Yes this was my point. The consistency is the issue at hand. Rednex are cut from the same cloth as Aqua so why is one allowed and not the other?

 

Because we perceived a difference. It was felt that Rednex was dance enough to qualify but that Aqua were not. It's a matter of perception. Were were supposed to consult everyone before we started? You raise a valid point but we're human and we had to make a decision, and to be honest, it wasn't a very hard one. The beat on Cotton Eye Joe and the gated synth both signify a dance song more than any element of Barbie Girl.

 

 

For a different perceptive, listen to the 2 instrumentals.

 

 

 

 

 

The music for Barbie Girl is practically the same as Where Do You? from No Mercy which was also excluded for similar reasons.

 

 

I do get that Rednex are probably seen as more of a "dance" act than Aqua but they did have a big hit in Europe (except the UK) with this ballad:

 

 

Pretty much in the same vein as Aqua's UK #1 "Turn Back Time".

I agree that consistency is also a subjective matter so what may be consistent for a person, it's not for another... so let's stop complaining, the person making the thread decides, I think this is one of the best thread ever... I also guess that if one were very very strict, some weeks there would have been no dance songs in the top 40 :)

I'm with Colm on the Rednex inclusion. It originally came out on the ZYX and Internal Affairs labels which both traditionally release dance music and was then moved up to Zomba to meet demand presumably. Barbie Girl was always out on Universal and took the pop route. So, both cheesy or not, Rednex count as novelty dance in the same way that Rotterdam Termination Source and Technohead do.

 

(This probably means Eiffel 65 count towards this rundown - damn!)

I do get that Rednex are probably seen as more of a "dance" act than Aqua but they did have a big hit in Europe (except the UK) with this ballad:

 

 

Pretty much in the same vein as Aqua's UK #1 "Turn Back Time".

 

 

Well, we wouldn't be including that just because it's Rednex, for the same reason we didn't include Dannii Minogue's earlier material.

The music for Barbie Girl is practically the same as Where Do You? from No Mercy which was also excluded for similar reasons.

 

You've excluded 'Where Do You Go?'! This is just becoming more blasphemous to me. Why exclude that yet include EBTG's 'Missing' when the instrumentals are almost identical?

If you've included Rednex, will you be including Steps '5,6,7,8'? That's more Rednex and less Aqua in terms of instrumental & BPM.

You've excluded 'Where Do You Go?'! This is just becoming more blasphemous to me. Why exclude that yet include EBTG's 'Missing' when the instrumentals are almost identical?

If you've included Rednex, will you be including Steps '5,6,7,8'? That's more Rednex and less Aqua in terms of instrumental & BPM.

 

 

Again, Missing was one side and Where Do You Go? on the other as they different enough apart from the main riff to separate them.

 

Dance music, like most if not all genres, consists of a spectrum, not a finite set of elements that can be easily defined. Some tunes are obviously dance. Some approach other genres and at the more extreme ends of the dance spectrum there will be a grey area where very similar songs will fall slightly further away from the core characteristics than others.

 

So, if we included Barbie Girl and Where Do You Go? there would be songs that are VERY similar to those that are a little less dance and as a result would be excluded. Someone would make a point of asking why we didn't include those and give reasons mostly based on similarity to something that was included or analogous to something that was included.

 

Much like Gezza's thread on the best selling dance songs of the 90s where a few people almost stomped of in disgust because Cher's Believe wasn't number 1, we were sure that someone would query exclusions/inclusions at some point and that was acknowledged in the opening thread.

 

Sincere apologies for what you must feel are huge oversights and inconsistencies in this thread but someone was bound to feel like that.

 

Edited April 15, 20169 yr by Colm

Best way to settle this would be to get on Youtube and try to find the ITV Chart Show Dance Chart rundowns of the time. If they appeared there then they should appear here.

Best way to settle this would be to get on Youtube and try to find the ITV Chart Show Dance Chart rundowns of the time. If they appeared there then they should appear here.

 

 

Ain't no body got time for that. :P

Missing is clearly more dance than Where Do You Go. I think it's a bit off to be nitpicking here - decisions were made and that's that. As Colm says, the wasn't going to do a pre thread consultation on inclusion.

Best way to settle this would be to get on Youtube and try to find the ITV Chart Show Dance Chart rundowns of the time. If they appeared there then they should appear here.

 

A lot of those charts included urban songs that were far from Dance though. :P

Well that escalated quickly! Speaking of controversy...

 

Prodigy* - Smack My Bitch Up

 

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/TheMagicPosition86/rsz_smack_my_bitch_up_zpsdx39gt3n.png

 

Date 23rd November 1997

1 Week

Official Chart Run 8-20-35-48-46-35-42-49-60-70 (10 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

“Smack My Bitch Up” marks the sixth and final entry on this countdown for a group that expertly adapted to, and defined the fast ever-changing dance landscape of the 1990s.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, not to mention years of becoming accustomed to the increasing use of the word in society and pop music, the banning by the BBC of final 90s Prodigy single “Smack My Bitch Up” seems a little heavy handed. When it made its debut inside the Top 10 the chart show instead played an instrumental B-side and name checked it as simply from the Prodigy’s new EP. It was criticised at the time for being misogynistic and inciting violence against women, a judgement denied by the group but not helped by that video, though one that bore absolutely no truth. It also seemed a little hypocritical of the Beeb given they were quite happy to play Meredith Brooks’ hit single which had brought that word into the Top 10 a few months earlier during the summer of ’97. Besides, the reappropriation of the pejorative term to mean a strong woman, or as an affectionate tongue-in cheek backhanded compliment was already underway and would accelerate in the new millennium, once again the BBC were behind the curve.

 

Marred by controversy from the title, lyrics and accompanying video, the artwork to “Smack My Bitch Up” originally featured a VW Beetle wrapped around a lamp post, but was changed at the last minute (the track was due to be released in October) following the death of Diana and replaced by the one above representing the energy of the track which was themed around ‘doing something to the maximum’. The Prodigy could hardly be accused of sexism when they had after all already used the word ‘bitch’ in its more modern definition when Keith sang on “Firestarter”: ‘I’m the bitch you hated’ - and the only lyric in the song (and under question) was actually sampled from a 1988 track called “Give The Drummer Some” by American hip hop group Ultramagnetic MCs, sung by Kool Keith who was also sampled by Liam on 1992 hit “Out Of Space”. The aggressive nature of the industrial instrumental and aforementioned vocal sample is balanced well with the beautiful dynamic alaap chant perfomed by Essex born Shahin Badar, this originally based upon Sheila Chandra’s “Nana (The Dreaming)” and re-recorded for the track.

 

“Smack My Bitch Up” highlighted once again Liam’s talent for crafting a brilliantly original track from a smorgasbord of disparate samples, and demonstrated his enduring love of hip hop, with samples coming from the aforementioned New York group Ultramagnetic MCs for the vocal around which the track is built and some of the instrumental. Other samples included Kool & the Gang, Randy Weston to acts such as American rap/metal group Rage Against the Machine and “Bulls of Parade” for the guitar hook lick, amongst many, many others - an intricate work of genius. The video below (not suitable for anyone under 18!) was directed by now prolific but then aspiring Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund, and was inspired by a crazed night out in Copenhagen. In it the viewers’ prejudices are expertly punctured through a brilliant twist at the end, though it did not receive (understandably) much of an airing on TV, at least before midnight.

 

This was the last single to be released by the Prodigy in the 1990s and until 2002, though the group remain active to this day, with The Day Is My Enemy marking the groups 5th consecutive UK #1 album last year.

 

 

*Band named shortened to 'Prodigy' for the singles in this era.

Smack my B*tch up... :lol:

 

that's a good answer to the debate what should've been added to the rundown :P

Truly iconic, both song & video! :wub:

The video that turned Jonas Akerlund in the Quentin Tarantino of music videos, with Madonna picking him for Ray Of Light and with everyone who was someone in the music industry following suit.

 

I always thought that that oriental-chant sample was by Ofra Haza.

Edited April 16, 20169 yr by N-S

great song, Prodigy were really at the top of their game in 96-97

Gala - Let A Boy Cry

 

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/TheMagicPosition86/rsz_let_a_boy_cry_zpsiymds6ce.png

 

Date 30th November 1997

3 Weeks

Official Chart Run 11-26-30-31-30-38-48-70 (8 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

Through the second half of the 1990s, thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of dance music it became relatively easy for unknown European dance acts to score a follow-up hit, and so it was with the single that succeeded #2 summer smash “Freed From Desire”.

 

Gala Rizzatto left Milan in her homeland of Italy at the age of 17 to attend art school in Boston in 1991, eventually ending up in nearby New York where she followed her two passions in life: photography and dance music. Italy and its staunchly devout Catholic society had clearly left a huge impression on the talented singer, and this shaped the tone of her writing as she launched her career in 1996. Debut hit “Freed From Desire” was an upbeat paean to a Buddhist prayer, and the follow-up “Let A Boy Cry” covered an equally held deep personal belief that she wanted to write about.

 

The subject matter in “Let A Boy Cry” derives from Gala’s childhood where she discovered she was attracted to both genders, but given the old fashioned views of the country in which she lived, this love she felt towards to the same sex was described as ‘forbidden’ and deemed wrong. In the track she discusses challenging gender roles, and the track was subsequently adopted as a gay anthem. The video was filmed in Milan with Gala revisiting the place she grow up, and very deliberately to emphasise this strong equality message in which the video provided an environment where both girls and boys were free to be who they truly were without fear of criticism or judgement. Of course looking back at this from 2016 it seems bizarre to contemplate how different it was in 1997 but society has changed so much in the 2 decades that have passed.

 

The track itself duplicates a lot of the elements that made her debut single such a huge hit on the radio and on dance floors with Italian DJs Filippo Carmeni and Maurizio Molella once again on production duties for “Let A Boy Cry”, though it includes some tribal drums to break and change the track up. Gala did manage 1 further Top 40 hit the following August - “Come Into My Life” (#38) - but disappeared soon after, however she still records to this day and in 2014 performed at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, opening with “Let A Boy Cry” as a direct protest at Russia's controversial laws on homosexuality.

 

Let A Boy Cry is amazing. Come Into My Life was also great.

Edited April 17, 20169 yr by Ne Plus Ultra

It was the Motiv8 remix that was a hit in the UK, rather than the one shown in the video. I much preferred this to Freed From Desire.

 

 

 

For anyone thinking that Smack my Bitch Up was easy controversy with no substance behind it they have no ears.

 

This clip showing how it was made proves that the Prodigy could still cherry pick disparate samples and match them seamlessly into a masterpiece.