8 hours ago, gooddelta said:

I was surprised to find out Livin' La Vida Loca peaked only at No.6 in Germany, does it feel like a classic single that was overlooked at the time for a higher peak, or were there just loads of other gigantic hits out in Germany in summer 1999?

It is kind of strange that it only peaked @ #6 here as in general Ricky was quite popular in Germany. Actually these were the songs in front of it:

"Mambo #5" was the best selling song in Germany in 1999. "My Love Is Your Love" was the 5th best-selling single of the year. Backstreet Boys were #14 in the year-end-charts. "Ö la Palöma Boys" was a novelty hit produced by German comedian Stefan Raab (#19 year end-charts) and "All Out Of Love" #22 in the year end-charts. So quite good competition. "Livin' La Vida Loca" only finished @ #51 in the year-end chart.

I'd never noticed the 'Lay All Your Love On Me' similarity to 'Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!' before but now I totally hear it 😮 that is my favourite ABBA song so perhaps that helps to explain why I prefer this one to 'We're Going to Ibiza' as well. Justice for the Vengabus though x

'Sometimes' is randomly the one Britney single that my grandparents bought on CD but sadly that appeal couldn't quite help her to the top

Offspring is not my thing but I appreciate the genre diversity! Everyone taking flight this year with 'Fly Away', 'Flying Without Wings', '(Pretty Fly) For a White Guy' and flying away on Venga airways! Fe-m@il's 'Flee Fly Flo' robbed the following year x

19 hours ago, My Random Music said:

In the mid-90s The Offspring were much bigger than their chart positions would suggest. Once Kurt Cobain died grunge fizzled out and punk was to be the next big thing with The Offspring and Green Day being the main bands. It didn't last long and Britpop quickly took over as the guitar music of choice for people in the UK.

1999 was the time some of these guitar acts who were popular pre-Britpop came back out of the wilderness, The Offspring and Lenny Kravitz getting their only number ones and another notable comeback that springs to mind was the Red Hot Chili Peppers with "Scar Tissue". They also all seemed to have haircuts whilst they'd been away.

Yes true, my post suggested they exploded out of nowhere but clearly had been building up a big fanbase over time here and were due a hit anyway by this point. Agreed that after Britpop other kinds of rock started to return to the charts here in a big way.

19 hours ago, Chez Wombat said:

Praise You would definitely be in my top 10, a fantastic, atmospheric song and video. Right Here Right Now is better, but I'm glad Norman Cook was able to get one number 1 with how influential a name he was in dance music. Enjoy Sweet Like Chocolate too, and glad that gave a gateway for garage music to take off.

Mambo No. 5 and Livin' La Vida Loca were absolute childhood classics that I can't help but still enjoy. I was obviously completely oblivious to the bigamous meaning to Lou Bega's song, but the beat was catchy enough to make me forget it, and the Bob the Builder song was a school disco classic. Livin' La Vida Loca will always, on the other hand, take me back to my parent's Yamaha keyboard where it was a soundbite, we had so much (probably very annoying) fun with this back in the day:

Boom Boom Boom was no Vengabus but still quite fun and enjoyable for what it is, Pretty Fly... took a while to click with me, it's perhaps a bit raunchy and in your face like a lot of US mainstream rock was at that time, but I have come round to it, iconic song. I do quite like Why Don't You Get a Job too, even if it shamelessly rips off Oblah-Dee Oblah-Da

I love this - we had Frère Jacques as a preset on ours and I used to play My Heart Will Go On over the top of it, which fit surprisingly well! Yes good point about Why Don't You Get a Job, it really is a rip-off of that!

13 hours ago, DaTilt said:

It is kind of strange that it only peaked @ #6 here as in general Ricky was quite popular in Germany. Actually these were the songs in front of it:

"Mambo #5" was the best selling song in Germany in 1999. "My Love Is Your Love" was the 5th best-selling single of the year. Backstreet Boys were #14 in the year-end-charts. "Ö la Palöma Boys" was a novelty hit produced by German comedian Stefan Raab (#19 year end-charts) and "All Out Of Love" #22 in the year end-charts. So quite good competition. "Livin' La Vida Loca" only finished @ #51 in the year-end chart.

Ah thank you for sharing, seems it just got caught up in a period of big hits then. It's interesting how big the Whitney song was in Germany, it was big here too but was only No.22 in the end of year chart.

13 hours ago, Jade said:

I'd never noticed the 'Lay All Your Love On Me' similarity to 'Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!' before but now I totally hear it 😮 that is my favourite ABBA song so perhaps that helps to explain why I prefer this one to 'We're Going to Ibiza' as well. Justice for the Vengabus though x

'Sometimes' is randomly the one Britney single that my grandparents bought on CD but sadly that appeal couldn't quite help her to the top

Offspring is not my thing but I appreciate the genre diversity! Everyone taking flight this year with 'Fly Away', 'Flying Without Wings', '(Pretty Fly) For a White Guy' and flying away on Venga airways! Fe-m@il's 'Flee Fly Flo' robbed the following year x

Yes, the verse is basically the same melody, once I heard it I coudn't unhear it. It was always my favourite ABBA song too.

Haha, maybe Britney was going for an older audience with that second single, perhaps it was a wise move. Was quite a swerve from the iconic school uniform video to a girl next door on the beach in one single.

Haha yes, lots of flying this year, a few that didn't reach No.1 too like Roxette (Wish I Could Fly), Tin Tin Out (Eleven To Fly) and Foo Fighters (Learn To Fly).

11. S Club 7 - Bring It All Back

Rank: 8.5/10

Reason: Our first introduction to S Club 7 was via the iconic children's TV show Miami 7 in about April 1999. In a perfect piece of sync, Bring It All Back was the theme tune to a show that would become very popular on CBBC, meaning that this single was essentially trailed for over two months ahead of its June release. A band having their own TV show wasn't new - The Monkees (self-titled), North & South (No Sweat) and Cleopatra (Comin' Atcha) all had done to varying degrees of success while allSTARS* had STARStreet in 2001. But Miami 7 was really big at the time, and they didn't stop there - S Club continued to record TV shows where they played fictional and exaggerated versions of themselves through to their initial split in 2003, with Miami 7, LA 7 and Viva S Club, as well as the film Seeing Double.

But Bring It All Back was a well chosen debut single for the seven-piece mixed pop group (widely assumed to be short for 'Simon Club 7' after manager Simon Fuller but never confirmed, although that wouldn't really have had the same ring to it). It showcased lead vocals from many of the members, so before Jo by default sang almost everything (with help from Bradley quite often), we had a structure here of Jo/Rachel/Jo bridge/group chorus/Tina/Hannah/Rachel bridge and then Bradley, Paul and Jon all performing their own ad libs throughout the song. The track is about as pure pop as it gets; aimed initially at an even younger audience than Steps were, S Club's early singles were ultra cheesy before they were given slightly more mature material in the following two years like Natural and Don't Stop Movin'.

But that said, with its power pop chorus, bright video and big key change, Bring It All Back was a real ray of sunshine and I instantly loved this song when I heard the full version as a performance in one of the Miami 7 episodes. It then very nearly became the first ever song to top my personal chart, which I started in June 1999, but it stalled at No.2 behind Down So Long by Jewel, only a No.38 hit for a singer that has always been underrated in the UK. Still, I doubt they were crying too many tears as the track debuted at No.1 in the UK and became one of the year's biggest selling hits, and they followed it up with another two No.2 singles before the year was out; the memorable S Club Party and the double a-side Two In A Million/You're My Number One, released as a Christmas contender but it only debuted at No.5 before peaking after Christmas.

The track also reached No.1 in New Zealand and went top three in a lot of countries, including Australia, Ireland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, so they were a major global hit from the word go, and the fun didn't let up until 2002 when Paul left and they became a six piece. It has 131m streams on Spotify, their joint biggest alongside Never Had A Dream Come True, which has about the same.

Gutted, I wanted to see Bring It All Back top 10 here!

I'm conflicted because even though I like that the streaming era has stopped the trend of "filler" number one singles, I kinda like how many number ones there used to be each year

Lots to catch up on before the top 10... 'Praise You' wasn't quite up there with the previous two Fatboy Slim singles for me, but I do like it (and it was a while until I caught the video, but love that!) I don't recall 'Right Here Right Now' eclipsing all of them in popularity at the time, that feels like a more recent thing, or maybe just not in my circles... Lou Bega and Ricky Martin's #1s were very much soundtrack of the summer - I was in Spain as the import of the former climbed the chart here and it was already massive.

'Sweet Like Chocolate' I still play occasionally even though it sounds of its time - those opening sales were staggering. 'Boom' x4 !! is much more like it from The Vengaboys, they nailed those catchy synthesised riffs in their first 3 hits - probably my favourite to drop out thus far. The Offspring had one of those semi-surprise #1s for a band who'd been going for a while, where everything suddenly aligns, I enjoyed that a lot in early 1999. 'Bring It All Back' sounded a bit too cheesy for me at the time, but it's catchy - I'd never seen their programme, but from what I'd heard there was clearly more behind them than being a one-hit flash in the pan, and indeed they did have better to come.

1 hour ago, T Boy said:

Gutted, I wanted to see Bring It All Back top 10 here!

So close! It is quite a pure pop heavy top ten - deservingly so - but in the end I felt I probably go back to the 10 songs remaining more often than this one.

I’d have that one a bit lower I think. I was never a fan and only really care for Reach and Don’t Stop Movin’ - which are both great! Oh and the S Club Party one was kinda okay too.

This one was a bit too childish sounding for me, which is fine as they were near enough kids themselves, but I definitely wasn’t the target market for it

I will be very disappointed if ATB is in top 3 here.

I think that's almost certain to happen given gooddelta has often said how much he likes it

57 minutes ago, Last Dreamer said:

I will be very disappointed if ATB is in top 3 here.

Prepare to be disappointed.

I think this forum permanently disappoints you. Whereas I find your music taste totally baffling.

1 hour ago, Last Dreamer said:

I will be very disappointed if ATB is in top 3 here.

I will be very disappointed if ATB is not in top 3 here.

Time for my places 15 to 11. These are all songs that @gooddelta already presented and which are, thus, higher ranked in my listing, partcularly the ones from Geri and Ronan.

15 Geri Halliwell – Lift Me Up 8/10

14 Ronan Keating - When You Say Nothing At All 8/10

13 Geri Halliwell - Mi Chico Latino 8.5/10

12 Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat 8.5/10

11 Fatboy Slim - Praise You 8.5/10

18 minutes ago, Jester said:

I think this forum permanently disappoints you.

I don't understand how anybody can like 90s dance music. Only Motown girl groups are worse.

27 minutes ago, DaTilt said:

13 Geri Halliwell - Mi Chico Latino 8.5/10

It's interesting, because I gave 8/10 for Mi Chico Latino.

It was # 13 in my Year-End chart with 3 weeks on the top and not bad chartrun : 2-1-1-1-4-9-12-16-18-19

9.5 / 10 for Lift Me Up. It's # 2 in Year-End list with 5 weeks at # 1 and long chartrun : 1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-3-2-2-3-4-5-5-7-9-10-12-15-18-20

28 minutes ago, Last Dreamer said:

I don't understand how anybody can like 90s dance music. Only Motown girl groups are worse.

There we massively disagree.

1 hour ago, DaTilt said:

I will be very disappointed if ATB is not in top 3 here.

The sad passing of Chris Rea has made me realise that York's cover of On The Beach is better than ATB Till I Come but of course ATB was first with the guitar trance trend and without it the York song may not have existed.

Edited Monday at 20:432 days by TheSnake

Bring It All Back is such a pure pop bop, so joyful and uplifting. 11 year old me was hooked from the first time I heard it. I'm struggling to remember whether we got the song or the tv series first here in Australia.

Whilst I'm a little disappointed it missed the top 10 I'm delighted that another pop song has made it.

36 minutes ago, TheSnake said:

The sad passing of Chris Rea has made me realise that York's cover of On The Beach is better than ATB Till I Come but of course ATB was first with the guitar trance trend and without it the York song may not have existed.

York still maybe the innovators as their previous track "The Awakening" also featured a guitar sample - and that one was originally realeased in 1997, while 9PM was originally released in 1998. Both tracks are great and had big UK remixes which were even slightly better than the already great originals. Quake Remake of "Awakening" as well as the Matt Darey Remix of "9PM" are both awesome. On the "On The Beach" release the flip side is my favourite: Reachers Of C (Rank1 Remix).

I can definitely remember The Awakening before I can recall 9PM, the ATB track didn't feel particularly innovative to me at the time as there had been those sorts of guitar trance tracks on those chill out beach compilations, like the Cafe Del Mar ones etc.