker hits.

Miller has also robbed me of the opportunity to opine, at length, at the blandness of New Kids On The Block. Or to explain, in a patient but forced voice, that nobody really likes Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby, especially when Uncle Kenneth is drunkenly slurring the wrong words at Sunday night karaoke. Mr Ice should have stopped when he said "stop". in that bit of the song where he says "stop"

What's the point

I've still got that Steve Miller song on loop in my brain, each annoying guitar lick a razor blade to my ear drums. There are two epic songs on this list that I would be impressed by, but The Joker has bled me of all hope. Those songs are...

In July 1991, a month after Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves landed on cinema screens, Bryan Adams' theme song (Everything I Do) I Do It for You shot an arrow into the number one spot of the UK singles chart. It stayed there until Halloween, when it was overtaken in the charts by U2, 2 Unlimited and the comedian Vic Reeves.

And in a just world, the Manic Street Preachers should have scored a string of number one successes by the time that If You Tolerate This... topped the singles chart. It's a big anthem, for sure, although marked a blunting of their once-cutting edge.

Both are epic bangers, but they're not bleepy enough to continue in this competition.

What a joke(r)

This leaves us with a few final singles to talk about – if I had time, that is [glares at Steve]. No Doubt were ten years into their career when Don't Speak dominated the charts. A veritable banger with pop credibility. Meanwhile, Shaggy's Boombastic is the only song to have topped the charts containing the lyric "don't you tickle my foot bottom". Which is silly song-writing but not as ridiculous as Steve Miller and his space cowboy carbuncle.

This brings us to the only electronic music-adjacent tune in this selection. That is Cornershop's tribute to the Indian film industry, Brimful Of Asha. The song got to number one in the form of its remix by Fatboy Slim. Sadly, it's not bleepy enough to continue in this competition. Which is a shame because Cornershop tracks like the 16-minute jam Spectral Mornings are a dancefloor delight.

So nobody wins this round. Do you know who I blame? Steve Miller. Steven Haworth Miller. Miller and his band which is called the Steve Miller Band. Cheeky rapper Enimen might be on a one-man crusade to revive Millers career with his recent Miller-sampling single Houdini). But honestly, Stevie-boy has ruined this blog post, and possibly this blog, and possibly the entire universe.

I guess WE'RE the joker, amiright?!

More Ultimate 90s number ones 

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

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

Ultimate 90s number one: Everyone's got a gun – but Keith's got matches

Here's another instalment of my blog series Ultimate 1990s Number One, wherein I sift through every UK number one singles of the 1990s. Most will get rejected, while a select few golden nuggets will shine. The criteria? Bleepy bangers. The best electronic chart toppers.

Let's go!

The contenders

Ace of Base: All That She Wants  |  Armand van Helden featuring Duane Harden: You Don't Know Me  |  Blur: Beetlebum  |  The Offspring: Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)  |  The Prodigy: Firestarter  |  Rednex: Cotton Eye Joe  |  S Club 7: Bring It All Back  |  Spice Girls: Mama / Who Do You Think You Are  |  Take That: Everything Changes  |  Take That featuring Lulu: Relight My Fire

The Visa Cash App RBs of pop music

Let's throw some of these tunes straight into the waste disposal. The Spice Girls and Take That are coming in strong with several smokin' bangers, and Lulu's guest spot on Relight My Fire is one of the '90s top pop moments. But they're not right for this list.

Sometimes I think that Take That and Westlife are worst band names in pop music. But lo and behold, here comes S Club 7. An absolutely terrible name. There's currently a Formula 1 team called Visa Cash App RB. This band's name isn't far off that level of awfulness. The song's pretty uninspiring too. 

Fans of The Offspring's insipid skater-bro playground punk might be surprised to learn the band had been releasing music since the 1980s. Pretty Fly For A White Guy transformed them from a genuinely interesting punk act into sniggering Beavis & Butthead college pop plonkers. Terrible. Instead, go and listen to their scrappy debut single I'll Be Waiting from 1986 instead. 

Gun nonsense

"Beetlebum," sings Mr Blur on Blur's Beetlebum. "What you've done, she's a gun, now what you've done, Beetlebum." A moving tale, I'm sure you would agree.

"His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun," sing Rednex on Cotton Eye Joe. "But all he had come for was having some fun."

Why is everyone turning into guns? Neither of these songs make much sense. At least Blur had a tonne of credibility. Have you listened to that Rednex album. the one with the band members being urinated on? Possibly one of the worst albums in history. If you want some proper novelty banjo techno, get The Grid's Swamp Thing on your record player.

Anyway. Ignore the Rednex. And apologies to Blur, but you're not bleepy enough for this 90s chart-topper contest. 

Popping off

As with previous selections, I've sifted out the runts of this litter and now we're left with the prize puppies.

Produced by powerhouse music clever-man Denniz Pop, Ace of Base's All That She Wants is clearly a banger. The band brought dinner table reggae pop to the masses, and shifted 600,000 units in the UK. The single released boasts bhangra and piano house versions of the track. Neither sounded very bhangra or piano house-y.

Next up it's the only solo number one single for US producer Armand van Helden. (He later hit the top spot when he made Bonkers with Dizzee Rascal.) The track is a sample factory, using an old 1970s soul hit by Carrie Lucas, Jaydee's classic Plastic Dreams, and even a clip from Dexter's Laboratory on its extended version.

And then we have The Prodigy's Firestarter. When this hell-raise of a track topped the charts in March 1996, commercial dance music was about to pop off. Underworld's Born Slippy was ready to break through having scored a minor chart place the previous year, and the Chemical Brothers were firing up their rocket pants and aiming for chart domination. Dance music was about to be EVERYWHERE. But Keith Prodigy and his silly hair was there first.

Of course The Prodigy go through to the final. There was never anyone else. The guy starts fires, for goodness' sake. He'll incinerate your brain. Well done, the Prodge.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Ultimate 90s number one: Fugees in the place, got a bittersweet face

Why? Why? What have we done to deserve this? Whyyyyy?

And there is my introduction to the latest episode of the Ultimate 1990s Number One, in which I trawl through every chart-topping single of the 1990s to decide the bestest of the best.

This competition has notional judging criteria of (a) is it a banger and (b) is it bleepy, but to be honest, I've been drunk on absinthe for most of these blog posts, and I'm currently convinced that my legs are made of spaghetti.

Let's go!

The contenders

Billie: Girlfriend  |  Celine Dion: Think Twice  |  Cher, Chrissie Hynde and Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton: Love Can Build a Bridge  |  Five: Keep on Movin'  |  Fugees: Killing Me Softly  |  Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger  |  Oasis: Some Might Say  |  Robbie Williams: Millennium  |  The Shamen: Ebeneezer Goode  |  Shanks & Bigfoot: Sweet Like Chocolate  |  The Simpsons: Do the Bartman

Scratchy eyeballs

I would rather massage my eyeballs with hedgehogs than listen to a single second of Celine Dion, so she’s out of contention straight away. Do the Bartman by The Simpsons makes me want to do similar things to my peepers, such is the blot this single put on the reputation of Groening’s genius cartoon series.

I would definitely go on a camping weekend in the countryside with Cher, Chrissie Hynde and Neneh Cherry. They’d be a right laugh, and we would drink hot chocolate under a starry sky and throw peanut M&Ms at the sheep. However, for Love Can Build a Bridge, we’ve got to spend our rural retreat with Eric Clapton and his toxic opinions. No thank you.

I am not a blokey bloke. I don't wear Ben Sherman, I'm not impressed by exhaust sizes, and I have zero opinions on Premier League football and/or hot sauces. With this in mind, I am immediately ejecting from this competition both Oasis singles and Robbie Williams's John Barry-aping ode to the millennium.

Let's move on.

Aaargh bees

When I was eleven, I was chased by bees. I got too close to their nest in the local park, and I ran up a hill until the bees had stopped pursuing me. Only problem is, I kept on running upwards after the hill had stopped, so I ran up into space and accidentally knocked Jupiter off its orbit. There are alien lizards on the rings of Saturn that now worship me as a god, but it's a hollow victory.

What's the purpose of this definitely actually true story? It's to distract you from how boring I find Billie and Five. Yes, pop princess Billie is impressive, dropping pop bangers before she had finished her GCSEs. And Five, or to give them their proper name, F5i5v5e, are cheeky scamps it's hard not to love. But I want to, erm, keep on movin' past these two.

Doughnuts, chocolate and pills

Now we get to the good stuff. The real deal. The genuine juice.

Lauryn Hill strummed our pain with her fingers when she fronted the Fugees. Killing Me Softly was the bestselling single of 1996, and with good reason. If I were to kill someone softly, I'd use doughnuts. Thousands of them. Pile them on. Death by sprinkles.

I am conflicted about the Shanks & Bigfoot track. It was so fantastic having a garage track at number one in the charts. The track was cheeky, like a little scamp stealing your false teeth. But it was also awful, with lyrics like "you are warm like the rays of the sun" and "holding you is a gift from above". This isn't chocolate: it's cheese. But oh so tasty cheese.

Finally, and this is my top pick for this week's selections, there's a guy in the place with a bittersweet face who goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode. Mr C was a controversial choice for frontman of The Shamen, who had genuine rave credentials and didn't necessarily need to become a comedy band doing an impression of a Victorian Kenneth Williams.

But if I had an orphan child for every fantastic moment in this top-drawer pop single, I'd be able to run a fully-fledged chimney sweep business. The Syd James laughter. The snappy lyrics. The responsible drugs advice (yes, really). The bit where the guy goes "Ello!"

Ebeneezer Goode was produced by The Beatmasters, who also gave us Betty Boo. The comic perkiness of it all kind of makes sense. This was a form of The Shamen that seemed a long way from singles like Hyperreal. But there was enough rave wonkiness in there for this to become my anthem for many years to come. So great.

The Shamen it is. Plenty more to come in this series. Turns out there are LOADS of number ones in the 1990s.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Ultimate 90s number one: Babylon Zoo comes along and ruins everything

The competition to discover the ultimate 1990s number one single continues. There have been numerous episodes of this series so far, and there are plenty more to come. 206 number one singles to judge in all: one for every bone in the human body.

Let's take a look at the latest collection of bones-- er, I mean, number one singles.

The contenders

Babylon Zoo: Spaceman  |  Celine Dion: My Heart Will Go On  |  Cliff Richard: Saviour's Day  |  Jason Donovan: Any Dream Will Do  |  Mariah Carey: Without You  |  Melanie B featuring Missy Elliott: I Want You Back  |  Olive: You're Not Alone  |  The Prodigy: Breathe  |  Shaggy: Oh Carolina  |  Usher: You Make Me Wanna..

Giving me a haddock

Splice the mainbrace, whatever that is. Let's get rid of my least favourite songs from this batch.

Celine Dion's Titanic warble made me wish I was clinging onto a door in the icy waters of the Atlantic ocean. Pop me in a dingy and plug my ears with haddock: anything to avoid Dion's watery cheese. I have similar feelings about Mariah Carey's Without You, although I have fewer nautical metaphors for that one.

I'm not sure what's more wholesome: Cliff Richard's seasonal tribute to Jesus H Christ, or Jason Donovan's eulogy to a dreamy bible bloke in a gaudy anorak. Either way, the result is the same. Both of these saintly songs make me want to commit acts so heinous, I'd be destined straight for hell. Jumping the queue at Gregg's, popping paper in the bottle bin, still referring to X posts as tweets, that sort of thing.

Beep beep

"How can you beep beep with no keys?" mused Missy Elliott on Melanie B's I Want You Back. Deep philosophy for a track so light on melody. At least Usher's offering had a memorable melody, despite its dubious subject matter of fancying your girlfriend's best mate. Come on, Ush, mate, keep it in your trousers, at least until the end of this blog post.

Oh Carolina was a cover of an old ska hit that Shaggy used to sing rude words to^ when he was a kid. I remember its repetition being a bit annoying when it came out, although it introduced us to a genuine pop superstar. Still... not as annoying as THAT moment when we all realised that, instead of being a falsetto space jam, Babylon Zoo's chart-topper was a miserable dirge that felt like it had been scraped from the netherwheres of someone's grungey underpants. The record label sent me the Babylon Zoo album. It was all awful.

This leaves us with two top tier tracks. Firstly, it's Olive with a track co-written by a bloke from Nightmares On Wax and some fella from Simply Red. Singer Ruth-Ann Boyle went on to feature on several albums by techno-monks Enigma. Best of all, this remains a rare example of a drum 'n' bass track topping the UK charts, and it deserves to go through to this competition's final on that basis alone.

Aaaaargh. Sorry. Just having a Babylon Zoo flashback.

Meanwhile, the Prodigy's Breathe cemented their reputation as one of the biggest break-through dance acts of the decade. A second number one single for them, smashing into the top spot after just one week of record sales. It's probably the coolest track to sample a Thin Lizzy drum beat. Of course this goes through to the final. 

Aaaaaaaaargh! Seriously, I think I have BabZoo reflux. Someone call a vet.

More of the Ultimate 90s numbaaaaaaaargh one

Ultimate 90s number one: Keyboard wizards and their Block Rockin' Beats (International)

Hold on to your wig. It's time for the latest episode of Fat Roland Waffles On Aimlessly About 1990s Music Under The Vague Guise Of A Music Competition.

Here are another ten contenders hoping to be crowned as the ultimate 1990s number one single. They are randomly picked from a much longer list of all 206 1990s chart-toppers. Only the most banging and most bleepy tracks will win this competition.

The contenders

Adamski: Killer  |  Beats International: Dub Be Good to Me  |  The Chemical Brothers: Block Rockin' Beats  |  Coolio featuring L.V.: Gangsta's Paradise  |  Jimmy Nail: Ain't No Doubt  |  Oasis: All Around the World  |  Robbie Williams: She's the One / It's Only Us  |  Simply Red: Fairground  |  Take That: Back for Good  |  The Righteous Brothers: Unchained Melody †

Almost all bangers

This is a remarkable rack of big hits. I don't think there is a bad song on this list. Actually, that Oasis song's pretty boring, so let's discard that one straight away. But the others can all claim to be bangers in some way or other.

Having said that, Simply Red is not my cup of tea. It's not even my cup of lukewarm herbal tea with the tea bag still festering in it. And we can eliminate The Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody at this stage too. It's a massive tune, achieving number one status with two different acts in the 1990s, but it's not the bleepy goodness I'm looking for.

Not the ones

I once popped to the North East to do a gig, and in the first pub I went to, some bloke was singing a Jimmy Nail song, as if he was planted there by the North East Tourist Board. Ain't No Doubt is a classic pop song, as is Take That's Back for Good. Iconic tunes, both of them. Not enough for this competition, though. I also suspect if Manchester went to war with Newcastle, Jimmy Nail would beat seven levels of brown ale out of the Take That lads.

The tracks by Coolio and Robbie Williams are each stealing someone else's thunder. Although it's a classic single, Gangsta's Paradise is an inferior take on Stevie Wonder's 1976 original. The Wonder song was revolutionary for using a synthesiser usage: sadly, we're it's the Coolio track we're judging here. And Williams did a pretty straight cover of World Party's far superior She's The One. The fact Williams took the song without Wallinger's blessing is pretty naff. Rest in peace, Karl.

Which leaves us with Adamski, Beats International and the Chemical Brothers.

Not an actual seal

I cannot give enough praise to Killer by Adamski. The keyboard wizard had synthesisers stacked up to the eyeballs, and its clinical waveforms seemed to signal an exciting electronic future. True Adamski heads preferred NRG, but Killer made us kids feel like we could all become bedroom producers. And Seal was really impressive too, even though he wasn't an actual seal.

We have several things to thank Beats International for. A banging tune, obviously. They gave us a post-Housemartins Normal Cook, later to become Fatboy Slim. It gave us the brilliant Dub Pistols-collaborator Lindy Layton. And it gave us graffiti-spraying trip-hopper Req, a key voice in trip hop and lo-fi beats.

And finally, we have Tom and Ed, better known as the Chemical Brothers. Block Rockin' Beats earned the pair a Grammy award, which seems odd considering how dirty that track sounds, and how middle-of-the-road the Grammies tend to be. There's something special about their loops of fury.

I can't decide between Adamski, Beats International and the block-rockin' Chemicals. So it's a joint win for all three. Gold medals all round. Yellow jerseys all round. Chufty badges all round. Delete as appropriate.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Ultimate 90s number one: Steel and Spice and some things nice

The fight for the best 1990s number one single continues. (See all the posts here.) This series of hastily-written and ill-thought-through blog posts will decide, once and for all, which 1990s chart topping single is the bestest and bleepiest of the decade.

Each time, I randomly choose ten (or so) singles, then pick one (or so) to go through to a final. Let's finger through the latest buffet of tasty tunes.

The contenders

George Michael: Jesus to a Child  |  George Michael and Elton John: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me  |  LL Cool J: Ain't Nobody  |  Prince: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World  |  Shakespears Sister: Stay  |  Spice Girls: Say You'll Be There  |  The Tamperer featuring Maya: Feel It  |  Vengaboys: We're Going to Ibiza!  |  Westlife: If I Let You Go  |  U2: The Fly  |  Whitney Houston: I Will Always Love You

Bright balls

Let's start with opening a window to release the guff. George Michael doing Jesus to a Child is about as exciting as Alan Titchmarsh doing I Can Sing A Rainbow. I like a bit of Prince falsetto, but his ballad about beautiful girls was a load of Hallmark slop: "A face to be soft as a flower." Yeah, and balls as bright as begonias. Thanks for that insight, Prince. There's a Westlife single in this list, but I've already forgotten it exists.

The childish party anthem served up by the Vengaboys put me off Ibiza for life. Can you imagine being stuck at a resort with them? I just want to sit on a sun lounger and read my book. Preferably indoors. This would be the most annoying song on this list, but Whitney Houston belting out I Will Always Love You has my ears bleeding. The only positive spin on Whitney's overplayed warble waffle is that it kept Michael Jackson's shmaltzy Heal the World off the top spot.

Medical gloves

The mid-tier songs on this list are... fine. George Michael duetting with Elton John was enough to blow the cobwebs away, and the spiders along with it. LL Cool J's take on Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody was fairly pedestrian. Meanwhile, Say You'll Be There is one of the better singles by the Spice Girls, heightened by a sci-fi video in which they kidnap men in a desert. Baby Spice wears blue medical gloves. They were definitely putting alien probes up bottoms.

Not feeling it

This list is randomly picked, and the top tier will not always turn out to be both banging and bleepy. Unfortunately, this is the case with this selection.

When it was released, U2's The Fly sent me wild. Steel and leather, and lots of television screens. A glorious U2 period. My one gigging regret is that I never got to see the Zoo TV tour. Despite Brian Eno having his hands on Bono's tiller, it doesn't really fit the bleepy criteria.

Next we have Stay by Shakespears Sister, one of the greatest number one singles of all time. The moral of its video narrative? Don't mess with Siobhan Fahey: she looks terrifying. In a way, its sinister sci-fi tones make it a sister single to Say You'll Be There. In a way.

All this brings us to The Tamperer's take on Can You Feel It by The Jacksons. It's the danciest song of this selection, but it's only a few grades above Vengaboys. I can't get excited about this being the best of this list. The high point of any wedding buffet are always the sausage rolls, but they're just sausage rolls. They'll never win a culinary award. Can You Feel It isn't even the best track called Can You Feel It (step forward Mr Fingers).

So all of this comes to nothing. You may be disappointed, but to quote the aforementioned Mr Fingers track, I am the creator and this is my house. Plenty more to come in this 1990s number one competition. Keep reading.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Ultimate 90s number one: Frosty Madge versus the ambient sheep guys

We are in the throes of battle. Not Blur versus Oasis, not City versus United, not Emu versus that green witch woman that kept knocking at the door. This is much more epic. It's the fight to decide the ultimate UK 1990s number one hit single.

The basic criteria for judging the best chart-topper is (a) whether it's a banger and (b) whether it bleeps. Let's enter the arena and check out our musical gladiators.

The contenders

Aqua: Turn Back Time  |  ATB: 9 PM (Till I Come)  |  Chef: Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)  |  The KLF: 3 a.m. Eternal  |  Madonna: Frozen  |  Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are the Days of Our Lives  |  Right Said Fred: Deeply Dippy  |  Spice Girls: Too Much  |  Take That: Never Forget  |  Take That: Pray

Flushing the poo

It's confession time. I have a plush toy of Mr Hanky the Christmas Poo in my bathroom. Yes, I am a grown adult. So I have fondness for South Park, although if I watched it these days it would probably offend my fragile snowflake sensibilities. In any case, Chef's comical poo song isn't worthy of this competition, so this can be flushed pretty early on.

Sad songs

Two of the tracks make me sad. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody returned to the top of the charts in 1991 following the death of Freddie Mercury. It's a belter of a banger, but it's more of a weepy than a bleepy. And I'm ignoring Right Said Fred on the basis of one of the brothers being a right bell-plop. Which is a shame because Deeply Dippy is their best song.

Next come the all-dominating Spice Girls and Take That. Between them, they had 16 number one hits in the 1990s. The Spices delivered a slinky ballad with Too Much, while the Thats gave us Pray, an efficient ballad, plus Never Forget, their iconic stadium singalong. Never Forget, or Nev Forge as I like to call it, is the dictionary definition of a pop music banger. But none of these shall proceed in this competition, which is unashamedly biased towards electronic music.

A final four

The final four tracks in this selection are notable in different ways. Let's stroke their bleeps one by one.

Scandi candy-poppers Aqua surprised us with Turn Back Time, displaying a melancholic maturity hiding behind their plastic pink prattling. This is a bit of a banger, certainly compared to their previous nonsense, and part of the verse reminds me of Heart by the Pet Shop Boys.

After fooling everyone into thinking religion was sexy, Madonna transformed her identity with Frozen. Electronic music producer William Orbit cast a real, er, ray of light on this stage of Madge's career. I love the idea of Madonna listening to Orbit's Strange Cargo albums and thinking, "yeah, I'm gonna work with this guy".

Everyone got their trance pants in a twist when ATB knocked Vengaboys off the number one spot. ATB chose 9pm as his time after a long day in the studio. In all fairness, that is a late finish, and the local Spar probably shuts at 8, so he can't even get a cheeky Pot Noodle on the way home. Both this and the Madonna record would have won this week. Except for...

All hail Rockman Rock and King Boy D, otherwise known as the KLF, furthermore known as the JAMs. The career of the KLF sounds like a random plot generator gone rogue. Timelords, success manual, stadium house, extreme noise, cash combustion, ice cream van, rambling helpline, Stonehenge destruction, machine gun and ambient sheep. At the pinnacle of all of that is 3am Eternal. Everything that pop music should be about. If you don't believe me, look up their eccentric hooded Top of the Pops performance.

Because the selection was so strong, let's pick two of these tracks to go through to the final of this 1990s chart battle. The KLF are the kings of heavyweight jams, so they go through. As does Madonna and her chilly tune.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one

Ultimate 90s number one: Fat Roland says uh-oh

All is woe. My 1990s number one countdown has gone horribly wrong. I flew too close to the blogging sun, and my feathery quill has burst into flames.

Let me explain.

I am judging every UK number one single of the 1990s to find the most banging and, crucially, the most bleepy chart-topper of the decade. All was going well. Fatboy Slim scored a big fat success, and Enigma chanted their way to victory.

I loaded up my third batch of contenders... and this is where things fell apart. Let's go through this latest list one by one, and you'll see what I mean.

The contenders

B*Witched: Rollercoaster  |  Charles & Eddie: Would I Lie to You?  |  Christina Aguilera: Genie in a Bottle  |  Gary Barlow: Love Won't Wait  |  George Michael: Fastlove  |  Gina G: Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit  |  Iron Maiden: Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter  |  KWS: Please Don't Go  |  Pato Banton featuring Ali and Robin Campbell: Baby Come Back  |  Teletubbies: Teletubbies say Eh-oh!

Not so bewitched

Let's start with B*Witched, the double-denimed Dubliners. Rollercoaster is an insipid Marks & Spencer's Sunday shop of room-temperature pop that clearly got ejected by every act on earth before the B-star crew said "ah well, we'll give it a go".  At least the Charles & Eddie track has some songwriting oomph about itself, although if that guy squeaks "oh year" one more time, I'm going to weep.

What is Christina Aguilera waffling on about? Genies don't come in bottles. Absolute tosh. Let's skip past Gary Barlow. He was meant to be the songwriting talent in Take That, yet his solo career was so unmemorable, I've already forgotten-- oh look, a pony. Where was I? Oh yes. George Michael's Faslove is one of his better tunes, made even better by using the same Forget Me Nots inspiration as Men In Black. But none of this twiddles my tassel.

Music for babies

That Gina G song did pretty well in the Eurovision Song Contest, but let's be honest: it's a babyish tune for babies who suck at being babies. It makes the Vengaboys look like Rachmaninov. Next on the list is Iron Maiden, whose New Year 1991 chart-topper came as a surprise to everyone. A wonderfully stupid and bombastic triumph, but nothing that can be considered as a bleepy track.

This list is in alphabetical order by artist, but I really think it's trolling me. KWS's cover of KC and the Sunshine Band's Please Don't Go is one of the most soulless singles ever. It stayed at number one for a month, preventing SL2, Shut Up And Dance and Kris Kross from topping the charts. I think it may be evil.

Cheesy mediocrity

I thought I had reached rock bottom, but next comes the cheesy reggae mediocrity of Baby Come Back, with Pato Banton having any potential credibility beiged out by the UB40 guys. And then there's the Teletubbies. Four overgrown cuddly toys, who have their stomachs ripped out and replaced with televisions, talk absolute gibberish while a burning, decapitated baby's head laughs at a sentient hoover. No. Thank. You.

That's it. That's the list. Not a single song to recommend. Complete waste of time. Let's hope the next batch throws up something better.

More of the Ultimate 90s number one