'Fly Away' is a tune and still sounds great when I hear it on radio nowadays.

'She's The One' itself would probably be in my top 10. A beautiful song and the video was great too and is his best #1 imo. 'It's Only Us' is okay too but a b side for a reason really.

Fly Away is a banger, but not quite up there with Are You Gonna Go My Way, nor other tracks It Aint Over which should have been a number one, and his recent fab single Human, one of his best records though obv not a hit last year. Lenny still got it! Robbie was top of the popstar pile - and one might argue the last great poprock showman - but I also much prefer the other lesser hits of the era to this double A. Quite nice and all that, but No Regrets and the others are way better.

Since I last commented, not much to add on #26-30, and I thought it was telling the first 3 Westlife singles all missed the EOY top 40, albeit the best of those is still to come. I'm with you on 'Flat Beat', it just feels pretty nondescript to me after a couple of listens, and sounded almost as out of place in the EOY top 10 as Cliff 'King Of My Castle' I kind of liked, though it says a bit when the most interesting aspect is the misheard lyrics. 'We're Going To Ibiza!' was and is my least favourite of the 1998/99 Vengaboys hits - slowing the pace down loses their appeal for me. 'Fly Away' and 'She's The One' are OK, but still nothing I'd put much higher.

She's The One is in top 3 Robbie singles, together with Eternity and Something Stupid.

19. Westlife - Flying Without Wings

Rank: 8/10

Reason: Quite surprised to have got to 8/10 ratings with 19 songs left in, but that's 1999 for you. Westlife's third single was back to balladry, but this time probably a song considered their signature hit in the UK, or it was for a long time at least. Written by the hitmaking duo of Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, they really struck gold with this epic sounding single that Shane and Mark sell the hell out of while the other three gaze adoringly into the camera.

It starts - quite unusually at the time although less so nowadays - by going straight in with an opening vocal section from Shane (with no prior intro). Mark then takes over for a passionate verse and bridge before it ramps up and returns to Shane for one of his best ever vocal performances on record and then Mark gives it a triumphant finish with a big vocal. With sweeping strings on the production and a big finish as a gospel choir joins at the end, this sounds every inch a Christmas single and it's almost a shame this wasn't left off the album and pushed fresh in December instead as it would have made a much more memorable Christmas No.1 than I Have A Dream/Seasons In The Sun. However it also would have then been too late in the year to qualify for Record of the Year, which it won despite stiff competition in ITV's Eurovision style battle of the hit songs (but really, fanbases, when you look at the winners).

Despite having classic status in the UK and also reaching the top in Ireland, Flying Without Wings actually only ended the year as the 58th biggest seller here and was also a fairly moderate hit elsewhere, No.6 in New Zealand being the highest it placed anywhere else. But in terms of its sound and critical reception compared to many of their other hits, this felt like the peak of those dramatic string laden boyband ballads that came out in the second half of the 1990s.

18. B*Witched - Blame It On The Weatherman

Rank: 8/10

Reason: For the fourth single from their debut album, B*Witched did the unthinkable and once more hit the top - making them the first act ever to debut at No.1 with their first four singles, a very unlikely kind of act to manage such a feat, as their chart career lasted barely two years. And to do so Edele and Keavy had to memorably knock their brother Shane from the top, as they toppled Boyzone's When The Going Gets Tough.

The song itself is really lovely and quite underrated - better than Rollercoaster for me, although maybe not quite up there with C'est La Vie and To You I Belong. A very atmospheric Celtic pop ballad, there is no standalone instrumental section like with the other singles, but the chorus production does have more than a touch of Enya to it. I still like to quote this song to this day when the weather is bad.

Unfortunately it lucked out to get to the top and the law of diminishing returns had indeed kicked in when it dropped to No.9 on the second week, the biggest drop I had seen since starting to watch the charts, I remember being genuinely gobsmacked by it. I guess this was the closest 1999 got to a non No.1 (along with 911), as unlike previous years most of the No.1 hits did genuinely feel like big songs in one way or another and didn't disappear from the top 40 within a few weeks. It also reached No.8 in Ireland but nowhere much of note elsewhere.

This was their final ever week at the top in the UK as the second album's lead single Jesse Hold On came about seven months later, and despite initially being tipped for the top by some, they released it on the same week as the pop classic Genie In A Bottle by Christina Aguilera while Ann Lee's Europop hit 2 Times outpaced it too, as well as the previous No.1.

B*Witched and Westlife are generally acts I don't care for but both of these are on the better end of their discographies.

Mark's money note on 'Flying Without Wings' is particularly impressive!

"Jesse Hold On" is my favourite B*Witched single.

'Flying Without Wings' has to be the best of those early Westlife singles, a memorable song and vocal performance. I notice all the songs that held 'Better Off Alone' off #1 were out before the top 20! Notwithstanding of that, I always thought 'If I Let You Go' was an underwhelming #1, like something the Backstreet Boys might have rejected, and very similar to 'Until The Time Is Through' by Five.

Flying Without Wings would be in my top 5 Westlife songs. It’s one I got back to quite regularly. Lyrically I think it’s lovely.

Blame It On The Weatherman is quite good, like you I’d certainly place it above Rollercoaster. It’s a shame it was all downhill for them after this.

Flying… is a great Westlife song (don’t say that often!) and Weatherman is my favourite B*witched song.

Decent pair.

I don't rate 'Flying Without Wings' same as a lot of their stuff.

'Blame it On The Weatherman' is majestic though! I'd say it's probably more well-remembered these days than the preceding two singles (in a cultural reference sense at least)

Did the UK version of Blame It On The Weatherman single come with a free sheet of fake B*Witched tattoos? Or was that just in Australia?

18 minutes ago, Paddington James said:

Did the UK version of Blame It On The Weatherman single come with a free sheet of fake B*Witched tattoos? Or was that just in Australia?

Possibly Australia only as it doesn't ring any bells.

43 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

Possibly Australia only as it doesn't ring any bells.

Thanks, I thought that might be the case but I wasn’t sure.

We also got bonus ‘B*Witched ID name stickers’ for school exercise books with the To You I Belong single in January 1999.

Fly Away is easily the best track to have fallen so far. Lyrically it isn't great, just churning out a few basic metaphors about Mars and the Milky Way etc but it has such a groove to the production that I'm more than willing to forgive any shortfalls in its lyrics.

Lenny Kravitz 'Fly Away' was like Andreas Johnson - Glorious in that it was a lot on the music channels and also some adverts!

Edited December 18Dec 18 by TheSnake

17. Fatboy Slim - Praise You

Rank: 8/10

Reason: Brighton DJ and musician Norman Cook had achieved hits in so many different guises since the 1980s, as part of The Housemartins and with other aliases like Freak Power, Pizzaman and The Mighty Dub Katz. Then in 1998 he memorably helped Cornershop to No.1 under his own name with the fantastic remix of Brimful Of Asha. But it was the second Fatboy Slim album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby, where he had the most popular era of his entire career, with a string of brilliant hit singles including The Rockafeller Skank, Gangster Tripping and then the third single, Praise You, which became his first No.1 under the Fatboy Slim name early in 1999.

Coming from Brighton myself, I often would see Fatboy Slim and Zoe Ball, who he married in 1999, and there was a sense of local pride that he had done so well, along with Phats & Small who had a No.2 hit with Turn Around in 1999.

Big beat track Praise You features nine samples, including the main vocal sample from the opening of Take Yo' Praise Camille Yarbrough, a pretty inspired choice but then British dance was in such a good state at this point with the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, Aphex Twin, Leftfield and so many more doing well.

The classic flash mob dance video directed by Spike Jonze contributed further to the hype around this track, which not only went to No.1 itself but pushed the album up to No.1 for four weeks too (it had previously peaked at No.2 on release). He followed that with a song I like even more and would be top ten if it had got to No.1, Right Here, Right Now, which got to No.2 with another epic video - no mean feat for a dance album to get to the top itself and spin off three top three hits.

Praise You though was popular although only finished at No.69 on the end of year chart, but its legacy is far bigger than that suggests. It also went top 40 in the US, top five in Canada and charted well across Europe.

A classic, he really was on fire this era. Also features prominently in my favourite film (Cruel Intentions)

I do still way prefer 'Right Here, Right Now' though.