Love 'Feel Good, perhaps even more than 'Turn Around'

Maybe no Coldplay without Travis!

I remember really liking Why Does It Always Ruin On Me when I first heard back in 1999. Which is a little odd as I wasn’t in to that type of music at all. It was basically just pure pop I loved.

7 minutes ago, TheSnake said:

Maybe no Coldplay without Travis!

Either way, Coldplay definitely stole their thunder from them!

Alice Deejay really were iconic what a bop

A couple of repetitive titles floating around in July with 'Bills, Bills, Bills' and 'Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!'. It keeps making me laugh when Mark Goodier tackles the latter in the TOTP chart rundowns. As for the former, I had no idea Beyoncé was as young as 17 at this time, omg! Her star quality is already evident.

My family found some '90s and 2000s home video tapes a few years ago and in one of them you can hear my uncle and his friend listening to the chart show in the car, driving to Butlins. Amongst the songs played were 'Better Off Alone' and 'If Ya Gettin Down', the latter announced as a new entry - so it must've been that 31st July chart *.*

'Better Off Alone' is great, with an iconic dance music riff. I'm glad we got to see a TOTP performance of it last week (although abridged, grr!) ahead of skipageddon. Shame it didn't beat Ronan during his second week at #1.

Thanks for keeping us up to date with the sales from the pulled episodes - my favourites to appear in these weeks are the bouncy 'Straight From The Heart' (a Kisstory favourite when I used to listen about a decade ago, glad it got a post-'Sweet Like Chocolate' top 10 moment) and 'Rendez-vu', which I agree feels unexpected as Basement Jaxx's highest peaker, but I like it a lot. That song often pops into my head as a reference point when newer artists are putting out Spanish guitar driven electronic music too.

Yeah Travis were very much the John the Baptist to Coldplay’s Jesus haha.

Shame Better Off Alone couldn’t quite rise to #1 this week.

21ST AUGUST




Normally in dramatic chart weeks the race for the No 1 spot starts out tight with some doubt over what will be on top come Sunday, last week the opposite happened. The new Westlife Single “If I Let You Go” was quick out of the starting block building what looked like an insurmountable lead by the time the first sales flashes came out, it ended up remarkably tight! More on that in a moment. The headline is that Westlife held on and continue their perfect start with a second chart topper from 2 releases but it sold just 90,491 to do so and in doing it they knock co-manager Ronan Keating from the top- surely the first time this has happened. He falls 1-4 (69,000) and was never in with a shot of making it three weeks at the top regardless.

The track that ran Westlife to the wire was DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay which lost just 3% sales wise but holds onto the runner up position with 90,021 copies sold, just 470 sales short of Westlife and had there been one day more of trading then it would be sitting at the top without a doubt.

The power of the advert has long been acknowledged and lager ads have already delivered a major hit for Wiseguys earlier this year and now does the same for Bran Van 3000. The single “Drinking In L.A” was a top 40 smash in their native Canada in late 97 before getting an international release last year and making No 34 here, now used in an advert for Rolling Rock Lager it gets a much better ride smashing in at No 3 (87,600) and along with DJ Jurgen would have easily moved past Westlife with another day’s trading.

No other no entries in the top tier so Ricky Martin drops 3-5 (60,000) and sees his album also go into reverse 2-4. Will Smith continues his yo-yoing in the top 10 lifting 8-6 (34,000) thanks to his film, Eminem and Dr Dre limp 5-7 (33,000), Basement Jaxx ebb 4-8 (31,000), Five get down 6-9 (28,000) and Whitney Houston is back 11-10 (26,000)- don’t be fooled though she is losing sales week on week.

1- IF I LET YOU GO- Westlife (90,491)
2- BETTER OFF ALONE- DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay (90,021)
3- DRINKING IN LA- Bran Van 3000 (87,600)
4- WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL- Ronan Keating (69,000)
5- LIVIN LA VIDA LOCA- Ricky Martin (60,000)
6- WILD WILD WEST- Will Smith (34,000)
7- GUILTY CONSCIENCE- Eminem/ Dr Dre (33,000)
8- RENDEZ-VU- Basement Jaxx (31,000)
9- IF YA GETTIN DOWN- Five (28,000)
10- MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE- Whitney Houston (26,000)

TOTP episode

And we're back up to speed with tomorrow's shows!

'If I Let You Go' is one of the very few Westlife songs I actually quite like, but preventing 'Better Off Alone' by such a small margin is one of the ultimate chart travesties.

'Drinking In LA' was actually really close too! That could've also easily done it.

Edited April 9Apr 9 by Jessie Where

We lost Better Off Alone's epic climb towards No.1 with them not showing these episodes, shame.

And of course it's a bigger shame that it couldn't overturn Westlife, who never would have got that opening run of seven chart toppers off the ground at all!

I was so gutted when I saw the sales that week, the fact it missed by under 500 sales that week has always stuck with me. But the song did so well to grow like it did, against the prevailing 1999 trends. The first time I ever heard it was on Radio 1 in the car on the week of release, on a baking hot day on the way up to a holiday park in Great Yarmouth (not a dissimilar story to Jade's uncle...!). I asked my mum to turn it up as I was so immediately struck by it, and then a few days later we went to Woolworths in Great Yarmouth and I bought Now 43 on the day of release, which is for a while the only place the single version was available on CD.

I have no idea what they were thinking only putting long dance mixes on the CD single as that probably contributed to costing it the No.1. My brother bought the CD single anyway and the 'UK Short Cut' was on the cassette single which my sister bought, a true generational hit as we barely ever used to like the same music. My favourite song of 1999, and still in my top five of all-time ❤️ It's held up a lot better than most other dance hits of the time too, approaching three quarters of a billion streams on Spotify now.

Other songs I still enjoy from the last few charts are To Be In Love by Masters At Work (sublime house, also on Now 43), Doolally's reactivated Straight From the Heart (garage classic), At The River by Groove Armada, and Rendez-Vu by Basement Jaxx, which I bought at the time. Drinking In L.A. is so good too and the Travis and Eminem songs are decent, the former is iconic but I prefer other songs from The Man Who personally. Let Forever Be feels like it should have been bigger too, Chemicals were big at the time, Noel was always reliable for a hit, I couldn't understand at the time how it only got to No.9.

45 minutes ago, Gezza said:

TOTP episode

Puff Daddy on this episode too, so they'd have had to edit that out anyway 😐 I take it the Westlife performance butchering was done by whoever uploaded the episode and not by TOTP?

2 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

Puff Daddy on this episode too, so they'd have had to edit that out anyway 😐 I take it the Westlife performance butchering was done by whoever uploaded the episode and not by TOTP?

Yes- the full performance is in my weekly post!

4 hours ago, gooddelta said:

Let Forever Be feels like it should have been bigger too, Chemicals were big at the time, Noel was always reliable for a hit, I couldn't understand at the time how it only got to No.9.

I think them scoring another decent top 10 hit is fairly respectable, considering the album had already been out and got to #1 and this being a pretty highly competitive period. It's not a commercial banger in the same way 'Hey Boy Hey Girl' is either.

Love Let Forever Be, amazing video as well.

28TH AUGUST




The Latin fever that has swept the UK charts this summer continues with the UK’s 25th chart topper of 1999, Geri Halliwell’s second solo single “Mi Chico Latino” replaces Westlife at the top with some considerable ease. Her debut hit “Look At Me” famously lost out to Boyzone back in May but she wasn’t going to let another Irish boyband defeat her this time around, this single opens with 132,500 copies, impressive but 10,000 less than “Look At Me”. In part that may be due the album now being out for some time but “Schizophonic” has yet to go platinum (300,000), nevertheless it has improved thanks to the single moving 61-53-45-30-18 over the last month or so.

Texas are back with a seventh top 10 hit on the trot with “Summer Son” new at No 5 (54,000). The band have had a busy summer making appearances at several festivals including Glastonbury and round it off with this single which comes with a remix by Girogio Moroder on the CD, the video has allegedly been made post watershed by MTV.

TLC have scored one of the biggest hits of the year so far with “No Scrubs” which has sold over half a million here, time for the follow up and “Unpretty” is proving equally popular at radio and arrives at No 6 (52,000) to illustrate the point. It’s the fourth top ten hit for the trio and is currently climbing fast in the US where “No Scrubs” went all the way to the top.

Apollo 440 are back for their annual top 10 single having managed a solitary top flight hit in both 1997 and 1998, this time it is the Status Quo sampling “Stop The Rock” which delivers the goods. They’ve taken the Quo’s 1973 track “Caroline” (#5) and gotten former Gaye Bykers On Acid frontman Ian Hoxley to deliver the vocals, the entire package debuts at No 10 (25,000).

For a third week DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay hold at No 2 (77,000) but he was well off the pace this week as were former contenders Westlife 1-3 (63,000) and Bran Van 3000 3-4 (60,000).

Ricky Martin is still bringing the money in at retail off 5-7 (47,000) even outpacing the track that dethroned him as Ronan Keating whizzes past him 4-8 (43,000). Will Smith completes the top 10 deflating 6-9 (28,000).

1- MI CHICO LATINO- Geri Halliwell (132,500)
2- BETTER OFF ALONE- DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay (77,000)
3- IF I LET YOU GO- Westlife (63,000)
4- DRINKING IN LA- Bran Van 3000 (60,000)
5- SUMMER SON- Texas (54,000)
6- UNPRETTY- TLC (52,000)
7- LIVIN LA VIDA LOCA- Ricky Martin (47,000)
8- WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL- Ronan Keating (43,000)
9- WILD WILD WEST- Will Smith (28,000)
10- STOP THE ROCK- Apollo 440. (25,000)

4TH SEPTEMBER



This was one of those weeks when everybody knew what the No 1 was going to be and there were no shocks on the books. Lou Bega’s “Mambo No 5” has already been a huge hit all over Europe topping charts in Germany, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland among others and finally gets its full UK release. It has been available on import for several weeks which resulted in it becoming the first single to make the top 40 on import sales alone in 18 years (since The Jam in fact) getting as high as No 31 last week, due to timing rules one of the import versions was over 20 minutes and therefore eligible for the budget album chart and guess what…it topped that chart too- and all before it was officially available. The release date was pushed forward by two weeks here to try to minimise any lost sales to the import version and it duly sold 224,000 copies last week to blast all opposition aside, the track was originally recorded and written by Perez Prado who himself topped the charts in 1955 with “Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White” and was most recently in the charts with “Guaglione” in 1995 making No 2, though it should be noted that Bega has written all the lyrics to this single using just the riff from the original. Bega himself is German and adds to the truly international feel to the years chart toppers which have come from Puerto Rico, Netherlands, France, Ireland, and Australia as well as the more usual USA, and he gives the UK its first mambo chart topper in 44 years helped by the use of the song by Channel 4 this summer for its cricket coverage.

Perez Prado also recorded the song “Sway” way back in 1962 thereby linking the top two tracks in the land this week. The group are called Shaft, a duo from Brighton who remixed the Rosemary Clooney version of “Sway” from 1959 (which missed the UK charts) for commercial release but clearance was apparently refused right at the death, cue a rapid re-recording using a session vocalist and you get the current No 2 hit. Titled “(Mucho Mambo) Sway” it sold 114,000 copies- not unimpressive itself- to top the No 6 peak of the highest charting version previously by Dean Martin in 1954, and gives the UK a mambo top two.

A song which we seem to have waited for all summer, Moloko’s “Sing It Back” bombed at No 45 way back in March but became something of an Ibiza anthem this year leading to it becoming one of the most sought after tracks of the last few months. Appearances on multiple compilations in the interim have dented desire for it and it now surfaces at No 4 (68,000), it is by far the biggest hit for the band regardless and is now remixed by Boris Dlugosch for the main mix.

Another Level’s second album is primed for release in three weeks and new single “Summertime” prepares us nicely by entering at No 7 (46,000). Although technically it only “features” TQ the rapper actually co-wrote the track and produced it so can rightfully claim a third top 10 single this year, meanwhile Another Level have a 6th top tenner in 18 months.

Geri Halliwell falls 1-3 (78,000) but her album continues to grow 18-14, and it’s finally over for DJ Jurgen who is down 2-5 (56,000) but has sold 450,000 since release. Westlife fade 3-6 (51,000), Bran Van 3000 dive 4-6 (42,000), TLC tip 6-9 (37,000) and Ricky Martin is almost out 7-10 (34,000), “Livin La Vida Loca” now has total sales of 682,000 enough to place the song at No 5 for the year so far.

1- MAMBO NO 5- Lou Bega (224,000)
2- (MUCHO MAMBO) SWAY- Shaft (114,000)
3- MI CHICO LATINO- Geri Halliwell (78,000)
4- SING IT BACK- Moloko (68,000)
5- BETTER OFF ALONE- DJ Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay (56,000)
6- IF I LET YOU GO- Westlife (51,000)
7- SUMMERTIME- Another Level/ TQ (46,000)
8- DRINKING IN LA- Bran Van 3000 (42,000)
9- UNPRETTY- TLC (37,000)
10- LIVIN LA VIDA LOCA- Ricky Martin (34,000)

On 09/04/2026 at 16:39, gooddelta said:

I have no idea what they were thinking only putting long dance mixes on the CD single as that probably contributed to costing it the No.1. My brother bought the CD single anyway and the 'UK Short Cut' was on the cassette single which my sister bought, a true generational hit as we barely ever used to like the same music. My favourite song of 1999, and still in my top five of all-time ❤️ It's held up a lot better than most other dance hits of the time too, approaching three quarters of a billion streams on Spotify now.

It was the time when single CD's were limited to a specific duration of 15-20 minutes. I believe the dance community including me wanted to have the full version on the CD's plus 1 or 2 remixes there was no space for the radio edit on it. Mostly also two parts were released with one part including a short edit.

"Better Of Alone" is awesome and an absolutely standour track we blasted a lot back in time - unfortunately Westlife denied it the #1 spot. Apart from Westlife the top 10 is quite decent with two Mambo tracks on top. "Sing It Back" is a banger too.

They probably didn't expect it to be so big and then when it was they decided not to do a CD2 with the radio edit.

I don't think it would have surprised anyone at the time if it had just gone 4-8-12-19 etc... Its chart and sales trajectory bucked all of the 1999 trends.

That rule is another reason I used to buy imports of a lot of dance singles, which didn't have the same restrictions. On that note, how was it that these imports counted to the UK chart and weren't subject to these length rules? e.g. I bought Blue (Da Ba Dee) import which reached the top 40 here and I'm sure it had six or seven songs on it.

Edited April 10Apr 10 by gooddelta