26TH DECEMBER




B”Witched may have a hat-trick of chart toppers in 1998 but the daddy (should that be mummy?) of all girl groups return to claim their third Christmas chart topper- yes the Spice Girls have done it again. “Goodbye”, rumoured heavily to be about the departure of Halliwell from the group back in May, sold a very impressive 380,711 to do it, that’s the second highest opening tally of their career only bettered by the 429,000 “2 Become 1” recorded two years ago. The song actually dates back to last year and was originally intended for the “Spice World” album but didn’t get recorded due to time constraints, it got a dust down and a re-write and results in an 8th chart topper from 9 singles. They are just the second act ever to score three successive Christmas No 1 singles (The Beatles were the first in 1963, 64, and 65) and draw level with Take That as the act with the most chart toppers in the 90s, they pull themselves up to joint 5th on the all time list behind The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and Abba. The video incidentally was shot at Mentmore Towers which also hosted the recent Five promo for “Until The Time Is Through”.

For all of that impressive sale this was the first year that anything ran them even remotely close. That record was by the “South Park” character Chef as voiced by Issac Hayes who himself made the top 5 back in 1972 with “Theme From Shaft”, pushed by Radio 1’s Chris Moyles the track “Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S I Love You)” has just enough innuendo and fun to be a real challenger to the Spices selling a monumental 372,890 copies to enter at No 2, that’s the biggest weekly sale ever for a track which wasn’t Number One!

Never in the running for No 1, but still putting in a healthy show of 141,000, was Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan’s take on the Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan classic “Especially For You”. Recorded for the Children In Need charity the duo performed the song on the night and created such positive feedback they decided to release it for Christmas. Pete Waterman is back on Production here with Steps helping out on backing vocals, all which sees it make No 3. Steps themselves climb up 8-6 (99,000) and have already sold 423,000 copies of “Tragedy/ Heartbeat” almost without anyone noticing.

Bursting into the media over the course of the year after being the centre of the BBC docusoap “The Cruise” Jane McDonald has had quite a year. The singer could first be spotted in the promo for Black Lace’s 1983 #9 single “Superman” but now after 15 years she’s really hit the big time having left the show, gotten married (again shown on BBC 1) and gotten a recording contract. The latter resulted in a No 1 album in the summer and follows naturally to a stab at the festive top spot with “Cruise Into Christmas”, essentially a medley of festive favourites. It may be light entertainment but she certainly has an audience selling 68,000 copies last week which has been enough in some weeks this year for the No 1 position.

Well done to Cher who despite dropping 2-4 sold another 123,699 raising her tally for the single “Believe” to 1,342,356 to see it move past Celine Dion and be crowned the biggest selling single of the year. It is also the 9th week it has recorded a sale of over 100,000 equalling the record set by “Barbie Girl” last year- can it make it a record next week?

So long then to B*Witched who dive 1-5 (108,000) and The Honeyz who slip 5-7 (82,000). Bryan Adams and Mel C linger 6-8 (75,000) with a sales increase and Billie hurtles 3-9 (73,000).


1- GOODBYE- Spice Girls (380,711)
2- CHOCOLATE SALTY BALLS- Chef (372,890)
3- ESPECIALLY FOR YOU- Denise & Johnny (141,000)
4- BELIEVE- Cher (123,699)
5- TO YOU I BELONG- B*Witched (108,000)
6- HEARTBEAT/ TRAGEDY- Steps (99,000)
7- END OF THE LINE- Honeyz (82,000)
8- WHEN YOU’RE GONE- Bryan Adams/ Mel C (75,000)
9- SHE WANTS YOU- Billie (73,000)
10- CRUISE INTO CHRISTMAS- Jane McDonald (68,000)

So that's it for TOTP 1998 though there are actually two more charts to post which are technically 1998 sales chart! So the thread will return in a few weeks with the final two charts in this thread before moving onto 1999 offically......

Denise & Johnny ❤️

My top 3 :

03.01.1999 (Week # 1)

01. Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan - Especially For You (2 weeks) (1 week at # 1)

02. Steps - Heartbeat (7 weeks)

03. Jane McDonald - Cruise Into Christmas (2 weeks)

Love 'When You're Gone' especially when the Mel C backing vocal starts.

Thanks for the 1998 and 1991 threads Dasher, looking forward to both 1999 and 1992.

Heartbeat/Tragedy does seem like a bit of a sleeper hit. I didn't realise it had already sold that much by this stage.

Wow that gap of 8K is so close (even Kylie had a bigger lead at #1 just today!)

From those three weeks the new entries that I was listening to a lot or trying to listen to a lot were:

WHEN YOU’RE GONE- Mel C & Bryan Adams
BIG BIG WORLD- Emilia

TO YOU I BELONG- B*Witched
SHE WANTS YOU- Billie
WHEN YOU BELIEVE- Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston
END OF THE LINE- Honeyz

GOODBYE- Spice Girls

This part of 1998 always feels so Christmassy for me! I have such special memories, probably because I was just 10 years old but it really did feel like such a festive time!

Still haven’t been able to watch the second episode from last night. Seems to not be loading on iplayer for me 😢

These last two pre-Christmas episodes (the Christmas episode has been repeated a lot in the past few years) really were like a punch to the gut, in a good way.

Goodbye, End Of The Line, Always Have, Always Will and To You I Belong all in the same episode <3 All four songs were slagged off on Twitter last night, but these songs were completely my thing. Although poor Edele was definitely a bit thwarted by some very off key backing vocal harmonies by Lindsey, Keavy and Sinead in the verses of that live performance. I do love the studio version of this track though. End Of The Line I like more than Goodbye too, what a great girband single and for me the best song by Honeyz. The verse melodies are so gorgeous, and the lyrics great; 'I deserve some damn res-pecT'.

The Ace of Base song is the first single I ever bought for myself, on cassette. Although a few weeks earlier a relative had bought me So Young by The Corrs. It's such a joyful track, Motown and 60s influence but with the Scandipop magic and Jenny looked great, very fun performance.

Also Emilia's Big Big World was everywhere at the time, I love the music and production and Emilia's fragile vocal. She's had a few career reinventions since then, she participted in Melodifestivalen in 2009 with the brilliant You're My World and then was relaunched a few years later as a lounge pop/soul kind of artist who Radio 2 supported at the time under the name Emilia Mitiku, with the album reaching No.22 in the UK, so kind of a one-hit wonder but not quite (Good Sign went top 60 in 1999 too, with a K-Klass remix which sounds like their So Young remix). And yet more hits in 1998 from Sweden! I didn't realise it had sold so much to reach No.5!

When You're Gone is one of the best duets, I love songs like that where both artists sing the whole song together in different registers and Bryan and Mel C worked so well together.

No Regrets is one of my favourite Robbie singles, amazing song, very atmospheric and lyrically clever, and great backing vocals from both Neils. I also have fond memories of that Rugrats film song from Blackstreet and Mya.

I wouldn't say I was too keen on Hard Knock Life and glad Cher continued for another week, and I don't think She Wants You was one of Billie's best but again it was way more mature than Girlfriend, with each single release from that first album she seemed to put out a song aimed at an audience five or more years older than the last.

I don't really understand that Beautiful South single choice, I thought it was very drab after Perfect 10. I suppose nearly everybody was releasing slow songs around this point.

When You Believe is a good ballad but I think Mariah and Whitney still could have come up with something a little less cliched between them, but it worked well for the film.

As much as I love Lutricia McNeal, I'm really not very fond of The Greatest Love You'll Never Know, a little bit overwrought for me. Likewise, the Brandy song was far from her best, a very dull track. The Leann Rimes song was a bit too country for my tastes at the time.

Savage Garden's I Want You is great either in its original form or '98 remix, it's interesting they released it again so soon as I don't really feel it was going to be any bigger second time around? Another song from the album could have been pushed. And for me, The Everlasting is very nearly as good as If You Tolerate This... I wish the Manics had left that to January as it deserved a top ten placing, there's no way such a great single deserved to end their top 10 run but the timing was poor.

I was quite glad Spice Girls beat Chef to Christmas No.1, it's very funny and amazing that they got away with that being played at the time, but I wouldn't say it's a song I enjoy listening to.

Quite amazing that Denise and Johnny got to No.3 with almost a note for note cover of Kylie and Jason, a naff idea and execution but charming and well sung by Denise at least, and kudos to them getting that high with a charity cover in the Christmas chart. Was this the first and only time the Christmas top three were all new entries?

I'm quite fond of that Jane McDonald Christmas medley, it's also knowingly naff but good fun and of all the acts in that top ten to still be relevant today, I think I'd have put Jane last, yet she's still on our TV screens all the time.

And I do think poor Alda deserved a performance of Girls Night Out, with the lyric 'when we're married and cooking an onion', who on earth thought it was a good idea to release that on Christmas week? Ditto Aqua's Good Morning Sunshine.

Thanks very much for this thread as ever Gezza, an amazing read and this year had such great memories for me personally so it's been amazing to watch it unfold in real time.

Edited Saturday at 12:414 days by gooddelta

I loved Good Morning Sunshine. Ironically always feels wintery to me, very underrated.

I have no idea whether Cher made it to another week over 100K or not, will be interested to find out. This is the time when I can recall Tragedy really taking off as it was getting played at christmas and new year parties etc so not surprised to see it jump to a best weekly sale.

Slight change of plan. TOTP returns on 2/1 showing the episode from 8/1/99 and 15/1/99 so it skips a chart week in essence. Therefore I'll post the missing week next weekend along with the final sales week of 1998 to conclude this thread. Then I'll open the 1999 one which will be the second show shown on the 2nd of January. If all that makes sense!

It makes sense, we will go with the flow :D Thanks for these threads, Gezza!

I'm pretty sure I never knew Spice Girls only essentially scraped it there

First time seeing the two episodes preceding the Christmas one. I hadn't realised R.E.M. made an appearance, just a shame it was for the lesser of their three hits from Up. 'Always Have, Always Will' became my favourite Ace Of Base song, it is so joyful, and 'When You're Gone' is fabulous, those harmonies work a treat (see also 'More Than Words', 'All My Loving', etc.) I hadn't realised 'Hard Knock Life' came so close to dethroning Cher, another close #1 race late in the year.

I believe this was the only Christmas Top 3 where all were new entries (although there have been several where two songs were new to the Top 40, most recently 2022). The EOY rundown on the Christmas episode had Stardust at #9 and 'Viva Forever' at #10, which would have made for a better top 10 than the final one which had those two replaced by the Christmas Top 2.

On 20/12/2025 at 12:41, gooddelta said:

And I do think poor Alda deserved a performance of Girls Night Out, with the lyric 'when we're married and cooking an onion', who on earth thought it was a good idea to release that on Christmas week? Ditto Aqua's Good Morning Sunshine.

I did wonder if that was the actual line it kind of stuck in my head ever since the time and I'd never thought to look it up! Iconic rhyme for "reunion". Well at least both those songs would join the double peak list.

Pleased that Cher usurped Celine at the last minute on the EOY chart as I much prefer 'Believe' to 'My Heart Will Go On'. How impressive that she raced up so quickly.

'When You're Gone' and 'No Regrets' are my favourite new entries from the past couple of weeks so all is well in solo Spice and Take That world! I remember reading that Bryan originally wanted Sheryl Crow for the former so I'm glad he did have that chance meeting with Melanie C, as they work so well together. 'No Regrets' is a gorgeous moment in Robbie's catalogue the "guess the love we once had is officially... dead!" ending always gives me chills.

...however, 'Goodbye' is my least favourite of the Spice Girls' Christmas #1s. I had no idea the gap between them and Chef was so small 😮

My era of breakfast TV was 'girl-groups doing full on choreography in a Matalan wardrobe at 7am on GMTV' so I missed the chaos of the Big Breakfast years, but have watched some episodes on YouTube out of curiosity - Denise and Johnny had great chemistry as a TV duo! However, I can take or leave 'Especially For You' even if Denise is quite an underrated vocalist, with her stage background.

Jane McDonald the 'Jai Ho' songstress only being 7 years older than me in these TOTP episodes has blown my mind though

Thank you for a wonderfully informative thread as ever, Gezza! Looking forward to 1999.

23 hours ago, Jade said:

Thank you for a wonderfully informative thread as ever, Gezza! Looking forward to 1999.

And 1992 of course! Love following both threads, along with the 1982 ones too elsewhere on this retro forum.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by TheSnake