Official Charts Pop Gem #33: Sash – Encore Une Fois

We celebrate Sash!'s debut hit – and definite banger – from 1997.
sash.jpg

The classic Eurodance anthem from 1997 is the latest – and most banging – entry in our Pop Gem hall of fame.

A Pop Gem is a thing of wonder – a nugget of pop gold. It’s the tune that has somehow, despite pop’s best intentions, fallen from the dizzy heights of popularity down the back of pop’s sofa. It’s the song you didn’t even realise you loved or missed until it randomly started playing in a shop. And then you were like “Wow, I forgot about this tune!”

This week, we were looking for your dancefloor anthems – the guaranteed floorfillers. Your hip-swivelling suggestions came flooding in, and the late ‘90s to early ‘Noughties’ (sorry) were heavily represented. But which to choose? In the end, after much deliberation and a dance-off, we chose the song that was a French lesson as well as a club banger – now that is multitasking. It’s Encore Une Fois, from Sash!

Watch the video before we bang on about the song for a bit. Warning: the video is very, um, ‘of its time’, so expect lots of speeded-up footage of people hanging around bus stations and 12” records flying through the air because DJ.

Sash! are a German DJing and production ‘item’ led by Sascha Lappessen. Encore Une Fois was their first chart hit and a bit of a surprise success – and we do love a surprise. It was also a very good opportunity for anyone doing A-level French to show off and say “It means ‘one more time’. And the bit at the beginning says that Sash! is back”. Not that we would do any such boasting, of course.

Encore Une Fois is our first ever Pop Gem without proper lyrics, which is quite exciting, really. Upon its release in 1997, there were rumblings that dance music was ruining the charts and that ‘proper music’ was losing out, but dance music is now a huge part of the Official Singles Chart – some of this year’s biggest Number 1s have come from DJs. Avicii’s Wake Me Up, for example, is the third biggest selling song of 2013 so far. And Animals, this week's Official Singles Chart Number 1, is a veritable dance banger from Martin Garrix. So ner, dance deniers!

Sash! proved that dance music was no chart fad. They had an impressive run of hits – their first six all went Top 10. They never managed to secure a Number 1 but reached the runner-up position five times, with Encore Une Fois, Ecuador, Stay (brilliant), Mysterious Times (featuring Tina Cousins – absolute tune!) and Adelante. Encore Une Fois was a massive hit is Sash!’s biggest selling track – it’s shifted 562,000 copies. Over 11,000 of you have bought it this year alone, so you obviously know a good old banger when you hear one.

The track had what a French person might call a renaissance when it was rejigged with some words over the top to make Raindrops (Encore Une Fois), a Number 9 hit for Sash! FT Stunt in 2008. Interesting fact: the lady who speaks/screams in French is actually German.

Here’s the one Sash! did with Tina Cousins as an added bonus. 

Join the conversation by joining the Official Charts community and dropping comment.

Already registered?

Log in

No account?

Register