Ray of Light and Teardrop both entering the top 10 :wub:

 

 

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...hat-way__33112/

 

Backstreet Boys' first UK Number 1 was a long time in the making. Released this week in May 1999, the track was the US boyband's trailer for their third album and followed a string of hits (seven, to be exact) that, while popular, didn't quite have the muscle to take them all the way to the top.

 

The spell was finally broken with I Want It That Way, which soared to the top of the Official Singles Chart selling just shy of 94,000 copies - finishing 33,000 ahead of their closest competitor, Irish boyband Westlife with their debut single Swear It Again, which had been Number 1 the previous week. Beyond the UK, it hit the top spot in more than 25 countries.

 

IWITW was produced by Max Martin, who had been working with the band since their 1996 self-titled debut. The track was presented to the group during a two-week recording session in Max's native Stockholm and was completed in a speedy two days.

 

While the band knew they were on to a hit, their label Jive weren't as convinced, and were keen to lead their new album with Larger Than Life, which continued the failsafe formula of their previous hits. IWITW was a mature, mid-tempo ballad (its acoustic intro was apparently inspired by Nothing Else Matters by Metallica) with lyrics that ultimately made no sense. Who would want to listen to that? Millions, as it turned out.

 

IWITW went on to sell 423,000 copies by the end of 1999, finishing as the UK's 35th best-selling single that year. It's total UK chart sales to date stand at 1.38 million, including 100 million streams since 2014. The song's parent album Millennium spawned a further three Top 10 hits, but IWITW was to be their only Number 1, making it their signature hit in the UK (though it's a close battle with Backstreet's Back).

Elsewhere in the Top 40 that week, British trio 911 completed an all-boyband Top 3 with their cover of Private Number (the group's final Top 10 before calling it a day later that year), and Stereophonics landed a Top 5 hit with Pick A Part That's New at Number 4.

 

Further down, Bryan Adams scored his tenth Top 10 with Cloud Number 9, and British girl group Fierce narrowly missed out on a Top 10 debut with Dayz Like That.

I loved 911's cover of Private Number, and Fierce really deserved a top ten with Dayz Like That, definitely their best single!

The 'Millennium' album by Backstreet Boys was released 17 May 1999, entering and peaking at number 2 on sales of 59,000 (outsold by Abba - Gold at number 1 with 70,000 sales). In the US the album entered at number 1 on a weekly sale of 1,133,500 (including a first day sale of 500,000) and ended the year in the US as the best selling album with sales to the end of December 1999 of 9,445,732

Edited May 13, 20214 yr by Robbie

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...-little__22990/

 

With years of keen TV talent show viewing behind us, we know only too well that very often, the runners-up can go on to have a more successful career.

 

Back in 2002, however, not being picked as the winner was seen as the kiss of death. When Popstars finalists Kelli, Michelle, Tony, Kevin, and Jessica weren't selected to be in the handpicked pop group Hear'Say, it was supposed to be all over for them.

 

They didn't give up, however, and came together to form Liberty, and all was going pretty well as they went Top 5 with debut hit Thinking It Over, until yet another setback – the name Liberty was already taken by a different band.

 

The dream appeared to be over, until the plucky quintet whacked an X on the end of their bandname, donned some of the tightest PVC ever seen on the face of the Earth, and released an instant pop classic.

 

Just A Little was fortunate to come when edgier pop was beginning to dominate: Sugababes had just scored a huge comeback Number 1 with Freak Like Me, and Holly Valance had scored a smash with the quirky Kiss Kiss, and the public were looking for songs that had, well, just a little bit more…

 

First-week sales were huge, with 153,000 copies flying off the shelves, and finishing as 2002's ninth best-selling single. To date, Just A Little has 638,000 UK chart sales, including 9.9 million streams since record began in 2014.

Elsewhere in the Top 40 that week, Enrique Iglesias was new at Number 3 with Escape, the follow-up to his huge chart-topper Hero, and Fat Joe and Ashanti's R&B smash What's Luv? was new at Number 4.

 

Elsewhere in the Top 10, P!nk's Don't Let Me Get Me was new at 6, while trance outfit Milk Inc were in at 9 with In My Eyes. Boy band A1 landed just outside at 11 with what would be their final single Make It Good, and Eurovision hopeful Jessica Garlick – herself a graduate of TV talent show Pop Idol – was at 13 with Come Back.

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/n...ay-night__9343/

 

Long before she was whizzing around the universe as Doctor Who's Rose Tyler or going off the rails on I Hate Suzie, Billie Piper was a bona fide, chart-topping popstar – and a record holder to boot.

 

Back in 1998, when she was 15, Billie Piper – then calling herself just Billie, like Madonna or Cher – became the youngest act to debut at Number 1 with her 'Mum and Dad just don’t understand' anthem Because We Want To.

 

Two years later, the surname was back and Billie was showing off her new grown-up attitude with Day & Night, a certified banger that had the same no-nonsense style of her earlier hits but with a tougher edge. Billie's new aesthetic positioned her as the UK's answer to Britney Spears, with global hitmakers Stargate enlisted to produce Day & Night and its parent album Walk Of Life.

 

Her third Number 1, Day & Night went straight in at the top of the Official Singles Chart this week in 2000, deposing Madison Avenue’s sass-filled dance hit Don’t Call Me Baby, selling 104,208 copies in its first week.

 

Billie’s pop career was brief but packed with successes. In just over two years she scored three Number 1s, and six of her seven singles went Top 5. View Billie's Official Chart history in full here.

 

The pressures of fame were, as Billie shared in a recent interview, a lot for a teenager to deal with, and after two albums she decided enough was enough and it was time to do something else. She released two more singles after Day & Night, while a fourth single from second album Walk of Life – a cover of Blondie’s Number 1 The Tide is High – was canned, leaving the way open for Atomic Kitten to top the charts with a very similar version of it in 2002.

 

Day & Night was Number 1 for just a week, before being toppled by Sonique’s chart behemoth It Feels So Good. To date, the track has notched up 281,000 UK chart sales, including 2 million streams since 2014.

Elsewhere on the Official Singles Chart that week, London garage duo DJ Luck & MC Neat landed their second Top 10 Masterblaster 2000, following their breakthrough hit A Little Bit Of Luck, at Number 5, and Dutch dance outfit Southside Spinners scored their first and only UK hit with Luvstruck, entering at Number 9 following its use on comedy film Kevin & Perry Go Large.

oh why did they cancel that Billie cover of The tide is high! It could have been huge

the article is right, the Atomic Kitten cover was identical

oh why did they cancel that Billie cover of The tide is high! It could have been huge

the article is right, the Atomic Kitten cover was identical

 

Very similar indeed production wise. They did at least add that new 'every time that I get the feeling' middle eight and it just overall was a bit more polished, but Billie certainly would have scored an easy top five with it if she'd released it after Something Deep Inside.

 

Walk Of Life didn't really work as a single, was too sudden a change in direction after six very pop/R&B singles to suddenly release a guitar strumming mid-tempo like that. I think she just alienated her audience in one single.

^sad but true cos Walk of Life is easily her best single ever :o

Yeah it was a really good song, and very mature, but I guess there was no audience for it as it wasn’t for her young pop fans and she wasn’t established in the adult MOR market at all. I doubt Radio 2 playlisted it, although I could be wrong, and that’s where it should have been aimed at.

DJ Luck & MC Neat are another act whose signature song (A Little Bit Of Luck, #9) wasn't their highest charting (or even their second highest as their third single reached #8).

 

When people talk about the charts being better 20 years ago when it was faster moving, I think about songs like Luvstruck making the Top 10 out of seemingly nowhere every week. The variety may have been greater then, but there was a lot of forgettable stuff that got high in the charts too.

'Luvstruck' is an absolute tuune, but yes sadly is probably one of the most forgotten top 10 hits of that year (top 40 run: 9-14-23-37-x), although the song actually dates from 1998 (UK release 1999) and did nothing then so it was lucky at all to have got used in that film to give it a re-release.

The charts were better 20 years ago. They suited my tastes better

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...-softly__29948/

 

Looking back at 1996, you'd perhaps expect the all-conquering Spice Girls to claim the year's best-selling single with their debut Wannabe - but there was one song that proved even more popular that year.

 

The Fugees' Killing Me Softly was a runaway hit in 1996 and, after five weeks at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart, narrowly finished as the UK's top seller of the year with 1.17m sales (compared to 1.16m for Wannabe).

 

The hip-hop trio formed in South Orange, New Jersey in 1992, consisting of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel. They originally named themselves Refugee Camp but had trimmed the name down by the time they released their 1994 debut album, Blunted On Reality. The record was well received and had moderate sales - enough to build considerable anticipation around their second record, The Score.

 

The album's first single, Fu-Gee-La, reached Number 21 in April, but it was the follow-up, Killing Me Softly, that sent them stratospheric. In fact, the track was so popular with the British public that the group's label Sony Music had to fly in extra stock from The Netherlands to meet demand, after shifting 484,000 copies in its first three weeks.

 

Killing Me Softly spent the first of five non-consecutive weeks at Number 1 on June 2, replacing Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner & Lightning Seeds. The track topped the charts in most countries, except their US homeland, where it peaked at Number 2. In 1997 it won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

 

The Fugees' stripped-down adaptation of Killing Me Softly - led by Lauryn's golden, emotionally-raw voice - was based on Roberta Flack's version of the track, itself a huge hit in 1973. The track also added a sample from A Tribe Called Quest's 1990 album track Bonita Applebum - which in itself originated from 1967's Memory Band by Chicago psychedelic soul group Rotary Connection.

 

Prior to The Fugees' version, Killing Me Softly had been covered by several big names, including The Jackson 5, Carole King and Luther Vandross. The original version was written and released by Lori Lieberman in 1972, though it failed to chart.

 

However, it's The Fugees' cover that is the best-selling, with 1.38 million pure sales (1.84m when streaming equivalent sales are factored in), placing it as the UK's 46th best-selling single of all time.

The group swiftly followed Killing Me Softly with another chart-topper - Ready Or Not hit the top spot three months later. Two more hits, No Woman No Cry and Rumble In The Jungle, followed shortly after, before the group disbanded to venture into solo projects.

 

Elsewhere on the Official Singles Chart that week, Louise landed her biggest solo hit to date with Naked, new at Number 5, and Swiss-Italian producer Robert Miles landed his second UK Top 10 with Fable at Number 7.

 

Further down, there were new entries from Tina Turna's On Silent Wings (13), British band Space scored a second Top 40 hit with Female Of The Species (15), and actor/singer Darren Day landed his first and only Top 40 hit with Summer Holiday (17).

 

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...na-know__33316/

 

One of the standouts of the early 2000s wave of chart-dominating R&B jams came from US singer Mario Winans, who took the Number 1 spot on the Official Singles Chart this week in 2004 with I Don't Wanna Know.

 

The track is a forlorn tale of coping with infidelity with an extra haunting edge thanks to a sample of Fugee's 1996 chart-topper Ready Or Not, which itself sampled Enya's 1987 track Boadicea, for which she re-recorded vocals for the single.

 

Also on guest feature duties is P. Diddy, who was launching Mario after recently signing him to his now-legendary BadBoy Records label.

 

I Don't Wanna Know spent two weeks at Number 1, selling 109,000 copies during its time at the top. It finished as 2004's 11th best-selling single - its total UK chart sales stand at 346,000, including 2.4 million streams since 2014.

Three months later, just as the song had exited the Top 40, an 'answer version' was released by The Pirates featuring Enya, Shola Ama, Naila Boss and Ishani, peaking at Number 8.

 

The reply track followed the recent call-and-response singles from Eamon's F**k It (I Don't Want You Back) and Frankee's F.U.R.B (f*** You Right Back), both of which topped the charts in the weeks before Mario's stint at the summit.

 

Elsewhere in the Top 40 that week, Peter Andre was on the comeback trail following his stint on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! earlier that year. After his 1995 hit Mysterious Girl re-entered hit Number 1 for the first time in March, his brand-new follow-up Insania landed at Number 3.

 

Dance outfit Faithless scored their seventh and most recent Top 10 with Mass Destruction at Number 7, as did hip-hop legends Beastie Boys with Ch-Check It Out, new at Number 8.

 

Further down, there were new entries for US band Hoobastank with The Reason (12), Emma Bunton's cover of Crickets Sing For Anamaria (15), and Evanescence's fourth Top 40 hit Everybody's Fool (24).

I love the pirates reply track. A great listen in its own right unlike F.U.R.B. Which I find unlistenable now.

The song most remembered from the 2004 new entries for me would be Hoobstank for me!

I love the pirates reply track. A great listen in its own right unlike F.U.R.B. Which I find unlistenable now.

 

It's fair to say F.U.R.B. as well as the song it's replying to should have never even existed.

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...aneater__19407/

 

Comebacks. Who doesn't love them? The very best ones are those that seemingly come from nowhere, with a new look, new attitude and a new sound.

 

One artist who unquestionably nailed it was Nelly Furtado. Well-known for her folky style, thanks to huge hit I’m Like A Bird, Nelly surprised everyone when, in summer 2006, she hooked up in the studio with R&B master producer Timbaland for her album Loose.

 

Its lead single in the UK, Maneater, was an industrial, synthy stomper that confidently strutted its way to Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart 15 years ago this week.

 

Charting at Number 8 on downloads alone in its first week – chart rules at the time meant songs could only chart a week before physical release – Maneater went on to knock I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker by webcast extraordinaire Sandi Thom off the top spot. It spent three weeks at Number 1, shifting 126,000 copies during its spell at the top.

 

Maneater kicked off a run of four Top 10 hits from Loose – Promiscuous ft. Timbaland himself (3), All Good Things (Come To An End) (4) and Say It Right (10). She then followed up that cracking quartet with another chart-topper, featuring on Timbaland’s Give It To Me with Justin Timberlake in April 2007 - all in the space of 10 months.

 

Maneater's total UK chart sales to date stand at 796,000, including 37.8 million streams since 2014. Nelly’s biggest single was actually never a Number 1 – her 2008 collaboration with James Morrison, Broken Strings, is the big one, on 1.34 million.

MORE: Nelly Furtado's Official Chart history in full

Nelly was ruling the roost this week in 2006, but what about the rest of the Top 10? The country was caught up in World Cup fever at the time, and with it came a flurry of cash-in singles. British rockers Embrace zoomed in at Number 3 with World At Your Feet, Tony Christie's (Is This The Way To) The World Cup (yes, really) was at Number 8, and a 10th anniversary re-release of 3 Lions by Baddiel, Skinner and Lightning Seeds claimed 10th place.

 

Even Crazy Frog had released his own footie anthem called We Are The Champions (Ding A Dang Dong), at Number 11 that week, and a collective known as the Tondef Allstars were new at 13 with Who Do You Think Your Are Kidding Jürgen Klinsmann?.

 

Further down, Mariah Carey scored her Xth Top 40 hit with Say Somethin' ft. Snoop Dogg at 27, Sugababes landed at 32 with their ballad Follow Me Home, and Blue member Duncan James released his second of three solo singles Sooner Or Later, at 35.

 

@1407956677979168769

 

@1410644458065047557

 

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/3...-single__33536/

 

On 7th July 1991, Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You climbed to Number 1 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart. And there it stayed. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, through sunshine and rain, Bryan Adams' emotional power ballad reigned over the UK charts for four straight months.

 

The song, which was written in just 45 minutes especially for the iconic Kevin Costner-starring Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, is one of the most successful singles in UK chart history.

 

To mark the occasion, here are five chart facts about Bryan Adams’ unforgettable record-breaking single.

 

It's the longest consecutive run at Number 1. Ever.

With 16 consecutive weeks at the summit, Everything I Do… scored the longest ever run at Number 1 in UK chart history, a record which still hasn’t been bettered.

 

Just one song has more total weeks at Number 1: Frankie Laine’s I Believe, which enjoyed 18 weeks at the top across three different stints. Only a handful of acts have come close to Bryan’s consecutive performance.

 

In 2018 Canadian rapper and singer Drake managed 15 weeks on the trot with One Dance ft. Wizkid and Kyla, and Wet Wet Wet, who in 1991 spent 15 straight weeks at Number 1 with Love Is All Around, until they literally stopped production of the song to give everyone a break.

 

It's one of the UK’s best-selling songs of all time

Everything I Do… is the UK’s 15th best-selling single of all time, with over 1.87 million paid-for sales to date including 340,000 on digital download. Even in 2021, nine people have picked up a physical copy of the song!

 

It’s still extremely popular thirty years on, thanks to streaming

Although a solid number of the UK population may once have owned a physical copy of the single, there’s still an appetite for the track. To date it's clocked up over 55 million streams in the UK since chart records began – including 10 million in the first six months of 2021 alone.

 

Biggest selling single of 1991

Unsurprisingly, the track was the best-seller of 1991 earning 1.43 million sales that year alone. It even outsold the second biggest – Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (which was re-released following Freddie Mercury’s death) – by more than twice as many copies in that year. Read more about the biggest songs of 1991 here.

 

It was eventually knocked from Number 1 by…

U2! Bono and co buzzed into a Number 1 debut with The Fly on 27 October 1991, ending Everything I Do…’s 16-week reign at the top.

 

And in case you were wondering, Bryan toppled Jason Donovan’s Any Dream Will Do to claim the top spot in the first place, which enjoyed a slightly more 'normal' two weeks at Number 1 in the lead-up.

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/w...ndscape__10051/

 

“So here’s the story from A to Zee, you wanna get with me you gotta listen carefully…”

 

There was nothing else quite like Wannabe on the radio back in summer 1996. There was lots of dance music, there was plenty of guitar rock, a few boybands here and there, no shortage of R&B, a smattering of rap, and even a bit of reggae thanks to Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl. But what was missing? Pop! Enthusiastic, unashamed, gutsy pop, and with an all-girl band behind it. This was something new.

 

Sure pop wasn’t dead, but you could argue its definition as a genre had become confused over time. And then the Spice Girls came along. Their nicknames would come later, thanks to Top Of The Pops magazine, but for the moment, the women known as Victoria, Melanie B, Melanie C, Emma and Geri were about to change the pop landscape in just three minutes.

 

Debut single Wannabe was a breathless, energetic romp through rules on friendship, romance and, of course, in that middle-eight rap, the kind of chat you might see on a Twitter bio. Imagine: @easyV – doesn’t come for free, she’s a real lay-deeeee.

 

Penned by the girls in conjunction with Biff Stannard and Matt Rowe, Wannabe was a wonderful introduction to the spirited fivesome who would enjoy unprecedented, relentless chart success all over the world in less than two years.

 

The story with Wannabe goes that Victoria Adams (as was) had to miss the writing session and so gave her feedback over the phone, something she's always regretted. The track was done and dusted in about half an hour, but the record company thought it could do with some more work and sent it off to the US to be mixed as an R&B track, then the hot sound for pop. In what would become a common theme throughout their career, the girls rebelled, and mixing duties went to Spike Stent, who’d worked with Madonna.

 

Wannabe was a hit all over the world, but it was very nearly never their debut single at all. Label bosses and their manager Simon Fuller reckoned another song was the perfect launch single (conflicting reports say it was Say You'll Be There or Love Thing) but the girls disagreed and Mel B and Geri – a formidable duo at the best of times – led another coup that saw Wannabe finally released.

 

Helped by a fantastic, one-take video – in which Emma appears to steal a hat from a homeless man – set on what was then the unused chambers of the hotel in London's St Pancras station, Wannabe went in at Number 3 on its first week on sale. It then deposed Take That star Gary Barlow the following week, sending his debut solo hit Forever Love flying, and remained at the top for seven straight weeks. See the chart the week Wannabe climbed to Number 1 here.

 

During its tenure at the summit of the Official Singles Chart, Wannabe sold over 879,000 copies – 148,000 in its third week at the top alone – and kept some big names off Number 1. Robbie Williams’ debut solo hit Freedom had to settle for second place, as did Los Del Rio’s holiday hit La Macarena, 3T with uncle Michael Jackson and Geri’s future BFF George Michael, with Spinning The Wheel.

 

It was the summer of Spice and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.

 

The rest, as they say, is history. Music channels couldn’t get enough of the video, and the girls went on the promo trail in a big way. In the UK, they scored their very first TV appearance on Surprise Surprise. You can see here that even though the girls don't seem polished, the images they would eventually carve out for themselves were already well on their way to completion.

 

Prepare yourself for some iconic footage here (skip to about 3:00 in if cheesy hosts and surprised, mortified teenagers are not your thing.

 

Wannabe has sold 1.4 million (excluding streams), would take the BRIT for Best British Single, and bagged an Ivor Novello Award too. Their debut album Spice went on to be a massive seller worldwide and there’d even be another million-selling single to come in 2 Become 1.

 

But this week in 1996, it really did feel like friendship would never end.

I love the pirates reply track. A great listen in its own right unlike F.U.R.B. Which I find unlistenable now.

 

I also LOVE the reply track You Should Really Know!

 

 

Wannabe keeping Robbie's awful Freedom cover and the pitiful music of Michael Jackson's nephews from the top spot was justice! I do love Spinning The Wheel though, hugely underrated George Michael track, would have made a great #1 imo.

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/o...he-said__21667/

 

Perhaps the biggest pop phenomenon and marketing masterstroke since the Spice Girls' peak in the mid-nineties, t.A.T.u. had the press eating out of their hands when they launched their pop career in 2003 with the global smash All the Things She Said.

 

Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova were not your average popstars. The fact they were from Russia was unusual enough for an act getting to Number 1 in the UK; but they had plenty of other tricks up their sleeves to make sure you never forgot them.

 

For a start, they were pretty fond of dressing up in school uniforms, which perhaps would struggle to pass the ick factor in 2018 and their gimmick – which they said wasn't a gimmick – was that they were prone to snogging each other, usually only when a camera was pointed at them, of course. Despite many popstars of the day, and indeed now, were gay or bisexual, very open expressions of same-sex love and rejections of heterosexual norms were quite rare, so the duo understandably attracted a lot of attention.

 

But a gimmick is nothing without a decent tune, and luckily there was much more to t.A.T.u than locking lips. All The Things She Said was an unforgettable monster hit, shifting 90,000 copies during its first week at the top.

 

The track, which enjoyed a month-long run at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart, has 764,000 combined sales to its name; 19,000 of those from 2022 so far.

t.A.T.u's dominance was short-lived in the UK, but they did manage to land two more Top 10 singles before the marketing schtick unravelled and things fizzled out in 2006. Look back at all t.A.T.u's full UK chart history here.

 

Still, t.A.T.u.'s success that week was at the expense of former *NSYNC star Justin Timberlake and Cry Me a River, his second single as a solo artist – which had to settle for Number 2 that week.

 

Elsewhere in the Top 40 15 years ago this week, Fame Academy winner David Sneddon was pushed down to 8 with his debut single Stop Living The Lie, and US rapper and actor Cam'Ron scored what was to be his highest charting single in the UK with Hey Ma at 8.

 

Further down, there were also new entries from Good Charlotte (13), Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton (16), Who Da Funk featuring Terra Deva (32) and MTV Making the Band winners O-Town (36).