5 hours ago, vibe said:

Christina nearly stopped Westlife's No 1'S right at the beginning!

Not as nearly as Alice Deejay did with the previous single! Another slice of absolute shite from them.

One of my favourite Backstreet Boys songs, what a bop!

Go Tina Turner! And a rare studio performance to boot!

Will Smith sampled 'Rock The Casbah' by The Clash on 'Will 2k', okay..

ATFC stands for Aydin The Funki Chile.

In And Out Of My Life is based around the vocal of In And Out Of My Life by Adeva from 1989 and the instrumental sample of Right Here Right Now by Fatboy Slim from 6 months previously.

Quite a few pop underperformances in the last few weeks. Following Jesse Hold On, both After The Love Has Gone and Larger Than Life had certainly been expected to go top three too!

I would say that the top four in that first week is one of my favourite top fours of all-time, and certainly the first chart where I had bought all four on single. Loved how Christina and Ann Lee both held up and I just adore Don’t Stop. I bought the album in the summer on import as I’d heard the original version was desperate to have a copy but the X-Cabs remix for the UK as Jester says, was just wonderful. A very impactful song that deserves more attention.

I also loved that Honeyz track, a very sweet song. I wasn’t so keen on After The Love Has Gone at the time as it felt like a retread of One For Sorrow, both obviously copying The Winner Takes It All. However I’ve come around to it since and it worked absolutely beautifully in the Here and Now musical. It really suits that setting. It’s funny that Steptacular was so huge in the end despite the relative failure of this single, just a misstep of a song choice for the public I guess!

I do remember this first week is the week we went to Disneyland Paris as I was trying to hear the chart with a very poor radio signal going over on the ferry to France. I managed to tune in just in time to hear 911 go in at 13 with Wonderland and was gobsmacked a brand new single by them had done so badly - then it ended up being their final hit altogether! Quite a catchy and jolly track too, crazy how fast they faded after finally getting to No.1.

On paper it feels like that first Liam Gallagher featuring single outside of Oasis should have done better? I vaguely remember hearing it at the time.

Flying Without Wings was one of Westlife’s better singles so I can’t deny them No.1 for this, would have felt slightly odd of all songs this one not getting to the top. Shane and Mark really give it their all on this track.

Looks like we were lucky to avoid an R Kelly performance and skipped episode. I actually didn’t mind that song at the time, but don’t care to hear it again now particularly. Surprised to hear Scott Mills’ voice reading out the chart countdown after they pulled all his episodes.

Pretty good although fairly forgotten song in the scheme of things by Destiny’s Child, I love that they’re singing about pagers a couple of years before they pioneered the art of dissing people on the internet. Truly ahead of their time with technology.

The Tina Turner song was good too - the chorus was later used as the basis for part of Love On My Mind by Freemasons!

Also not a bad song by Eternal in the top 20 but I think all their goodwill had gone after sacking Kelle, I’m glad her single peaked higher a few weeks earlier.

ATFC was a great sample use but a little premature! Still, it meant the Ministry of Sound Annual could mix the two songs together very effectively on that release.

Late 1999 feels like the changing of the guard a bit. Lots of big 80s and 90s acts were finally starting to fade or have lower peaking lead singles. And acts that would come to define the early 00s like Eminem, Christina and Britney had emerged this year. A really interesting period in so many ways.

Edited May 15May 15 by gooddelta

'Larger Than Life' is a bop.

'When The Heartache Is Over' I recognised from being sampled by Freemasons - Love On My Mind in 2005!

I prefer Westlife's first two #1s to 'Flying Without Wings'.

Sad the 90's on this thread are nearly over :(

Good set of episodes last night. Shame that B*Witched fell off as swiftly as they did on their second album. The trouble is is that "Awake and Breathe" was a good album but possibly not a great album where singles for them were concerned, there was nothing like a "C'est La Vie" or "Rollercoaster" on their debut to really sell it. I do still love "Jesse Hold On" though, it's one of my favourites.

Loved Honeyz and Steps as well, "After The Love Has Gone" in particular has always been one of my favourite singles of theirs. Ditto I was surprised re: 911 failing to go top 10 at least with their last single before they split. Maybe it was just they'd fulfilled their purpose once they'd had their number one earlier in the year. Again, I thought it was a good song "Wonderland" but I was clearly in the minority.

Mind you the same could also be said of Eternal on the second episode. If anyone hasn't read Jazz Summers' book (renowned music manager in the 80s and 90s) I would highly recommend you do, as there is a rather interesting chapter in there about when he managed them in this period, post them sacking Kelle by fax. Eye opening / amusing to say the least. Hot chocolate was involved 🤣

Tina Turner being the first of multiple divas we'll see in the next few weeks all working with Brian Rawling / Metrophonic in hopes of having a Cher "Believe" moment. Good song (and what turned out to be her last major UK hit of her lifetime) but again, "Believe" was a lightning in a bottle moment that could only be truly captured once in terms of its success and impact.

Never got the point of that Liam Gallagher / Steve Craddock / Jam tribute thing that's been on the last two weeks. Like a duller indie version of ABBAmania.

Westlife were again, incredibly lucky to make number one when they did, but at least in the case of "Flying Without Wings" it did, in hindsight, feel worthy of it, it's a great song, their signature tune where their ballads are concerned. Plus it also always reminds me of this sketch from SMTV Live 🤣

That is the greatest SM:TV moment!

1 hour ago, Jester said:

That is the greatest SM:TV moment!

"HE WINKED AT US!!!" 🤣🤣🤣

I'm also gonna shout out 'Wonderland' by 911, I absolutely love it!

There are so many acts that fell off immediately after getting a long-awaited #1 (911, Eternal, The Saturdays...)