The One-Hit Wonders – The 2000s Part 9.

This is the final song that I plan to write about in this series that is in the UK Garage genre. I know that I have gone on about it a lot, but this really was my favourite music genre on the chart back in 2000, I still have lots of great memories, as I hope many others do, and I have enjoyed sharing them. Here’s another group that only had one hit single at this time, what did they have to offer?

Zed Bias were yet another British production group who were on the scene. In July 2000 their single “Neighbourhood” (not to be confused with the song by Space that I looked back at recently) was released, and reached no. 25, so it definitely wasn’t the most successful out of all the singles in this genre, but despite that it’s still one of my favourites. There was also a video made, but I don’t think they got as far as Top Of The Pops though.

Some vocalists were hired for this one (Nicky Prince and MC Rumpus of course!), which also contains someone saying “selecter!“, which was becoming alarmingly close to being a cliché by this point. Another thing that helped this to have some success was the endorsement by The Dreem Teem. They were a production trio who by this point also had a show on BBC Radio 1. They were innovators in the genre, and had remixed a lot of songs, including releasing some of their own.

This meant that if you got their endorsement, you were on to a good thing (also one of them was called Timmi Magic, which rather inevitably led to Chris Moyles constantly calling him “Timmy Mallett”). This was right at the peak of Radio 1’s “avin’ it laaarge in Ibiza, whoa I’m totally spannered mate” era, when they really wanted to prove that they did know what this fancy dance music lark was all about.

Everyone has their favourites in this genre, and along with the likes of B15 Project, N ‘n’ G, and Sweet Female Attitude, this really is in the elite band for me of UK Garage classics. However, Zed Bias didn’t make the singles chart again, although they did on go to produce lots of remixes themselves, and have released nine albums under various aliases. The place you’d be most likely to hear “Neighbourhood” nowadays is on a compilation probably called “Now That’s What I Call UK Garage 17”.