'Mesdames, Messieurs, le disc-jockey Sash! est de retour.' The year was 1997, and we were filled with a growing sense of optimism about the rollover to the 21st century, and trepidation in equal measure of the impending doom that was to come under the guise of the millennium bug.
Of course, neither such thing transpired as the year 2000 flopped onto our plate like a wet fish, but 1997 was definitely a year for optimism, of sorts - a then fresh-faced Tony Blair taking the helm of the country, and a whole new information era to sink our teeth into.
But good lord, some of the music was atrocious! Here's a run down of some of the tracks that rocked our world in February 1997...
Perhaps the pinnacle of Sash's (admittedly short) career, Encore Un Fois featured a great set of pizzicato strings, zeitgeisty beats and a general suitability for the club scene at the time.
French lyrics rounded off the package, and made for a suitably sexy Balearic hit. It's just a shame success went to Sash's head and he started to churn out sound-a-like Eurobeat stuff. Ecuador!
Whilst not as popular as Take That were whilst together, Mark Owen still managed to squeeze out a few chart hits in the years between the breakup and the subsequent (and recent) reformation. This was to be his last Top 10 single until 2003 (Four Minute Warning), however.
It may not be the most original or noteworthy piece of music put together, but Clementine is still memorable for the refrain of the chorus - Clementine! It was never meant to be this way - if only I'd told you yesterday!
Well? Kudos if you remember this track by it's name alone, but sad legacy of this Blueboy single can be summarized with the (absent) words from the chorus - 'gin-gi-gi-gin-gin-gi-gi gi-gi-gin-gi-gi-ga-gin'. If you've heard it, you'd know what I meant.
Although just a flicker on the chart periscope, Remember me is probably more memorable than it should be. Helped by the inane chorus and (for the time) slick production, it did rather well for itself.
White Town was the work of Indian techno-pop producer Jyoti Mishra, and has been surprisingly productive since Your Woman, his only major chart hit.
Featuring a neat trumpet sample and strangely androgynous vocals, this was a shining pop nugget that rose meteorically to the #1 spot and faded away almost as quickly.
I'm guessing I wasn't a major part of the hip hop scene back in '97, as this one slipped me by. 94's collaboration with Nate Dogg was a big hit though, so I'm guessing Warren G's rendition of the Bob Marley classic was popular with those on the scene.
Quite possibly the most powerful R&B song - ever! With a gigantic overdriven guitar hook, repeated refrain and perfect R&B vocals, En Vogue had a massive hit - indeed, arguably their largest in the UK - with this track.
Shame, then, that they faded somewhat from the limelight after this, without any top 10 hits after the 1997 follow-up 'Whatever'. The greatest hits album, 'The Best of En Vogue', in 1999, pretty much sealed their fate.
Arguably my favourite U2 song. It's still bloody boring.
True, it's pretty rocking (as far as U2 go), and the guitar intro is pretty well done. I'm just glad we don't have to see so much of Bono's bespectacled face these days.
Ladies love cool James. Fuzznut loves cool James. Everybody loves cool James.
In all seriousness though, this was a great piece of hip hop that's still pretty fresh today. Certainly a worthy revisit to the Chaka Khan classic.
Back before Gwen struck out on her own she was known for her lead singer role in (I daresay the rather splendid) No Doubt. Whilst they had a couple of chart entries from earlier works and other tracks on the album, Tragic Kingdom, it was really 'Don't Speak' that propelled the indie ska band into world recognition.
And rightly so - Don't Speak is a great song (although it did eventually become wearisome after spending so long in the charts), and it seems as though Gwen at least has done nicely for herself as a result.
Say what you will about the other tracks in this listing - love them or otherwise - but there's surely no denying the wetness and general pop flaccidity of No Mercy's 'Where do you go?'.
Sadly, you folk didn't realize the atrocity against music being committed here and as a result the follow-up single, 'Please Don't Go' also managed to top the charts. Thankfully, No Mercy were to fade to near anonymity after this. Indeed - where do you go?
So that concludes a summary of the top 10 hits of February 1997. I rather enjoyed this journey back through time (1997 was really the beginning of my awakening musical tastes, so I remember these songs very well indeed.) Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay in touch with that warm nostalgia feeling, as we'll be covering March 1997 before you know it.
What next?More features? More pop?