a lifetime of #1 singles

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0fkzuORyWoM/UI3Aamrp9gI/AAAAAAAAG9Q/mgM-aT5SzzQ/s1600/official-singles-chart-nov11-landing.jpg

I've always wanted to review my favourite songs of the 00s, but I decided against doing a chart of the decade as compiling a list was too challenging, especially without a weekly personal chart to refer to. However many of my faves are found in the list of #1 singles, but also some songs I dislike are in said list - I do like a little rant too so I'll include them :lol:

And for the sake of completeness I'm going right back to the day I was born, up to now. It's a big project, with many songs that have appeared at the #1 position, but hopefully I get through all of it, right up to the current #1 - then in the future I'll be able to write a new review in this thread every time we get a new #1 hit.

Any songs that originally went to #1 before the starting date (10/08/97) will not be counted, this is to save me from having to review Elvis re-issues etc.

Feel free to post your thoughts in this thread too, the first few will be coming real soon.

[Weekly sales figures taken from wikipedia.]

001 // 10•08•97 // Will Smith 'Men In Black' (feat. Coko) // 4 weeks

182,000 // 133,000 // 122,000 // 105,000

 

 

And we start with iconic rapper and actor Will Smith, and in my opinion it's a good birth date #1 to have, better than my younger brother who had Westlife as his birth date #1 (I'm not looking forward to reviewing all 14 of their #1s :drama:). It's a kool hip-hop tune, although kinda-forgotten in terms of Will Smith songs in favour for 'Summertime' and 'Gettin' Jiggy With It'. With help from the 'Forget Me Nots' sample, it's quite funky and has a decent hook. We don't get hip-hop done like this very much these days - however the style isn't completely dead as current hit 'Thank You' (Busta Rhymes) has a similar vibe.

 

08/10

 

002 // 07•09•97 // The Verve 'The Drugs Don't Work' // 1 week

105,000

 

 

From a genre my parents aren't a fan of to one of my mum's favourite songs ever - The Verve managed to sneak a week at #1 in-between Will Smith and Elton John (more on him later). It's not their best song (I prefer 'Bittersweet Symphony') but I do like it for its depressing lyrics and subject matter about the effects of drugs. We only get songs with sad tones occasionally in the charts, so this is definitely a welcome #1 as we need to be reminded that not everything in life is all happiness and smiles.

 

08/10

 

003 // 14•09•97 // Elton John 'Candle In the Wind' // 5 weeks

658,000 // 1,546,668 // 1,067,000 // 572,000 // 274,000

 

 

And on the subject of sad songs, we have another one right here. It also happens to be the biggest selling song of all time, however it doesn't really do it for me - it's quite boring. Not even the original (which has different lyrics) is that good either, Elton's done better in the past.

 

04/10

004 // 19•10•97 // Spice Girls 'Spice Up Your Life' // 1 week

321,000

 

 

Guilty pleasure alert! Yes I know this is quite cheesy but it's one of my fave 90s pop tunes - it's Spice Girls' best anyway. If I followed the charts back then I know I would've celebrated this knocking Elton off the top. It's no surprise that this girlband, and this song in particular, are so iconic - it's just a lot of fun. If only the song was called 'Spice Up Your Food' - 'cause I love spicy food. ;)

 

08/10

 

005 // 26•10•97 // Aqua 'Barbie Girl' // 4 weeks

190,000 // 239,000 // 190,000 // 165,000

 

 

I used to love this as a child :blush: but it's grown off me now, mostly because it's too cheesy, and the male vocal is cringeworthy. I imagine most of the purchases of this song were parents buying the song for their child. Well, at least one of them was :(

 

02/10

 

006 // 23•11•97 // Various Artists 'Perfect Day' // 3 weeks

385,082 // 274,706 // xx(4) // 83,000

 

 

Can we forget this cover version ever happened? The Lou Reed version is better for me, and I think that version is now the more remembered one as it re-charted after his death, plus it has more youtube views. But yeah, some of the people making up 'Various Artists' (least inspired charity collective name EVER, by the way) ruin the song imo.

 

03/10

007 // 07•12•97 // Teletubbies 'Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!' // 2 weeks

317,000 // 230,000

 

 

Iconic *.* This song definitely reminds me of my childhood as I used to love watching shows such as this one, but obviously I grew out of them as I matured. I do find it funny that this was actually a hit single though, I couldn't believe it when I first found out. :lol:

 

04/10 (for the lol factor)

 

008 // 27•12•97 // Spice Girls "Too Much" // 2 weeks

252,000 // 218,000

 

 

So yeah, thankfully we didn't get a joke Xmas #1 that year, but this isn't any better. It's quite dated and forgettable. If Little Mix released this today it would deservedly flop, but Spice Girls prove that at the peak of their success they could do anything and go straight to #1 with it (or #2). And spoiler alert, they get the Christmas #1 in 1998 too, more on that later.

 

04/10

 

009 // 17•01•98 // All Saints "Never Ever" // 1 week

54,000

 

 

And if one girlband ballad wasn't enough, here's another one for you. Except this one is a lot better. The spoken intro, the harmonies, the chorus, it's all good and a song that sounds perfect for talent shows, yet doesn't get much usage there. All Saints in general are forgotten in favour of Spice Girls, which shouldn't be the case when they make a good slow jam like this.

 

07/10

Snap for birth date #1! :D However I absolutely detest Will Smith's music, as well as anything else to do with him.

 

I love 'The Drugs Don't Work' – now that would have been a better birth date #1. I love sad songs that are about a sensitive subject and this is one of my favourite alternative rock songs.

 

Not too fussed on 'Candle in the Wind'. I much prefer the overlooked A-side 'Something About the Way You Look Tonight'. Its sales are crazy, hard to believe that a song can sell anywhere near a 1m copies in a week, never mind over a million for TWO weeks! :drama:

 

Any pop fan has to like at least some records from Spice Girls. 'Spice Up Your Life' has become something of a classic, such a fun track. 'Too Much' is a favourite of mine, although their best ballad has to be 'Viva Forever'.

 

'Never Ever' is probably All Saint's best, however they do have a few gems in their discography. I believe this is the best selling single for a girl group, which is good as this is a great track for any girl band to be inspired by.

My favourite No1 of 1997 ~

 

 

I agree 'Spice Up Your Life' is definitely a guilty pleasure!

 

'Never Ever' and 'Pure Shores' are my favourite All Saints tracks. :)

The Drugs Don't Work is such a powerful song, written about the sad inability of drugs to ease the passing of Richard Ashcroft's father. The line 'I know I'll see your face again' is so poignant.

 

Great thread Thermo, 97 was a great year for number 1s and it will be good to read your take on them. Can't believe I am 21 years older than you though!

Snap for birth date #1! :D However I absolutely detest Will Smith's music, as well as anything else to do with him.

 

I love 'The Drugs Don't Work' – now that would have been a better birth date #1. I love sad songs that are about a sensitive subject and this is one of my favourite alternative rock songs.

 

Not too fussed on 'Candle in the Wind'. I much prefer the overlooked A-side 'Something About the Way You Look Tonight'. Its sales are crazy, hard to believe that a song can sell anywhere near a 1m copies in a week, never mind over a million for TWO weeks! :drama:

 

Any pop fan has to like at least some records from Spice Girls. 'Spice Up Your Life' has become something of a classic, such a fun track. 'Too Much' is a favourite of mine, although their best ballad has to be 'Viva Forever'.

 

'Never Ever' is probably All Saint's best, however they do have a few gems in their discography. I believe this is the best selling single for a girl group, which is good as this is a great track for any girl band to be inspired by.

As our birthdays are only 1 day apart I would be surprised if we didn't share the same birth date #1 :lol:

I agree re: CITW's sales, as Jameela would say 'it's INSANE'.

I prefer Viva Forever to Too Much, but in general their fun tracks are better than their slow ones.

 

My favourite No1 of 1997 ~

 

 

I agree 'Spice Up Your Life' is definitely a guilty pleasure!

 

'Never Ever' and 'Pure Shores' are my favourite All Saints tracks. :)

'You're Not Alone' :heart: Classic tune, however it went to #1 before the cut off date so no review for it :(

I'd agree with you about All Saints, I don't actually remember any of their other songs.

 

The Drugs Don't Work is such a powerful song, written about the sad inability of drugs to ease the passing of Richard Ashcroft's father. The line 'I know I'll see your face again' is so poignant.

 

Great thread Thermo, 97 was a great year for number 1s and it will be good to read your take on them. Can't believe I am 21 years older than you though!

I had a quick look at what the song was about whilst doing the write-up, quite sad that it's about a family member but it makes for a good song.

Men In Black is one of those songs that is so kind of synonymous with my childhood that I've almost forgotten whether I have an opinion on it or not. I suppose it's quite cheesy, but I don't think I could ever truly say I dislike it

 

The Drugs Don't Work is a classic. One of the best songs of the 90's for me.

 

Candle In The Wind, in this instance anyway, is kind of hard to review. As a song, I've always found it quite boring but at the same time it's so appropriate for the reasons why it was re-released.

 

Spice Up Your Life is probably my favourite ever Spice Girls song. It's just awesome, and with the exception of 'Wannabe' it really captures what they were about more than any other of their singles

 

Barbie Girl is bad. It doesn't even reach 'so bad it's good' levels for me - it's just plain bloody bad

 

The original Perfect Day is beautiful and timeless. This version is not

 

Teletubbies theme tune I can't even really review. Fun for what it is and it's time I guess (and I loved LaLa as a kid)

 

Too Much has always had something missing for me, I can't quite put my finger on whatever it is but I've never been able to truly love it as much as I want too

010 // 18•01•98 // Oasis 'All Around the World' // 1 week

110,000

 

 

There's nothing special about this track, it's quite standard for Oasis. It's not surprising that it went to #1 as this was the time when they were really massive. It's not a bad song but it's not one of their highlights. Especially when they have stuff like 'Wonderwall' and 'Roll With It' in their collection.

 

06/10

 

011 // 25•01•98 // Usher 'You Make Me Wanna' // 1 week

106,968

 

 

This is a really good urban jam, gotta love some 90s RnB :heart: Listening to the song you can really tell the difference between it and his latest stuff - but both are good. My personal favourite of 98' so far but there are a few songs coming up that are even better. I haven't bothered to check out any other Usher songs from the pre-Yeah era, but if they're like this one then I probably should.

 

08/10

 

012 // 01•02•98 // Aqua 'Doctor Jones' // 2 weeks

102,000 // 117,000

 

 

Firstly, the production is ok. Now the positivity ends. I have no idea how Aqua actually got 7 top 40 singles including 3 #1s when 'Barbie Girl' sounds so much like a song you'd expect from a one-hit wonder. The song is way too cheesy for me, I'm sure it would get annoying if I followed the chart show at the time having to hear it and Barbie Girl.

 

03/10

I'm only nine years older than you but to think that these songs were around when you were born makes me feel ancient! For an equivalent imagine someone else doing this in a few years time but starting in 2006 :P

 

*Echoing all the love for The Drugs Don't Work, classic of its era and reached the top after Diana died as it was one of the few songs around that fitted the bleak mood of the nation. Radio wouldn't stop playing it.

 

*Have you seen the news footage of people literally buying 10 or 20 copies EACH of Candle in the Wind? Barely anyone who bought it played the song more than once - they bought it to show how much they loved Diana and the more copies you had, the "more you missed her" or something crazy like that, it was a song bought on grief alone. The biggest selling non-charity song ever remains, ridiculously, Paul McCartney's 'Mull of Kintyre' which is worth a listen if just in bemusement as to what people in 1977 were thinking.

 

*Barbie Girl was inescapable. We're talking Gangnam Style levels here. Kids liked it because it was about Barbie, teenagers liked it because it was ironic, gay clubs adored it, and adults bought it for their kids. My younger cousin was three at the time and listened to that and the Teletubbies pretty much on loop all that Christmas - someone speculated on here that the reason for the huge sales of late 1997/early 1998 were a direct result of Candle In The Wind getting people back into buying CDs again and knowing where their nearest music shops were. Judging by the massive sales spike it certainly looks like it.

 

*While I didn't like Barbie Girl due to, erm, being a boy (anything with the word 'Girl' in the title I stubbornly hated as a kid, including the Spice Girls) I did admittedly really like Doctor Jones. If you were a pre-teen kid in the late 1990s it was the greatest musical era ever, not as much so for anyone over the age of 15 :P

 

Looking forward to the rest, from now until at least 2001 almost every track is gold!

*Have you seen the news footage of people literally buying 10 or 20 copies EACH of Candle in the Wind? Barely anyone who bought it played the song more than once - they bought it to show how much they loved Diana and the more copies you had, the "more you missed her" or something crazy like that, it was a song bought on grief alone. The biggest selling non-charity song ever remains, ridiculously, Paul McCartney's 'Mull of Kintyre' which is worth a listen if just in bemusement as to what people in 1977 were thinking.

 

*Barbie Girl was inescapable. We're talking Gangnam Style levels here. Kids liked it because it was about Barbie, teenagers liked it because it was ironic, gay clubs adored it, and adults bought it for their kids. My younger cousin was three at the time and listened to that and the Teletubbies pretty much on loop all that Christmas - someone speculated on here that the reason for the huge sales of late 1997/early 1998 were a direct result of Candle In The Wind getting people back into buying CDs again and knowing where their nearest music shops were. Judging by the massive sales spike it certainly looks like it.

No I haven't :o That makes The Vamps fans buying multiple versions of their songs not look so bad. :lol: Isn't the biggest selling non-charity song 'Bohemian Rhapsody' though? Or was the 1991 re-release for charity?

 

Barbie Girl was also inescapable in kids discos :lol: Along with other kids faves 'Hey Baby' (DJ Otzi), 'Don't Stop Movin' (S Club 7) and some others.

 

Keep your comments coming guys, it's nice to get different opinions especially from people who were there at the time :D

The 1991 re-release was for charity, yep - sold a million in the 70s and another million then.

Oh I've only just seen this thread- my bad!

 

1997 was a great year for music (though 1990,96, and 98 rate higher for my money) so it's a great place to start.

 

Personally I can live without CITW 97 for the rest of my life though SATWYLT remains a great song (though obviously far from his best). Aqua were always considered more of a "kids" band than one for the adults other than in an ironic sense of course, but thanks to the success of The Spice Girls the market (in terms of pure pop music) had been refocused on an entirely new kind of buyer- the under 10s. Presumably prior to that marketing thought this age group were only into toys/ games. Anyway without that move things like Aqua and many of the top 10 records of the 97-99 time period would probably not have been hits or certainly the acts would have struggled to get more than a top 10 novelty hit.

 

Anyway I'm rambling- "Never Ever" of course remains great if only for its high derivation from "Amazing Grace" - hard to believe that it only *just* made No 1

*Barbie Girl was inescapable. We're talking Gangnam Style levels here. Kids liked it because it was about Barbie, teenagers liked it because it was ironic, gay clubs adored it, and adults bought it for their kids. My younger cousin was three at the time and listened to that and the Teletubbies pretty much on loop all that Christmas - someone speculated on here that the reason for the huge sales of late 1997/early 1998 were a direct result of Candle In The Wind getting people back into buying CDs again and knowing where their nearest music shops were. Judging by the massive sales spike it certainly looks like it.

 

*While I didn't like Barbie Girl due to, erm, being a boy (anything with the word 'Girl' in the title I stubbornly hated as a kid, including the Spice Girls) I did admittedly really like Doctor Jones. If you were a pre-teen kid in the late 1990s it was the greatest musical era ever, not as much so for anyone over the age of 15 :P

 

Looking forward to the rest, from now until at least 2001 almost every track is gold!

I think that was me :lol: Funnily enough I don't recall it played in gay clubs at the time (Jester will probably disagree me :D ) though I think "Cartoon Heroes" was the first one that really hit big in them if memory serves, probably as it was slightly more grown up in sound.

013 // 15•02•98 // Céline Dion 'My Heart Will Go On' // 2 weeks

234,700 // xx(2) // 112,000

 

 

I know I shouldn't like this. But it's one of my favourite power ballads ever. It's full of emotion and it's also lyrically good - perfect for a movie like Titanic. I haven't actually seen it but I know what happens. The other songs of hers that I've heard aren't as good (Jennifer Rush's version of 'The Power of Love' is much better than hers). And lastly, you gotta love that KEY CHANGE :heart: :blush:

 

08/10

 

014 // 22•02•98 // Cornershop 'Brimful of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)' // 1 week

208,321

 

 

I may have given the Céline song high praise, but it's actually the worst song in the list, which just speaks volumes about how good this section is. Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim shows us in this song why he gets so much praise. Really good song, check it out if you haven't heard it. ^_^

 

09/10

 

015 // 01•03•98 // Madonna 'Frozen' // 1 week

197,000

 

 

Madonna makes her first appearance of many in the list, and whilst it's not quite her best #1 that I'll be reviewing (that would be Hung Up), it is her 2nd best. The production is brilliant on this, and that along with her vocals make for an outstanding song. It's certainly darker than most of her stuff, which I like - versatility in popstars is always a good thing to have!

 

09/10

Frozen is amazing, I don't even like Madonna but I can't deny Frozen. One of about 5 songs from her I actually like

My birth song is Every Breath You Take by Puff Daddy. :)

 

Great thread idea!

Oh dear, yeah while I like most of Celine's songs that bloody thing was utterly killed by 1998 airplay :P Titanic for a nine-year-old boy was as annoying as Aqua, when you're still seeing girls as an evil alien species the last thing you want to see is some soppy love story. Had I been seven years older and female I'd have probably thought it was the greatest thing made in the history of film - I know someone that age who saw the film 20 times or something ridiculous that year. Like Candle In The Wind it got completely associated with what it was tied in with - you bought CITW if you liked Diana, you bought MHWGO if you liked Titanic.

 

Brimful of Asha and Frozen are both great. Nothing really in particular I can say why, just two classic pop tracks. And Fatboy Slim was absolutely on fire that year, everything he touched turned to gold and it was slightly a shame when his later solo #1s were a bit watered down in comparison to his 1997-98 material.

I was also nine at the time, I used to adore the Céline Dion song but not as much now, it's still on my iPod though. Brimful of Asha's not so much, I can see why people like it but I find it quite repetitve. Frozen is one of my favourite pop songs the production is just :wub:

Edited February 25, 201411 yr by Leonardo