This week in 1996
1 Spaceman Babylon Zoo
2 Anything 3T
3 Slight Return Bluetones
4 Lifted Lighthouse Ramily
5 I Just Want To Make Love To You Etta James 6 One of Us Joan Osborne
7 Do U Still? East 17
8 I Wanna Be A Hippy Technohead
9 One By One Cher
10 Jesus To A Child George Michael Wolverhampton band Babylon Zoo’s Spaceman sold 420,000 copies in the UK alone in its first week of release, and remained at No. 1 for five consecutive weeks, mainly on the back of a Levi’s advert in which an Arthur Baker remix of the track featured prominently. It was the fastest selling single in the UK since the Beatles’ ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ in 1964. Despite a poor reception with the critics (a ‘bizarre tuneless collage’ said AllMusic), it reached number one in 23 countries, including Ireland, and is currently the 74th best selling single in UK history, with sales of over a million. Written by Babylon Zoo frontman Jas Mann, who later achieved success as a film producer, Spaceman was the band’s only major hit. It was voted number 31 by Channel 4 viewers in a 2006 poll of best songs from one-hit wonders.