This week in 1997

1 I Believe I Can Fly R Kelly 2 Old Before I Die Robbie Williams 3 Staring At The Sun U2 4 Bellissima DJ Quicksilver 5 Around The World Daft Punk 6 Don’t Leave Me Blackstreet 7 You Might Need Somebody Shola Ama 8 You Showed Me Lightning Seeds 9 Ready Or Not Course 10 Reverence Faithless

‘I used to think that I could not go on, and life was nothing but an awful song’

R KELLY’S ‘I BELIEVE I CAN FLY’

47-year-old Robert Sylvester Kelly (pictured), the most successful R&B artist of the nineties, has sold over 100 million albums worldwide. ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ remains his most successful song, nabbing three Grammys out of five nominations in 1998. The track peaked at number 2 in the US but hit No. 1 in many countries, including Ireland and the UK.

U2’s ‘Staring At The Sun’ was the second single from their ‘Pop’ album (following the number one hit ‘Discotheque’). It reached number 3 in the UK charts, 4 in Ireland and 26 in the US, but was No. 1 in Canada where U2 have topped the charts 14 times to date.