13TH JULY

 

 

It suffers a 26% hit in sales but The Fugees “Killing Me Softly” becomes the 23rd track in history to return to the No 1 position. Sales of 98,000 push its cumulative figure to over 900,000 and should become a million seller in the next fortnight. Outgoing chart topper “3 Lions” drops 1-3 (73,000) but it becomes the first track to return to No 1 then be disposed by the same record as it did first time around since Elvis Presley’s “Lily The Pink” in 1969. It does however bring to an end a run of 6 weeks where the No 1 sold in excess of 100,000- the first such continuous streak since 1984!

 

 

 

Recording since 1987 on and off Karl Hyde and Rick Smith record under the name Underworld and now with new member Darren Emerson they started to register minor hits since 1993 with this year’s “Pearl’s Girl” giving them a breakthrough making No 24. However last year they released a single called “Born Slippy” which petered out at No 52 but one of the additional tracks on the CD was called “Born Slippy Nuxx” which was a substantially different song to the similarly named title track. It was lifted from relative obscurity and appears on the soundtrack to “Trainspotting” film which has given the song mass exposure and results in a No 2 debut this week on a sale of 91,000. Though close it is unlikely to make No 1 seeing as one of the most anticipated singles of the year is out this week.

 

 

 

After 1993’s “Real” album Belinda Carlisle took a break to promote a new Go-Go’s compilation with some live dates, duties done she returned to the studio and now gives us her sixth solo album “A Woman And A Man”. Lead single “In Too Deep” comes from the pen of Rick Nowels and was originally an Australian single For Jenny Morris last year but is virtually unknown outside that country. It becomes her 6th top 10 hit as it debuts at No 6 (32,000) ending a 6 year wait- how uncanny!

 

 

 

Another female solo act making a comeback this week is Toni Braxton, it’s been two years since her debut solo album and biggest hit “Breathe Again” but her new single “You’re Makin’ Me High/ Let It Flow” gives her a second top 10 single instantly marking its debut at No 7 (30,000). It is also standing at No 2 in the US charts behind 2Pac and was written by Babyface, no stranger to big hits himself. The promo incidentally features her real life beau Bryce Wilson who co-wrote, co-produced, and stars in the promo.

 

 

 

It was only back in April that the Lisa Marie Experience scored a No 7 hit with a remix of Musique’s “Keep On Jumpin’” and we now get another version this time featuring an original member of Musique- Jocelyn Brown. She’s not on her own as she’s joined by former Weather Girls singer Martha Wash and of course a superstar DJ in the form of Todd Terry who takes the main credit, it can’t quite replicate the chart position of the LME version by coming in at No 8 (28,000).

 

 

 

More Britpop from Sleeper who maintain their solid chart history with another top 10 single from “The It Girl” album. “Nice Guy Eddie” equals their best ever showing (currently held by “Sale Of The Century”) by being new at No 10 (23,000).

 

 

Peter Andre finally falls out of the top 3 moving 3-4 (51,000) and hats off to Celine Dion who has now spent an entire month at No 5 (38,000), and predictably Livin Joy drop just a place 8-9 (26,000).

 

This week sees the release of Gary Barlow’s debut solo debut- surely it’s not a question of if it will be No 1 but by how much??

 

 

1- KILLING ME SOFTLY- The Fugees (98,000)

2- BORN SLIPPY- Underworld (91,000)

3- THREE LIONS- Skinner/ Baddiel/ Lightning Seeds (73,000)

4- MYSTERIOUS GIRL- Peter Andre (51,000)

5- BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME- Celine Dion (38,000)

6- IN TOO DEEP- Belinda Carlise (32,000)

7- YOU’RE MAKIN ME HIGH- Toni Braxton (30,000)

8- KEEP ON JUMPIN- Todd Terry Ft Martha Wash & Joceyln Brown (28,000)

9- DON’T STOP MOVIN- Livin Joy (26,000)

10- NICE GUY EDDIE- Sleeper (23,000)

 

And we're all caught up ready for Friday.

Born Slippy :wub: utter classic obviously!

Born Slippy is one of the defining tracks of the 90s imo, definitely classic status. Didn’t realise it had sold that well in week one, a shame it didn’t quite manage to bag number one.

 

Really love that Sleeper single too, it has that sort of working class storytelling style that Pulp had been so successful with. All of the singles from the It Girl album were good

Really love that Sleeper single too, it has that sort of working class storytelling style that Pulp had been so successful with. All of the singles from the It Girl album were good

It's one of my favourite 90s albums :wub:

Next week also had the debut of a song that had been playing constantly on the Box for about 6 weeks….

Concur with 'Always Be My Baby' being one of Mariah's best songs. It was very close to Peter Andre at #2 though - had it got there, 'Mysterious Girl' would have spent 6 consecutive weeks at #3, a chart feat which has still never happened!

 

I knew 'Killing Me Softly' had huge sales, although I didn't realise it was so close behind 'Three Lions' on the week it first returned to #1, and then only beat 'Born Slippy' by a small margin the following week - the latter is an era-defining classic, although it took me a few weeks for me to really love it as I do now :wub: (I hadn't seen Trainspotting at that point, but the film was a huge deal for my age group for well over a year).

Born Slippy is one of the defining tracks of the 90s imo, definitely classic status. Didn’t realise it had sold that well in week one, a shame it didn’t quite manage to bag number one.

 

 

I was quite surprised when it didn't make number 1 that week. There was so much hype about it and it seemed like a landmark release.

Born Slippy is an epic espeically the intro.

 

That Tony Braxton song is nowhere near as good as her best known song, but quite good still, I know it from the MIST sample a few years ago.

Edited September 22, 2024Sep 22 by TheSnake

Such a shame Born Slippy couldn't quite make it to #1. :(

Born Slippy is a classic of classics, only 7K away from #1!!!

 

also love Ash-Oh Yeah, their 2 top 10s in 96, this and Goldfinger were incredible and easily their peak

Bought that album 1977 and that was great too

 

Kula Shaker, I always thought the lead guy was too obnoxious. Sometimes you can overlook that if the music is great ie Morrissey but here the music was also very pastiche, not that far from what Oasis were doing copycating blatantly from past songs but Kula Shaker took it too far.

20TH JULY

 

 

No surprises this week as Gary Barlow opens his solo chart career with a No 1 single, “Forever Love” is self penned and produced and clearly meant to position Barlow as the next George Michael, indeed it was Michael who became the first act to entirely write, perform, and produce a No 1 single (“A Different Corner”) so it’s rather appropriate. “Forever Love” sold 109,000 copies last week to easily dethrone The Fugees (1-2, 85,000), the latter track becomes 1996’s second million seller- just! With Robbie Williams’ first solo single out in a fortnight could Barlow hold on to challenge Robbie- that would be a real media war!

 

 

 

Have you heard of The Spice Girls? This fivesome have been trumpeted in the press as the next big thing and finally justify it with debut single “Wannabe” debuting at No 3 (73,000). It was championed from the off by the music channel “The Box” who gave the group valuable exposure, the promo was shot at the Midland hotel in St Pancras and features just one edit.

 

 

 

Terrorvision’s third single from “Regular Urban Survivors” makes a bigger splash than their last single “Celebrity Hit List” (No 20) and saunters into the top 10 at the bottom slot with sales of 24,000. “Bad Actress” thusly becomes the second top 10 single of their career helped by former hits “Middleman” and “Oblivion”.

 

 

Underworld slip 2-4 (68,000) and Peter Andre continues his slow decline 4-5 (49,000). You can tell the Euro 96 dream is over as Skinner/ Baddiel/ Lightning Seeds fall 3-6 (32,000) and even Celine Dion feels the chill this week as she eases 5-7 (31,000), Livin Joy rebound 9-8 (30,000) and Toni Braxton relaxes 7-9 (27,000).

 

 

1- FOREVER LOVE- Gary Barlow (109,000)

2- KILLING ME SOFTLY- The Fugees (85,000)

3- WANNABE- Spice Girls (73,000)

4- BORN SLIPPY- Underworld (68,000)

5- MYSTERIOUS GIRL- Peter Andre (49,000)

6- THREE LIONS- Skinner/ Baddiel/ Lightning Seeds (32,000)

7- BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME- Celine Dion (31,000)

8- DON’T STOP MOVIN- Livin Joy (30,000)

9- YOU’RE MAKIN ME HIGH- Toni Braxton (27,000)

10- BAD ACTRESS- Terrorvision (24,000)

 

27TH JULY

 

 

Well here’s a turn up for the books- accepted wisdom was that Gary Barlow would remain at No 1 until the new Robbie Williams single turned up, but that didn’t take into account the power of “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls. It accelerates 3-1 this week to become Britain’s new best seller on a sale of 108,000 and gets the girls careers off to a perfect start. They are the first all girl group to make No 1 since the Bangles back in 1989 and the very first all British girl group to do the trick.

 

 

The scale of its achievement is helped by the fact that Barlow’s single doesn’t really seem to be taking off outside the core audience of Take That Fans, saleswise it retracted by 39% last week to just 65,000 as it falls 1-3, being outsold by a static Fugees at No 2 (67,000). Whilst Barlow's single is not the first song to enter at No 1 then fall the following week, it is the first to fall out of the top 2 in the second week!

 

Completing the top 5 are the ever resourceful Peter Andre who is back up 5-4 (46,000) selling his 500,000th copy in the process, and Underworld who swap places 4-5 (44,000). Andre has lost sales every week despite moving 2-3-3-4-5-4 proving that sometimes chart positions aren’t everything.

 

 

“Return Of The Mack” rebounds slightly 60-56 on the chart this week as it approaches the 800,000 mark but Mark Morrison is striking whilst the iron is hot. New single “Crazy” is a remixed version of the song that gave him his chart berth last year when it made No 19 but is an instant bigger hit on release debuting at No 6 (38,000) coincidentally exactly the same position that Mack debuted at…..

 

 

 

Back in the charts thanks in the main to a remix by Dex & Jonesey Josh Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness” which is new at No 7 (36,000) improving one place on its 1995 peak. Credited just to Wink now it has rapidly turned into something of a dance classic.

 

 

 

The song of the summer? Well you could do worse than bet on Los Del Rio’s “Macarena”. It first appeared back in 1993 and became a hit in many Spanish speaking countries during the next two years, it got a revamp with English lyrics added by US DJs Bayside Boys (including a Yazoo sample of Moyet's laughter on "Situation") and released here earlier this year when it made No 64 then left the charts quickly. It also has a rival version by Los Del Mar which has been a hit in some countries including the UK where it retreats 43-55 this week and looks like it will miss the Top 40 now. The Los Del Rio original powered 74-11 a fortnight ago thanks to a full re-issue and use on TV: AM, the power of demand created by returning holidaymakers who had been exposed to the track on the dancefloors of Europe it seems. That move of 63 places created chart history incidentally as the biggest jump within the top 75 chart ever beating the 62 climb of Nick Berry in 1986 and the 61 place climb of the Firm in 1987 (the last time a song climbed 60+ places in a week within the top 75) and both of those songs went onto make No 1 -could history repeat?. Well it makes a smaller move this week 11-8 (31,000) but expect it to climb still, it also rests at No 4 in the US.

 

 

Livin Joy fall back 8-9 (28,000), the track has spent 7 weeks in the top 10 without getting higher than No 5 and has sales totalling 233,000 to date- an impressive feat. Skinner/ Baddiel/ Lightning Seeds complete the top flight by falling 6-10 (25,000), its total sales so far of 660,000 make it the biggest football associated record ever.

 

 

1- WANNABE- The Spice Girls (108,000)

2- KILLING ME SOFTLY- The Fugees (67,000)

3- FOREVER LOVE- Gary Barlow (65,000)

4- MYSTERIOUS GIRL- Peter Andre (46,000)

5- BORN SLIPPY- Underworld (44,000)

6- CRAZY- Mark Morrison (38,000)

7- HIGHER STATE OF CONCIOUSNESS 96 REMIX- Wink (36,000)

8- MACARENA- Los Del Rio (31,000)

9- DON’T STOP MOVIN- Livin Joy (28,000)

10- THREE LIONS- Skinner/ Baddiel/ Lightning Seeds (25,000)

 

The Barlow song isn’t remembered much at all, just pent up demand for a big debut!

 

Didn’t realise ‘Wannabee’ was a climber to the top spot 😮

Not much to say about Wannabe that hasn't been mentioned already, but the bassline keyboard riff maybe inspired by tracks like Tinman - Eighteen Strings from 1994?! The rest of the production is very poppy.

 

Macarena, the most popular Spanish song ever and a song I remember lots from kids' discos as a child!

 

The Josh Wink song is great, its style of riff seemed to influence later dance tracks like Public Domain, Scooter, the Fatboy Slim/Birdyman/Calvin song and even Ne-Yo's "Beautiful Monster"!

 

Finally, loving the Livin Joy longevity.

Edited September 27, 2024Sep 27 by TheSnake

A pivotal week for the future of pop music. Spice Girls (and a nod to Gina G earlier in the year) in my mind really paved the way for the return of brighter more colourful pop that would explode until about 2000, with a peak in 1998/9.

 

The Gary Barlow song is a real bore though and a pure fanbase chart topper. A weak solo debut, shame he didn’t launch with Open Road which is a genuinely good single.

Two huge 90s hits arriving now in 'Wannabe' and 'Macarena' *.* the Spice Girls had better to come for me but they certainly nailed a memorable debut, unlike that Gary Barlow song indeed.

that Gary Barlow debut song is terrible, a song cannot get more boring

 

the Macerena song and Wannabe are also terrible but at least they're iconic. I still can do the Macarena dance routine :D

 

always liked the Terrorvision single and even bought the album

Yeh agree with GD this feels like the end of the peak Brit pop era and the start of the cheesy pop era. After stuff like Firestarter and Don’t Look Back in Anger over the past year we move into less edgy stuff!

'Wannabe' was a brilliant, bold debut single - it'll always be their best song for me I'm afraid!

 

'Higher State Of Consciousness' is another highlight, this remix was a definite improvement on the previous year's #8 hit version.