'...Record buyers love them but Steps' battle to be heard on the airwaves continues. Though Heartbeat/Tragedy was a number one hit for them and has sold more than 1,045,000 copies to date while spending 16 weeks in the Top 20, airplay for the single never really reflected its popularity. It jumped 30-10 on the airplay chart the week after it topped the sales chart, but slipped to number 14 the following week, and then disappeared from the Top 20 for good.

Even though the single is still ranked number 16 on the sales chart, it has now vanished from the airplay chart altogether. The fact that Better Best Forgotten is almost certain to debut at the top of the sales pyramid next week is also holding little sway with radio - it makes its debut on the Top 100 of the airplay chart this week at number 97. For Steps' mastermind Pete Waterman this is nothing new - precious few of the hundred or so hits he produced with Mike Stock and Matt Aitken matched their sales chart positions on the airplay listings...'

'#31: DJ Milano feat Samantha Fox 'Santa Maria' Mike Stock and Matt Aitken must have thought they were onto a winner when they co-wrote 'Santa Maria'. As near as you could get to Europop by Numbers, bouncy, joyful, totally inane and surely a massive hit. They first recorded it with Tatjana Simic, a former nude model from Croatia. The single was a hit all over Europe in early summer 1995 and was set to do the same here when it was famously removed from the chart under suspicion of chart hyping. Once the investigations and legal threats were over the single was cleared to chart once more but by now it was September 1996, nobody cared anymore and the single bombed out at Number 40. The song however refuses to die and has now been covered by another woman more famous for her body than her singing, former Page 3 star Samantha Fox. Fox was one of the first topless models to try to reinvent herself as a singer and indeed had a series of hits in the late 1980s, many of which went Top 10 including 'Nothings Gonna Stop Me Now' from 1987 which was produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman - two of which of course are behind 'Santa Maria' and have a hand in this new version. I'd love the song to be a massive hit but the timing clearly needs to be right and late March is hardly the time for a track that conjures up images of long, hot summer nights - hence the lowly chart position once more. As a further postscript to the bizarre history of this track, Sam Fox's version was at one stage threatened by a rival cover by another soft porn star, blonde model Vicky Lee. Fortunately her version was apparantly so awful it was decided that it was best kept under wraps.'

'Da Mob featuring Jocelyn Brown stormed 33-1 last week. This week, despite a further 12% increase in DJ support, they slip back to number two, beaten by a small - less than 3% - margin by Kinane's 'Heaven', which surges 17-1. Kinane is an Irish singer signed to Coalition, starting her career there two years ago as Bianca Kinane, when the label was still called PWL ... 'Heaven' was one of the hits of the recent Miami Winter Dance Music Convention, and is promoed in a multiplicity of mixes over four 12-inch singles, wading through which in their entirety takes 64 minutes. 'Heaven' is Coalition's first number one club hit since the Happy Clappers' 'I Believe' last October ...'

'#5: Will Mellor 'When I Need You'. Clearly the ultimate sign of a successful soap opera is for one of the actors to step forward and release a single. Since its launch a year ago the Channel 4 series 'Hollyoaks' has become a cult favourite amongst its intended teenage audience and beyond. Time then for the cast to assault the pop charts and first in the firing line is Will Mellor, or Jambo as he is known to viewers of the series. His first single, which makes a spectacular debut inside the Top 5 is a fairly faithful cover of an accepted classic, Leo Sayer's classic ballad which spoolily enough was at Number One exactly 21 years ago this week. Herein lies the argument: what does it say about the abilities of the artist and/or the state of music that he should be able to produce a competent version of a song with a proven track record and have a major hit single. Plenty of people will be dimissive of the single but then again, Donny Osmond built a whole solo career from covering pop standards whilst Will Mellor has had no less involvement with the creation of his hit than Natalie Imbruglia had in 'Torn' but guess which is the more credible single? Anyway, the success of the track focusses renewed attention on its writer, the great Leo Sayer whose last Top 40 hit was back in 1983 with 'Orchard Road. Last summer the Sun newspaper began a semi-ironic campaign for the singer to make a comeback, an exercise in which he happily participated leading to a string of appearances on chatshows and radio roadshows.'

'#17: Steps '5,6,7,8'. Time for Steps to receive their regular acknowledgement. Not that the single has achieved anything save selling so consistently as to have been an almost permanent fixture in the lower end of the Top 20 it was released in the middle of November last year. Holding firm this week at Number 17 having been in the Top 20 for 10 of its 12 weeks on the chart so far, the single refuses to die despite being almost totally ignored by every radio station in the country. I don't have any records on what is the biggest selling single never to reach the Top 10 but '5,6,7,8' cannot be too far off it.' Certainly it will go down in chart history as one of the most famous perennials ever, alongside such tracks as Evelyn Champagne King's 'Shame' which spent 23 weeks on the chart in 1978 without ever climbing higher than Number 39. Around the same time the Trammps' 'Disco Inferno' was re-released having reached Number 16 a year beforehand. Thanks to its use on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack the re-released single spent 10 weeks in the Top 75, never climbing higher than Number 47.'

'#18: Steps '5,6,7,8'. This is the debut single from Steps, a mixed sex group formed as a result of an advert in stage publications and set to make their assault on the popular senses by dragging country music onto the dancefloors. All well and good of course but for the fact that Rednex did it all almost three years ago. '5..6..7..8' could almost be a distant cousin of 'Cotton Eye Joe' and whilst it will inevitably find an airing at a few Christmas parties it could hardly be regarded as pushing the musical boundaries. It almost makes you wish for a new Woolpackers single no wait, forget I said that.'

'#28: Happy Clappers 'I Believe'. A funny tale this. Back in early 1995 a gospel-tinged dance single called 'I Believe' picked up enough support to justify a commercial release. Made available in June 1995 it reached Number 21. Good, but not quite good enough and so later that same year it was duly reissued, making a more impressive Number 7 in November. Really that should be the end of the story as at the end of the day 'I Believe' is a little more than a typical slice of midÐ90s formula dance but for some reason someone has clearly felt the track has deserved another airing. Thus here come a new set of remixes and a corresponding reappearance in the Top 30 but the somewhat muted response from even DJs and dance commentators suggests that there are few who can figure what on earth the point of it all is.'

'...The highest new entry this week is 'I Believe' by the Happy Clappers, which debuts at number 18. This perennial favourite was previously released on three separate occasions in 1995. Initially released in a limited edition on Newcastle indie label Shindig in January 1995, it fell short of both the club and CIN chart. After being taken under PWL's wing, it peaked at 21 on the CIN chart and a more modest 26 on the Club Chart in June 1995. Third time around, it finally fulfilled its potential, climbing to number two on the club chart before becoming a number seven CIN hit in November 1995. Having attained such a lofty placing less than two years ago, it's surprising to find it being touted again, this time on the Coalition label, as PWL is now known. There's no denying the creativity and potency of the new mixes ­ by Roger Sanchez, Sharp and Sash! ­ but did we really need it again?...'