I will start on the top 10 tomorrow and these are the songs that have made it:

All Saints - Never Ever

Aqua - Turn Back Time

B*Witched - C'est La Vie

B*Witched - To You I Belong

Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On

Cher - Believe

Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha

Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

Madonna - Frozen

Spice Girls - Viva Forever

Sorry I haven’t managed to properly keep up with all these threads. For me that’s a strong Top 10 aside from B*witched (though “C’est La Vie” is cute) and Celine!

36 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

Indeed there is one still to come. My taste around some pop band singles has been known to be peculiar.

Peculiar is a good word for it in this case ;)

Decent top 10 though - would swap out a couple for Feel It and No Matter What though.

Oh “No Matter What” is the best thing Boyzone ever did by a mile - think that would be in my Top 10.

I can definitely see the appeal in 'No Matter What', but not this one I'm afraid

So, our top 10's have 7 songs in common ;)

Here are my places 15 to 10:

15. Another Level - Freak Me

I really like their adaption of the Silk classic.

14. Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds - Three Lions '98

Fantastic song, but that is just the second take of it.

13. Aqua - Turn Back Time

Really strong euro-ballad - one of Aqua's best.

12. Steps - Heartbeat/Tragedy

Actually #1 in 1999 but released in November 1998, so I counted that in. Not to keen on Tragedy, but Heartbeat is really good.

11. Robbie Williams - Millennium

One of my favourite Robbie songs - I really love the strings in it.

It's Like That is a tune, I can see how it somewhat muddies the social commentary of the original, but in terms of melding hip hop and dance into one big banger, it really succeeds x

Pleasantly surprised to see my favourite still in!

Heartbeat was my SOTY in 1998.

All That I Need Is pleasant. I don’t remember hearing it, but it does sounds familiar so I’m guessing I have. I prefer No Matter What myself though, that’s a great song.

That’s a great top 10. I’m familiar with and like 9 of them. The only one I don’t really know much is If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.

2 hours ago, Last Dreamer said:

Heartbeat was my SOTY in 1998.

I will review Heartbeat in 1999. Spoiler - I like it more than Tragedy.

No Matter What is "pretty good for a Boyzone track" which means it is still very average in comparison to most other songs. I'm not sure I like any of their other songs tbh.

I find Goodbye really boring, I'd have preferred the christmas #1 to be Chef. In terms of Spice Girls ballads, it's nowhere near as good as 2 Become 1, not as good as Too Much or Viva Forever but still better than Mama.

I have a clear top 5 out of your top 10 - and I suspect it's easy to guess which five they would be... but I'm very much not expecting that to match your results!

1 minute ago, dandy* said:

No Matter What is "pretty good for a Boyzone track" which means it is still very average in comparison to most other songs. I'm not sure I like any of their other songs tbh.

I find Goodbye really boring, I'd have preferred the christmas #1 to be Chef. In terms of Spice Girls ballads, it's nowhere near as good as 2 Become 1, not as good as Too Much or Viva Forever but still better than Mama.

I have a clear top 5 out of your top 10 - and I suspect it's easy to guess which five they would be... but I'm very much not expecting that to match your results!

All Saints, Cher, Cornershop, Manics and Madonna?

With a possible replacement of Cher for Spice Girls!

Spot on! And Spice Girls would be 6th so excellent all round

I already think im the only one that doesn’t like Believe 🤣

28 minutes ago, Jester said:

I already think im the only one that doesn’t like Believe 🤣

You're not alone, I don't like it either.

I like 4 of those records in the Top 10 but I count 10 number ones of the year that I actually like so naturally those 4 records would be in my Top 10.

One of those records I'd put in my Top 3 but I'll say no more until the Top 3 is revealed. The other 2 records I'd put in my Top 3 are "Gym & Tonic" and "It's Like That".

10. B*Witched - C'est La Vie

Rank: 9/10

Reason: The first time I ever heard of Irish girlband B*Witched was in about May 1998 - iroinically a few days after we had done a maypole dance with school around the village green (don't ask) to all sorts of folk jigs. 'Have you ever heard of B*Witched?', a classmate said. 'The 1960s US sitcom about witchcraft? Yes, why's that?' I replied, to much laughter (I was still pretty out of touch with pop music at this point, yet a big fan of Samantha, Agnes and co from the 60s). I was swiftly informed all about the new pop group and their debut single C'est La Vie, which would hit No.1 later in the month and become a huge hit, spending its first seven weeks in the top four.

Female pop had been riding the crest of a wave since Spice Girls and Gina G brought it crashing back to No.1 in 1996, and of course the girlband market was starting to become saturated in the wake of the former. But while the likes of Vanilla, Solid Harmonie, N-Tyce and countless others failed, B*Witched had something different about them - a recognisable fashion style in double denim, a marketing angle in identical twin sisters Edele and Keavy (and the extra helping hand that they were also sisters to Boyzone's Shane Lynch) alongside Sinead and Lindsay, a penchant for an Irish jig in the middle eight of each song, and the fact that their first two singles were unashamed pop amped to the max - not trying to appeal mainly to teens like the other bands mentioned, but hoping to get younger kids on board too with their videos full of colour that popped off the screen. C'est La Vie was arguably the cheesiest track to reach No.1 that wasn't a novelty single or otherwise related to a TV show since the Stock Aitken Waterman era.

But the song was packed with hooks, charming, infectious, and relateable to kids because the production, especially the outro and that guitar effect at the end, were similar to the kinds of sounds that were used as soundbeds to kids TV shows or for continuity on things like CBBC. It was very instant. Plus the Irish were having a great 1998 already anyway thanks to Boyzone and The Corrs most notably, plus Ireland had just come off the back of winning Eurovision four times in the 90s, Riverdance was still huge after it had become popular during the interval of Eurovision 1994, and Irish music was generally very in vogue. Add to the mix lyrics aimed at kids but with plenty of obvious double entendres aimed at adults (read those verse lyrics again...), and C'est La Vie could hardly miss.

First single I ever bought ❤️

Low key shocked at the song of theirs you’ve put higher though (I do love it)

4 minutes ago, Herbs said:

First single I ever bought ❤️

Low key shocked at the song of theirs you’ve put higher though (I do love it)

Oh? A Celtic ballad is generally one of my favourite things.

It finished 20 places higher than C'est La Vie in my 1998 End of Year chart at the time.