25 Years Since....July 1993

25 years ago I was enjoying my summer holidays from school. Here is what I was enjoying music wise:

Utah Saints - I Want You

Looking through the chart archives I'm quite surprised to see I'm still to reach the point in 1993 when I wouldn't listen to anything that wasn't Rock or Metal. It was certainly my music of choice, but I was evidently still enjoying Dance music as well.

That said, listening to this tune retrospectively it has the same sort of sound the likes of the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers adopted in the mid 90s which appealed to both Rockers and Ravers.

This was the fourth and final hit from their debut album which surprisingly had only come out the previous month and it had been almost 2 years since the first single from that album had been released. We would have to wait until 2000 for their second and most recent album at time of writing to be released.

Levellers - Belaruse

A popular band amongst many people at school by the summer of 1993 was the Levellers. Several people had their "Levelling the Land" album which came out in 1991 and was doing the round on many Walkman's at the time. In fact we had a school trip to Alton Towers at the end of term and someone got the bus driver to play the tape.

This was their new song from their yet to be released album and their was a lot of excitement about new Levellers music, particularly as their last album was 2 years prior which was a lifetime in those days.

The Levellers eventually fell victim to mine and other peoples Rock and Metal only policy a few months later, they were simply considered to be too soft particularly with them having a fiddle player in the band. But for that brief period of time before this I thought this song was great.

Urban Cookie Collective - The Key The Secret

For some reason I remember this tune coming out earlier than the summer of 1993. I remember first hearing this on the Chart Show one Saturday afternoon and it seemed like the perfect tune for what I felt like listening to at that moment in time. Maybe I'd overdone it on the Rock music and needed something different.

This is one of those rare tunes that fits into the Eurodance music that was happening at the time but still seemed like a credible House record.

The vocalist on this and the other Urban Cookie Collective hits was the late Diane Charlemagne who would become a well known vocalist in the Drum & Bass scene singing for Goldie and High Contrast amongst others.

Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain

This was the UK Top 40 debut of Cypress Hill and it just sounded bizarre at the time, mainly down to the contrasting rapping styles of B Real and Sen Dog.

I was also a big fan of swearing in music at the time and had assumed this was exclusive to Rock and Metal music, but this taught me that Rap could be sweary too. I guess my knowledge of Rap music was very limited at the time.

Although a Rap group, Cypress Hill were held in high regard by the Rock crowd particularly as some of their later material had an element of Rock music in it.

Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

Soul Asylum were one of those groups who weren't exactly Grunge music but had benefited from the rise of Grunge Music. This could be partly to do with their lead singer looking a bit like Kurt Cobain.

Although this was their UK chart debut, they were already on their sixth album by the time this came out. This tune probably divided opinion more than any other tune around that time, some said it was too soft but I liked it.

I pretty much forgot about Soul Asylum after this tune until 1995 when I watched them playing Glastonbury on TV. What sticks out from that performance is a tune called "Eyes of a Child" which like this is quite a mellow and profound song but a million times better.

New Chart Rules

At the beginning of July the rules changed yet again for the UK Singles Chart. Without going into too much detail, mainly because of the complexity of them, the most notable changes are YouTube views now count and a stream from a free user is down weighted more than a stream from a premium user.

The singles chart has been seen by many as meaningless for many years now and these latest rules certainly don't do them many favours, but we shouldn't forget than we've always had to take the charts with a pinch of salt.

On new years eve 1999 Radio 1 (I think) were doing their countdown of the best songs of the millennium. At number 3 was "Angels" by Robbie Williams, number 2 was "Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack and number 1 was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. All three songs had something notable in common, none of them managed to get to number one. In fact "Unfinished Sympathy" never even made the top ten.

Take a band like the Doors, a band with many well known songs but perhaps their best known song "Light My Fire" failed to reach the Top 40 in the 60s. It did reach the top ten when rereleased in 1991, but their only other hits we "Hello I Love You" which made number 15 and "Riders on the Storm" which made 22.

I could list a few hugely successful bands which have a poor singles chart record. The reality is from a personal perspective I have never bought any singles from many of my favourite acts, partly because I had the albums.

Price was also a factor even with singles. If you could buy two singles at £2.99 each or one single at £5.99, what would you do? and yes I did see some CD singles costing that much several years ago.

Obviously times have changed and there isn't a perfect way to measure the charts. Using YouTube though is quite baffling really. A few years ago I went through a phase of listening to new entries in the charts I didn't know on YouTube. Most of them were crap, but under the latest rules they would count towards the chart. In fact my Top of the Pops posts would also contribute to the charts.

It's the down weighting of streams though that I find really stupid. We are trying to measure the popularity of a song, so why should a song be deemed less popular just because most of it's fan base are free users. It could mean that the most streamed song of the week isn't even in the Top 40 if it's predominantly streamed by free users.

Now we're a month into these new rules, how has this effected the charts so far? Well the number one record at the time of writing is Drake, that pretty much says it all.

Top of the Pops: 26/07/2018

What's this all about?

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 11
⬆ (17) Juice Wrld - Lucid Dreams
⬆ (9) Tiesto ft Dzeko & Preme & Post Malone - Jackie Chan
⬆ (8) 5 Seconds of Summer - Youngblood
⬆ (7) Maroon 5 ft Cardi B - Girls Like You
⬆ (6) Jonas Blue ft Jack & Jack - Rise
New (4) Ariana Grande - God Is A Woman
New (30) Childish Gambino - Summertime Magic
New (34) Martin Garrix ft Khalid - Ocean
⬆ (1) Drake - In My Feelings

Missing Out
⬆ (29) Dennis Lloyd - Nevermind
⬆ (25) Dappy ft Ay Em - Oh My

Record of the Year 2002: Dilated Peoples - Worst Comes To Worst

Those of you who regularly read this blog will know that I like my dance music and that during the mid to late 90s I listened to nothing but dance music. However whilst there were some genuinely good dance records in the charts in 2002, a lot of it was becoming a joke with cheesy trance rip offs of 80s tunes etc.

In 2002 the genre I was mainly listening to was Rap, so appropriately I've picked a Rap record for my 2002 record of the year.

This was the debut UK Top 40 hit for Dilated Peoples, but they weren't a new act by any means. They formed in 1992 and had their breakthrough album "The Platform" in 2000 which I owned by this point.

This tune came from the follow up album "Expansion Team" and featured Guru from Gang Starr. This was different from most of Rap music in the charts this year and it was good to hear something which sounded like it was from the underground rather than rappers showing off how much money they'd now got which was the case in many Rap records in the charts.

They would have one further Top 40 hit with "This Way" but have remained relevant in the Hip Hop community ever since. I saw them in concert around four years ago and they were excellent, definitely worth going to see if you haven't already.

UK Singles Chart: 2002

Joining the 30+ UK Top 40 hits club this year was Bon Jovi:

	Artist	No of Hits	New Hits
1	Cliff Richard	116	Let Me Be The One
2	Elvis Presley	104	A Little Less Conversation
3	Elton John	63	This Train Don't Stop There Anymore, Original Sin, Your Song, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
4	David Bowie	57	Everyone Says Hi
5	Madonna	54	Die Another Day
6	Status Quo	51	Jam Side Down
7	Queen	49
8	Michael Jackson	47
9	Rod Stewart	45
10	Paul McCartney	43
11	Diana Ross	42
12	Rolling Stones	40	Don't Stop
13	Stevie Wonder	39
14	Prince	38
=	UB40	38
16	Depeche Mode	36
17	Pet Shop Boys	35	Home And Dry, I Get Along
18	Tom Jones	34	Tom Jones International
=	Janet Jackson	34	Feel It Boy
=	Kylie Minogue	34	In Your Eyes, Love At First Sight, Come Into My World
21	Frank Sinatra	33
22	Shakin Stevens	32
23	Roy Orbison	31
=	Bee Gees	31
=	U2	31	Electrical Storm
=	Whitney Houston	31	Whatchulookinat
27	Lonnie Donegan	30
=	Beatles	30
=	Bon Jovi	30	Everyday, Misunderstood

After jointly holding first place for most number ones with the Beatles for 25 years, Elvis solely takes first place with his 18th number one:

	Artist	No of #1s	New #1s
1	Elvis Presley	18	A Little Less Conversation
2	Beatles	17
3	Cliff Richard	14
4	Westlife	11	World Of Our Own, Unbreakable
5	Madonna	10
6	Abba	9
=	Spice Girls	9
8	Rolling Stones	8
=	Take That	8
10	George Michael	7
=	Michael Jackson	7
=	Oasis	7	The Hindu Times
13	Slade	6
=	Rod Stewart	6
=	Boyzone	6
=	Blondie	6
=	Queen	6
=	Kylie Minogue	6

Madonna remains the act to hold the most consecutive years of hits:

	Artist	Hits Every Year Since
1	Madonna	1989
2	Mariah Carey	1990
3	Mary J Blige	1993
4	R Kelly	1994
5	Backstreet Boys	1996
=	Robbie Williams	1996
=	Super Furry Animals	1996

The story of 2002 begins with a new TV show which began towards the end of 2001, Pop Idol. The series ended in February 2002 and the winner was Will Young who was also the most successful act chart wise of 2002 with three number ones with "Anything Is Possible/Evergreen", "Light My Fire" and "The Long And Winding Road / Suspicious Minds" plus a number two with "Don't Let Me Down / You And I".

The third number one from Will Young featured Pop Idol runner up Gareth Gates who also had a hugely successfully year. He also had number ones with "Unchained Melody" and "Anyone Of Us (Stupid Mistake)" plus a number five with "What My Heart Wants To Say".

It wasn't just Will Young and Gareth Gates from Pop Idol to enjoy chart success this year. Darius had a number one with "Colourblind" and a number five with "Rushes". There were also hits for Rosie Ribbons with "Blink", Rik Waller with "I Will Always Love You" and "Something Inside (So Strong)", Sarah Whatmore with "When I Lost You" and Jessica Garlick with "Come Back" which was also the UK Eurovision entry.

Westlife were still the leading boyband of 2002 with two number ones plus a number five with "Bop Bop Baby". It was also a successful year for Blue who had a number one alongside Elton John with "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" plus top ten hits "Fly By II" and "One Love".

It was the end of the chart career of A1 who started the year with the number two "Caught in the Middle" but failed to reach the top ten with their final hit "Make It Good". It was also the end for N Sync who's final hit "Girlfriend" was their biggest hit reaching number two. Also ending their chart careers were Lyte Funkie Ones with "Every Other Time", Reel with "You Take Me Away" and BBMak with "Out Of My Heart" whilst Backstreet Boys went on hiatus, with their final hit prior to this being "Drowning".

The hiatus of Backstreet Boys and N Sync brought us the start of the solo careers for one member of each group. Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys had his only hit with "Help Me" which made number 17. More successful was Justin Timberlake from N Sync who made number two with his debut hit "Like I Love You".

There were also new boybands making their debuts this year. The Blazin Squad reached number one with their debut "Crossroads" and followed up with the top ten single "Love On The Line". There was also the debut of Busted with "What I Go To School For" which made number three.

We had the only hit for Natural with "Put Your Arms Around Me" and the first of two hits for 3rd Edge with "In And Out". Following the breakup of Steps, group member Lisa Scott Lee turned to music management bring us a boyband consisting of her three brothers called 3SL. They had their only two hits this year with "Take It Easy" and "Touch Me Tease Me".

H and Claire from Steps formed a duo called H and Claire and had their only hits this year with "DJ", "Half A Heart" and "All Out Of Love / Beauty And The Beast" which all made the top ten. There was also the only solo effort from Steps member Faye Tozer with "Someone Like You" which was a collaboration with Russell Watson.

S Club 7 became S Club this year when member Paul Cattermole left the group. Their final hit before dropping the 7 from their name was "You" and as S Club they had a hit with "Alive". The year also brought us the S Club Juniors who had a trio of number twos this year with "One Step Closer", "Automatic High" and "New Direction" plus a number six with "Puppy Love / Sleigh Ride".

Less than a year after winning Popstars, Hear Say member Kym Marsh left the group. She was replaced by Johnny Shentall and they had a hit with "Lovin Is Easy" which would be their final hit.

It was a more successful year for Popstars runner up group Liberty X who scored their only number one with "Just A Little". They also had top five hits with "Got To Have Your Love" and "Holding On For You".

The TV show Popstars returned for another series this year, but this time it was Popstars: The Rivals. The winners of the show were a boyband and a girl group who would go head to head with each other for Christmas Number One. Before the conclusion of the show we had the chart debuts of contestants the Cheeky Girls with "The Cheeky Song".

The winning boyband of the series was One True Voice who lost the battle for Christmas Number One reaching number two with "Sacred Trust / After You're Gone". Winning the show and battle was Girls Aloud who made number one with "Sound of the Underground".

After their career looked to be over the previous year, the Sugababes were the most successful girl group of the year scoring two number ones with "Freak Like Me" and "Round Round" plus a top ten hit with "Stronger / Angels With Dirty Faces".

It was also a good year for Atomic Kitten who scored a number one with "The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling)", a number two with "Last Goodbye / Be With You" and a number three with "It's OK". Bellefire stayed consistent scoring their second number 18 with their second single "All I Want Is You" and Smoke 2 Seven had their only hit this year with "Been There Done That".

Once again there was a lot of Trance music in the charts this year, particularly Vocal Trance. The biggest of these was "Heaven" by DJ Sammy which made number one and was a cover of the Bryan Adams song of the same title.

DJ Sammy wasn't the only one having Trance versions of old hits. We also had "Tell It To My Heart" by Kelly Llorenna, "Because The Night" by Jan Wayne, "Take My Breath Away" by Soda Club featuring Hannah Alethea and "I Think We're Alone Now" by Pascal featuring Karen Parry.

Then we had the return to the charts after a 6 year absence for Scooter with their take on "The Logical Song". They now had more of a Trance sound than the Happy Hardcore they had done previously and had further hits with "Nessaja" and "Posse (I Need You On The Floor)".

Then there were the Trance, or also known as Scouse House, versions of old Happy Hardcore tunes which were "Shooting Star" by Flip & Fill and "Heart of Gold" by Kelly Llorenna. We also had the first Happy Hardcore tune in the charts since 1996, "Children of the Night" by Nakatomi which had reached number two in Holland in 1996 and missed the UK Top 40 in 1998. Incidentally the last act to have a Happy Hardcore hit in the UK Top 40 prior to this was Scooter.

Another first since 1996 was a Drum & Bass top ten single. In fact there were two, the number 2 hit "Addicted to Bass" by Puretone and "Shake UR Body" by Shy FX. The only previous Drum & Bass top tens were "Walking Wounded" by Everything But The Girl and if you include Jungle, "Incredible" by M-Beat featuring General Levy. Shy FX had another hit with "Don't Wanna Know" and we also had hits from Shimon & Andy C with "Body Rock" and DJ Marky & XRS featuring Stamina MC with "LK (Carolina Carol Bela)".

The new sound in the dance music world for this year was Electroclash. This included the tunes "Sunglasses At Night" by Tiga & Zyntherius, "Set It Off" by Peaches, "Emerge" by Fischerspooner and "Silver Screen Shower Scene" by "Felix Da Housecat".

UK Garage was still going strong at the beginning of the year but in the second half of the year we had no UK Garage whatsoever. The final UK Garage hit of the year came from American singer Jaheim with a remix of "Just In Case" which had been and R&B hit for him the previous year.

Some members of the So Solid Crew went solo this year but they were doing Rap music as opposed to UK Garage. Romeo was first with "Romeo Dunn" and he followed this up with "It's All Gravy". then Harvey had his only hit with "Get Up and Move". Oxide & Neutrino teamed up with fellow member Kowdean on the hit "Dem Girlz (I Don't Know Why)".

There were two Rap number ones this year which both came from Eminem, "Without Me" and "Lose Yourself". He also had a top five hit with "Cleanin' Out My Closet".

Notable debutants this year included Dilated Peoples with their only hit "Worst Comes to Worst", Fat Joe with "What's Love" and NORE with his only hit "Nothin".

Rapper Nelly collaborated with Destinys Child member Kelly Rowland with the number one R&B record "Dilemma". Fellow Destinys Child member Beyoncé also made her solo debut this year with "Work It Out".

Christina Aguilera also made an R&B record collaborating with rapper Redman on the number one record "Dirrty". Britney Spears did the same collaborating with Pharrell Williams on "Boys" which was a top ten hit.

The first number one of the year was a posthumous released from Aaliyah with "More Than A Woman". She had another hit with "Rock the Boat" and it was following the shooting of this video when she died in a plane crash.

The second number one of the year was also a posthumous one with a reissue of "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison who died towards the end of 2001. Although guitar music was starting to rise in popularity again, there was only one other number one you would describe as guitar music, "The Hindu Times" by Oasis.

Oasis also scored two number twos with "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" and "Little By Little / She Is Love" and they seemed very much the survivors of the original big four of Brit Pop. Blur hadn't had a hit for a couple of years, Pulp had their final hit with "Bad Cover Version" and Suede weren't finished yet and had a couple of minor hits this year with "Positivity" and "Obsessions".

There was a new big four in the Indie world from the sub genre Garage Rock. The Strokes had debuted the previous year and had a hit this year with "Someday". The White Stripes had also debuted the previous year and had two hits this year with "Fell In Love With A Girl" and "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground".

The other two made their debuts this year. The Hives debuted with "Hate To Say I Told You So" and followed up with "Main Offender". Finally The Vines debuted with "Highly Evolved" and followed up with "Get Free" and "Outtathaway".

The most notable UK band from this genre making their debut this year were the Libertines with "What A Waster" and followed this up with "Up The Bracket". Elsewhere we had the debuts of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with "Love Burns", Datsuns with "In Love" and Yeah Yeah Yeahs with "Machine".

There was no Green Day, Blink 182 or Offspring in the charts this year but there were other bands keeping Pop Punk going, most notably Sum 41 who had hits with "Motivation", "It's What We're All About" and "Still Waiting". There were also debuts for Bowling for Soup with "Girl All The Bad Guys Want" and the only hit for New Found Glory with "My Friends Over You". There was also the only hit for Ska Punk band Spunge with "Jump On Demand".

The year saw a return to the charts for Grunge music. Perhaps the best known of these bands was Nickelback who debuted with "How You Remind Me" and also had hits with "Too Bad" and "Never Again". Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger also had a solo hit with "Hero".

Also bringing back Grunge was Puddle of Mudd who debuted with "Control" and followed up with "Blurry" and "She Fuckin Hates Me". Then there was The Calling who debuted with "Wherever You Will Go" and followed up with "Adrienne".

It was also a good year for former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl who had a top ten hit with the Foo Fighters with "All My Life" which was their first top ten hit since their debut in 1995. He also returned to drumming featuring on the hits "No One Knows" by Queens Of The Stone Age and "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D.

The revival of rock music seemingly paved the way for some acts of yesteryear to return to the charts including Ozzy Osbourne with "Dreamer / Gets Me Through", Def Leppard with "Now" and Wildhearts with "Vanilla Radio".

The question I always ask myself after looking at each year is what was this the year of? For 2002 I think it's best described as the year of what's happened before.

It had been common for pop acts to do covers for several years, but you also look at the amount of dance covers which go beyond sampling, the Rap and R&B acts are mostly already established, the Garage Rock which is heavily influenced by music of yesteryear and the return of Grunge, this seems the best way to describe it. Will this trend continue in 2003?

Top of the Pops - 19/07/2018

What's this all about?

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 9
⬆ (28) Cheat Codes ft Little Mix - Only You
⬆ (29) Jax Jones ft Mabel & Rich the Kid - Ring Ring
Re (25) Green Day - American Idiot
⬆ (24) Tyga ft Offset - Taste
⬆ (22) M22 ft Medina - First Time
New (4) Drake - In My Feelings
New (38) Ziezie - Fine Girl
New (39) Au/Ra ft Camelphat - Panic Room
⬆ (1) Baddiel Skinner & Lightning Seeds - 3 Lions

Missing Out
None

Craig David

A lot has been said about the rise and fall and rise again of Craig David in the past couple of years. He made a very successful comeback in 2016 and with his summer long TS5 parties at Ibiza Rocks now in it's third year it doesn't look like he's going away anytime soon.

He isn't the first music act to stage a successful comeback, but the main difference between Craig David and most other comebacks is that it's his new music making the headlines, not his old music.

If you watch Needle Time on Vintage TV regularly you'll get the idea of how many musicians careers go. The person being interviewed is often a musician from yesteryear who is still making new music. Typically they make it big for a period of time, then nobodies interested anymore, they get dropped from their label and they wonder what they're going to do next. A few years later they're back in demand but they no longer have the pressure to deliver new music as it's the old hits people want to hear. However they make new music anyway for their own amusement. Throughout the show clips of their hits or songs that inspired them are played, then often at the end a new song of theirs is played which more often than not is terrible.

Back to Craig David though, his story is a little bit different. He broke through as featured vocalist on "Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)" by Artful Dodger. At this point though many people thought he was Artful Dodger and were confused when he was nowhere to be seen on their next hit "Movin Too Fast". It was one of the tunes at the end off 1999 which lead to the explosion of UK Garage in the mainstream in 2000.

He scored a number one with his debut solo hit "Fill Me In" which was also a UK Garage number. Next up he was back with Artful Dodger as featured vocalist on "Woman Trouble" though it was predominantly fellow vocalist Robbie Craig singing on the track. Then he was back at number one with his second solo record "Seven Days". Although the single edit was R&B as opposed to UK Garage there was a UK Garage mix of it doing the rounds at the time.

He had two further hits from his debut album "Born to Do It" which was a number one album. By this point it was early 2001 and he pretty much disappeared in the UK for a while, but this was because he was now concentrating on the American market.

At the end of 2002 UK Garage had been and gone from the mainstream, but the new single from Craig David "What's Your Flava?" was R&B, as was pretty much everything he released for years to come. In my opinion all the hits from his second album were poor except for "Rise & Fall".

In 2005 he was back again with his third album which did go platinum and spawned two top five hits, "All the Way" and "Don't Love You No More (I'm Sorry)". I actually have no recollection of these songs existing and have had to YouTube them, they are pretty forgettable to be fair.

Then in 2007 he had the last hit I remember of his before the comeback, "Hot Stuff (Let's Dance)" which I absolutely hated and still do. Beyond this he only had one Top 40 hit prior to his comeback, the number 39 single "6 of 1 Thing".

What came after this was a Greatest Hits album with two new singles which weren't hits and a soul covers album which completely flopped.

My assessment of his career to date by this point was that he was great at UK Garage but pretty average at R&B bar one or two tunes. When I heard of his comeback in 2016 I wasn't particularly interested partly because of my general lack of interest in modern music and partly because this was a man who hadn't made a decent record since 2002.

However I thought I'd give comeback single "When the Bassline Drops" a listen a couple of months later to see what all the fuss was about. Straight away it became apparent why it was a success, he had gone back to making UK Garage, the type of music which made him big in the first place.

That's not to say going back to your original sound is key to a successful comeback. When Take That made a successful comeback the music they made sounded nothing like their music from the first time round for example. Most musicians do like to experiment, some do it successfully, some alienate their fans because it's too different or not to their liking. Craig David most likely fits in the latter category so going back to UK Garage is probably the best thing he could have done.

Here is the tune in question: