Flashback: Madison Avenue's Don't Call Me Baby debuts at Number 1

Back in the early '00s, one way of ensuring your single would be a hit was by getting heavy rotation on music video channels.

And if you spent your days flicking between MTV Hits, The Box, TMF in the UK in 2000, one video that was unavoidable was Madison Avenue's Don't Call Me Baby. It certainly did the trick though, as the track stormed to Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart exactly 20 years ago this week. 

Madison Avenue were a short-lived Australian duo comprising of writer/producer Andy Van Dorselaer and singer Cheyne Coates - she was the one delivering a sassy dance routine in said video.

Don't Call Me Baby charged to the top spot with opening-week sales of 93,794, knocking the previous week's Number 1 - Britney Spears' Oops! I Did It Again - down to second place. The tracks' total combined sales stand at 434,000, and it seems some of you are still enjoying it - last week 16 people downloaded the song and it picked up 70,000 streams in the UK. 

But what became of Madison Avenue? They followed up their Number 1 with Top 10 hit Who The Hell Are You?, but they called it quits shortly after their album, brilliantly-titled The Polyester Embassy, stalled at Number 74.

In an interview with Junkee last year, Andy said the pressure of sudden global success caused the pair to burn out, and a second record was never made. “We couldn’t find the magic on the second album," he said. "I think we disagreed on where Madison Avenue was going and that’s fine. There’s no right or wrong in that answer — it’s just about desires and what makes you feel right."

Still, Madison Avenue leave a legacy of two solid hits, and 20 years on, with Coates’ permission, Van has revisited Don’t Call Me Baby for its 20th anniversary, with a recent re-release by his label Vicious Recordings.

Elsewhere in the Top 40 this week in 2000, Tom Jones notched up his seventeenth Top 10 hit with Sex Bomb new at Number 3, and Armand van Helden landed his second Top 5 smash with the Gary Numan-sampling Koochy.

Further down, there were more early summer club hits for Paul van Dyk's The Riddle ft. Saint Etienne at Number 7, and Shaft's Mambo Italiano debuted at Number 12. Heather Small's enduring self-empowerment anthem Proud landed at Number 16 - surprisingly, that would be its peak.

View the Official Singles Chart Top 100 from this week in 2000 in full

Listen to the Official Singles Chart Top 40 from this week in 2000 on Spotify below. Click here to listen on Deezer.