The DVD release of Titanic? :o I didn't even realise it was popular as a format at the time in the UK but I remember we got it on VHS that week. I didn't get Cher's Believe on single until Xmas day though, as a present!

 

I really like 911's cover of More Than A Woman, strange that SO many acts released Bee Gees covers in the late 90s, although I think we covered that point earlier in the thread...

The DVD release of Titanic? :o I didn't even realise it was popular as a format at the time in the UK but I remember we got it on VHS that week. I didn't get Cher's Believe on single until Xmas day though, as a present!

 

I really like 911's cover of More Than A Woman, strange that SO many acts released Bee Gees covers in the late 90s, although I think we covered that point earlier in the thread...

Well DVD/ Video relase at any rate. There must have been a DVD release as pop video's were on CD singles by 1997 so i guess I can't be too far out :lol:

14TH NOVEMBER- EACH TIME- E-17 (1 Week)

 

http://www.avatune.com/pics/210105173.jpg

 

Proving that perhaps somethings are better left untouched the attempted comeback by East 17 was, to put it mildly, not a great success. Things started off brightly enough with an album of self written material and "Each Time" isn't an horrendous records but the lack of Mortimer (who refused to come back for the "E-17" project) is clearly missing. Natural curiosity meant that they had a fair bit of media attention around the release of this and whether or not they still had an audience, the follow up single "Betcha Can't Wait" stalled at No 12 and the album bombed, so by the end of 1999 the general answer was no and so they were dropped.

 

The lyrics are somewhat plain and generic so this ultimately lets the record down, but there are many records in this thread which are here just because of the artist name so that's not a reason to dislike the record alone. The problem is the generally limp affair that it ends up becoming, it's more of an Another Level B-Side, it won't offend that's for sure but you can't help but think that as Mortimer heard this for the first time on the radio post that split, he must have chuckled to himself that they wouldn't last too long without him. he wasn't wrong.

 

Edited December 26, 201113 yr by Dasher76

28TH NOVEMBER- UNTIL THE TIME IS THROUGH- Five (1 week)

 

http://www.technodisco.net/img/tracks/f/five/586833-five-until-the-time-is-through.jpg

 

Mercilessly mining that debut album, this was their fifth release from it and the deterioriation in quality was beginning to show. It was the second of a trio of No 2 hits for them, and indeed the second of three boyband records in a row in this thread, such was the market demand for the genre, it has, at least, the advantage over the E-17 record for sounding 1998, the E-17 track could have been from 1994 or 95, but beyond that it's another limp moment from a band who actually had delivered previous hits with attitude and a touch of pizazz to the whole proceedings.

 

Of course with ballads it's much harder to be inventive, Tony Mortimer of East 17 once commented that it was far easier to write ballads as the four minutes were filled easier with less filler, and here you get the sense that that has just encouraged lazy song writing. Personally I didn't mind this song at the time, that's my soft spot for Five talking, looking back and being honest it isn't their finest moment- thank god they came back with something truly great in 1999 (the majestic "Keep On Moving") this is merely a foot note in the hsistory of the boyband.

 

Edited December 26, 201113 yr by Dasher76

I love both of those and would count them both in my top 40 of 1998, they each remind me hugely of being in Year 7, so I assume that both were popular with the girls in my class, I know that the 5ive one was at least! :lol:

 

Each Time deserves far more credit than you give it, it was a much slicker and contemporary production than their early 90s stuff and definitely doesn't sound like a 94/95 song to my ears. Betcha Can't Wait on the other hand was crap.

 

The 5ive song is essentially the template that Simon Cowell also used for Westlife's early singles with the Backstreet Boys esque backing track and sweeping strings, play it to anybody now and I bet most people would assume that it's a Westlife song. That's not to say that it's faceless - it lacks the attitude and personality that other 5ive singles had but it's a strong manufactured pop ballad in its own right, 100 times better than our modern day equivalent's, The Wanted's Heart Vacancy and One Direction's Gotta Be You for example!

 

Cher's Believe also stopped a third boyband track from hitting #1 that I have an irrational love for. Rihanna's We Found Love spending six weeks on top and holding The Wanted, One Direction and JLS off has a lot of similarity to Cher holding off the three boybands in 1998 come to think of it!

I love both of those and would count them both in my top 40 of 1998, they each remind me hugely of being in Year 7, so I assume that both were popular with the girls in my class, I know that the 5ive one was at least! :lol:

 

Each Time deserves far more credit than you give it, it was a much slicker and contemporary production than their early 90s stuff and definitely doesn't sound like a 94/95 song to my ears. Betcha Can't Wait on the other hand was crap.

 

The 5ive song is essentially the template that Simon Cowell also used for Westlife's early singles with the Backstreet Boys esque backing track and sweeping strings, play it to anybody now and I bet most people would assume that it's a Westlife song. That's not to say that it's faceless - it lacks the attitude and personality that other 5ive singles had but it's a strong manufactured pop ballad in its own right, 100 times better than our modern day equivalent's, The Wanted's Heart Vacancy and One Direction's Gotta Be You for example!

 

Cher's Believe also stopped a third boyband track from hitting #1 that I have an irrational love for. Rihanna's We Found Love spending six weeks on top and holding The Wanted, One Direction and JLS off has a lot of similarity to Cher holding off the three boybands in 1998 come to think of it!

I do recall you saying some time ago that you liked the E-17 song, are you sure that it's not just nostalgia talking? :D

 

If you compare this to say "Thunder" or "If You Ever" the production seems that updated to my ears and th ssongwriting notably worse.

 

I do agree with you about the Five record, it's just a shame that the template Cowell to go forward with was one of the worse records by the group. I never could make a tune out in "Heart Vacancy" or "Gotta Be You" :)

I do recall you saying some time ago that you liked the E-17 song, are you sure that it's not just nostalgia talking? :D

 

If you compare this to say "Thunder" or "If You Ever" the production seems that updated to my ears and th ssongwriting notably worse.

 

I do agree with you about the Five record, it's just a shame that the template Cowell to go forward with was one of the worse records by the group. I never could make a tune out in "Heart Vacancy" or "Gotta Be You" :)

 

Nope, I'm quite sure - I liked it at the time and still quite often listen to it now - because I like the melody. Stay Another Day and Deep remain their absolute finest for me though, I never really got much into their uptempos. I suppose I've always been more a fan of ballads and MOR than uptempos anyway though, which goes some way to explaining that :lol:

 

Oddly, Until The Time Is Through is probably my favourite 5ive song, although I was never much a fan of them anyway. So I didn't mind Cowell nicking the template for Westlife's first few singles - the first few of which were relatively decent imo. Westlife could never have pulled off anything like Everybody Get Up anyway :lol: Heart Vacancy and Gotta Be You are poor pop ballads which quite rightfully sold no further than those act's fanbases. Compared to Glad You Came and What Makes You Beautiful which were decent pop songs in their own right and had a far wider reach and at least four times as many sales!

5TH DECEMBER- I LOVE THE WAY YOU LOVE ME- Boyzone (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/79/Boyzone_I_Love_The_Way_You_Love_Me.jpeg

 

Now way back in 1994 All-4-One spent seven weeks at No 2 with "I swear", and that this point Cher was all conquering with "Believe" at teh No 1 spot for 7 weeks. That's just coincidence but what connects these two events is one John Michael Montgomery who recorded both of those songs and had country hits with them before they were converted into the poptastic hits we recall today.

 

This is Boyzone back in ballad mode, one that always suited them far better, to be honest this si somewhere between "All That I Need" and "No Matter What" in the quality of their '98 singles, there seemd to be a genuine rejuvination in the group post "No Matter What", they more self assured but that hardly meant they were going to tackle new ground, just that they seemed to know where the market wanted them to be. For a band who had always been in the shadow of Take That to get a single that had sold more than any Take That song must have been vindication as the biggest boyband of the decade. It wasn't to be for very long however and the split was just 12 months away (for 8 years anyway) as the notorious solo careers were about to to get underway, but back at Christmas 98 this is a little festive warmer. Now there is a school of thought that they did nothing more than a regurgitate country hits most of the time (certainly Ronan's solo career was little more) and that's a hard bullet to dodge but for me this stays just the right side of pleasant, the orchestration is actually quite lush in the background and a decrease in the traditional grating Ronan voice helps on this one, Gately does the better vocal on this one.

 

As this is the final Boyzone record we'll encounter here I have to say I didn't mind them really, I bought "By Request" when it was released, and admittedly there are some bland fillers that they made into singles but in the boyband arena of late 90s pop they probably were one of the better groups.

 

Edited December 27, 201113 yr by Dasher76

12TH DECEMBER- HARD KNOCK LIFE (GHETTO ANTHEM)- Jay Z (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cd/JayZHardKnockLifeCDSingleCover.jpg

 

I can't believe i'm going to write this but I really really like this! Of course it's in the main due to the sample from the musical "Annie" which was originally a broadway smash in the late 70s and was revived in 1997, crossing the Atlantic again and having a west end run in late 98 which may have proved enough to shove this song back into the limelight and helped Jay Z score his biggest hit in the UK to date, it would take 8 more years before he would finally get a No 1 (he isn't officially credited on "Crazy In Love"). I'm not an expert on the genre but Jay Z's rapping seems superb, rapping at a lazy rate which perfectly suits the pace of the sample that bounces along underneath the verses.

 

The kids led verses are quite endearing, and it's oddly quite Christmassy in a way that's hard to pinpoint exactly and would have made a good chart topper in 1998 but for pesky Cher who was by now (thankfully) in her last week at the top. With some songs it's hard to identify why exactly you like it, you just do, and that's how I feel about "Hard Knock Life" perhaps it's the sense of fun, the optimistic feel of the track, those cute little kids....sorry there's just something in my eye making it water....

 

Edited December 27, 201113 yr by Dasher76

So that's it for 1998- one last year left- Phew!!

Not a fan of Hard Knock Life but I adore that Boyzone song, a triple whammy of shameful love for boyband #2 ballads from late 1998 then! The strings in it are sublime, hence why I included it in my round of NMTBJ's :D

 

Two of my top three favourite 90s songs will come up during 1999...

23RD JANUARY 1999- I WANT YOU FOR MYSELF- Another Level Featuring Ghostface Killah (1 week)

 

http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/a/another_level-i_want_you_for_myselfintl.ver.jpg

 

After that rude interruption by Jay Z we return to the world of boybands. Long before Blue (who also were an interracial boyband- I'm not sure if Another Level were one of the first) the fusion of R N B and pop in the boyband genre was pretty much covered by Another Level (in terms of UK boybands) this ultimately made them far cooler to like than the likes of 911 (who held them off No 1 this week) or Boyzone. In the days before Dane Bowers became more of a "heat" celebrity thanks to that very public break up with Jordan, he had a full time job in the band who in just 2 years accumulated 8 top 20 hits before splitting in 2000. They were never a band I really gave much thought to and perhaps I was still hungover in Jan 1999 as I can barely recall this but listening to it again and it actually isn't half bad, very american in its production I grant you but sufficiently different to what the rest of the boyband market was doing in these years (I actually have a soft soft for "Bomb Diggy" which became their final hit later in 99).

 

The vocals are quite smooth and seem to glide over the production in quite a pleasing manner, in doesn't have the faux sexuality of "Freak Me" but that's a good thing, just a sufficient amount of earnestness without going OTT, "From The Heart" another hit of their's from this year will go well over this liine and end up quite off putting but all told this was a good listen after all this time.

 

Edited December 28, 201113 yr by Dasher76

30TH JANUARY- TEQUILA- Terrorvision (1 week)

 

http://eil.com/Gallery/211056b.jpg

 

God i never could stand this. Annoying in the extreme this was bought to us courtesy of Zoe Ball and her Radio 1 show, the band had already pencilled in "Day After Day" as a third release from their album after the band had asked for suggestions from their fans via their website. Whilst they had agreed and a video had apparently been made, all of this was brushed aside as demand for this track grew too big to ignore. That it was blocked by Offspring is only justice really, but I have to say it made quite an unusual top 2 for 1999 where pop and Latin both dominated.

 

A distant cousin to "Tubthumping" in the drunken chanty song genre it's a song that seems to go nowhere, the Mint Royale remix of the song is th eversion which made it as a single, I can even understand the appeal of the track in an earwork kinda way but beyond that the song leaved me unimpressed, and on that note there is little left to say on this....

 

 

Edited December 28, 201113 yr by Dasher76

Tequila was quite an annoying track in the end, liked it at first, but I quickly went off it

27TH FEBRUARY- RUNAWAY (REMIX)- The Corrs (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/RunawayTinTin.png

 

There was a guy at my school who everyone liked, he was aimiable enough and I never recalled anyone saying a bad word about him. Some years later my friends and I were looking through a class photo and not one of us could remember his name, what relevance has this? Well it kind of sums up the Corrs really. Massive in 98/99 with a 2 million selling album (Talk On Corners) and a string of top 10 hits to their name, constant referencing to the ladies in the group being very easy on the eye (the SM:TV piss take was always funny) they can of had it all, trouble was their kind of fame and music was so time specific.

 

It's silly really, but psychologically when a decade changes I always think there is an increased demand for "new things" something that can define a new decade, this is even more pressing when a century changes! Whilst in the pure pop late 90s The Corrs fitted the mood perfectly it's partly why "Runaway" is in this thread, but there's a thin line between pleasant and bland and they crossed that all too easily by the time 2000 came around, let's be honest "Runaway", whilst not being an offensive track, also isn't really anything remarkable. It was their first single in 1995, and after drifting in Tin Tin Out to remix this song (they had worked their magic on "So Young" previously) they gave this another whirl and scored their biggest hit to date. Make no mistake though, it's on this thread thanks to not being available on any album at the time, and because of TOC success in 98.

 

Whilst being nasty about this record would be like the equivalent of kicking your grandmother, I can't really be an advocate for it either. Nice but quite bland.

 

Edited December 30, 201113 yr by Gezza76

6TH MARCH- TENDER- Blur (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/Blur_-_Tender.jpg

 

"Tender" is fantastic i should start out with that. A song filled with hope, relief, melancholy and anticipation, this is Blur on top form and probably the best they had done since "The Universal", the delivery of the lyrics is unusually flat in the record, yet somehow that works, it actually reinforces theh feeling of the track, there is stasis in the track. Perhaps that's why it works, the subtext in "Tender" is just as strong as the explicit meaning, on the surface a man who understands that he has messed up big time with the hope and belief that Love can cure all. Beneath that is the expectation that he probably will mess up gain and the situation will remain the same.

 

The track is therefore quite a depressing one, the feel and the progression of the song is plodding, getting to the end in no particular hurry, much like it knows it has all the time in the world as the situation it addresses won't change. For all that there is faith in the power of love (as Rozalla would sing) and that's what saves this track from sounding pompous and self wallowing, amidst dispair there is hope, and the aspiration of a better future makes "Tender" an enormously endearing record, a record which accepts its faults but hopes for better.

 

The confines of the 4 minute pop single and battling it out for Number one "which this song would ultimately do) are behinnd Blur by this point (the heartbreaking "No Distance Left To Run" later this year would prove that commerciality to the extreme of "Parklife" or "The Great Escape" were now concerns of the past for the band, liberation sounded good.

 

Edited December 30, 201113 yr by Gezza76

20TH MARCH- BETTER BEST FORGOTTEN- Steps (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/BetterBestForgotten.png

 

So we're in 1999 and another successful year for Steps, now if you didn't like Steps circa 98 you aren't going to be liking them in 99 when arguably the cheese started to take over. This track ahs all the factors we'd coem to expect from a Steps song, pop dance genre, dance routine to memorise, chirpy, upbeat, Claire belts out her part and the others fill.

 

This was the 5th release from "Step One" (which had just crossed the million mark), and follow up to the million selling "Tragedy" and is on this thread thanks to Comic Relief which gave an extra weekend boost to the Boyzone single that held off the top spot. In the charts of 1999 it is more or less agreed that the major record companies were in cahoots over the release schedule making sure nothing clashed, but every now and again it wouldn't go their way, with Boyzone the week before and B"Witched the week after this was clearly intended to make the top.

You do suspect however that this was a single too far from the album and whilst it far from tarnashes the era for them it would be no poorer had BBF not been released.

 

To conclude, a rather pointless release.

 

3RD APRIL- WITCH DOCTOR- The Cartoons (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Witch_Doctor_Cartoons.jpg

 

One of the major downsides to the success of the Spice Girls was that Record companies realised that we were now no more sophisticated than we were in the 70s when the Wombles and the Wurzels along with a host of novelty acts and records struck it big. The revelation that you could market music to pre pubescents and that they would but it in their hundreds of thousands (and young adults for the irony) was re-kindled in part by the Teletubbies but that was still in the confines of the Christmas market.

 

What the Spice Girls reminded us of was that there was a market there, a big one, who would lap this up at any time of year. Post Spice Girls groups like Aqua caught onto this and rode the wave initially, before in 1999 the floodgates opened. Released in 1958 by David Saville (real name Ross Bagdasarian Snr) and covered her by the Danish group Cartoons is pretty much the most annoying thing to come from 1999, an evil record with little to redeem it, it is perhaps fitting that the record to deny it the top was a French Puppet (Mr Oizo).

 

If you can find anything good to say about the song then please post it!

 

 

27TH FEBRUARY- RUNAWAY (REMIX)- The Corrs (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/RunawayTinTin.png

 

There was a guy at my school who everyone liked, he was aimiable enough and I never recalled anyone saying a bad word about him. Some years later my friends and I were looking through a class photo and not one of us could remember his name, what relevance has this? Well it kind of sums up the Corrs really. Massive in 98/99 with a 2 million selling album (Talk On Corners) and a string of top 10 hits to their name, constant referencing to the ladies in the group being very easy on the eye (the SM:TV piss take was always funny) they can of had it all, trouble was their kind of fame and music was so time specific.

 

It's silly really, but psychologically when a decade changes I always think there is an increased demand for "new things" something that can define a new decade, this is even more pressing when a century changes! Whilst in the pure pop late 90s The Corrs fitted the mood perfectly it's partly why "Runaway" is in this thread, but there's a thin line between pleasant and bland and they crossed that all too easily by the time 2000 came around, let's be honest "Runaway", whilst not being an offensive track, also isn't really anything remarkable. It was their first single in 1995, and after drifting in Tin Tin Out to remix this song (they had worked their magic on "So Young" previously) they gave this another whirl and scored their biggest hit to date. Make no mistake though, it's on this thread thanks to not being available on any album at the time, and because of TOC success in 98.

 

Whilst being nasty about this record would be like the equivalent of kicking your grandmother, I can't really be an advocate for it either. Nice but quite bland.

 

 

*Beware Corrs loon mode/fact correction rant*

 

Runaway is one of my top ten favourite songs of all time so I have to jump in and defend it, it's a gorgeous song which I actually still hear a fair bit on the radio these days so it's not as if it's a forgotten flash in the pan like Witch Doctor, I Want You For Myself and Better Best Forgotten. And now the correction part - K-Klass provided the single remix of So Young, Tin Tin Out did Runaway and What Can I Do. And the special edition of Talk On Corners came out on 9 November 1998 and sold extremely well over the Xmas period, this remix of Runaway featured on it and was over three months old by the point of release. So I'd defend that it didn't become their biggest hit to that point due to not featuring anywhere else (because it had done, for more than three months as well as the original featuring on the widely available and climbing the charts at that point Forgiven Not Forgotten) but because it's the easy highlight of every single that they ever released. Oh, and TOC sold closer to 3 million than 2 million :P Only a few tens of thousands of sales shy of 3 million I think![/loonrantover]

 

As an aside, 1999 really wasn't a year for classic #2's was it, so far at least :lol: Better Best Forgotten is the otherwise best song here but I wouldn't rank it in my Steps top five.

*Beware Corrs loon mode/fact correction rant*

 

Runaway is one of my top ten favourite songs of all time so I have to jump in and defend it, it's a gorgeous song which I actually still hear a fair bit on the radio these days so it's not as if it's a forgotten flash in the pan like Witch Doctor, I Want You For Myself and Better Best Forgotten. And now the correction part - K-Klass provided the single remix of So Young, Tin Tin Out did Runaway and What Can I Do. And the special edition of Talk On Corners came out on 9 November 1998 and sold extremely well over the Xmas period, this remix of Runaway featured on it and was over three months old by the point of release. So I'd defend that it didn't become their biggest hit to that point due to not featuring anywhere else (because it had done, for more than three months as well as the original featuring on the widely available and climbing the charts at that point Forgiven Not Forgotten) but because it's the easy highlight of every single that they ever released. Oh, and TOC sold closer to 3 million than 2 million :P Only a few tens of thousands of sales shy of 3 million I think![/loonrantover]

 

As an aside, 1999 really wasn't a year for classic #2's was it, so far at least :lol: Better Best Forgotten is the otherwise best song here but I wouldn't rank it in my Steps top five.

Apols for my Corrs error- i thought you might correct me if I was wrong :D

 

 

The sales I was referring to (for TOC) were the sales it had generated up until Feb 99 when "Runaway" was released, of course it went to accrue roughly 3 million thereafter. :)

Edited December 31, 201113 yr by Gezza76