You're looking kinda dumb with your finger and your thumb in the shape of an L on your forehead with that pick. (This 'All Star' slander though xx)

Oooops I couldn't even remember the correct title :lol:

Things I never thought I’d see: Dandy putting a Smash Mouth song as his number 1 *__

Smash Mouth I kinda hate but Beverly Knight had so many amazing singles in the late 90s and early 00s

my favs were Get Up, Shoulda coulda woulda and Greatest Day, but Made it Back is great too

agree she was a tad under.rated

Smash Mouth?

 

Phats & Small almost number 1?

 

 

I had no idea there was a time when Dandy was not Dandy!

That Smash Mouth song is ok but it's no All Star. Also not something I was expecting from your #1s dandy. :lol:

 

Wasn't familiar with the Beverley Knight song so just given it a listen, sounds alright but nothing special on first listen.

'Turn Around' is a tune though!

Laughing at some of the reactions, it's funny to look back on what you liked at the time and wonder why!

 

The next one is probably a bit more credible at least...

 

 

262 | Leftfield - Afrika Shox / Phat Planet

 

This one is a step up in quality and certainly is far more reflective of my current tastes in music. Leftfield's debut album was a HUGE favourite of mine in the 90s and I was so psyched when they were finally due to return in 1999 with their second album. We'd had a taster in the form of Phat Planet being used in the latest Guinness advert and it sounded intriguing, albeit very different from what they had done back in 1995. If I'm honest, this one got to #1 through anticipation and over excitement on my part as ultimately I accepted that neither of the songs were as good as the material from their debut. This is another single that I haven't listened to in a very long time and hearing them now I'm enjoying both tracks, the video to Afrika Shox is pretty cool actually and that definitely helps. Phat Planet remains all about that pulsating and rather menacing bass, it kinda reminds me of Flat Beat in so much as it's pretty much a singular idea that doesn't quite develop enough to be a real fave.

 

Moving by Supergrass entered my chart a place behind and that remains one of my favourite singles of theirs so in retrospect I probably got them the wrong way round. They did manage one number one for me during the 90s but I won't spoil it too much by saying which one it was. In the lower end of the official chart we could find Muse debuting with their Cave EP, a band I was completely unaware of at the time and never really caught on with until the Absolution era.

 

 

The stats:

 

Date: 12 September 1999

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 260

2020s plays rank: 250

Biggest song it kept from #1:

(#2 in w/c 12 September 1999)

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time:

 

 

261 | Underworld - King of Snake

 

Next up we have the final chart topper of the decade from Underworld as yet another 1999 #1 departs, indeed one from just three weeks before the last entry. Beaucoup Fish was a good album and this was one of the later singles from it, however it always sounded like the most commercial to me so I was pleased they chose it. It was accompanied by a Fatboy Slim remix which helped a lot in 1999 and as such I was hyped enough for it to get it all the way to the top. It has that relentless feel to it that they had perfected so well with Born Slippy a few years earlier and was absolutely perfect for a dandy who was getting very much into clubbing and losing his stuff to progressive dance music.

 

There was actually really tough competition for the top slot this week as TLC returned with Unpretty as the follow up to the huge No Scrubs, Binary Finary were also new at #4 with 1999 which had already been a big hit with me in the form of the Paul Van Dyk remix of 1998. Further down the official chart was Mercury Rev with a song that I grew to adore during 2000 after seeing their album in so many year end lists, but alas it didn't even scrape my chart at the time.

 

 

The stats:

 

Date: 22 August 1999

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 266

2020s plays rank: 239

Biggest song it kept from #1:

(#3 in w/c 12 September 1999)

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time:

 

Am going to try and make an effort to listen to some songs here that I don't recognise but look interesting - I was only introduced to Leftfield via Club Bizarre but I've since enjoyed their more recent singles so I'll take the opportunity to familiarise myself a bit with some older tracks.

 

Unfortunately that first Leftfield song is immediately a little tainted by the featured artist (sorry if I'm ruining anything by acknowledging this) but putting that aside it's a cool sounding track, the robot vocals making it sound like kind of a twisted alternate universe Daft Punk.

 

I'm loving 'Phat Planet' though, finding it quite hypnotic! Just had a look and I see that's their most streamed song on Spotify (well deserved), and the album it's from was #1 so this is just a bit of a spoiler of a song I'd have heard for the first time at the #1 albums sessions in a couple of weeks anyway haha but good to have a heads up on that.

 

Also giving a listen to 'King Of Snake', not my fave song I've ever heard from Underworld ngl but still a bit of a banger and some kind of ikonik vocals

Oh wow, I had absolutely no idea about the featured artist until just now. I'm kinda gutted as he made some amazing dance tracks over the years but urgh :/

Ooops. Sorry!

interesting chart concept here that I'm also going to try and follow/listen to

 

Quite liking 'Temptation', which I see now that I have heard before in its original mix version. This version doesn't do a whole lot to improve it really but can't go wrong with a track being housed up. Have to agree with 'Out of Space' being better though.

 

Barenaked Ladies making an appearance means I'm contractually obliged to remind y'all that besides having one hit they sang the theme tune to The Big Bang Theory also. :magic: 'One Week' is fairly decent anyhow.

 

I don't think I've ever heard any Smash Mouth song before that isn't 'All Star', even though I see that 'Walking On The Sun' was technically a bigger UK chart hit - it's certainly not quite as memorable though if at all.

 

as for 'Made It Back', yeah it doesn't really have much going for it beyond the Chic sample, so it being fairly low here makes a lot of sense. I would've much preferred 'Turn Around'!

 

then 'Africa Shox' and 'King of Snake' both seem to fit into the category of crazy electronica that I can kinda get behind but wouldn't necessarily give a lot of plays to.

No worries Bré!

 

Glad to read so many comments so far by the way, thank you all so much as I kinda thought this may flop when I started it. I am a little worried that most of the choices will be totally mainstream and you will all know them already but I'll try to keep up the links to other tracks of interest from each individual chart so that at least there are more to investigate if you already know the main song. ^_^

In the battle of the limited geek rock picks here I much prefer the Smash Mouth song to the Barenaked Ladies one, so I approve of the ordering.

 

That Beverley Knight song was completely new to me - I must say that the sample weaves into the production more naturally than I'd expect for a song as well-known as 'Good Times'.

 

On the other hand, 'Afrika Shox' is a song I already know and really like! However, I had no idea about the featured artist... yikes, that Wikipedia page was not a fun read :( I didn't think I knew 'Phat Planet' by name but I've just put it on and it sounds really familiar so perhaps I do recognise it from somewhere after all. A pounding floorfiller anyway and Leftfield have definitely still got it nowadays, I've been recently obsessed with 'Accumulator' - a top 10 hit in my personal chart <3

 

That Underworld song is definitely a discovery and a pretty banging one at that *.* "Daily, daily, daily, daily thing, like Tom & Jerry thing" = lyrical genius tbh

Leftfield and Underworld are two bands I should really like but alas I've never understood the hype.

 

260 | The Divine Comedy - The Certainty of Chance

 

Like most of the rest of the UK, I wasn't really aware of Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy before the Casanova album. Actually arguably most of the UK wasn't aware of them during or after the Casanova album either. However we'll move past that and focus on my obsession with them during the second half of the 90s and the early 00s, there was a Britishness to Neil's lyrics that really worked in a Britpop setting despite clearly him never really ever being a true part of that movement. This particular track was from the Fin De Siecle album and was one of the more beautiful tracks to feature on it. Released in the final months of 1998, this really resonated in the Winter months but kinda fell away after Christmas - something quite common with songs that I loved but never really set the official charts alight.

 

Below the Divine Comedy in my chart that week were a couple of dance classics from the year, namely Mike Koglin with The Silence (yes, a trance version of the Depeche Mode classic riff) and Dreaming from Ruff Driverz presents Arrola - both huge club tunes that would heavily feature on every Ibiza themed compilation out there at the time. Another dance classic entered much lower down the official chart (and one that I eventually bought) in the form of Scott Grooves and Mothership Reconnection which had the honour of receiving a very rare remix by the one and only Daft Punk.

 

 

The stats:

 

Date: 22 November 1998

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 261

2020s plays rank: 236

Biggest song it kept from #1:

(#2 in w/c 22 November 1998)

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time:

 

I did love that Ruff Drivers song but it's pure nostalgia now.

 

259 | Ace Of Base - Always Have, Always Will

 

So we go rather neatly from a song that started Winter 1998 to a song that got to #1 on my chart as a result of a rather drunken new year. Yep the first chart of 1999 was overridden by songs that I'd heard on repeat whilst out on New Year's Eve and top of the pile was Ace of Base making an unexpected chart topper... it’s not very often that I enjoy music that you can skip to. I can't recall exactly what else is to come but I'm going to hazard a guess that this is the most unlikely #1 of the whole decade for me, especially in 1999 when I generally had quite indie leaning tastes aside from this and one other song. And to top off the sense of new year madness, check out what was #2 this week :ph34r: :kink:

 

 

The stats:

 

Date: 03 January 1999

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 240

2020s plays rank: 256

Biggest song it kept from #1: Steps - Tragedy (#2 in w/c 03 January 1999)

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: N/A

 

Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock is legitimately one of my favourite songs of all time, but I had no idea about any of that... ugh, first Arcade Fire and now this, not a good start to 2023... the perils of growing up in a world without Wikipedia :(

 

The Certainty Of Chance is my favourite Divine Comedy song, that should have been a Top 40 hit. Always Have, Always Will is a not so guilty pleasure of mine, an unashamedly happy song.

Edited January 1, 20232 yr by jimwatts