This week's Official UK Singles Chart
1 ANYONE OF US (STUPID MISTAKE) (Gareth Gates)
"No, of course, we didn't delete the Elvis single to make way for Gareth Gates, that's a daft idea" was the general gist of the spluttered response from RCA/BMG after the curious timing of the deletion was pointed out. In actual fact they did have a point, the second release from Gareth Gates selling more copies on its first day of release than the Elvis track did in the whole of last week, proving that any "manipulation" was as unnecessary as it was unlikely. So it is that the Pop Idol runner-up proves once again that he is more than a match for rival Will Young with a second successive Number One single. The bonus here is that at long last we have moved away from karaoke remakes of tried and tested hits in favour of brand new material. Not that Anyone Of Us (Stupid Mistake) breaks much in the way of new ground of course, the track is actually oddly reminiscent of early 80s Abba and would not have sounded out of place on an early Steps album. Still a fine pop song is a fine pop song whatever its inspiration and this mid-tempo anthem pushes plenty of buttons with its instantly memorable chorus. Indeed the only criticism one can really make is that the production at times drowns out Gareth in favour of multi-layered backing harmonies - a standard trick for some of the more musically challeneged boy band singers but certainly not something that is needed for the demonstrably more talented Mr Gates. With this appearance at the top, Gareth Gates equals Will Young's year to date total of five weeks on top and given the strength of his sale this week it would be a bold person who rules out at least one more week at the summit.
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Not that there are many more superlatives you can add in reference to the chart performance to date of the Scooter single but the track once again bucks chart trends, rebounding two places on the chart to reclaim the runners-up slot it last occupied a fortnight ago, the single now having moved 7-5-2-4-2 in the five weeks it has been on sale.
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Second biggest new hit of the week honours go to Ashanti who here charts with her third hit of the year and one which matches the Number 4 peak of her previous single What's Luv. Foolish is actually a much anticipated release, the single having already had two runs at the lower end of the chart whilst only available on import. Bizarrely enough it made the exact same position each time, spending two weeks at Number 68 in early June before bouncing back and becoming song Number 68 on the chart last week. Although this is her first single not to feature a co-credit from a rap star the track does have its own small hip-hop link, being based on the same DeBarge sample that was used by Notorious B.I.G.s minor 1995 hit One More Chance.
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It may not be the most dynamic or even inspired single he has ever released, but Here I Am marks the long overdue return of Bryan Adams to the UK charts. In actual fact he is here following up a Number One single, his last chart appearance coming back in March 2000 when he supplied vocals for Chicane's Don't Give Up. His last hit single under his own steam came well over three years ago when Cloud #9 hit Number 6 although he did release one more single after that - The Best Of Me, the title track from a new Greatest Hits collection but it got lost in the Christmas rush of 1999 and could only hit Number 47, his first solo single to miss the Top 40 for over 12 years. Here I Am is now his 12th Top 10 hit, an impressive total when you consider that his hitmaking career in this country only really began in 1991 with the release of the now notorious (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Prior to that he had been best known as an albums act in this country, and worldwide smash hits such as Heaven, Somebody and even Summer Of '69 were little more than minor chart entries.
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6 I'M GONNA BE ALRIGHT (Jennifer Lopez)
Whilst we are touching on the origins of certain samples, it is probably worth documenting the exact origin of the Jennifer Lopez track. As mentioned last week, the melody of the track comes from the same source as I Got 5 On It by the Luniz but my deliberate vagueness on the subject last week was largely down to the fact that there was conflicting information as to exactly what track it was. TCBBC [The Complete Book Of The British Charts] is normally a good source on occasions like this as the authors have gone to many lengths to document when a hit single is based on another one but in the current edition they suggest that I Got 5 On It was based on the 1986 hit Rumours by the Timex Social Club. Well if there is a sample in there, it beats me as to where it is and in actual fact it was dotmusic reader Peter Robertson who helpfully pointed out that the sample is in actual fact the melody of Why You Treat Me So Bad by Club Nouveau, the follow-up to Lean On Me which flopped in this country in 1987. Something tells me Tony Brown et al were slightly mislead themselves - Club Nouveau and the Timex Social Club were in fact largely the same act.
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I can't bring myself to be quite as rude as the Popbitch mailout was on this track ["another tit-girl fronted trance project" was the phrase they used] but the truth is that this is another piece of female-led trance with at least one small point of interest in that it comes from the same team of producers who are responsible for the Ian Van Dahl singles. Inoffensive but uninspiring.
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14 IT JUST WON'T DO (Tim Deluxe featuring Sam Obernik)
"Proper" dance this time, although again nothing that is likely to set the world on fire. It marks the first solo chart credit for Tim Deluxe who was previously part of R.I.P. Productions who had a couple of minor chart entries in the late 90s but more famously Double 99 who hit Number 14 in last 1997 with RIP Groove. [This mid-table hit dismissed in a few lines by 2002 James actually ended up with a life of its own, immovable from radio playlists for the rest of the summer].
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15 STRANGE RELATIONSHIP (Darren Hayes)
Many acts wish they could have mid-table hits as enduring as Insatiable, the debut solo single from former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes. The single was released in late March and made a very respectable Number 8 on its first week before tumbling back a few places, seemingly on its way to a quite in and out performance. Not so, the single spent the next six weeks floating around inside the Top 20, including five which were all spent at either Number 12 or Number 13. Had it put in that kind of performance we would have been talking about it for weeks in the same way the Scooter single is attracting comment now, but down in the Top 20 it was almost an afterthought. So then it is worth hailing it now as one of the chart runs of the year so far and one that possibly bodes well for this follow-up hit. Strange Relationship ups the emotion factor just a little although it is possibly a slightly less memorable track that its predecessor, hence you suspect this rather lower chart entry. Still, if past performance is anything to go by, there may be life in the track yet.
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17 LK (CAROLINA CAROL BELA) (DJ Marky and XRS featuring Stamina MC)
One of the latest hot signings of the summer is this single from DJ Marky, a drum n' bass DJ from Brazil of all places and who has been paying his dues and working alongside his fair share of big names for some time. Out of that comes this debut hit single and in actual fact just like the Dee Dee and Tim Deluxe tracks, the big story of the week is not so much the fact that they have charted at all inside the Top 20 but that they have all easily outsold the next new entry down...
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Make no mistake, the big music industry buzz of the summer surrounds the emergence into the mainstream of electroclash. The more jaded amongst us may wonder just why everyone is suddenly so enthusiastic about a musical style that seems to be little more than an updated take on the kind of dark synthesiser music that the likes of Gary Numan, Human League and Depeche Mode made their names with over 20 years ago but as this week's Radio One documentary on the subject (big up to Kat the producer BTW [I worked alongside her at the time. She produced Woman's Hour on Radio 4 for a bit and now handles the British end of Beats 1]) showed, electroclash is where it is at, man. Ahem, the charts have already seen the odd hit from the movement already in the shape of Tiga and Zyntherius' Sunglasses At Night remake and Set It Off from the undoubted queen of the scene, Peaches. Both were only minor chart entries (although they are still bigger hits than DJ Hell and Felix Da Housecat have managed) and to date the only really big smash electroclash hit came almost two years ago in the shape of Zombie Nation's Kernkraft 400 which hit Number 2. The act who have been generating far and away the most headlines though are Fischerspooner, aka Warren Fisher and Casey Spooner who hail from New York and are pretty much credited with giving the moment its name. Jaws hit the floor all around a few months ago when the Ministry Of Sound label signed the duo for what was reported to be a seven-figure sum. It is the kind of money you pay to an act you hope are going to sell a hell of a lot of records in order to recoup it, so now it is time for them to start delivering. The appropriately titled Emerge is the first single then and one whose roots show rather badly, the insistent chord sequence that runs throughout it seemingly almost desperate to turn into Depeche Mode's New Life. Happily it doesn't and instead the single is a very good example of just why people are so excited about them, a dark almost menacing track that proves once more than completely electronic music can indeed sound quite dirty and raw. It is actually the second time the single has been released in this country, the track first emerging in July last year on the small International DJ Gigolos label but bigger things were expected of it this time around. For all the hype though it is still little more than a minor Top 30 hit, suggesting that for the moment that the public at large haven't quite got the message about them. Either that or someone, somewhere has made an incredibly expensive mistake.
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26 HOW COME YOU DON'T CALL ME (Alicia Keys)
A third chart single for Alicia Keys who has still yet to quite live up to the promise of her first single Fallin' from November last year. Via the production talents of the Neptunes comes this admittedly rather impressive cover of a Prince track (originally titled How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore). Covering tracks from the MIA purple one appears to be the done thing at the moment, this single following hot on the heels of the much-hyped Space Cowboy remake of I Would Die 4 U which was set to become a major hit two weeks ago until the record company messed up and made the single too long, leaving just one format eligible to chart and resulting in the single making a rather miserable Number 55.
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31 CORNER OF THE EARTH (Jamiroquai)
Jay Kay has been quite happily telling anyone who will listen that he regards this latest single as one of the best songs he has ever written. Fine it is indeed, especially when heard in the totally acoustic version that he performed to stunning effect on CD:UK this weekend. Sadly it seems he would have been better putting the message across to people who haven't yet bought the album as the single misses the Top 30 altogether, the first Jamiroquai single to do so since Emergency On Planet Earth (the title track from the debut album) hit Number 32 in August 1993. Until next week, my name is James and I fear the condom ad [I THINK this was a reference to some marketing promotion which was all over the dotmusic site at the time. At least I pray it was].
