EDIT: 'Emotion' by Destiny's Child should have gone here, but I didn't remember until a few days later. You'll find it on page six by clicking here.

 

1st December: WHO DO YOU LOVE NOW (STRINGER) - Riva feat. Dannii Minogue

 

That's more like it. Future X Factor judge here with not just her best single but one of the best things to come from either Minogue sister ever, a slice of trance brilliance that gave Dannii her longest ever run on the charts, surviving the Christmas rush and staying there into early 2002. The mysterious 'Riva' were in fact two Dutch DJs who'd had a hit way back in 1993 as the Goodmen with 'Give It Up', and even earlier in 2001 as Chocolate Puma and 'I Wanna Be U' (later to be sampled on Nigel & Marvin's 'Follow Da Leader' next year). As the subtitle suggests, it started out as the instrumental 'Stringer' before Dannii's vocals were added to make it a chart hit. Yeah sure there's better tracks around but it was great to see Dannii return with something so great and it to get a chart peak it deserved.

 

Edited June 18, 201312 yr by BillyH

8th December: RESURRECTION - PPK :wub:

 

HOWEVER. As great as Riva's track is we have to look at this last #3 of the year to really get something legendary. This Russian trance track was available for free on that new fangled 'internet' for over a year on a website called mp3.com, a free filesharing service shut down in 2003 and relaunched as the more commercial site available today. Such a gimmick today would make a full paying release almost pointless, but as surprising as it seems now there were were still millions yet to join the online revolution - even here in December 2001, less than 50% of the UK population were connected, a far cry from today when almost everyone who isn't on either extreme of the age spectrum (very young/very old) has some sort of online device.

 

So on official release it hit the top 3 and sold well through that Christmas. I wonder also if mobile phones helped towards this track's success, particularly ringtones...here in 2001 most of us had tinny, one-note monophonic sounds squeaking out our Nokias, and a song with as simple a melody as this (see also Alice Deejay's 'Better Off Alone') seems made for them. Haunting, uplifting, melancholic and pounding, again it's got everything I love to make a dance track truly an anthem.

 

The video makes its online origins clear with a CGI tour through virtual cyberspace!

 

And that - at last - is 2001! Definitely starting to hear a bit more of a noughties sound now, particularly as we reach the end of the year and the shock breakup of Steps that Boxing Day. Although many manufactured acts had called it a day through 2001 (All Saints and Five to name two of the biggest), it was the Steps breakup that really signalled that this era of pop was rapidly coming to an end. Through 2002, managers like Simon Fuller would desperately try and breathe new life into things with acts like the S Club Juniors, although while they very briefly worked they ended up having a equally limited shelf life. That carefree, bubblegum sound of the late 90s simply wasn't cutting it in the new decade anymore, and in order for pop to evolve it had to grow up.

 

I'll start with the first few from 2002 tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a game for you to play. What #3 hits over the next twelve months contained these lyrics?

 

"Come-come on come on! Come-come on-on! I'm comin', I'm comin', I'm comin', I'm comin'"

 

"You look hot like Jamaica, I'll strip off your underwear cos I'm the undertaker"

 

"It’s Dion! I bet you won’t forget my name. I probably maybe gonna get inside your brain"

 

"I drop a pencil on the floor. She bends down and shows me more"

 

"The time has come to kick it. Can we kick it? Yes we can!"

 

All that plus an incredible two Madonna covers (plus the lady herself) to come over the year!

"I drop a pencil on the floor. She bends down and shows me more"

:wub:! 2002 also has one of my favourite J-Lo singles if I'm not mistaken... (EDIT: I checked and not only was actually a #2, it peaked there in 2003! There's still another of my J-Lo faves at #3 in 2002 though I think...)

 

Some great songs in that last section - "What Would You Do?" and "Fallin'" namely. The latter is absolutely gorgeous! By far one of my favourite Alicia singles, possibly just second behind "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart". I'd completely forgotten about "What Would You Do?" until I heard Bastille's cover, which is pretty genius.

Edited June 13, 201312 yr by THEO.

Who Do You Love Now is about as perfect as a song can be

26th January 2002 - AM TO PM - Christina Milian

 

What happened to Christina Milian?! At first glance seemingly yet another generic teenage star hoping to follow in Britney/other Christina's footsteps, the songs she released stood out from the crowd and were pretty well-crafted pop tracks. Glancing at Wikipedia it seems the answers are both marriage and motherhood, which is a fair enough reason, but here we see her with her first solo release and the beginning of a run of three top 3 hits for her. Funnily enough despite coming from New Jersey, it would be another two years before her first really massive US hit, these first few releases only doing well in Europe and this in comparison charting at a fairly minor #27 on the Hot 100.

 

It's definitely the least commercial sounding of her first three singles, much more of an R&B track than a pop song. It's also the least melodic and for me is probably the weakest, but the electro riffs that run throughout are pretty cool sounding. She'd go on to release better but this is a fun start. It also won't be the last we'll see her hitting the #3 spot...

 

23rd February: POINT OF VIEW - DB Boulevard

 

We've just missed out looking at 'Starlight' by the Supermen Lovers, a #2 hit never off TV or radio through late 2001. This was its early 2002 equivalent, a fairly chilled style of dance music not usually my thing (much more the Resurrection-style bangers for me) but this is really in a class of its own, beautiful vocals from Italian singer 'Moony' aka Italian vocalist Monica Bragato, and the whole thing just works to a charm. Particularly love the "All the colours of the world, so beautiful" breakdown in the middle, a great song to groove to or just blast out on a warm day. Moony appeared once more in the charts with 'Dove (I'll Be Loving You)' reaching #9 later that year.

 

2nd March: IN YOUR EYES - Kylie Minogue

 

Look, I don't care how uncool it is, I love Kylie and she was one of the first live acts I ever saw so there :P It's fair to say that at this point in her career she was on absolute fire. Although the likes of 'Spinning Around' and 'On A Night Like This' had given her two of her biggest hits in years in 2000, it was 2001's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' that removed any shadow of doubt as to whether she was really back to megastardom, comfortably sailing past a million copies and would be the last song to sell that much without the boost of either a charity or reality TV show until the end of the decade, I think 'Sex on Fire' being the next to be released but 'I Gotta Feeling' passing the milestone first.

 

Any song following up CGYOOMH was always going to have it tricky, indeed it took seven months before the time was right to release single 2 from the Fever album. While maybe not quite as good as the first, nor her brilliant follow-up to this 'Love At First Sight' which is one of my all-time Kylie faves, it continues the modern electropop sound that's done so well for her since the start of the millennium and tis an excellent listen. Maybe could do without the constant knowing references to the world, ha ha, "spinning around" - it's one of your old songs, we get it - but, as with everything she releases, it's glorious. Could have been a hit at any point during the decade, although maybe that says something about how similar-sounding her songs are...

 

27th April: THERE GOES THE FEAR - Doves :wub:

 

Yes, really. Probably one of the most obscure #3s we'll get, this very leftfield, highly uncommercial almost seven-minute psychadelic indie track genuinely was at one point the third biggest seller of the week back in April 2002. Why? Well, admittedly they did use a bit of a marketing ploy that today would never work - the single was released and deleted on the same day, meaning once all the copies had been purchased you'd never be able to buy it again, at least until their album 'The Last Broadcast' was released, erm, two weeks later. It sold a not too shabby 41,000 that week and the chart run was therefore 3-34-70-OUT, surely one of the quickest ever descents from that high to out the top 75.

 

I only discovered this song during a bit of a bleak period in my life early last year, in my final year of university and struggling with exams and studying and all sorts of your usual studenty stuff. You don't quite get at the time that what'll follow in the Real World will be harder still and every day I waited for the summer to arrive and my three years to be over so I could get on with actually living again. The constant wet weather didn't help matters, so boy did I find this song at the right time. Far too unknown than it should be it's probably one of my favourite songs of the entire decade. Rarely does something so effortlessly take you on a journey and back, transporting you to a mythical far-off paradise existing only in your imagination. Every second is heartbreaking yet also somewhat stunningly soul-enchanting simultaneously, its chugging rhythm perfect for train journeys and watching the world go by at multiple miles an hour. Six minutes and fifty four seconds of pure beauty.

 

So while I have absolutely no memories from 2002 for this whatsoever, one play and I'm back in the first part of 2012, sneaking an extra listen before I write that extra few hundred words needed and thinking about what the future could possibly hold. Gloriously trippy visuals in the video too. Brb while I listen to it again some more (and again, and again...)

 

18th May: DJ - H & Claire

 

So yes, Boxing Day 2001, I'm at my Grandma's house for Christmas and the moment I read the newspaper front page to find that Steps have split up. Had it been 1999 I'd have been heartbroken, during my late primary school years I utterly adored them to the point where I'd record their videos off The Box and play them half-speed until I'd memorised the dance routines. Now, though, I was thirteen, and slowly but surely getting used to this whole 'teenager' thing. I was discovering girls, my hair was growing longer and everything from my childhood was slowly but surely slipping away. The Saturday morning show 'Live & Kicking' had breathed its last in the November, ending with a performance from (of all bands) Steps, and as my favourite childhood programmes and musical heroes disappeared one by one it became slightly easier to leave it all behind and enter my adolescent phase.

 

I'll never quite understand how H & Claire came about. Both we would later find out were the two who caused the bands split, announcing it to the group an hour before they went on stage for what seemed the last time. H I can understand would have jumped at the chance of carrying on, always seeming to enjoy the stardom that being a pop A-lister brought. Claire, on the other hand, hated it. Could it possibly be an over-eager H convincing an unwilling Claire to give it another go, this time without the other three and continuing to conquer the charts together? After all, Steps had split at the top of their game with a massive-selling Greatest Hits, so surely the time was still right?

 

Whatever the reasons, it very very briefly worked. This was the first of three top 10 hits they would release through 2002, and to be fair they're not actually that bad, showing little progression but almost like the Steps album that never was. This takes the often imitated, never bettered riff from groundbreaking 1977 #1 'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer and turns it into a catchy bit of early noughties pop fun, not an anthem but could have easily given the full group a hit had the split not happen. Christmas release 'All Out Of Love' is even more Steps-like to the point where you could be fooled as to thinking it's one of their b-sides circa 1999, and is probably my favourite of all their releases. It wasn't to last, the album sold poorly and with Claire busy planning her wedding the project dissolved. We wouldn't see either of them in the charts again until a new Greatest Hits (promoted with a quite brilliant "reunion" programme on Living) was a shock #1 in 2011. I saw them all live last year. Not ashamed to say it, they were awesome. Happy, AlexRange? :P

 

"There Goes The Fear" :wub: One of my favourite songs of all-time!

Just four again today but I'll try and have a double set again tomorrow!

 

25th May: ESCAPE - Enrique Iglesias

 

Back in the old days of the internet there was a brilliant and quite inspirational website called 'Poptastic!', where this guy reviewed all these music charts from the 80s up to present day, similar to what I'm doing now. The site is no longer online, but I remember it was this year that he completely fell out of love with chart music after finding it a struggle since the start of the decade and basically stopped updating it. The main reasons? One was the Will Young/Gareth Gates dominance, and the other was this guy's previous single, the very ubiguitous 'Hero'. Not to be confused with the one later sung by the X Factor finalists, this may have been a pleasant ballad at one point but quickly became a bit of a joke in the same way Westlife's 'You Raise Me Up' and Coldplay's 'Fix You' did a few years later, so overused on television/film/radio/every broadcast medium going that no one really takes it seriously anymore. Sing "I can beee your hero baayybee!" to your boyfriend/girlfriend in an Enrique Iglesias voice and rather than be romanced they'll just laugh in your face. Not that I've ever tried.

 

Enough people bought this follow-up for it to become his third top 5 hit, and at least this time he's gone a bit more upbeat. Not really calling myself an Enrique fan, it doesn't really do anything for me and feels like an album filler rather than a genuine hit single. Think it might have benefitted from lots of people buying the CD not even having heard it but liking Hero, as it's just too bland a pop song to be a true smash.

 

1st June: IT'S OK! - Atomic Kitten

 

Their exclamation mark, not mine. Here's the pop trio in their post-Kerry Katona phase and midway through their commercial peak, sorted for life thanks to 'Whole Again' smashing all in its path early in 2001 and scoring another #1 soon after with a cover of 'Eternal Flame' by the Bangles. Another chart-topping cover was to come later this year with a reworked 'The Tide is High', and they'd remain pretty huge through 2003 before an awkward fizzle-out occurred as they split up, then didn't, then did again and so on through the 2000s with few really noticing or caring. Only in recent times has their latest reformation actually had a bit of attention thanks to ITV2's The Big Reunion, with Kerry back despite not actually being part of the group for half of their life.

 

This for once isn't a cover and sees them trying an original song out for the first time since Whole Again. It's, er...well yeah, what the title says really. 'Ok' in the strictly adjective sense of adequate, acceptable etc. Seems to have sold a pretty remarkable amount of copies both here and indeed worldwide, but then Atomic Kitten really were absolute pop megastars at the time so I'm not surprised. Again it's nice but just a bit of a non-event, they released much better than this and I much prefer Whole Again or their Tide is High cover to listen to.

 

My favourite quote from the song's meticulously researched Wikipedia article: "The video is famous for the girl's wearing bikinis and other sexy clothing". Curiously worded but pretty accurate...

 

8th June: WE'RE ON THE BALL - Ant & Dec

 

Ant & Dec?! Say what? Long after their days as PJ & Duncan, by now Ant & Dec had just began their Saturday night celebrities era having hosted the first series of Pop Idol. At the same time this was released, so did a programme called 'Saturday Night Takeaway' begin which they host to this day, with I'm A Celebrity being just around the corner. Having not released any songs since 1997, they made a brief return to front this official England song of the 2002 Football World Cup held in Japan and South Korea. I remember it pretty vividly as an unusual one due to the time difference meaning football matches were held in the daytime here instead of your usual evening slots, so me and my family watched England's historic Argentina victory before heading down to the local Wetherspoons only to barely squeeze in the place due to a massive crowd of rowdy celebrating fans. Other memories include my Dad carrying round a radio with him one morning, desperately trying to follow the progress of the Spain v Republic of Ireland game (Dad's Irish - they lost on penalties), and, of course, England's defeat to Brazil, one of the few England defeats I can remember in recent times not involving a penalty shootout.

 

This is a rewritten version of an old 70s song for Arsenal, and until 'Let's Get Ready to Rhumble' re-entered at #1 earlier this year was the duo's biggest ever single in this country. Presumably there were hopes that it would follow the likes of 'World in Motion', 'Vindaloo' and particularly 'Three Lions' as all-time anthems. Didn't quite happen and this isn't really remembered as much as they are today, perhaps as almost every lyric places it thoroughly in 2002 with constant mentions of Sven-Goran Erikkson and almost the entire England squad at the time (many of which, ridiculously, were still on the squad in 2010, hence our infamously terrible performance that year). Also, gotta say it, they sound bored as hell in this, like someone's forced them to do it while they're trying to rehearse a Takeaway episode or something, which is a shame as producer Mike Hedges has absolutely gone to town with a pretty brilliant bouncy instrumental backing which doesn't quite fit their I'm-reading-from-a-script delivery in the verses, although it perks up a little in the choruses. And the "It's Neville to Campbell, Campbell to Rio" etc rollcall in the final minute or so is weirdly but somewhat gloriously catchy. So maybe not quite the anthem they were hoping but a very entertaining listen and a great snapshot of 2002 nostalgia. Roll on 2014 when, I dunno, One Direction or someone have a go...

 

22nd June: GET OVER YOU/MOVE THIS MOUNTAIN - Sophie Ellis Bextor

 

Double A-side time again for another act huge in the early noughties pop scene, starting as vocalist on Spiller's 'Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)' in 2000 and hitting solo stardom soon after, Christmas 2001's 'Murder on the Dancefloor' probably her most well-remembered hit. To be honest her voice always annoyed me a bit and so I was never a huge fan, although I did adore 'Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer' in 2009, her collaboration with the Freemasons that deserved way higher than a #13 spot.

 

'Get Over You' was the main track of this twosome, confusingly not available on her 'Read My Lips' album until a re-issue around this time added it in. To my surprise it's really quite brilliant, haven't heard it in years and years but that "You drive me crazy up the wall, goodbye Mr-Know-It-All" chorus hook brings it back and I'm enjoying much more age 24 than I did age 13. It doesn't break any boundaries but what it does give us is simply a great pop song, overshadowed by MOTD's huge dominance but it's excellent to rediscover it. 'Move This Mountain' is the much more leftfield (and critically acclaimed) of the two and goes for a bit of a 90s trip-hop vibe. Although at the time it might have seemed a bit out of touch for 2002 given that Massive Attack had been doing this kind of stuff for a decade, now it's probably dated the least out of the two and could may well be a hit today, unlike Get Over You which, as brill as it is, is very much stuck in the early noughties soundwise. Might have to relisten to some more Sophie Ellis Bextor now as I never realised she was this good...

 

 

If One Direction do the World Cup single next year I might cry.

It's OK and Get Over You are amazing!

29th June: WHEN YOU LOOK AT ME - Christina Milian

 

So yeah, AM to PM was ok. This, though, is awesome. Just a simple pop track but from those first few "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo" seconds you are well and truly hooked and this a wonderful little gem, which, like many of these #3s we've encountered, is far too forgotten today. I really do hope that in maybe five to ten years there's somewhat of a noughties revival and these songs either rechart or get covered by more contemporary stars.

 

There's nothing really much else to say about it, it's just one of those songs that lurk happily in the back of your head without ever being hugely remembered but enough to cause a smile whenever they're heard. Christina returned two years later with the ace 'Dip It Low', her biggest hit peaking at #2 and perhaps her most remembered - and best - of all her songs today.

 

6th July: WHEREVER YOU WILL GO - The Calling

 

Can you believe that at one point I would have genuinely called this "forgotten"? That was back in 2008, when a now gone CD shop in Battersea had an expansive ground floor with hundreds upon hundreds of singles for an insane 10p(!) each, a place I once spent all afternoon in trying to find some hidden treasures. Included was an almost complete collection of dance label NuLife releases, from obscure hits to basically all of Ian Van Dahl's discography which I snapped up, about three shelves of unsold copies of Elton John's 'Candle In The Wind 97' which have probably long made their way to landfills...and several copies of this Calling song, one of the best 10ps I've ever spent for an excellent track. But then I did like it in 2002 too, and a few years ago I really was wondering how something so great hadn't quite become the radio staple it deserved. The lead singer's voice is a bit silly and verges on slight self-parody occasionally, but it's blessed with an absolute killer chorus and is just a fab bit of rock balladry.

 

Then, of course, came 2011. And Charlene Soraia, who's cover that also reached #3 removes the silliness and grandly-delivered vocals for something much more reserved and softer. And, I think, loses something a little. The original's "YEAHHH WHEREVER YOU WILL GO WOOO", Charlene's is "Erm...if you want me to, that is". It does though mean the song is presented in such a different style that they both work in their own right, so if you want to get lost in a guitar-crunching powerhouse then The Calling have you covered but if you just want to sit in your warm home with some tea and biscuits then Charlene's got just the version for you. No longer then a "forgotten" song, for me The Calling's original remains the best.

 

13th July: I'M GONNA BE ALRIGHT (TRACK MASTERS REMIX) - Jennifer Lopez

 

2002 saw J-Lo in her 'remix' phase, releasing an album called 'J to tha L-O!' featuring new interpretations of tracks from her earlier albums. This one takes an album track from the previous year and adds a sample from Luniz's 'I Got 5 On It' over the top, which reached the same position as this back in early 1996. It also, controversially, had its rap break replaced just before its single release, replacing the original (some obscure guy called 50 Cent) with the much more popular and widely known Nas, much to 50 Cent's anger. The result is a song that's ok, but only really for the presence of that sample and if I want to hear it in all its glory I'll just listen to I Got 5 On It instead. Compared to all the brilliant stuff she released in 2001, it's a comparative disappointment.

 

As for what happened to 50 Cent, well, keep reading this thread...