15 minutes ago, Paddington James said:

I absolutely love To You I Belong, I think it’s my favourite B*Witched song. The oak of #25 here in Australia was a surprise to me at the time considering C’est La Vie got to #6 and as you mentioned Rollercoaster spent two weeks at #1. That was in November so the end of our spring, though I’m sure they were in Australia on promo at the time, which would explain it.

I’m actually planning on doing an Australian Singles 1998 rank after Christmas on here, so I’ll be going into some more details and memories when I do that.

Yes I figured there must have been some big boost to get Rollercoaster to the top there. I suppose though you must have had a lot of ballads released around the summer, where international acts followed simultaneous release strategies. Before streaming took over everything, we used to get a lot of the bigger ballads here around winter and Christmas, although tbf the 1999 charts don't really show that very well as you'll see when I get to it.

Cool, that wil be good to follow as I have gaps in my Aussie knowledge although over the years have come to know a lot of big pop you had in the late 90s that didn't really do much over here like Buses and Trains and Mouth.

18 minutes ago, Paddington James said:

Side note: How good a game was/is Banjo-Kazooie!

To this day it's my favourite game and one I am delighted to be able to play again more easily now it's on the Nintendo Switch online library. Completely charming, with great music.

So these four songs left, for me, are 10/10 tracks and some of my all-time favourite singles ever released:

All Saints - Never Ever

Cher - Believe

Madonna - Frozen

Spice Girls - Viva Forever

I'm pretty busy this weekend but will get to them bit by bit over the coming week! Thanks for staying with me and for all the comments and interaction, it has been very fun to reminisce on my favourite musical year.

Oh that Manic’s song is very good. I don’t think I’d ever properly heard it until now. It’s a shame it clocked One For Sorrow from #1 as that is close to or even my favourite Steps song, so I’d have loved that to get to #1. Saying that though Manic’s certainly deserved a #1 with this, it just a shame Steps couldn’t get there a week or two later.

5 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

To this day it's my favourite game and one I am delighted to be able to play again more easily now it's on the Nintendo Switch online library. Completely charming, with great music.

I owned it back in the early 2000’s when I got a second hand Nintendo 64 for my birthday but could never beat it. I finally beat it 2 years ago when it went to Switch online. The music and charm is just flawless. Rareware at their peak. They also did the Donkey Kong Country games and music in the 90’s for the SNES. They were a masterpiece too.

'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' is a fantastic start to the top 5 I forgot how much I enjoyed it until the TOTP repeats recently aired it as the #1 single, but yeah, it was a breath of fresh air in that landscape and certainly as a chart-topper. Agreed that the lyrics stand out from the word go and the chilling, Orwellian style continues to grip. Wow, what a throwback Renford Rejects is by the way, I remember catching repeats of that on TV at night during the late 2000s.

I can understand why you rate 'To You I Belong' and would agree it's their best chart topper of the year, lovely instrumentation.

4 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

So these four songs left, for me, are 10/10 tracks and some of my all-time favourite singles ever released:

All Saints - Never Ever

Cher - Believe

Madonna - Frozen

Spice Girls - Viva Forever

I'm pretty busy this weekend but will get to them bit by bit over the coming week! Thanks for staying with me and for all the comments and interaction, it has been very fun to reminisce on my favourite musical year.

What an incredible top 4! It just proves why 1998 is my favourite year for chart music. I think I said at the start of your countdown 1998 was my first full year following the charts and what a year it was!

10 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

Yes I figured there must have been some big boost to get Rollercoaster to the top there. I suppose though you must have had a lot of ballads released around the summer, where international acts followed simultaneous release strategies. Before streaming took over everything, we used to get a lot of the bigger ballads here around winter and Christmas, although tbf the 1999 charts don't really show that very well as you'll see when I get to it.

Cool, that wil be good to follow as I have gaps in my Aussie knowledge although over the years have come to know a lot of big pop you had in the late 90s that didn't really do much over here like Buses and Trains and Mouth.

I think it’s the same with Steps as well, but I’m a bit more hazy on when they were in the country. I’m pretty sure it was when Last Thing On My Mind was a single.

I’ll be covering the year end chart plus a few personal favourites. I, just need to decide whether to rank the top 25, top 30 or top 50.

Buses and Trains is one I remember very fondly though.

Edited November 28, 2025Nov 28 by Paddington James

That is an amazing top 4 and makes sense for what I know (historically) of your tastes :)

To You I Belong is a beautiful festive ballad and my second favourite of their chart toppers.

The Manics are my number 1 of the year. What a song and as you say totally different to the other chart toppers of the year.

I think we now only share one song in your top 4.

Actually it’s 2 out of the 4 we share!

'To You I Belong' is lovely. Was probably too young to know of it being the song to topple Cher tbh. Fascinating looking back at how they scored 4 straight chart toppers in under a year and then they fell off quite quickly thereafter!

'If You Tolerate This.." is indeed brilliant and very deserving of a top 5 placement. That's a very strong top 4 remaining!

I wouldn't have been the biggest fan of either 'Turn Back Time' or 'To You I Belong', but they're certainly nice enough - I was probably wary of the orchestrated third-single-ballad approach at the time which I suppose The Spice Girls established.

'If You Tolerate...' however was and is very much a fave of mine from the year - and given the publicity shyness of Radiohead and The Verve, it was fantastic to have an alternative band in that post-Britpop period like The Manics who were prepared to back up their most successful period in the same channels as their more pop contemporaries in the charts. One of my uni friends played the parent album most days that autumn term, so I knew all the subsequent hits long before they were released as singles.

I like all four songs left - my preference for the top would be All Saints or Cher as I would regard those songs as their peak whereas the other two artists had other #1s I prefer, however I know many would disagree or perhaps even have it the other way around! So I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

To You I Belong is a nice track, I also like the Celtic feel, even though it peaked at 50 for me, lower than the first 2, I think it has worn better. The Manics was a monster classic for me, and probably their best record - it had a very long chart run after topping my charts. Candidate for best number one along with Millennium. So far....! I thought Your Love Alone should also have been a chart-topper, I saw them on tour in the 2000's and thought they were back on form.

0/10 for Brimful of Asha, 1/10 for Manics.

Now it gets closer. Manics are so great. I was also mainly into dance music in 1998, but that Manics album stood out and I bought it in 98. I think it was the only rock album I bought back in 98. "If You Tolerate This" is among my favourite 200 songs of all time and so is "The Everlasting". I still wonder why it only peaked at #11.

My places 7 to 5 are:

7. Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground

This is easily one of my favourite Jamiroquai songs, so well produced and the dramturgy is perfect.

6. Spice Girls - Viva Forever

My favourite ballad from the Spice Girls - this one is pure brilliance.

5. Madonna - Frozen

My favourite Madonna song post 1990. This one is so deep.

22 hours ago, Paddington James said:

Oh that Manic’s song is very good. I don’t think I’d ever properly heard it until now. It’s a shame it clocked One For Sorrow from #1 as that is close to or even my favourite Steps song, so I’d have loved that to get to #1. Saying that though Manic’s certainly deserved a #1 with this, it just a shame Steps couldn’t get there a week or two later.

Yes I really wish both songs had got to the top, what a tough battle some weeks in 1998 had (considering on other occasions we got the likes of Spacedust getting there with a low sale).

22 hours ago, Paddington James said:

I owned it back in the early 2000’s when I got a second hand Nintendo 64 for my birthday but could never beat it. I finally beat it 2 years ago when it went to Switch online. The music and charm is just flawless. Rareware at their peak. They also did the Donkey Kong Country games and music in the 90’s for the SNES. They were a masterpiece too.

Ah amazing. I beat it 100% in that week between Christmas and New Year 1998 although it took me, funnily enough, 64 hours to complete as the length of game time was stated. On the second run through I did it in 16! It did get pretty frustrating towards the end with Gruntilda's quiz! Yes loved the DKC SNES games too!

22 hours ago, Jade said:

'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' is a fantastic start to the top 5 I forgot how much I enjoyed it until the TOTP repeats recently aired it as the #1 single, but yeah, it was a breath of fresh air in that landscape and certainly as a chart-topper. Agreed that the lyrics stand out from the word go and the chilling, Orwellian style continues to grip. Wow, what a throwback Renford Rejects is by the way, I remember catching repeats of that on TV at night during the late 2000s.

I can understand why you rate 'To You I Belong' and would agree it's their best chart topper of the year, lovely instrumentation.

For sure, it was a moment that they had two such political singles go to the top, considering their second chart topper in 2000 too. Haha yes it was good fun, the only British sitcom I really even remember being on Nickelodeon as it was mostly US imports. Lucy Punch was in it and would go on to bigger things in the great Motherland/Amandaland.

21 hours ago, Roba. said:

'To You I Belong' is lovely. Was probably too young to know of it being the song to topple Cher tbh. Fascinating looking back at how they scored 4 straight chart toppers in under a year and then they fell off quite quickly thereafter!

'If You Tolerate This.." is indeed brilliant and very deserving of a top 5 placement. That's a very strong top 4 remaining!

Oh for sure, isn't that weird, I can't think of another act who opened that strongly only to be gone within another year.

21 hours ago, jimwatts said:

I wouldn't have been the biggest fan of either 'Turn Back Time' or 'To You I Belong', but they're certainly nice enough - I was probably wary of the orchestrated third-single-ballad approach at the time which I suppose The Spice Girls established.

'If You Tolerate...' however was and is very much a fave of mine from the year - and given the publicity shyness of Radiohead and The Verve, it was fantastic to have an alternative band in that post-Britpop period like The Manics who were prepared to back up their most successful period in the same channels as their more pop contemporaries in the charts. One of my uni friends played the parent album most days that autumn term, so I knew all the subsequent hits long before they were released as singles.

I like all four songs left - my preference for the top would be All Saints or Cher as I would regard those songs as their peak whereas the other two artists had other #1s I prefer, however I know many would disagree or perhaps even have it the other way around! So I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

That's fair and good point you make about the third single being a ballad, I guess it became an established formula for success to change things up after the big lead single and then consolidate it with another big pop moment second and then a ballad.

I think Frozen was voted Buzzjack's favourite song of all-time in a recent poll, although I prefer other Madonna songs to it too, but it's in my top five of hers.

15 hours ago, Last Dreamer said:

0/10 for Brimful of Asha, 1/10 for Manics.

Zero! Is that just the remix, or the original too? What about it makes it a zero in your eyes would you say?

13 hours ago, DaTilt said:

Now it gets closer. Manics are so great. I was also mainly into dance music in 1998, but that Manics album stood out and I bought it in 98. I think it was the only rock album I bought back in 98. "If You Tolerate This" is among my favourite 200 songs of all time and so is "The Everlasting". I still wonder why it only peaked at #11.

My places 7 to 5 are:

7. Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground

This is easily one of my favourite Jamiroquai songs, so well produced and the dramturgy is perfect.

6. Spice Girls - Viva Forever

My favourite ballad from the Spice Girls - this one is pure brilliance.

5. Madonna - Frozen

My favourite Madonna song post 1990. This one is so deep.

I think The Everlasting is just as good yeah, I listen to that all the time, massively underrated. Maybe it was just a bit subtle for the time it was released and just got lost among all the pop vying for the top in the Christmas rush. Had it been left to January it could have gone top ten but I suppose it was released then to help sell the album during the Christmas period.

I could be wrong but I think the sign were there in early 1999 that B*Witched would struggle. I know Blame It On The Weatherman got to #1 but it finished the year on only 231,000. Though in hindsight each single had a diminishing return. 851,000 then 493,000 then 381,000 for their three 1998 singles. Jesse Hold On sold 216,300 so even less again. I presume I Shall Be There and Jump Down did far less as they never ,add a year end chart and both missed the top 10.

When you look back it really is interesting. Could they be considered just a flash in the pan or a one album wonder? Or did they have the potential and it all just went wrong?

4. Madonna - Frozen

Rank: 9.5/10

Reason: Ok I lied about four 10/10s, I have to separate them somehow and I do prefer a couple of other Madonna singles to this, including one from the same album, but at the same time it's hard to see how this song could be bettered. The 1980s superstar had gone through a bit of a commercial downturn during a lot of the 90s, despite starting strong with the huge Vogue. She had initially started the decade amping up the sex appeal before settling down into R&B and pop ballad sounds for a lot of the 90s, although this did give her some US success, such as the beautiful Take A Bow, which got to No.1 there but missed the top ten here. Immediately prior to this era she starred in movie Evita, and the soundtrack album had notable success but still didn't produce another No.1 single in the UK, although Don't Cry For Me Argentina did well around Christmas 1996.

Also becoming a mother to Lourdes in late 1996, Madonna would spend the next period of her life connecting with her daughter and working with English producer William Orbit on what turned out to be the seminal Ray Of Light album - an electronic and dance influenced album that ended up becoming considered one of her finest bodies of work, and whose influence you can clearly hear in many of today's stars, like JADE, Caroline Polachek, FKA Twigs, and Addison Rae. It was a beautiful, ambient album with future classics including title track Ray Of Light, Drowned World / Substitute For Love, The Power Of Good-Bye (my personal favourite - spellbinding song) and album tracks like Sky Fits Heaven.

But first out of the gate was lead single Frozen, which in its album version was a string drenched six minute epic, and an awesome reintroduction to Madonna that reminded us all why she was still a superstar. With a beautifully delicate vocal delivery, throbbing synths and an ethereal feel, it felt like nothing else she had ever released - more restrained but stunning, almost other-worldy and really quite an abstract kind of piece for a megastar to release as a lead single? But the chorus was as melodic as you would come to expect from Madonna and the song went straight to No.1 as her first UK chart topper in eight years, while the album became one of the biggest of the year. It went to No.1 in several other countries too, plus No.2 in the US and Germany, and No.5 in Australia, but its legacy was in the influence it had for years to come.

At the time the media said Madonna had been revitalised as a kind of 'earth mother' figure, and she certainly had an intriguing, enchanting look during 1998. The beautiful and mysterious video sees her as a shapeshifting figure shrouded in darkness and blue lighting, and she appeared in similar outfits to promote the song including, bizarrely, on the National Lottery Draw show in the UK a week or so before the single was released. TOTP could never get such an exclusive, it seems...

Edited November 29, 2025Nov 29 by gooddelta

7 minutes ago, Paddington James said:

I could be wrong but I think the sign were there in early 1999 that B*Witched would struggle. I know Blame It On The Weatherman got to #1 but it finished the year on only 231,000. Though in hindsight each single had a diminishing return. 851,000 then 493,000 then 381,000 for their three 1998 singles. Jesse Hold On sold 216,300 so even less again. I presume I Shall Be There and Jump Down did far less as they never ,add a year end chart and both missed the top 10.

When you look back it really is interesting. Could they be considered just a flash in the pan or a one album wonder? Or did they have the potential and it all just went wrong?

True, but also that was the fourth single from an established album so many may not have even expected it to get to No.1 at all.

I think the real test was the next lead single but they flunked it with Jesse Hold On. The gap between first and second eras was too long for a pop band in the 90s - they should have released a summer tide over single as people were fickle. Plus the whole Irish jig sound felt tired by late 1999 I think when Europop and boybands ruled the day by this point. The girlband peak was over by then, the likes of Precious, Thunderbugs and Hepburn had top ten singles but All Saints and Spice Girls were on a break. I just think it was bad timing and not the right song and that hastened the decline. Not that I Shall Be There or Jump Down would have done any better as a lead single. They needed something different, but what that was I'm not sure.