I'd go along with that I guess - the most interesting Sash! single by a long way. It'd be between that and Ecuador! for me - the latter having some comic value.

 

Don't remember the dance version of Mas Que Nada at all - but I do remember there being a strong link between footy and dance music that summer in general.

What a shame that Tina Cousins did not have top 10 hits on her own. This one is perfection:

 

I'd go along with that I guess - the most interesting Sash! single by a long way. It'd be between that and Ecuador! for me - the latter having some comic value.

 

 

Move Mania for me

 

Two enjoyable riffs, and fast paced.

 

Edited May 16, 20169 yr by Colm

Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You

 

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/tonyttt31/Stardust_-_Music_Sounds_Better_with_You.png

 

Date 16th August 1998

4 Weeks

Official Chart Run 2-2-4-8-9-12-13-19-23-20-21-23-30-35-38-45-63-68-62-51-51-50-63 (23 weeks)

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

 

A song that barely needs an introduction. But I will give it a go anyway. As most of us know, Stardust were a side project for Thomas Bangalter, one half of those Daft Punk boys.

The other two members of this short-lived outfit were electronic musician Alan Braxe and vocalist Benjamin Diamond. The song was formulated in Rex Club, Paris, where the three were playing a live set one night in 1997. Following that impromptu session, Bangalter and Braxe created the instrumental in the studio using less than a 3 seconds clip of disco legend Chaka Khan’s 1981 album track Fate. Diamond added the 16 word vocal hook soon afterwards and the seminal work of genius was complete. The track was recorded in Paris by Daft Punk productions, where Bangalter is based and was initially released on 12” to the clubs at the end of 1997.

 

Before it was fully released it had charted on French import with enough sales to make number 55, a peak of its 3 week residence in the Top 75 - a strong signal that a potential number 1 was on the cards.

 

But despite being the mid-week number 1 for the whole of its debut week and opening with sales of over 170,000 copies - Music Sounds Better With You never made it to official number 1

hi, Boyzone

. It did managed one of the longest chart runs of the year, though – beaten only by LeAnn Rimes How Do I Live? and matched by Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply. It finished 1998 as the 11th biggest seller with over 630,000 sales. Here it gets a substantial 4 weeks at the top.

 

The song has been credited – for better or for worse - with sparking the explosion of looped house in the charts – a trend that would be a feature of dance music for well over half a decade. Sound-a-likes were almost as effective, if not quite so well regarded - most notably tacks from Phats & Small, Modjo and Kylie would copy its hook replacing the Chaka Khan sample with similar disco samples. It was a critical smash too – everyone from Mixmag to Pithfork have all given it “all time” greatness accolades.

The simplicity of the track also lent itself to mash-ups of which several are available on Youtube.

 

The song remains the only release of the trio. Bangalter would continue to mine base disco metal and create dance music gold with Daft Punk who, as we know, became major players in 21st century music.

 

Edited May 17, 20169 yr by Colm

Always thought that was a pretty bland record...and really hated the bit where it slows right down. But the 12" used to fly out of HMV in Glasgow when it was on import only.

I remember hating it at the time. I tolerate it now but I much prefer listening to other looped house tracks.

Tune! Yes it was a simple house loop - but there is just something about it for me which makes it a really enjoyable listen, I always feel very nostalgic when listening to it which recently was in the GTA V game. Predated “Groovejet” and “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” by almost 2 years, both of which would pick-up the disco/house revival theme and get #1s in 2000.

I loved the video of this, particularly as it had a chart that contained the song in which it was promoting going to #1. Sadly that wasn't replicated in the real chart... the chart run was 5-4-2-1. :P

what an absolute classiqué :wub: :dance: :music:

 

unbelievable that it wasn't a #1 smash too! :(

Massive, massive tune!

 

The singer Benjamin Diamond had a 2001 solo album that is quite interesting and should have got more recognition, as well as its singles In Your Arms, Little Scare and Fit Your Heart, the second being my personal favourite.

 

When Music Sounds Better With You charted, the video had not yet been made, so TOTP showed a video of some guy miming to the track.

 

Alan Braxe of Stardust hit the top 40 in 2000 together with Fred Falke on the #35 hit Intro.

T-Spoon - Sex on the Beach

 

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/tonyttt31/TSpoon_-_On_the_Beach_single.jpg

 

Date 13th Sept 1998

4 Weeks

Official Chart Run 2-3-5-7-9-11-16-21-31-33-45-57-74 (13 weeks)

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

 

T-Spoon came from possibly the most fertile of European countries for Dance music in the 90s - The Netherlands. Starting in 1991 and being composed initially of Shalamon Baskin and Remy de Groot, T-Spoon spent a while working on their brand of dance music before releasing any material.

 

In 1993 they put out their debut single No Time 2 Waste which became a Top 10 hit in their homeland along with charting in the Belgian (Flanders) chart. It featured Ingrid Simons - one of Holland's most highly regarded session singers. Simons would be an on/off member of the band for some time to come. During the early 90s members came and went as the band experimented with different sounds.

 

They also added more members when it came to stage performance - but generally they kept to the "female singer - male rapper" formula that had been long established in the Eurodance genre, employing two on-stage dancers to bulk out the collective. T-Spoon continued releasing hits in the Netherlands and Belgium for a few years but remained unknown to most of the continent until 1998.

 

In 1997 they wrote Euro-reggae (yes, it's a genre....maybe) track Sex On The Beach. In year of release it went Top 3 in the Netherlands and Top 10 in Belgium. International success came the following year when it was released in Ireland and the UK. The guest wrapper on the track was King Lover.

1999 saw the continuing success of Sex On The Beach, when it went to the #1 position in Japan and Fiji, and hit top 10 in Australia and New Zealand!

 

The sound the band hit upon pre-dated and predicted that of the Vengaboys who would monopolise the genre of semi-novelty, irritatingly infection dance music in the following 18 months.

T-Spoon followed this smash with Tom's Party in January 1999 but it stayed in the charts for only a fortnight.

The band has since split into rival factions each touring using the name T-Spoon. The are T-Spoon Reloaded with Shamrock & Linda, T-Spoon with Raw Jawz & Blondi, and T-Spoon DJ Squad.

 

There's a whole thread to be made about the many, many Eurohits that were huge in every country on the continent - including Ireland - but completely unknown here, either due to flopping or (more likely) failing to be promoted and released. It's crazy seeing songs that were, say, #1 in Germany or Sweden for weeks or months on end but were never given the UK push.

 

SOTB has always been pretty fun, but there were a *ton* of songs exactly like this in the late 1990s which I'm baffled never got anywhere in the UK!

There's a whole thread to be made about the many, many Eurohits that were huge in every country on the continent - including Ireland - but completely unknown here, either due to flopping or (more likely) failing to be promoted and released. It's crazy seeing songs that were, say, #1 in Germany or Sweden for weeks or months on end but were never given the UK push.

 

SOTB has always been pretty fun, but there were a *ton* of songs exactly like this in the late 1990s which I'm baffled never got anywhere in the UK!

 

Perhaps a thread needs to be started in the dance forum - or maybe there's one there already.

I personally wouldn't consider this a dance record, but hey it's your list, your rules.

 

Within the euro-reggae kinda-sord-of-a-genre, I vastly prefer Coco Jamboo.

Edited May 18, 20169 yr by N-S

I guess it brings into question why we didn't include Ace of Base.

I was just going to mention Ace of Base - this is very 1993 and a bit of an anomaly. Reggae and Eurodance were far bigger 5 years earlier so for this to become a big hit is a bit bizarre but I guess it fits in to the ‘big hit in Europe over the summer brought back to the UK in the autumn’ like Culture Beat in 1993 and Las Ketchup in 2002.

 

Terrible record though.

I felt the vocalists in Ace of Base were somewhat cooler than T-Spoon.

Yeah, it always felt like T-Spoon's record came out five years too late - but it showed there was still a market for cod-reggae so bad even UB40 wouldn't give it the time of day.

 

In some ways it makes sense that this is included while Ace of Base wasn't. It was going against the norm, rather than the current pop standard and therefore has a slightly more "dance" feel than what else was around then. Or does that not make any sense at all?

If we exclude T-Spoon, Stardust get an extra 4 weeks at number 1. :ph34r:

When you put it that way...