Number 1 today in 2000: Billie Piper – Day & Night

Looking back at Billie's third and final chart-topper, released this week in 2000.

Long before she was whizzing around the universe as Doctor Who's Rose Tyler or going off the rails on I Hate Suzie, Billie Piper was a bona fide, chart-topping popstar – and a record holder to boot.

Back in 1998, when she was 15, Billie Piper – then calling herself just Billie, like Madonna or Cher – became the youngest act to debut at Number 1 with her 'Mum and Dad just don’t understand' anthem Because We Want To.

Two years later, the surname was back and Billie was showing off her new grown-up attitude with Day & Night, a certified banger that had the same no-nonsense style of her earlier hits but with a tougher edge. Billie's new aesthetic positioned her as the UK's answer to Britney Spears, with global hitmakers Stargate enlisted to produce Day & Night and its parent album Walk Of Life.

Her third Number 1, Day & Night went straight in at the top of the Official Singles Chart this week in 2000, deposing Madison Avenue’s sass-filled dance hit Don’t Call Me Baby, selling 104,208 copies in its first week.

Billie’s pop career was brief but packed with successes. In just over two years she scored three Number 1s, and six of her seven singles went Top 5. View Billie's Official Chart history in full here.

The pressures of fame were, as Billie shared in a recent interview, a lot for a teenager to deal with, and after two albums she decided enough was enough and it was time to do something else. She released two more singles after Day & Night, while a fourth single from second album Walk of Life – a cover of Blondie’s Number 1 The Tide is High – was canned, leaving the way open for Atomic Kitten to top the charts with a very similar version of it in 2002.

Day & Night was Number 1 for just a week, before being toppled by Sonique’s chart behemoth It Feels So Good. To date, the track has notched up 281,000 UK chart sales, including 2 million streams since 2014.

Elsewhere on the Official Singles Chart that week, London garage duo DJ Luck & MC Neat landed their second Top 10 Masterblaster 2000, following their breakthrough hit A Little Bit Of Luck, at Number 5, and Dutch dance outfit Southside Spinners scored their first and only UK hit with Luvstruck, entering at Number 9 following its use on comedy film Kevin & Perry Go Large.