What was the first number one song of the 21st century?
Technically, the 21st century started upon the arrival of 2001, but try telling that to a 1999 bedecked in chrome LED and Y2K optimism for the cyberfuture’s endless possibilities, despite the bug glitch that threatened the whole millennial party.
Rock and pop’s year 2000 was still firmly planted in the music model that had served the industry with little change since rock and roll’s birth 40-odd years previously. While the internet began to sprout the likes of Napster, triggering the first anxiety in the music industry regarding the online world’s impact on artist and label revenue, the streaming age was still a long way off. The album and singles’ primacy still stood as any artist’s ultimate achievement, a statement yet to face fracture among social media and TikTok’s atomising clip snippeting for everyone’s curated reel.
When assessing the top-selling artists ever league tables, the artists that orbit the 21st century’s birth give the rock and pop canon a serious run for its money. It was Eminem’s year, an unprecedented white force in hip-hop unseen since the Beastie Boys, 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP alone helping propel the Slim Shady rapper as the tenth biggest selling artist of all time. Other big names that straddled the centuries, from Coldplay, Beyoncé, and Britney Spears, all sit atop record levels of unit sales above stalwarts like Aretha Franklin or even Frank Sinatra.
Many number ones that floated around 2000’s first few months were actually dropped the previous year. Over in the UK, Irish boyband Westlife were in the middle of their record-breaking number one streak, their ‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’ double A-side continuing a seven single run at the top of the charts unseen since The Beatles.
On the US’ Billboard Hot 100, a whole clump of chart toppers were straggling from the last century, Santana, Christina Aguilera, Savage Garden, and Destiny’s Child all reaching the number one spot from singles released in 1999.
So, what was the first number one song of the 21st century?
It took six months for America to see a number one from a single actually dropped in 2000. Released in March, but climbing to the top spot for one week in June was rising R&B star Aaliyah’s ‘Try Again’. Coated in Timbaland’s futurist sheen and perfectly reflecting the pop energy of a tech-obsessed culture, ‘Try Again’s skulking blend of hip-hop and electronica propelled Aaliya to the zenith of pop’s new shimmering strut, an ice-cool ooze of sophistication that towered over anything on one’s Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation.
Over in the UK, however, Manic Street Preachers found themselves dropping the stand-alone single ‘The Masses Against the Classes’ in January 2000, and it enjoyed a week at the top spot shortly after, despite its deletion from general sale the same day of release.
Another alternative rock attack harkening back to their earlier LP efforts before the subversive yet radio-friendly hits like ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’, Manic Street Preachers flexed a fiery riposte against the said single’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours critical reception, the trio slapped all their socialist convictions over the ‘The Masses Against the Classes’ artwork, and while not the first time acclaimed left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky found his way on a music record, it’s gotta be only number one with his speeches featured.
