The Story of Pop: 2000 (Chapter 41)

The Story of Pop: 2000. It’s your weekly visit every Thursday at midday back to the sights and sounds of the UK singles chart exactly as it looked two whole decades ago this week. So without any ado, here comes another classic hit from 2000…

Electronic ambient band Delerium had been active since 1987, but had hitherto not made much of a commercial splash in the UK – or indeed outside their native Canada – prior to the dawn of the new millennium.

‘Silence’, first recorded and released for their ninth studio album Karma back in 1997, was a haunting collaboration with fellow country woman and singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. When first released in 1999, it just missed the top 40, peaking at #44.

But a series of remixes – most notably by trance DJ and production team Airscape in the case of the single version most people in the UK know – subsequently caught on like wildfire in clubland over the course of that year.

When re-released exactly twenty years ago this week, ‘Silence’ went straight in at #3, spending 10 weeks in the top 40 – four of them inside the top 10 – and selling over 600,000 copies to make it one of the biggest dance anthems of the autumn of 2000.

Don’t forget to follow our brand new playlist on Spotify – updated weekly so you never miss a song from the story of pop in 2000. And you can leave your memories of the songs below in the comments or Tweet us, using the hashtag #StoryofPop2000.