This week in 1995
1 Cotton Eye Joe Rednex 2 Think Twice Celine Dion 3 Set You Free N-Trance 4 Here Comes the Hotstepper Ina Kamoze 5 Total Eclipse of the Heart Nicki French 6 Tell Me When Human League 7 Basket Case Green Day 8 Bump N’ Grind R Kelly 9 She’s A River Simple Minds 10 Love Me For A Reason Boyzone Mining American country folk proved very fruitful for Swedish Eurotrance group Rednex in 1995 when Cotton Eye Joe took the world by storm. The key to the single’s success was the sampling of the traditional folk song Cotton-Eyed Joe, a tune dating back to the 19th century which has been the inspiration for many line dances. The Rednex track from debut album Sex & Violins was number one across many markets, topping the charts in Norway for 15 weeks, Switzerland for 13 weeks, Germany for 10 weeks and in Rednex’ homeland of Sweden for 8 weeks. It spent three weeks on top of the UK charts but stopped short of No. 1, peaking at 2 in Ireland as Boyzone’s Osmonds cover ‘Love Me For A Reason’ reigned supreme through early to mid January, followed by an unbroken nine-week run at the top for Eurovision ‘88 winner Celine Dion.