Thank you all so much for joining me for my rundown of the No.1 singles of 1998. @Jester kindly asked me to do 1999 too and I won't keep people hanging any longer, so let's begin!

While I regard 1998 as my favourite year musically, it's fair to say that many of my all-time favourite singles and songs that shaped and influenced my life and developing music taste were released in 1999, so I think of it in a similarly high regard. It was a bit of a transitional year again, like 1998 a convergance of old and new as the new millennium raced towards us and people became fixated on the millennium bug. The internet and mobile phones were both coming into wider use so we had a lot of songs referring to email, phones, or texting (1-2-1 as people used to say), but neither had really become ubiquitous like they are today.

Musically it was a very diverse year, the bubblegum pop boom of 1998 continued but also we had a lot of Europop and Eurodance doing well, garage coming through to the mainstream, plenty of rap and rock, and it was also the biggest year commercially for trance, with a couple of classics from the genre seemingly charting every week. I will talk through more of the trends and major artists as we go through the thread, but one thing I noticed was the amount of new artists who debuted this year who would go on to become superstars in the new decade - think Britney Spears, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias... things were about to get messy with illegal downloading, as explained in this brilliant and highly recommended book, but for the meantime record labels were pretending all was ok and launching major new acts, although singles sales were about to start declining from their late 90s peak...

On a personal level, I was into year 8 in secondary school, and music and the charts were absolutely everything to me by this point. I started my own personal chart in June, and a few of the 1999 UK No.1 singles topped that early on, although a few of my favourite songs unfortunately stalled at No.2, namely Better Off Alone by DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay, Runaway (Tin Tin Out Remix) by The Corrs, 2 Times by Ann Lee and The Launch by DJ Jean - all chart toppers for me (apart from Runaway which was a few months before my chart but would have been).

We had a few fun holidays that year, to Great Yarmouth in July and Disneyland Paris in October, and a lot of the songs in this thread have memories wrapped up in those. On the drive to the former is where I first heard Better Off Alone, which I was completely astounded by on first listen. And, of course, the build up to New Year's Eve 1999 was memorable - I still remember what I was doing, what we were listening to (Now 44, like everyone else), and even the EastEnders plots of the time.

As part of the BuzzJack Presents project with @awardinary and @Colm, we have already prepared compilations for 1999, as well as another special album for the best dance of the year, as it was for sure the best and most diverse year for dance music the UK chart ever saw. Many of the songs featured in this thread appear on one, or both, so do save and listen to them if you enjoy the albums, as it all helps raise the profile of the project. You can find the full tracklists and artwork for these albums in the dedicated thread.

I'll leave Chef in 1998 as he had just the one week at No.1 (despite still being there for the first couple of days of 1999) and will look at the 35 chart toppers other than that. The three double a-sides will be ranked as one, and no singles returned to No.1 this year, with just one not debuting there...let's go!

Edited December 7, 2025Dec 7 by gooddelta

35. Cliff Richard - The Millennium Prayer

Rate: 0/10

Reason: When we counted down our favourite and least favourite male artists in a BuzzJack poll some years ago, Cliff Richard was the only one I ranked in both. A musical legend who launched his career in the 1950s, Cliff is one of the UK's most successful and iconic artists, and is still going strong today. He has so many brilliant pop singles from across the 50s to 90s and is therefore in my top 50 artists on Spotify - We Don't Talk Anymore, Devil Woman, Wired For Sound, Summer Holiday, Congratulations, and I enjoy his Christmas No.1s Mistletoe and Wine and Saviour's Day and - unironically - the infamous white label Step Child remix of Can't Keep This Feeling In, from 1998 (more details about that in Gezza's TOTP thread where it showed up in recent weeks).

Unfortunately, he also has some absolute drivel and many awful singles particularly from the 80s onwards, as anybody would with a career going on over 65 years, but The Millennium Prayer takes the unwanted title of my least favourite song of all-time. I went to a Church of England primary school, so was well used to reciting The Lord's Prayer daily. I also knew Auld Lang Syne from New Year. Of course, New Year was approaching quickly and so was the millennium, so Cliff released this ill-advised combination of the two. I say ill-advised, but clearly it was a commercially huge No.1 single, but in terms of musical quality, it was wholly awful. Such an appalling concept sounded as bad on record as anticipated.

Cliff delivers a fairly uneventful vocal performance that does become more rousing towards the end 'every hope, every dre-a-a-m' and is backed by a choir that included Myleene Klass later from Hear'say (just check the TOTP performance of the song) but it all sounds very Songs of Praise in the end and is just incredibly naff for me. I love gospel choirs and used to enjoy singing in church with others, but this has no real passion to it and just felt so contrived.

His usual record label refused to release it and radio wouldn't go near it, unsurprisingly, much to Cliff's despair, but he had the last laugh when it debuted at No.2 and then - for the only instance in 1999 - climbed to No.1 the following week as news broke of the single charting so high. With three weeks at the top and becoming the third biggest seller of 1999, it would be Cliff's final No.1 despite a push in the noughties a couple of times, but impressively increased his No.1 span to 40 years. The track also reached No.2 in Australia and New Zealand and No.3 in Ireland, so lucky them, but it would not be another Christmas No.1 single for Cliff as something still to come knocked him off just in time to ring in the bells for New Year and sing Auld Lang Syne (without The Lord's Prayer).

There definitely is an official video to this that I remember from the time of Cliff standing in the middle with screens around him, but I can't find it. But if you really want to listen to the song, go ahead.

Just a small correction, Coldplay didn't make their Top 40 debut until 2000.

I was very much into my underground dance music and a bit snobbish towards the dance music that charted but I really couldn't fault a lot of the trance records that were in the Top 40 in 1999. At the same time the happy hardcore scene had gone stale and was starting to gravitate towards more of a trance sound, but I was liking trance itself more. The commercial trance did get silly in the end with the cheesy vocal stuff but that came later.

Also agree with Cliff Richard down the bottom. There's nothing to like about it.

Thanks, will edit, yes I don’t know why I always think that, I think I weirdly mixed them up with Jamelia who had her first small top 40 hit that year. They are not very similar I know!

1 hour ago, gooddelta said:

Thanks, will edit, yes I don’t know why I always think that, I think I weirdly mixed them up with Jamelia who had her first small top 40 hit that year. They are not very similar I know!

Could be because Chris Martin did backing vocals on "See It In A Boys Eyes".

I remember being in Woolies when my Nan bought Millennium Prayer 😂 it reminds me of moving house about a month before Christmas in 1999. I heard the chart where it went in at 2 at my old house and the weekend we moved into my new house I remember my brother telling me Cliff had climbed and I couldn’t believe it. Midweek my mum took us late night shopping and we bumped into my grandparents and that’s when my Nan bought it. That’s the only fun memory I have of the song itself as it was awful and I doubt my Nan still listens to it.

Wow - I wouldn’t put that near the top but 0/10! Harsh

Randomly I remember Mylene Klass being in the choir for some performances of this song

I actually watched the video to this last week. Was one of those times when you’re on your phone and pay 20% attention.

Awful though, one of the worst number 1s ever.

Need to re-listen to all #1's of '99 tomorrow, but I guess Millenium Prayer will definately close to the bottom together with some Westlife.

My bottom : Livin' La Vida Loca (worst single from 1999 year), King of My Castle, 9PM (Till I Come), You Don't Know Me, Praise You

Well it's difficult to argue with that one! A 0/10 if ever there was one... aside from it just being an absolutely awful monstrosity, I kind of thought it was in pretty bad taste as well. Making money off the Lord's Prayer just felt kinda wrong somehow. I had the same issue with Fast Food Rockers 😂

Right choice for last place I feel. I remember not liking this at all at the time and I was just a little confused as to why it was so successful in the UK.

32 minutes ago, dandy* said:

Well it's difficult to argue with that one! A 0/10 if ever there was one... aside from it just being an absolutely awful monstrosity, I kind of thought it was in pretty bad taste as well. Making money off the Lord's Prayer just felt kinda wrong somehow. I had the same issue with Fast Food Rockers 😂

One thing I did forget to say is that the proceeds at least went to charity Children's Promise!

Oh well I'll let it off a little bit then... but I'm not letting it off for being an awful single that really wasn't needed!

34. Boyzone - You Needed Me

Rate: 3/10

Reason: Boyzone excelled themselves with the original single All That I Need in my 1998 rank, as well as the classic No Matter What, but I do have to draw the line at many of their covers (and there were many). In a year where there were many classic original boyband ballads, this track was unnecessary. A cover of a 1978 No.22 country song by Anne Murray, Boyzone made it more pop and I might suggest that this song was a template for much of Ronan's solo career, where he pulled the same trick with covers of semi-obscure country songs, making them more plodding and dull, and taking them towards the top of the UK charts.

I saw Boyzone live in 2019 for their 'last ever shows' (except it wasn't as they are doing a couple more next year) and it was largely a brilliantly fun evening but this was the definite lowlight and not a song I ever need to hear again. It is essentially Ronan treading alone through this track, with a gospel choir backing at parts, you can't even hear the rest of the band on it. Production and structure wise it's actually not a million miles away from The Millennium Prayer and even the sweeping strings towards the end can't save this one for me I'm afraid. Imo the band should have gone out on a high with When The Going Gets Tough (at least it was fun), because their final two singles of their first run were running on fumes and I think they were probably done with it as Ronan had the solo itch (as we'll see later in the thread) and they'd all been through the mill, certainly according to reports on their recent eye-opening documentary anyway.

The track was also No.1 in New Zealand and No.2 in Ireland but beyond that didn't attract much interest. I'm going to refrain from talking too much about chart battles and other songs released on the same weeks etc for 1999 (and also won't do a No.2s rank but I mentioned my main favourites in the first post) as I don't want to spoil the upcoming TOTP threads for that year. But how this got to No.1 over its main competition, I don't know.

Hard to know what's to come but I'd say it's probably about right.

I was already familiar with the Anne Murray version in 1999 as my Mum was a fan and had Anne Murray cd's and to be honest the Anne Murray version is the one I prefer.

Boyzone were definitely on the same lines as Westlife with non-number ones. I’d say their back catalogue has more bonafide hits though

This word gets used a lot nowadays but 'The Millennium Prayer' is truly abysmal, what a naff meeting of two ideas. I do find the story of its success quite interesting, doing so well despite his label refusing to put it out there, but yeah - musically rock bottom for me too.

That Boyzone cover is dull so no complaints there either.

That Boyzone song is definately above all Westlife songs of that year and still ahead above other #1's of the year. It is not because of the lame original, but I find the Jewels & Stones Mix quite uplifting - nice piece of Hi-NRG.

I have some faves I’d like to see do well in this run down (including the lesser popular half of a double a-side)

So many songs I bought on cassette / CD (I still own the cd’s)