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BuzzJack Music Forum _ UK Charts _ Biggest trendsetting chart hits
Posted by: danG 16th March 2017, 06:08 PM
Some hits are big, but others are so massive that they inspire entire chart trends. What songs would you say are the biggest examples of these?
recently I'd say;
Omi / Felix Jaehn - Cheerleader [tropical house]
Major Lazer / DJ Snake / MØ - Lean On [making EDM far more 'pop']
The Chainsmokers / Halsey - Closer [super-commercialised future bass]
Justin Bieber - Sorry / What Do You Mean [tropical pop]
Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud [sappy radio-canon fodder adult contemporary]
The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face / The Hills [RnB-pop crossover]
Posted by: mdh 16th March 2017, 06:10 PM
Desiigner - Panda, mumble rap crossovers, since then we've had Don't Mind from Kent Jones, Bad and Boujee from Migos, iSpy by Kyle and a fair few more.
Posted by: liamk97 16th March 2017, 06:11 PM
Yeah, I've always considered 'Lean On' a key song in today's music landscape. That's the one I pinpoint for having the eccentric, electronic instrumental in place of a chorus - a trend that got very uninspired very quickly, but I've always thought it worked fabulously on 'Lean On'.
Posted by: mdh 16th March 2017, 06:14 PM
Oh and I've always felt that Wish You Were Mine by Phillip George was the trendsetter in terms of having scrambled, pitched vocals as the drop. I thought that sound was so cool at first and still do now.
Posted by: ML Hammer95 16th March 2017, 06:34 PM
Disclosure - Latch (house started to crossover from this point)
Usher - Yeah!
Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
Major Lazer - Lean On
Sean Paul - Get Busy (the Divali riddim was the sound of summer in 2003, lest not forget Kevin Lyttle too)
feel like there'd be a big Indie song at the start of 2004 that kick-started the trend but I couldn't pinpoint which one. And there'd be a Mustard electronic/R&B one from 2013/14 but again it's hard to pick one...
Posted by: Cody Slayberry 16th March 2017, 06:51 PM
Songs that started incorporating dubstep
Posted by: Rob Spears 16th March 2017, 06:54 PM
...Baby One More Time.
Posted by: ML Hammer95 16th March 2017, 07:00 PM
I'm not sure about 'Can't Feel My Face' when 'Want to Want Me' was released earlier that summer and is practically the same genre. Not saying Jason Derulo started a trend or anything. 
Posted by: Bjork 16th March 2017, 07:02 PM
David Gray was the first proper singer/songwriter that actually sold lots of records (Babylon/White Ladder), before him, singer-songwriters didn't sell a record (i.e. Dylan, Cohen), and he certainly opened the door for James Blunt, Paolo Nutini, James Morrison, and later Ed Sheeran. All labels invested in singer-songwriters after White Ladder, even if a lot of times they were sorta fake ones like James Blunt 
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 07:05 PM
Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand maybe?
Others:
Cher - Believe (so many vocoders were heard in pop after this...I'm sure Blue (Da Ba Dee) would have been a very different song without Believe existing for example)
Amy Winehouse - Rehab (60s-esque pop was inescapable following the Back To Black album...until about the end of 2008, Duffy/Adele/Gabriella Cilmi et al)
La Roux - In For The Kill (I want to say this kickstarted 2009's huge 80s revival, unless somebody can think of something else that did it?)
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 07:12 PM
I also always think three albums that came out at the end of 2002 (and their respective singles) kicked the 00s into gear and steered pop music away from the 90s sound that carried over into 2000-2002 into something with way more edge and attitude. These were: Pink's Missundaztood, Christina Aguilera's Stripped and Justin Timberlake's Justified.
Posted by: BillyH 16th March 2017, 07:15 PM
Tubeway Army - Are Friends Electric (1979) is a pretty obvious one for synthpop, although arguably it only got truly colossal once Visage - Fade To Grey arrived at the end of 1980.
M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume kickstarting commercial house in 1987. Not the first house hit (Love Can't Turn Around), or even the first house #1 (Jack Your Body) but the moment the floodgates truly opened for the genre, leading to a few million hit singles with the word "house" in the title during late '87/early '88.
Probably The Prodigy - Charly (1991) for breakbeat rave. Again there'd been others before, but this smashing into the top 10 in late summer ensured the sound dominated the chart for the rest of the year and into '92. Oceanic's 'Insanity' debuted the same chart week at a lower position.
Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer (1992) as the missing link between early-90s rave and mid-90s Eurodance, commercial dance slowly losing the breakbeats from then on and transitioning to frantic synth riffs and the female singer/male rapper format. Snap obviously had a #1 hit with The Power two years earlier, but that sounded pretty different.
M-Beat feat. General Levy - Incredible (1994) ushering in jungle to the charts, which might not have lasted long in the mainstream but for at least two summers ('94 and '95) was a colossal force.
Robert Miles - Children (1996) bringing in all sorts of 'dream house' copycat records, later transitioning into early trance from the likes of BBE.
Faithless - Insomnia (1996) - not quite a whole new genre, but that distinctive pizzicato string sound it uses being everywhere for the next couple of years, used by Sash, Brainbug etc.
Rosie Gaines - Closer Than Close and Tina Moore- Never Gonna Let You Go (both 1997) bringing speed and 2-step garage to a chart audience, the latter getting truly huge when Shanks & Bigfoot - Sweet Like Chocolate arrived two years later, setting the course for the likes of Craig David and the Artful Dodger to dominate the start of the noughties.
ATB - 9pm (Til I Come) (1999) basically doing for trance what M/A/R/R/S did for house two years earlier, the first truly massive crossover trance hit in its evolved late 1990s form. Also around the peak of Ibiza's popularity for clubbers.
Someone more informed than me can help with the noughties and beyond!
Posted by: Liаm 16th March 2017, 07:20 PM
I did a sociology essay about music and culture and read a journal about dubstep going from underground to mainstream and they credited Britney Spears for dabbling on Blackout
Although that's not being a chart hit, as none of the singles really did.
Posted by: BillyH 16th March 2017, 07:25 PM
First song I associate with noughties indie to chart is The Strokes - Hard To Explain (#16, w/e 07/07/2001), but admittedly that's a good while before the sound truly starts to dominate the charts.
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out entered at #3 on w/e 24/01/2004, just ahead of the rest of big indie hits that year - I'd go with that I think.
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 07:25 PM
Oh, and Adele's Make You Feel My Love/Someone Like You brought piano ballads back to the fore...in 2011 it was basically the only thing on offer besides 'club bangers'.
Cascada's Everytime We Touch and Infernal's From Paris To Berlin in 2006 can be credited with bringing Eurodance back for a short while I suppose too!
And Call On Me by Eric Prydz was responsible for the looped house dance sound/'sexy' videos craze of 2004-6. There were a few before this that did well but this really took it into the next gear.
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 07:26 PM
Although that's not being a chart hit, as none of the singles really did.Wasn't Hold It Against Me the first big pop single to have a dubstep breakdown?
The year later when it showed up in every Melodifestivalen and Eurovision entry
Posted by: Chez Wombat 16th March 2017, 07:26 PM
Trying to trace what started the 'deep house' phase that ran from 2013-2014 (and oh how I miss it next to shite tropical house </3), I think Duke Dumont's Need U (100%) was probably the likeliest one, as much as I dislike it.
Wasn't massively popular itself, but Magnetic Man's I Need Air I think should take credit for VERY briefly bringing dubstep into the mainstream for those two years (of which the likes of Rita Ora/Britney Spears eventually jumped on).
Posted by: JosephSharman 16th March 2017, 07:27 PM
I'd have put Firestone down as the trendsetter for tropical house tbh, it feels like the template more so than Cheerleader, although that's still quite a notable one too I guess!
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 07:28 PM
Can we blame Duke for tropical house too though? I Got U came a year before Cheerleader!
Posted by: BillyH 16th March 2017, 07:33 PM
Definitely Firestone for tropical house.
Although that's not being a chart hit, as none of the singles really did.Nneka - Heartbeat (#20) charted here in its https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUsm3PCoGIE in September 2009, which sounds pretty close to dubstep to me if not quite the sound that truly commercially peaked circa 2011.
Magnetic Man had a top 10 hit with I Need Air in August 2010, followed soon after by Katy B's Katy On A Mission which went top 5. Then things went insane the following year with Nero, DJ Fresh, and, erm, Britney...
Posted by: Davidson 16th March 2017, 07:34 PM
Sia - Cheap Thrills (would suggest this is becoming one. I know loads of tropical house songs came first but it moved it even more into pop)
Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk (more fun/disco coming back, like Sax and Bruno's solo stuff)
Avicii - Wake Me Up (think it set a bit of a dance/country trend at the time, can see it coming back up in the new Kygo/Selena song etc.)
Iggy Azalea - Fancy (I felt like loads of songs coming out after that seemed to want to recreate it, loads of Charli style chanty choruses)
Emeli Sande - Next To Me (felt like that kinda sound definitely kicked off that big drum sound; look at Leona's last album, Jennifer Hudson new single etc.)
Posted by: Chez Wombat 16th March 2017, 07:40 PM
Oh yes, I forgot Chase & Status, definitely played a big part in the dance crazes.
I recall at the time it was lumped with Route 94, Kiesza and SecondCity as the 'deep house' craze, which wasn't really right, looking back, it was actually quite ahead of it's time!
Posted by: Lenny 16th March 2017, 08:30 PM
My thinking too.
'Firestone' was more responsible for the much lower-tempo tropical house sound, which together with 'Lean On' is what I feel resulted in The Chainsmokers et al sound.
Posted by: Ryan. 16th March 2017, 08:33 PM
I always consider We Found Love as the song that made "EDM drops" a thing in pop songs!
Posted by: danG 16th March 2017, 08:42 PM
As for tropical house I'd say Kygo very much was the main influence on it, although the Omi song was far bigger than Firestone so that put it well in the mainstream. Firestone is responsible for the slower tempo dance trend though.
Posted by: AcerBen 16th March 2017, 09:48 PM
Not so sure about Thinking Out Loud. We've always had sappy pop ballads, but actually not that many do very well these days. I don't remember there being lots in the chart in the last couple of years.
Posted by: danG 16th March 2017, 09:58 PM
Thinking Out Loud paved the way for Say You Won't Let Go and Wasn't Expecting That to name two.
Posted by: BillyH 16th March 2017, 10:06 PM
Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk (more fun/disco coming back, like Sax and Bruno's solo stuff)
Avicii - Wake Me Up (think it set a bit of a dance/country trend at the time, can see it coming back up in the new Kygo/Selena song etc.)
Iggy Azalea - Fancy (I felt like loads of songs coming out after that seemed to want to recreate it, loads of Charli style chanty choruses)
Emeli Sande - Next To Me (felt like that kinda sound definitely kicked off that big drum sound; look at Leona's last album, Jennifer Hudson new single etc.)
I'd agree with 'Wake Me Up' the most here - although most of those dance/country hits were by Avicii himself
Was 'Timber' influenced by it or was that just a lucky coincidence?I'd say Adele's 21-era hits (and Make You Feel My Love) paved the way for irritating pop-ballads far more than Thinking Out Loud.
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 10:10 PM
What about James Morrison and The Script? They've made long careers out of the exact same thing before 21 was released.
There's always a place for unchallenging male troubadour MOR after all
Posted by: n4yr 16th March 2017, 10:18 PM
MOR has been around for decades.
Posted by: Вuzzjack 16th March 2017, 10:56 PM
Artful Dodger and Craig David- Re-Rewind - Start of the UK garage trend.
Ian van Dahl - Castles In The Sky - Started the whole vocal trance boom by 2002
Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme - The whole retro sounding vocal house revival up to about mid 2006.
Bodyrox and Luciana - Yeah Yeah/Fedde le Grand -Put Your Hands Up For Detroit - These started the electro house trend.
Posted by: Вuzzjack 16th March 2017, 10:57 PM
What about as a very early influence Dario G - Sunchyme back in 1997!
Posted by: gooddelta 16th March 2017, 11:13 PM
What's also interesting is songs that stood out hugely at the time as being very different, yet that didn't really spark any trends (makes you wonder why not, seeing as people like to copy established hits.)
Things like Shakira's Hips Don't Lie for example, I really can't think of anything it influenced. It would have sounded more at home in the chart landscape of summer 1999.
As per the above too, you'd think Sunchyme would have sparked a load of immediate soundalikes but that was pretty much it for tropical house until the resurgence of late
Posted by: paulgilb 16th March 2017, 11:30 PM
Taio Cruz - Come On Girl in early 2008 seemed to kickstart the 'urban artists going down the dance route' craze that was massive for the next few years (e.g. David Guetta collaborating with many urban artists).
Lady Gaga - Just Dance in early 2009 kicked off the RedOne electropop sound.
Posted by: liamk97 17th March 2017, 06:19 AM
'Vogue' is usually referred to as the song that brought house into the pop landscape in the US, although in the UK I usually trace back house in pop music back to 'Ride On Time'. I know that house started to make it in the charts closer to 1987, but it wasn't as poppy nor did it have that recognisable piano melody.
It's interesting that, despite being referred to as a trend-setter, you rarely see Madonna's songs pinpointed as what marked the start of a trend.
Posted by: mdh 18th March 2017, 06:50 PM
Listening to I Got U after it being brought up in here - and Jax Jones features on the track? Wtf? Since when?
Posted by: cqmerqn 18th March 2017, 07:05 PM
Since always
Posted by: Вuzzjack 18th March 2017, 07:22 PM
I recall at the time it was lumped with Route 94, Kiesza and SecondCity as the 'deep house' craze, which wasn't really right, looking back, it was actually quite ahead of it's time!
Secondcity isn't deep house though imo, I would consider it just normal piano house. The other two are deep house though.
Posted by: mdh 18th March 2017, 07:48 PM
I always thought it was a second Duke Dumont ft A*M*E collab!
Posted by: liamk97 19th March 2017, 11:44 PM
I trace that sound back to 'Rolling in the Deep'. Whenever I hear the big, almost marching band styled production, I always refer to it either as the 'Rolling in the Deep' sound or the OneRepublic sound, since they've done it a few times. 'Next to Me' is much quieter in comparison to others, actually.
Posted by: sammy01 20th March 2017, 12:10 AM
Spice Girls - Wannabe - the mid to late 90's wave of fun (cheesy) pop started here. Steps, S Club 7 etc all took note from it and ran with it.
Kylie Minogue - Cant get you out of my head - I cant stand this song these days but it was very influential, it seemed futuristic almost.
Eminem ft Dido - Stan - It may have happened before but this is the first time I can remember a huge hit where a very different artist (and female) comes in to sing the hook or chorus. Rihanna later basically perfected this.
Duffy - Mercy - She started that 60's sound being truly big.
Posted by: Вuzzjack 20th March 2017, 12:12 AM
This one was sung on the Voice at the weekend, thats why I remember it as one but Good Luck by Basement Jaxx in 2004 really started the Sigma type drum and bass and orchestral/nu disco mix sound 10 years before Everybody's Changing.
Posted by: BillyH 20th March 2017, 12:26 AM
One from the 90s - Coolio's 'Gangsta's Paradise' was the first genuinely huge crossover rap hit in the UK. Obviously you'd had Vanilla Ice/MC Hammer/Snow etc before, but I think rap in this country before 1995 was either seen as a novelty genre for kids, or home to explicit politically-themed records (NWA, Public Enemy etc) critically acclaimed but selling little as radio wouldn't go near them.
Gangsta's Paradise sold a million, got massive radio airplay (helped by having nothing to edit out!) and everyone from kids to adults loved it. Definitely proved that credible rap could finally become a major chart force in the UK.
Posted by: BillyH 20th March 2017, 12:28 AM
Yeah, Duffy looking back basically arrived at the perfect time, when everyone wanted a new Amy Winehouse album but she wasn't in any state to make one. There were a fair few "new Amys" being hyped up in the late noughties making that 60s soul sound, one of which being someone called Adele...
Posted by: Riser 20th March 2017, 04:22 AM
I've always considered 'I Gotta Feeling' to be the biggest trendsetter for urban artists turning to dance-pop for a few years. There were probably a couple that emerged a bit earlier but the Black Eyed Peas' massive comeback really made it a trend.
Would definitely agree with Ryan about 'We Found Love' caused a whole lot of soundalikes, thinking of Tulisa especially. I'd also say 'Love The Way You Lie' and 'Airplanes' started a trend to some extent in 2010, thinking of Devlin, Chipmunk, Professor Green...
Posted by: Вuzzjack 20th March 2017, 06:58 PM
Would definitely agree with Ryan about 'We Found Love' caused a whole lot of soundalikes, thinking of Tulisa especially.
I'd also say 'Love The Way You Lie' and 'Airplanes' started a trend to some extent in 2010, thinking of Devlin, Chipmunk, Professor Green...It will be interesting whether the success of Bad Things leads to a revival of that early 10s 'male rapper in the verses with a female singer singing the chorus' type trend that started with 'Airplanes' and 'Love The Way You Lie'
Posted by: gooddelta 20th March 2017, 07:36 PM
Kylie Minogue - Cant get you out of my head - I cant stand this song these days but it was very influential, it seemed futuristic almost.
Eminem ft Dido - Stan - It may have happened before but this is the first time I can remember a huge hit where a very different artist (and female) comes in to sing the hook or chorus. Rihanna later basically perfected this.
Duffy - Mercy - She started that 60's sound being truly big.
Agree with the concept that Spice Girls brought pure pop back to the mainstream, even though there's was arguably less cheesy than the likes of Steps.
I'd argue that Gina G's Ooh Ahh Just A Little Bit, which came a few months before Wannabe, also played a part in record labels waking up to the fact that there was a big market for bubblegum pop. Sure you could just put it down to a Eurovision-shaped anomaly but it far transcended its status as just a Eurovision entry, it was the biggest selling cheesy pop hit in years.
Posted by: Вuzzjack 20th March 2017, 07:57 PM
I'd argue that Gina G's Ooh Ahh Just A Little Bit, which came a few months before Wannabe, also played a part in record labels waking up to the fact that there was a big market for bubblegum pop. Sure you could just put it down to a Eurovision-shaped anomaly but it far transcended its status as just a Eurovision entry, it was the biggest selling cheesy pop hit in years.
Gina G was more Eurodance than pop, which evolved into The Vengaboys and then Alice Deejay and then into the early 00s Clubland eurotrance Flip and Fill type sound.
Speaking of Flip and Fill 'Shooting Star' in 2002 really started the cheesier sort of eurotrance sound emerging, and opened the floodgates for a lot of other Clubland eurotrance songs (the highest charting one of these being XTM et al's Fly on the Wings Of Love) to make the charts up to early 2005.
Posted by: ML Hammer95 20th March 2017, 09:08 PM
Nah, Bad Things hasn't been nearly as big as Airplanes or Love The Way You Lie were. Those two dominated when they were released.
Posted by: BillyH 21st March 2017, 02:12 AM
A few from before the majority of us were born:
Bill Haley & The Comets - Rock Around The Clock (1955)
Catapulted rock & roll music into the British mainstream, making many sit up and take note. First ever charting song with 'Rock' in the title - but definitely not the last!
The Beatles - She Loves You (1963)
From Me To You might have been a significant earlier #1 for them, but this is the moment they turned from a popular fad into era-defining megastars. Biggest selling song in the UK until 1977!!
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations (1966)
Seen as a masterpiece then and still today, its groundbreaking production led to increasing amounts of experimentation in pop and rock music, the power of editing and multi-track truly beginning to be recognised.
T-Rex - Hot Love (1971)
A major "What is THAT?" moment on its first Top of the Pops performance, T-Rex's second hit single is seen as the true birth of glam rock, a genre which would define the early 70s.
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody (1973)
The first "modern" Christmas song. Wizzard released theirs at the same time, but Slade's radical update of festive music set the ball rolling for the next few decades worth of Christmas classics.
George McCrae - Rock Your Baby (1974)
First disco song to reach #1 in the UK, leading eventually to its later decade chart dominance.
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen (1977)
The peak of the furore surrounding punk rock and a major chart moment when it - just - missed #1. Commercial radio and record labels take notice.
Tubeway Army - Are Friends Electric? (1979)
As previously mentioned in this thread!
David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes (1980)
First heard this twenty years later, and it still sounded amazing and alien. The 1980s arrive with a bang with a groundbreaking video to boot.
Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? (1984)
First truly massive charity/allstar record. Biggest selling single of all time until 1997. Many have followed since!
Posted by: Вuzzjack 21st March 2017, 02:50 PM
1982 - Yazoo - Don't Go. The real start of the high NRG synthpop which would become bigger by the late 80s.
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