Too Close by Next (1998)

Too Close is a mid-tempo slow grind from a Minneapolis trio, sweet enough for a school disco, in which the singer warns his partner that she is about to notice something. The chorus is the confession. The verses are a man trying to keep dancing while discreetly rearranging himself, and the hook, which turns on the word "poke", is the most polite description of an erection ever to reach number one, practically a thank-you note.

It spent five non-consecutive weeks at number one in 1998, finished as Billboard's year-end number-one single, and went Platinum. RL has said he is proud of having fooled the world, that radio played it before realising what it was about, and that writing it that way was intentional. The groove is Kurtis Blow's Christmas Rappin', replayed in the studio by producers KayGee and D. Lighty, which means the most successful erection in chart history rides a Christmas record.

Its afterlife is British. Blue, a boy band, took a cover to number one in the United Kingdom in 2001, where Next's original had stalled at number 24, proving the British will buy an erection as long as it arrives in matching outfits. Stereogum's Number Ones column eventually gave the original its due. It is still the slow dance at every wedding, the one place its subject is guaranteed to turn up.