The Story of Pop: 1998 (Chapter 41)

Continuing to rewind you back to all the biggest sights and sounds of the UK charts of 25 years ago, this is The Story of Pop: 1998. So far this series, we’ve seen All Saints, Aqua, Boyzone and B*Witched all notching up at least two number ones. Now joining that list this week, it’s…

• Artist: Billie
• Song: Girlfriend
• Released: 05/10/1998
• Writers / Producers: Dion Rambo / Jacques Richmond / Wendy Page / Jim Marr / Cutfather & Joe
• Highest UK Chart Position: #1
• Weeks On Chart: 13

Having successfully stormed the charts in the summer with her first number one “Because We Want To“, it was now time for Billie Piper to prove that lightning could strike twice, with the release of her debut album, Honey To The B, and her second single, “Girlfriend”.

If this feels like a familiar story we’ve covered on this series so far, that’s because it quite literally is – almost the exact same scenario was true of B*Witched’s “Rollercoaster” that we discussed two weeks ago. And as they were two of the most high profile of the litany of new pop acts unleashed onto the charts in 1998, they were the ones most constantly mirrored and also compared with one another, certainly in terms of singles success.

Although that’s not to discredit “Girlfriend”, for it is actually another terrific single, and one that at once dialled down some of the more anthemic qualities of Billie’s debut, whilst honing to perfection exactly what made her so appealing to her audience. It’s pure pop, true, but with light roots in R&B and soul, and it was actually originally recorded by US female R&B trio 1st Class, but was only ever released in Japan a couple of years previously.

It thus means that we have here is Billie coolly ad-libbing with herself on the verses, as she sings about making a move on a potential partner: “Heard a slow song / You don’t waste time baby / And you asked me if I wanted to dance (Sure I wanna dance) / Playing hard to get takes too long, sugar / So I told my friends that I found a man (You’re the one)”.

Both these and the chorus lyrics once again assert her as a feisty, confident, aspirational artist musically, with the kind of upfront bravado sound wise that was such a marker of the time post-Spice Girls: “Do you have a girlfriend? / You’re looking real cool / Can I have your number? / You don’t have a thing to lose”.

That said, it was a long distance from where Billie envisaged herself musically. In her 2006 autobiography, Growing Pains, she cited both how much she looked up to All Saints, and also disclosed what was in the original marketing report that Innocent Records had constructed of what her target fanbase was.

She was, in their words, firmly being aimed at the “Pony Club Crew” – the pre-mid teen market who were young and impressionable enough but who bought their own singles. She was singing songs that were about their lives; nothing too challenging or untoward.

And the music video is also reflective of that: Billie and her girly dancer mates rock up at an aircraft hangar that’s been converted into a cool skate park, and they proceed to dance, flirt and play pool with the skaters. It sells the song well and it’s all good, clean fun, something that was attracting ire from many snobby critics at the time. But if you were 9 or 10 years old like the present writer was in 1998, it was all part of what made Billie such a winning prospect.

And with first week sales of 119,000 copies (over 39,000 more, you will note, than “Because We Want To” managed on its first week out), with “Girlfriend”, Billie thus became the youngest solo female to have two UK number one singles, just a matter of weeks after her 16th birthday. The single eventually stayed in the top 10 for a month and it sold almost the same total amount as her debut had.

The first album, Honey To The B, followed a couple of weeks later, and whilst it never breached the top 10 (it peaked at #14), it eventually sold over 300,000 copies in the run up to Christmas and beyond with follow up singles “She Wants You” (#3 in December) and “Honey To The Bee” (#3 in March 1999), and was certified platinum.

Even so, her positioning by her record label with the “Pony Club Crew” audience was immediately shattered when she started dating Ritchie Neville from Five, and subsequently lost a large bulk of her audience, who pettily turned on her in a volley of hatred and boos at awards shows and in teen magazine letters pages.

Of course, by the time her second album arrived (which we have already discussed on our entry for “Day & Night” on The Story of Pop: 2000) she’d grown up and discovered another audience, even if it was for a brief time before she returned to her first love of acting. But one thing that is true of the Billie Piper that sang “Girlfriend” and the one we know today is that both have this likeable charm that has kept her so well loved for as long as she has been.

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 1998. And you can leave your memories of the songs below in the comments, Tweet us or message us on Instagram, using the hashtag #StoryofPop1998.