With yet more huge UK chart hits from a quarter of a century ago, this is The Story of Pop: 1998. And we stick with the World Cup once again this week, for a song that dominated the charts for England fans during the tournament…
- Artist: Fat Les
- Song: Vindaloo
- Released: 08/06/1998
- Writers / Producers: Alex James / Guy Pratt / Keith Allen
- Highest UK Chart Position: #2
- Weeks on Chart: 23
As we touched on last week, neither of the two singles that were the real star players in the en masse chart invasion of songs for World Cup ’98 in France were the actual official one by England United, the truly baffling Ocean Colour Scene / Echo and the Bunnymen / Space / Spice Girls hybrid supergroup. The reactivated “3 Lions ’98” was one however, but so too, was this week’s featured hit.
Actor and comedian Keith Allen had, as we also discussed last week, had a hand in football songs before, writing the lyrics for Englandneworder’s chart topping “World In Motion” in 1990, as well as contributing to the Black Grape single “England’s Irie” which had been a top 10 hit for Euro 96. But with his next footie associated musical project, he was about to hit gold in a big way.
Located in the trendy Soho area of Central London, The Groucho Club had opened in 1985, and over the decade that followed, this private member’s bar was the one that the great and gauche of the 90s descended on, and was rivalled only by The Met Bar for its ubiquity. It was here that Keith met and became good mates with Blur bassist Alex James and artist Damien Hirst.
And it was in May 1998 that they found themselves talking about the then upcoming World Cup the following month. James relayed about an almost military drum beat he’d heard at a match at Craven Cottage that he thought would make a good football song, which he then began tapping out on the club’s door to the snooker room. What was quite a simple topic of conversation then suddenly turned into studio time, as they quickly went to lay it down with bassist Guy Pratt who provided its distinctive bass riff. By 9am the following morning, they had their song.
With Hirst creating the cover artwork, Jane Savidge of the PR firm Savage and Best coming on board to do press and Telstar Records licensing its release, word soon got around about Fat Les (so named after a woman they knew) and this unofficial World Cup song of theirs.
Described simultaneously by critics as ‘the sound of plastic chairs being thrown at policemen’ and an ‘irritating, pretentiously proletarian jape’, “Vindaloo” was so called because Allen felt that a standard Indian dish would be ‘apt for the type of terrace chant a “right wing lout” hostile to the Indian community would like’ – with nonsensical verses to match (“Can I introduce you please / To a lump of Cheddar cheese / Knit one, pearl one / Drop one, pearl one” and “Me and me mum and me dad and me gran were off to Waterloo”, for two examples). The Sun newspaper seemed to be reporting on it almost daily, whilst they also made the cover of Melody Maker.
In amongst all this fast moving activity, a video was shot. Allen had been inspired by the video for “Bittersweet Symphony”, which had been a huge hit the previous year for The Verve. After learning it had cost £200,000 to make, he sought out the same Hoxton street it had been filmed on and set about making the “Vindaloo” video on a shoestring budget of £21,000.
His version featured the comedian Paul Kaye (of Dennis Pennis fame) portrayed as a Richard Ashcroft lookalike, as Allen led a rowdy crowd behind him consisting of himself, James, Hirst, Rowland Rivron as a drumming Queen’s guard, Matt Lucas and David Walliams, sumo wrestlers, French maids, Pearly Kings and Queens, school children (including Allen’s own son and daughter, Alfie and Lily, the latter of whom would be a chart topping artist herself in the 00s, whilst the former is now an actor of Game of Thrones fame).
With advance pre-orders of over 200,000 copies, and the video quickly becoming a huge request choice on The Box cable channel, it was obvious that “Vindaloo” was about to be a colossal hit once released in early June – and it was, going straight in the chart at #2. So when it came time to record its performance for the BBC’s chart show Top Of The Pops, it was apparent that it wasn’t going to have a standard studio based performance.
At the time, TOTP was being recorded every week over at the BBC Elstree Studios – which just also happened to be where long running soap opera EastEnders was filmed. Allen spoke to the show’s then producer, Chris Cowey, who agreed to appear on the condition that they could start the performance walking from the Queen Vic in Albert Square, all the way to the studio where TOTP was filmed.
And that is exactly what happened – to the extent that their performance became almost as synonymous with the song as the video itself, repeated twice more on subsequent episodes, including the Christmas special that year.
It also caused a minor headache for Cowey, who upon getting the final performance edit one hour before that week’s episode was due to go on air, discovered that a highly inebriated, scantily dressed woman from the rowdy mob on stage (who it is believed then became the inspiration, for EastEnders writers who were watching the performance, to create the character of Kat Slater) had had a wardrobe malfunction.
He quickly slapped a big “CENSORED” across her chest before the final show went to air that Friday night. And after it went out, “Vindaloo” kept on selling, staying locked behind “3 Lions ’98” for its first three weeks on the chart, as it went onto sell nearly half a million copies all told, and was the 24th biggest selling single of 1998.
But whilst Fat Les did try again with subsequent Euro and World Cup tournaments – “Jerusalem 2000” peaked at #10 as the official England anthem for Euro 2000, whilst “Who Invented Fish and Chips” missed the top 40 altogether for the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan – they never recaptured the lightning in a bottle they managed here with “Vindaloo”.
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.
The Niche Reference 