I'm torn to be honest- i think the reviews would be a hell of a lot worse :lol: But I may do 00-04 then have a think about the remainder :thinking:

I could maybe help with some - there have been some great #2s since 2004 :P

I could maybe help with some - there have been some great #2s since 2004 :P

I assume you're not talking rhyming slang there? :lol:

 

Yes I can go as long as I can then you take over if you want!

 

On the proviso you write nothing but good things about "When You Were Young" :lol:

I assume you're not talking rhyming slang there? :lol:

 

Yes I can go as long as I can then you take over if you want!

 

On the proviso you write nothing but good things about "When You Were Young" :lol:

Well, that is a given! The Killers are great.

4TH SEPTEMBER- SWAY (MUCHO MAMBO)- Shaft (1 week)

 

http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/s/shaft-(mucho_mambo)_sway.jpg

 

Whilst this song annoys the tits off me, I have to confess that in terms of being representative of 1999 then this hard to beat. With dance leanings that make a nod to Ibiza and a latin flavoured percussion it brings together the main two themes of the charts in that year. In a year when Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Lou Bega and Enrique Iglesias all broke through into the charts (you can even shove "Mi Chico Latino" here if you must) then this was a landmark year for latin music in the UK Charts.

 

Mexican bandleader Pablo Ruiz was responsible for writing this way back in the 50s when it was made famous by Dean Martin and spawned countless covers over the decades before being turned into this version which samples the Perez Prado version. With Lou Bega at No 1 it meant that in effect two covers of Prado songs competed for the top spot in this week, the british duo coming of the worst in this battle.

 

Never a song I could remotely stand at the time I've mellowed since (probably as I haven't heard it in such a long time) and it's also saved by the fact that it isn't the next song.....

 

14TH AUGUST- BETTER OFF ALONE- DJ Jurgon Presents Alice Deejay (3 weeks)

 

I can't praise it any more highly than I have- My favourite song of 1999 by a long chalk.

 

And mine, this was my favourite song ever for a good few years actually at one point! Absolutely amazing dance and I'll never get over the fact that it has to appear in this thread instead of a #1's thread. WHY do all of my favourites always peak at #2, I'm cursed :(

 

Always takes me back to a holiday to Great Yarmouth we had in summer 1999. I heard this for the first time in the car driving up and was astounded by it. Pencilled down the name after hearing it debut at #4 in the chart show (yes I did listen to the chart on holiday!) and went out the next day and bought Now 43 purely to get hold of this song - the CD single only had club mixes of it on bizarrely...

11TH SEPTEMBER- THE LAUNCH- DJ Jean (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/DJ_Jean_-_The_Launch.jpg

 

Perhaps my propensity to avoid recreational drugs is responsible, but records like this just leave me cold. Clinical dance music designed to be little more than sequential bleeps just seems barren of much thought in my opinion. DJ Jean (real name Jan Engelaar) only hit the charts once here and on the evidence of this he was damn lucky to do that.

 

I can't write anything good about this song, I'm lead to believe this was a big hit in Netherlands. Say no more.

 

Get ready....for your lunch.

 

Always a fan of DJ Jean and Shaft actually.

I actually love The Launch too. But give me any trance single from 1998-2002 and you can guarantee that I loved it. I was less keen on house and other types of dance though, didn't care much for Turn Around, Flat Beat or Ooh La La for example...

I actually love The Launch too. But give me any trance single from 1998-2002 and you can guarantee that I loved it. I was less keen on house and other types of dance though, didn't care much for Turn Around, Flat Beat or Ooh La La for example...

 

There were some classic's I've always loved "Goryella", "Turn it Around" (Alena song not the Phats & Small song) and onefatdiva's "In and Out Of my Life" NOW we're talking.....

There were some classic's I've always loved "Goryella", "Turn it Around" (Alena song not the Phats & Small song) and onefatdiva's "In and Out Of my Life" NOW we're talking.....

 

All great, and I'd add hits of the time from York, Rank 1, Ayla, Veracocha, Binary Finary, The Thrillseekers and Mauro Picotto amongst MANY others. Glorious time for trance.

 

2ND OCTOBER- S CLUB PARTY- S Club 7 (2 weeks)

 

http://991.com/newGallery/S-Club-7-S-Club-Party---Pa-377691.jpg

 

After what was practically the perfect pop of "Bring It All Back" the Sclubbers attempted to provide more, and whilst "S Club party" is far from a bad record it seems a little cluttered, with a hundred different little hooks, and quite a dodgy key change. Whilst it's a good pop record it can't quite the pop brillance of the debut and I am forced to conclude that its position on this thread is probably justified, especially in light of Eiffel 65's chart topper of the time, in all honesty I was never sure I wanted to see Bradley do his thing, me bad. Taken together though the first two S Club records took a clear shot at the big names in the pop field of the time, B*Witched, Steps, Billie et al, and I recall it seemed like no time at all before they seemed as though No 1 hits were always an option.

 

Like I say it hasn't quite the lightness of touch and pop sensibility of its predecessor but "S Club Party" did the job of maintaining the TV group in the public eye and indeed not many would have predicted the 11 top 5 hits they would eventually accrue before the demise in 2003, so if for nothing more than nostalgia I conceed I quite liked hearing this again.

 

16TH OCTOBER- 2 TIMES- Ann Lee (2 weeks)

 

http://strip-music.ru/uploads/posts/2009-12/1261673986_ann_lee.jpg

 

During my recent thread of "Best selling female solo hits of the 90s" I was a little surprised by the marmite reaction to this song inspiring hatred and love in equal quantities. Annerley Gordon was a Sheffield born singer/ songwriters only real claim to fame pre "2 Times" was co-writing the 1994 No 2 hit "Rhythm Of The Night" by Corona, and just like that hit this was a massive hit all over Europe in late 1998 before finally make it across the Channel to us.

 

Ok if you're expecting some kind of profundity from this then you'll be disappointed but take as it's intended, a harmless dance track designed for a good time, and really you can't go wrong. In a chart awash with boybands and acts appealing to pre pubescents it is actually a refreshing little tune that I find it hard to begrudge its position here, certainly opening sales of over 150k would ordinarily have granted this song a No 1 position, and had it not been for the might of "Genie In A Bottle" it would have done just that. Worse records have been made than this- MUCH worse.

 

6TH NOVEMBER- IF I COULD TURN BACK THE HANDS OF TIME- R Kelly (1 week)

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0gpD1jYwjM/ToYyvzf7J2I/AAAAAAAAAhE/FPq_jFrXZYw/s320/rkelly001.jpg

 

For a star who had more than enough brushes with the law in the most lurid of ways, it is a curiosity that R Kelly has produced some of teh dreariest songs of the 90s. This, along with the hideously overplayed "I Believe I Can Fly" are the musical equivalent of a comatosed state, dull beyond comprehesion, I don't some of his stuff a little bit of "She's Got That Vibe" always goes down well, but much of his input is simply R N B filler, predictably generic and forumlaic. Some acclaim him as a master of his genre, and if I were a lover of R N B then I may hold a different viewpoint, but in truth there is little R N B about this track, a simple ballad about loss it never really lifts off the ground for me.

 

Baffling therefore, that this song was so big back in late 99 selling over half a million by Y/E, clearly I'm no indicator of public taste in the year, I just find it quite trite lyrically, even Kelly seems to be laidback on the delivery, perhaps the forthcoming millennium made us all a little relective on what had been, the dying of a century and so forth. I haven't heard this song or TV or radio for quite some time now, perhaps that's the final verdict?

 

 

13TH NOVEMBER- WHAT I AM- Tin Tin Out Featuring Emma Bunton (1 week)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Whatiamcover.jpg

 

Criminally ignored in the UK back in 1989 this originally peaked no higher than No 31 for Eddie Brickell & The Bohemians (although admitedly a top 10 hit stateside), Tin Tin out decided they had had enough of producing and remixing other people's hits and did an album of their own (which is actually a cracker!) but not being singers they needed someone who gcould give them that extra bit of promotion! They had actually been going since the mid 90s as a chart act themselves though hadn't cracked the top 10 until 1998 when their cover of the Sundays "Here's Where The Story Ends" turned the trick for them but to help launch their second album a whole bigger star was required.

 

Step forward Baby Spice, who with the Spice Girls on official hiatus for now, was somewhat at a loose end. In the preceeding weeks quite considerable media speculation had started ocer whether this would make No 1 as opposed to that other solo former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell who had also chosen this week to go head to head with her track "Lift Me Up". Whilst the two tracks were initially close the media circus surrounding her fabricated "relationship" with Chris Evans which was generated that week ensured extra publicity and the No 1 position this week, proving what we already knew, the Halliwell was far better a media manipulator than Bunton et al.

 

I actually really like this version, it's not as good as the original (ain't that the normal way of these things) but the laid back dance track is very pleasant on the ears, if hardly earth shaking, Bunton's vocal are suitably low key and quite sweet and there is a subtle charm to the version that far from dishonours the original. I think on reflection I'd rather this made No 1 than "Lift Me Up".

 

20TH NOVEMBER- WILL 2K- Will Smith (1 week)

 

http://i2.listal.com/image/products/1000/B00003L9F4/music/will-2k-will-smith.jpg

 

I'm sorry, sorry that the decade, nay the century has to end like this, another dreary attempt by Smith this time recklessly tearing apart the Clash's "Rock The Casbah". The real question is of course why did we lap this kind of crap up at the time? The Clash slightly improves this over the like of "Just The Two Of Us" or "Wild Wild West" but it's still a poor stab at something decent, the appeal entirely escapes me. Sorry.

 

 

We'll round this mutha off tomorrow as we see in the Millennium- ah remember that?!

11TH DECEMBER- RE-REWIND THE CROWD SAY BO-SELECTA- Artful Dodger With Craig David ( 3 weeks)

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41M73DJDVWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

 

As I write this I imagine a piano tinckling away in the background playing "My Way" because dear readers the end is near! Time for one final review of those 90s Number two hits. Being a pretty good indication of how 2000 and indeed 2001 would pan out here's David before he became that Bo-Selecta parody (a series which naturally took its title from this hit) that effectively ruined his career by the middle of the 00s. At the time I loathed this record with a passion (I recall saying that if I was to end up in hell then this would be on the radio) but I don't know maybe nostalgia is catching up with me but it didn't seem SOOOO bad now.

 

A debut hit for both Artful Dodger (who would go on to make the sublime "Twentyfourseven" with Melanie Blatt in 2001) and David, it is commonly credited with the point that garage crossed into the mainstream and did seem to genuinely appear from nowhere in December 99 to end up as one of the year's big sellers. I'm no fan of garage and certainly if I had written this back in 99 it would have got a slating but let's be honest so much worse has come since this, I think I found it deeply irritating, repetitive and gimmicky, that's still there on repeateded exposure I don't doubt but hearing it for the first time in some 5 or 6 years I'm willing to forgive it slightly. Not enormously representative of the 90s like Jason Donovan was of the 80s (well producer wise anyway) but Will Smith, Emma Bunton & Artful Dodger do demonstrate the great diversity the UK charts back in the 90s.

 

My thanks to all who have read and contributed to the thread through both the 80s and 90s threads for this topic- It is much appreciated! Over and out!

Thanks for this, gezza, an excellent read! :D will you be doing the 00s next?

GEZZA WAS NICE