Chocolate Salty Balls

Looking at this list of songs brings back so many memories of Friday night window shopping at HMV, the Saturday morning chart shows on tv and family car trips.

Looking at the top 40 from the end of year, these would be my perfect 10:

 

1 BELIEVE CHER 1

3 IT'S LIKE THAT RUN DMC VS. JASON NEVINS 1

11 MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH YOU STARDUST 2

16 NEVER EVER ALL SAINTS 1

18 THE BOY IS MINE BRANDY & MONICA 2

20 BRIMFUL OF ASHA CORNERSHOP 1

22 FROZEN MADONNA 1

32 TOGETHER AGAIN JANET JACKSON 4

35 HIGH LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY 4

37 PERFECT 10 BEAUTIFUL SOUTH 2

 

Well Stardust would have been my winner over literally anything in the actual poll so it's a shame that was the year end #11.

 

As it is Cher to win.

Looking at the top 40 from the end of year, these would be my perfect 10:

 

1 BELIEVE CHER 1

3 IT'S LIKE THAT RUN DMC VS. JASON NEVINS 1

11 MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH YOU STARDUST 2

16 NEVER EVER ALL SAINTS 1

18 THE BOY IS MINE BRANDY & MONICA 2

20 BRIMFUL OF ASHA CORNERSHOP 1

22 FROZEN MADONNA 1

32 TOGETHER AGAIN JANET JACKSON 4

35 HIGH LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY 4

37 PERFECT 10 BEAUTIFUL SOUTH 2

 

Pretty strong list there. Where's the full top 40?

Pretty strong list there. Where's the full top 40?

Here it is:

 

1 Believe - Cher [1] 1,519,000

2 My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion [1] 1,302,000

3 It's Like That - Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins [1] 1,092,000

4 No Matter What - Boyzone [1] 1,074,000

5 C'est La Vie - B*Witched [1] 851,000

6 How Do I Live - LeAnn Rimes [7] 701,000

7 Chocolate Salty Balls (PS I Love You) - Chef [1] 682,000

8 Goodbye - Spice Girls [1] 680,000

9 Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) - Pras Michel featuring Ol' Dirty b*st*rd introducing Mya [2] 680,000

10 Truly Madly Deeply - Savage Garden [4] 646,000

11 Music Sounds Better With You - Stardust [2] 632,000

12 Heartbeat / Tragedy - Steps [1] 626,000

13 Viva Forever - Spice Girls [1] 623,000

14 3 Lions '98 - Baddiel and Skinner and Lightning Seeds [1] 619,000

15 Doctor Jones - Aqua [1] 591,000

16 Never Ever - All Saints [1] 567,000

17 I Don't Want To Miss A Thing - Aerosmith [4] 559,000

18 The Boy Is Mine - Brandy and Monica [2] 542,000

19 Feel It - Tamperer featuring Maya [1] 522,000

20 Brimful Of Asha - Cornershop [1] 508,000

21 Rollercoaster - B*Witched [1] 493,000

22 Frozen - Madonna [1] 486,000

23 Horny - Mousse T vs Hot ‘N' Juicy [2] 474,000

24 Vindaloo - Fat Les [2] 468,000

25 Angels - Robbie Williams [4] 467,000

26 Dance The Night Away - Mavericks [4] 432,000

27 Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade - All Saints [1] 429,000

28 Freak Me - Another Level [1] 415,000

29 Millennium - Robbie Williams [1] 414,000

30 To The Moon And Back - Savage Garden [3] 400,000

31 One For Sorrow - Steps [2] 393,000

32 Together Again - Janet Jackson [4] 381,000

33 To You I Belong - B*Witched [1] 381,000

34 Got The Feelin' - Five [3] 375,000

35 High - Lighthouse Family [5] 369,000

36 Finally Found - Honeyz [4] 363,000

37 Perfect 10 - Beautiful South [2] 358,000

38 Sex On The Beach - T-Spoon [2] 355,000

39 Save Tonight - Eagle-Eye Cherry [6] 350,000

40 I Love The Way You Love Me - Boyzone [2] 345,000

 

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How Do I Live having a peak of #7 in the singles chart but ending up as the 6th best seller of the year - that's quite extraordinary! I wonder what caused it to have such a lengthy run in the charts?

 

I thought it might have been huge radio airplay, but after checking, I see it only peaked at #15 on radio, although it stuck around for a while. Still, not the sort of airplay that you'd think would help create 700,000 sales:

 

74-38-43-32-26-27-19-27-30-27-19-15-20-21-25-18-21-23-38-40-35-42-42-out-38-40-out

 

I noticed that Tin Tin Out - Here's Where the Story Ends was #1 on radio for 7 weeks in a row. That song also achieved a peak of #7 in the singles chart, but ultimately didn't do anywhere near as well as How Do I Live (114th best seller of 1998 with 163,000 sales).

 

 

Spice Girls and Chef getting into the EOY Top 10 with just 3 weeks of sales! I miss when it was feasible for singles released at the tail end of the year to have a big impact in the EOY chart. Sorry to Chef though, I voted for that x

Thanks .Jay, what a great list of songs. The nostalgia hits hard.

 

I know, crazy that 3 weeks of sales got you that high up. Wasn’t it similar in the 2005-10 period with X Factor winners singles?

It was! In the download era there was still a lot of Q4 released singles that could end up placing high up in the EOY chart.

 

The streaming era has killed this off, it massively favours the songs that are hits at the start of the year, or even from the year before. Ed Sheeran - Bad Habits being the #2 of 2022 felt quite ridiculous to me.

 

(Sorry for taking us off topic!). There's so many classics in that 1998 Top 40 :wub:

Chef - Chocolate Salty Balls (PS I Love You)

That 11-20 list is significantly better than the top 10.

 

Celine Dion for me, but at least half are dire. And I don't include Chef in that.

How Do I Live having a peak of #7 in the singles chart but ending up as the 6th best seller of the year - that's quite extraordinary! I wonder what caused it to have such a lengthy run in the charts?

 

I thought it might have been huge radio airplay, but after checking, I see it only peaked at #15 on radio, although it stuck around for a while. Still, not the sort of airplay that you'd think would help create 700,000 sales:

 

My best guess is popularity at weddings or something 🤷‍♂️

How Do I Live was all over the TV music channels, it was the slow dance of choice at school discos, became a wedding favourite as mentioned above etc. I suspect the fact that it wasn’t hugely overexposed on airplay actually helped people to discover it more gradually, leading to that protracted chart run.

 

If it had the airplay support that Tin Tin Out had managed, then it probably would have peaked higher and burnt out more quickly.

My Heart Will Go On to go.

The chef!

 

Leanne Rimes chart run shows a conventional (for 1998) entry and fall but after 3 weeks it’s turned into a streaming era style chart run not normal at all at the time post 1995 so must have got very little airplay on R1 etc which was important at the time then people discovered it naturally. See also The Mavericks in the same year!

The Chef song is legitimately my 2nd favourite on this list lmao (Run-D.M.C. is the best by a country mile, who is already voting for that xx)

 

Céline Dion an easy first vote and hopefully looking good to be out second.