Official Charts Pop Gem #8: Vanessa Paradis - Be My Baby

Here at Official Charts HQ, we’re not averse to a good pop tune. Actually, we love…no we LUUV a good pop tune. WE ♥ POP. There. And, throughout 2012, we’re celebrating 60 years of the Official Singles Chart – the home of said pop tunes.

Every week, with a little help from you lot, we’ll be shining the spotlight on some real pop gems from yesteryear to get you set for the weekend. And, following your 3-4 minutes of feel-good pop indulgence, we’d like you to share the love with your mates. After all, it’s your pop duty!

Today’s Official Chart Pop Gem has been chosen due to overwhelming public demand. Oh yes. It also happens to be one of the favourite 90s songs of the ENTIRE male contingency of OfficialCharts.com. Fancy that.

Yes yes, it’s:

Vanessa Paradis – Be My Baby

Having enjoyed a UK Number 3 single aged fifteen with the French-sung Joe Le Taxi, Vanessa Paradis subsequently left school to pursue a career in music and film. Outside of France however, things were pretty quiet until 1992, when Paradis, now nineteen, moved to America to work on her first proper international release with then-beau Lenny Kravitz.

The first single from her self-titled album was Be My Baby, released in October 1992. That year it sold 135 000 copies and peaking at Number 6 in the Official Singles Chart, where it spent 15 weeks in the Top 75.

The notoriously prolific Kravitz did more than merely give Paradis some helpful tips for her hit single. “Lenny the Loin” (© Daily Mail), who had enjoyed international success with his Mama Said album the year prior, co-wrote, produced and played several of the track’s instruments. Those sixties-esque drums? That’s Lenny. Ms Paradis’ longing declaration of “I just want to be sure/ that forever and more/ you would be my baby”? Written by a dude.

And was there ever a HOTTER couple than Paradis and Kravitz in the 90s? Oh, of course there’s Vanessa and Johnny Depp…

But naturally, the track would have been nothing without Paradis’ sultry vocals, emphasised by the John Lindauer directed music video – surely one of the most enduring and iconic clips of the 90s (whaddyamean Wicked Games??). You can’t NOT be moved by this feel-good, seductively naïve gem of a 90s pop tune. After all, all she’s asking you for is to be her baby, baby.

Want to suggest a track to be next week's Official Charts Pop Gem and tell the world what you remember about a lost pop classic? Email us at: popgem@officialcharts.com