7 of Hot Chocolate's best songs ever

7 March 2018, 16:51

Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate were one of the finest British soul groups of all time, scoring a number of huge hits around the world.

Fronted by the late Errol Brown and his soothing vocals, Hot Chocolate were one of the biggest bands around in the 1970s and 1980s, and we still love playing their music to this day.

Here is the ultimate Hot Chocolate mixtape:

1. 'You Sexy Thing'

Probably their best known song, this disco number was a top three hit in both the UK and US in 1975 (it was beaten to number one in the UK by Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody. Amazingly, it was originally only meant to be a B-side!

It had a new lease of life in the 1990s, after its heavy use in The Full Monty. It saw the song re-enter the UK top 10 and cemented the UK's love for Errol and the boys.

2. 'Every 1's a Winner'

This funk classic is perhaps best known for its distinctive distorted guitar riff by Harvey Hinsley, and it was another UK and US top 10 hit.

Errol Brown later told the Mail On Sunday in 2009 that the band's producer Mickie Most suggested the song's title: "I was getting nowhere with it when I heard my eldest daughter crying in a particular rhythm and used that for the melody."

3. 'Brother Louie'

This song is about an interracial love affair and the negative reactions from both sets of parents. Blues Incorporated musician Alexis Korner has a spoken word part in the song as the father of the white man dating a black woman.

it was also covered by the band Stories, who scored a hit with a cover in the States in 1973.

4. 'It Started with a Kiss'

This ballad gave Hot Chocolate another top five hit in the UK in 1982. Errol said of the song: "I thought of the title and connected it to my puppy love for a girl in my class in Jamaica when I was nine. Her name was Barbara Blackwood. She would have no idea it had anything to do with her."

5. 'So You Win Again'

This was the band's only number one single, released in 1977. Writer Russ Ballard wasn't too fond of it, later saying: "I didn't like their version at the time, it seemed too slow and too English for me, but I got used to it.

"I wanted it more like Boz Scaggs, but Mickie was right and I was wrong."

6. 'Emma'

This emotional ballad was a top 10 hit for the band in both the UK and US. 

"The story is tied to the death of my mother, aged 38," Errol later said. "It was almost not released, as Mickie Most thought it too slow and morbid. The girls in his offices at RAK Records changed his mind."

7. 'No Doubt About It'

This 1980 track peaked at number two in the UK, and deals with the experiences of a man who witnesses a UFO landing.

Errol also claimed that it "sold so many records in the week it went to #2 that the factory ran out of stock, which deprived us of the #1 spot."