This week in 2000
1 Never Be The Same Again Melanie C/Lisa Left Eye Lopes 2 The Time Is Now Moloko 3 Smooth Santana ft Rob Thomas 4 Bag It Up Gerri Halliwell 5 All The Small Things Blink 182 6 Still Dre Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg 7 American Pie Madonna 8 Pure Shores All Saints 9 Killer ATB 10 Rewind Precious
Just over two years before her death, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes was the featured rapper on a UK number one that also topped charts in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Lopes and Melanie C both had co-writing credits on ‘Never Be The Same Again’, the third single from Spice Girl Mel C’s debut solo album ‘Northern Star’. She would follow it up with another UK No. 1 (‘I Turn To You’) to add to her nine number one hits with the Spice Girls.
Before joining Mel C on ‘Never Be The Same Again’, Lopes had also enjoyed great success as a member of a girl group ( TLC). Though they never reached the top of the UK singles chart, TLC did enjoy four US number ones – with ‘Creep’, ‘Waterfalls’, ‘No Scrubs’ and ‘Unpretty’. The catchy ‘No Scrubs’ also gave TLC their only Irish number one.
‘Never Be The Same…’ saw Mel C dislodge fellow Spice Girl Geri
Halliwell from the top of the charts. ‘Bag It Up’, Halliwell’s third consecutive solo number one in the UK , has notched up sales of over a quarter of a million since release.
Sadly for Co Wicklow, the Mel C and Lopes collaboration prevented Moloko reaching No. 1 in the UK with the mesmeric ‘The Time Is Now’. Their second top five hit (after 1999’s ‘Sing It Back’), it was the closest the duo, comprising Arklow’s Róisín Murphy and producer Mark Brydon, came to bagging the top spot.
The multitalented Lisa Nicole Lopes – better known under her stage name ‘Left Eye’ – was a rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer whose contribution to TLC also included designing the trio’s outfits, as well as contributing album artwork and video ideas. She died all too soon, aged 30, in 2002 when she lost control of a rented SUV she was driving while on a trip to Honduras.