Posted June 6Jun 6 Yes it's back, the title says it all, a thread designed to "best guess" the sales week by week for 1998. We'll count down all the sounds of the year and hopefully generate a few "almost forgotten gems" along the way. As always thanks go to MFR, Vas tariner, Youtube, Wikipedia, MW, popscene, James Masterton, Discogs, and a few other sources who have helped over the years.The format will be the same every week with TOTP performances where available for those songs new to the top 10. So sit back and enjoy every top 10 hit of the 90s (eventually) because in this year it was just like that!
June 13Jun 13 Tonight we will have the 9th and 16th January showsNext Friday - the 23rd and 30th January shows. We then take a break from 1998 for a fortnight ( cannot see the schedule for 11 July yet ) 27 June Glastonbury4 July - Test Cricket highlights.
June 13Jun 13 Author 10TH JANUARY1998 begins with a bit of a shocker! The feat of returning to No 1 is nothing unusual now (this is the 5th occurrence in the last 5 years) but in most of those cases it was just a week break between spells, today Various Artists’ “Perfect Day” flies back 3-1 after a four week break. The equals the 90s record for weeks between runs (thanks to “Three Lions”) and is the longest break since the Beatles “She Loves You” spent 8 weeks between chart toping duties in 1963. Predictably sales are down- 39% in this case- to 83,000 but it has sold over 1.3 million in just 7 weeks enough to be the 10th biggest single of the decade!This is a golden period of sales make no mistake with Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” drifting 7-10 (39,000) but with total sales over 1.6 million it is the 4th biggest of the decade so far.Regardless of that this is the first week that the sales needed to make No 1 have dropped below the 100,000 mark for 29 weeks, and moreover the amount needed for No 2 drops beneath the mark for the first time in 12 weeks- another record since 1980. That position is occupied by All Saints who get a fresh peak after 8 weeks around and sales of 766,000 in total with another 80,000 added last week.Last week’s No 1 from The Spice Girls tumbles 1-3 (78,000) but in truth were only 5,000 copies away for grabbing a third week at the top- no matter they have least sold half a million copies of “Too Much” now. They’ve sold 5.3 million singles in 18 months and overtake Oasis in terms of 90s sales- only Elton is ahead (albeit by over 1.5 million).The Lighthouse Family take full advantage of the release lull to get a second hit from the “Postcards From Heaven” album. Originally scheduled for a December release it has been wisely put back to January and as a result they enter one place higher than their last single “Raincloud” managed. “High” sold 58,000 to enter at No 5, that’s the group’s third top 10 single and also promotes the album back into the top 10.Space’s first album “Spiders” generated four top 15 hits and meant that the follow up album had big boots to fill. They start to attempt it at any rate with single “Avenging Angels” which instantly becomes the band’s highest placed song arriving at No 6 (50,000) benefiting as it did from extensive play throughout the festive period.Elsewhere Janet Jackson continues to climb 5-4 (63,000) in the face of a 30% sales loss and Robbie Williams drops 6-7 (48,000). Teletubbies bolt 2-9 (43,000) with the big day now over, and Natalie Imbruglia slipping 8-9 (41,000), both songs have now sold over 850,000 copies.1- PERFECT DAY- Various Artists (83,000)2- NEVER EVER- All Saints (80,000)3- TOO MUCH- Spice Girls (78,000)4- TOGETHER AGAIN- Janet Jackson (63,000)5- HIGH- Lighthouse Family (58,000)6- AVENGING ANGELS- Space (50,000)7- ANGELS- Robbie Williams (48,000)8- TELETUBBIES SAY EH-OH- Teletubbies (43,000)9- TORN- Natalie Imbruglia (41,000)10- BARBIE GIRL- Aqua (39,000)
June 13Jun 13 Author 17TH JANUARYThe charts are often a strange beast, All Saints “Never Ever” has been available for 8 weeks selling between 119,000 and 80,000 a week for all of those weeks. It sold just 54,000 last week but moves to the No 1 spot! That figure is the lowest required for a No 1 spot since R Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” last April but the song does create some records, “Never Ever” now has total sales of 820,000 as it makes No 1 and that’s more than any song ever sold before making the top- certainly since 1980, it replaces Celine Dion’s “Think Twice” in that respect but it can’t eclipse Dion’s track on the length of time taken to get to No 1 though it is the longest time taken since “Think Twice”.All Saints were not leading midweek though that belonged to the dance track “Bamboogie” by Bamboo, the “group” is really a name taken by DJ Andrew Livingstone and is based extensively on KC & The Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight” which made No 21 in 1975 here though topped the US Chart and formed a slice of the Bucketheads “These Sounds” for good measure. It sold just 600 copies less than “Never Ever” once the dust had settled and must count itself unlucky in the end result but is used in the current Bud Ice ad so may get an advantage.Sometimes you just have to keep on releasing a song until it’s a big hit, a case in point is “Renegade Master” by Wildchild which finally enters at No 3 (47,000). The song was originally released under the title “Legends Of The Dark Black Part 2” in spring 1995 making No 34 before it gained popularity over the summer in European clubs and got a re-issue under the title “Renegade Master” in November of that year this time going to No 11, it now gets a third bite of the cherry thanks to a remix by Fatboy Slim (or former Housemartin and Beats International member Norman Cook). The vocal sample used come from A.D.O.R’s “One For The Trouble” and is something of a bittersweet success as the man behind Wildchild, Roger McKenzie, died back in 1995 as the song was charting for its second time.No other new entries make into the top 10 this week meaning that Various Artists “Perfect Day” drop again from the top 1-4 (42,000) and push Janet Jackson down 4-5 (36,000). Robbie Williams however rebounds 7-6 (34,000) despite losing sales but “Angels” seems to have become his first single with longevity- it even helps his album shoot 12-3 to enter the top 10 for the first time ever! Other long standing hits dropping are The Spice Girls 3-9 (25,000) and Natalie Imbruglia 9-10 (22,000) all with big sales loses. Last week’s two new entries fall back 5-7 (31,000) for the Lighthouse Family and 6-8 (28,000) for Space.Next week we’ll see if Oasis still have it and can generate chart toppers?1- NEVER EVER- All Saints (54,000)2- BAMBOOGIE- Bamboo (53,400)3- RENEGADE MASTER 98- Wildchild (47,000)4- PERFECT DAY- Various Artists (42,000)5- TOGETHER AGAIN- Janet Jackson (36,000)6- ANGELS- Robbie Williams (34,000)7- HIGH- Lighthouse Family (31,000)8- AVENGING ANGELS- Space (28,000)9- TOO MUCH- Spice Girls (25,000)10- TORN- Natalie Imbruglia (22,000)
June 13Jun 13 I loved Renegade Master 98, Fatboy Slim was really on fire with everything he touched at this point.Also really like High by Lighthouse Family, they're not my usual bag but I always thought High was a really decent radio track.
June 13Jun 13 I also had no idea that All Saints were so close to being denied! Glad they got there, what a slow journey to the top.'Angels' and 'Avenging Angels' next to each other *.*The Vanilla - 'No Way No Way' performance on TOTP has altered my brain chemistry tbh
June 14Jun 14 Never Ever so close but fully deserved <3Avenging angels was such a mediocre comeback from Space, they had a bunch of great singles but not this one
June 14Jun 14 It would have been quite ridiculous if Never Ever hadn’t gone to no.1 at some point when four lesser hits got there for them much more comfortably afterwards, and yet it almost didn’t happen. Not sure Bamboogie would have been a well remembered no.1 but I do recall it being no.1 on the Chart Show on the Saturday.
June 14Jun 14 The gap between Never Ever at 1 and Bamboogie at number 2 was in fact 557 sales according to this article on the OCC website.https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-closest-battles-for-number-1-on-the-official-singles-chart__22356/ Edited June 14Jun 14 by mrpopquiz
June 14Jun 14 Just went and re-listened to Bamboogie and glad Never ever won, Bamboogie would have been such a non-1Renegade Master almost sounds like a Fatboy Slim originalI was kinda the Lighthouse Family-antifan but High is undeniably catchy
June 14Jun 14 I’d probably go as far as saying I hate that Bamboogie thing. Those tracks that sampled old tracks without doing anything even vaguely interesting are dance music at its lowest in my opinion.
June 14Jun 14 Thank goodness Never Ever limped over the line in the end, it's a classic No.1! Funny that Heartbeat/Tragedy by Steps did basically the same a year later after yo-yoing the top ten for a couple of months, I did like a new year climber!Bamboogie is a bit of a forgotten track, it's maybe not available to license anymore as it wasn't on Now Yearbook '98 or the Extra and doesn't seem to have been on any compilation for a long time. I don't hate it but the right song definitely won. Strange that Clock had another KC and the Sunshine Band cover in the chart at the same time.I actually think Avenging Angels is great, it has a kind of James Bond/Austin Powers '60s vibe to it like a lot of their stuff did I guess. Apparently it was in the airplay top ten for the whole year so did quite poorly commercially that being said.High is brilliant - one of the best MOR singles of the late 90s, and lyrically something that resonates more with me now I'm older. I'm not a huge fan of theirs but that is undeniably brilliant songwriting. Edited June 14Jun 14 by gooddelta
June 16Jun 16 Looking forward to TOTP in 1998 being repeated on BBC Four, This is when first remember watching this with my Dad.
Thursday at 11:544 days I liked 'Bamboogie' as a kid at the school discos, and I have fond memories of it in that respect but it definitely doesn't sound as good now.
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