40. A1 - Take On Me

Score: 4/10

Reason: I have a soft spot for A1, they were very much a B-tier boyband and it obviously required something either special or uninspired to get them a No.1 single after a few middling top ten hits from their debut album. The answer was something uninspired, but with a special video, that was inspired by The Matrix and cost some obscene amount to make. It looked great at the time but not as good now. The song was kind of lost in the noise here and it was was a cover of A-Ha's 80s classic Take On Me, basically sung note for note but with a vocoder thrown in and some refreshed Y2K style pop production. It's fine, not awful, but pointless and just annoying it got to the top when the original didn't. Thankfully it had a halo effect with another (original) No.1 later in the year...

Edited Friday at 13:123 days by gooddelta

8 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

39. A1 - Take On Me

Score: 4/10

Reason: I have a soft spot for A1, they were very much a B-tier boyband and it obviously required something either special or uninspired to get them a No.1 single after a few middling top ten hits from their debut album. The answer was something uninspired, but with a special video, that was inspired by The Matrix and cost some obscene amount to make. It looked great at the time but not as good now. The song was kind of lost in the noise here and it was was a cover of A-Ha's 80s classic Take On Me, basically sung note for note but with a vocoder thrown in and some refreshed Y2K style pop production. It's fine, not awful, but pointless and just annoying it got to the top when the original didn't. Thankfully it had a halo effect with another (original) No.1 later in the year...

I'd rank this last. This was Victoria's no.1!!!! She would have walked ir that week.

Must admit I was quite addicted to Take On Me at the time, and it was one of my biggest grievances that year when it failed to make Now 47, but then again none of their hits made the Now series anyway. Despite being quite young at the time of its release, at 14, I was still aware of and familiar with the original, though I wasn't entirely sure who it was by at the time, so I adopted this one as my preferred choice for many years. Then I grew up. 😆

1 hour ago, gooddelta said:

The inspiration from this thread comes from @awardinary who suggested I do a No.1s rank after I mentioned my personal chart started 26 years ago to the day (topped by Jewel's low top 40 smash Down So Long), and also @Big Fat Sue whose UK Eurovision rank we hope to see continue soon!

It eull continue hopefully today! I don't have much time rn and losing s doible post draft hurt, but I'll continue today/ v soon.

Sctually no, Westshite songs out first then A1!!! Dreadful dreadful karaoke band.

The original 'Take On Me' is genius but not keen on A1's cover. How sacrilegious that it out peaked a-ha even if a good quiz question

I was too young to remember that y2k style music video at the time but it does not look so futuristic now haha

Was number 40 missed or am I being blind?

13 minutes ago, Big Fat Sue said:

I'd rank this last. This was Victoria's no.1!!!! She would have walked ir that week.

It really should have been saved for this week!

12 minutes ago, awardinary said:

Must admit I was quite addicted to Take On Me at the time, and it was one of my biggest grievances that year when it failed to make Now 47, but then again none of their hits made the Now series anyway. Despite being quite young at the time of its release, at 14, I was still aware of and familiar with the original, though I wasn't entirely sure who it was by at the time, so I adopted this one as my preferred choice for many years. Then I grew up. 😆

Oh yes, it did appear on Hits instead didn't it. That Volume 2 Fresh Hits one.

3 minutes ago, Jessie Where said:

Was number 40 missed or am I being blind?

Good spot - just me failing to count properly! Have edited the post, A1 was No.40.

39. Westlife - My Love

Rank: 4/10

Reason: It's the Record of the Year! If ITV's Westlife love-in competition that pitted 10 big songs from the year in a Eurovision style format against each other would have you believe. I'm not a boyband hater, but the boyband chart toppers of 2000 were, mostly, not good, when compared to the likes of Keep On Movin' and I Want It That Way the year before. My Love saw Westlife quickly back with a new album and treading even further down the MOR path established with that Christmas double a-side with a song that Daniel O'Donnell and Cliff Richard would be proud of. A typically soaring chorus with a key change, this would be the seventh and final consecutive chart topper from debut for Westlife - their eighth single, What Makes A Man, would be stopped by a certain handyman still to show up.

I really like Take on Me by A1 as well.

God, I like a lot of songs that everyone else thinks are pants!!! 😂

And... Take On Me is not that cover! Although it is undeniably bad but at least source of a classic pub quiz question.

My Love is complete wallpaper fodder. That Record Of The Year show was pretty hilarious looking back at some of the results each year!

More Westlife then, though I think I really did enjoy that single at the time. Though it is much the same as everything else at the time from them, it does go down as a decent #1. Hits 2001 gave me access at the time.

38. Bob The Builder - Can We Fix It?

Score: 4.5/10

Reason: The easy targets are starting to move out of the way and I have to get rid of stuff I don't have any dislike towards. I think this is a bit of a cult favourite in some parts, not least because it managed to stop Westlife's reign of terror (for the record I didn't mind What Makes A Man at all but it was funny to see this beat it). I was just a touch too old for this I think at 13 to either watch the show at the time, or for it to really hold any nostalgic appeal to me now, which is responsible for pushing up a few other questionable songs. It's a catchy theme tune made into a longer song that works well as a singalong, but not one I would listen to out of choice. Although the full radio version isn't on Spotify anyway, so over to Now 48 it is.

I was never a fan of the show either and didn't care for this particular novelty song, preferred the Mambo No 5 one.

I remember on a cold winter evening, whilst on holiday at Center Parcs, teenage me and my friends went to the outdoor swimming pool, and there were water rapids, and we did a medley of the Bob The Builder song all the way down from the top to the bottom of the rapids with twists, bumps and turns all along the way, but it was memorable even if it got us some looks!

A1 and Westlife - garbage

Bob is the best out so far: one of the best children’s TV themes and worked as a single

I only really like 'World of Our Own', 'When You're Looking Like That' and 'Hello My Love' (maybe 'If I Let You Go' on the right day) from "that band". Everything else to me is utter rot.

They were such a stain on popular music it's unreal.

37. Geri Halliwell - Bag It Up

Score: 5/10

Reason: I can't claim to be a massive fan of Geri's solo music - despite Spice Girls clearly being far worse off without her and needing her je ne sais quoi. Mi Chico Latino was a pleasant summery tune and that's about as far as I go in terms of actively playing her solo records. Bag It Up was bold, brash and tacky and came complete with a memorable BRITs performance, a world away from the reserved Geri we know today. But while the track has some fun and memorable lyrics and some brassy production that's kind of similar but much worse than Who Do You Think You Are, for me this was not a great single and there were far better songs of a similar style this year, e.g. Coffee by Supersister, that had much less success (but in some quarters are ultimately just as remembered now).

Oh yes, I never noticed the similarities to Who Do You Think You Are with this single until reading your post there. It is clearly very similar indeed.

36. Black Legend - You See The Trouble With Me

Score: 5.5/10

Reason: This was everywhere at the time, and quite a good idea for a dance song, using a bassline that would be used again by Mad'House on their Like A Prayer cover. This cover by Italian act Black Legend was supposed to sample the original by Barry White, but they couldn't get permission so an admittedly convincing soundalike vocal was recorded by a member of the band. Apparently White said, on refusing the sample: "When I heard the Black Legend song, I thought it was going nowhere. It was cheap and had no soul". For me, that hits the nail on the head a bit - it wasn't their fault but to me it ended up coming across as a karaoke soundalike of something that could have been better. Nice bassline, and not a bad version, but not really a favourite for me at the time or now.

I remember actively disliking that song years ago but I quite enjoy it for what it's worth nowadays.