Great Moments In Pop – The 90s Part 17.

Something rather strange happened on the singles chart in the late-90s. Any song that seemed to get a half-decent amount of radio airplay and had been a success in the clubs for a while seemed to instantly go to Number One. I didn’t really plan to do many pieces about various dance production groups, but this is one that I think actually has a story worth featuring.

Wamdue Project were American, and I don’t know what a “Wamdue” is. “King Of My Castle” had already been around for a couple of years or so when there was suddenly a big stir around this one following a remix. In November 1999, an imported version made the lower end of the chart, showing that there was now much anticipation and some couldn’t even wait for the British version to be released.

And then a week later, this became a chart-topper for one week. “King Of My Castle” is notable for having a rather distinctive sound, including what I always thought sounded like some bus doors closing. And there was also a female vocalist, who informed us “must be the reason why I’m free to mud wrestle“, or at least that’s what I think she said, maybe it was something else.

With a few weeks of the 90s decade remaining at this point, this was a rather unusual way to finish things off. It all seems so long ago now. And after this, it was presumed that there would be a lot of interest in what they would do next. In April 2000, “You’re The Reason” was released, and this reached no. 39, which was rather a large drop-off from their recent success, and I wonder how many people now even remember that they had a second hit single at all.

I remember seeing the video for this on the music channels, and would you believe that this one sounded exactly the same as “King Of My Castle”! I know that if a dance group lands of a successful sound, there seems to be little reason to change the formula, but this has to be one of the most blatant examples of just doing the same thing again. Wamdue Project went on to release many more singles (under various names) over about a decade, hopefully some of them sounded a little different.