(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Mon 16 February 2026 19:30, UK
With every passing decade comes the opportunity to analyse culture as an “era”. Looking at the latter stages of the 20th century, each decade felt as though it had its own definitive personality. There was the swinging 1960s, the artistically diverse 1970s, the futuristic 1980s, and lastly the 1990s, characterised more specifically in the UK by its booming era of Britpop.
But come the end of that last decade, something more seismic loomed. Something that culture critics could sink their teeth into as a means of analysing social and artistic change. This was, of course, the dawn of a new millennium.
Happening only once every thousand years, this was the first time modern pop culture, as we know it, went through a millennial change. Naturally, we all wondered exactly what this would mean for music. Unsurprisingly, it meant that commercial wasps like Robbie Williams felt it was necessary to pen a tune in honour of the moment, with his cleverly titled ‘Millennium’ hitting the charts. But elsewhere, it almost expedited a desire for stylistic change.
There was a misguided desire to thrust music and art into the deeply futuristic. The antiquated era of four-piece guitar bands and analogue recording was to be done away with and replaced with autotune and electronic drum kits. Eventually, societally rebelled, promoting bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes as saviours of the new millennium, when the rather bleak and unpromised reality came to fruition.
But prior to that, there was a feeling that it would all finally change, and so, the 1990s was the last decade for these traditional musicians to stake their claim as greats and storm the charts one last time, because after all, it would be another thousand years until a song could definitively be claimed the last number one of a millennium, so this was once in a lifetime opportunity to stake your claim in music history.
So, what was the last number one song of the 20th century?
Well, if we are to simply analyse the trends from both sides of the pond, then the charts’ results tell a distinctly different story. In the UK, it seemed as though audiences were gladly accepting the promise of a new millennium. The 2000s were marketed as the booming era of pop, with music moguls forming boy and girl bands all over through talent shows, as a means of storming the charts.
In the UK, we were clearly lapping up that trend, as Louis Walsh’s project Westlife topped the charts for the final time in the 1990s. Their single ‘I Have A Dream/Seasons In The Sun’ achieved Christmas number one status and stayed there for four weeks.
In America, however, the last dregs of rock and roll were clinging on for dear life. Rock legend Santana teamed up with Rob Thomas to champion the idea of artistic baton passing, with two separate generations joining forces to release a contemporary track.
And clearly it worked, as their hit ‘Smooth’, topped the charts way back in October of 1999 and stayed there for a mammoth ten weeks.