8 minutes ago, Gezza said:

NO 33- BRITNEY SPEARS (2,128,000)

3 UK TOP 40 HITS

BIGGEST HIT: BABY ONE MORE TIME (1,445,000)

 

BIGGEST SELLING ACT OF 1999

 

Here she is then. Just 3 hits in the space of 11 months took Ms Spears from obscurity to the decade top 40. The Mighty “...Baby one More Time” makes up more than 50% of her total of course but nobody sold more singles in the UK in 1999 than Britney, the tracks first week sale of 463K were a record at the time for a debut single and of course she’s still around these days knocking out a top 10 hit in 2022 but few debut videos created the impact that “Baby” did back in early 99.......

With it being "The" Britney Spears, I was expecting her to be higher but I guess it's only 3 singles so really quite an achievement! I'm following your 1999 top 10 sales and wow her first week sales for BOMT were quite sensational! Didn't realise just HOW big it was right out of the gate!

I am very fond of the Lightning Seeds. Their best song is Change, a minor top 20 hit from 1995.

3 minutes ago, Jester said:

I am very fond of the Lightning Seeds. Their best song is Change, a minor top 20 hit from 1995.

They are a bit like The Beautiful south- I doubt I would ever buy a studio album by them but then you get a GH and you know and like 90% of it!

36 minutes ago, Gezza said:

They are a bit like The Beautiful south- I doubt I would ever buy a studio album by them but then you get a GH and you know and like 90% of it!

Oh I'd definitely recommend giving Blue is the colour a listen to from Beautiful South, it's a great album!

Lightning Seeds totally deserving of a top 40 place, even if it is due to the footie classic rather than their amazing singles, and especially Life's Too Short and Sense, not to mention side-projects with Alison Moyet for one. As often the case with uplifting tuneful pop (and witty songs thinking of aother acts), it gets overlooked in favour of darker "serious" music. Sash! had a run of good dance bangers so not surprising to be this high, setting the stage for the Noughties DJ superstars. Britney helped by huge discounting week one - a trend that teen pop acts favoured well into the 00's in both the UK and US - but she was huge instantly.

NO 32- SIMPLY RED (2,148,900)

16 UK TOP 40 HITS

BIGGEST HIT: FAIRGROUND (785,000)

 

Mick Hucknell & co had a great 90s- not quite on the scale of the album charts but they proved they could move singles as well. They finally got a No 1 after 10 years of trying when “Fairground” made the top in 1995 but over the course of the decade they had 13 top 20 hits, and were one of the top 10 acts of 1995. Had their greatest year of success not been in 92 (when sales were low) then there is every chance they could have been placed very much higher on the rundown.....

NO 31- SNAP! (2,220,300)

10 UK TOP 40 HITS

BIGGEST HIT: RHYTHM IS A DANCER (583,000)

 

Nine top 10 hits and two chart toppers allow Snap! to make No 31 on our list. Their success was by and large confined to the first half of the decade where they were easily one of the top 10 best selling artists. The German production team were fine purveyors of euro pop, if not for tasteful lyrics (yes “Rhythm Is A Dancer” I’m looking at you) and outlived many of their contemporaries in early 90s dance grabbing top 20 hits as late as 1995....

NO 30- ALL SAINTS (2,268,800)

5 UK TOP 40 HITS

BEST SELLER: NEVER EVER (1,253,000)

 

Urban chic and a love of combats were the hallmarks of the All Saints. In the wake of the Spice Girls the market became flooded by girl groups of which All Saints are one of the better examples, despite many bust ups they managed to finish the decade together (though the inevitable split came in early 2001). The band released 5 singles of which three went to No 1 all in 1998 during which they were the 7th best selling singles act, and on our list are the 4th highest placed girl group of the decade.....

Fourth highest placed! I'm guessing the other three must be

• Spice Girls

• B*Witched

• Eternal

Can't think of any other girlband who were that big in the 90s that hasn't already been on this list.

1994/95 Snap is best imo, love the tracks with Summer such as Welcome To Tomorrow and The First, The Last, Eternity.

Also a bit of a fan of Simply Red fan, Stars is a great album!

i wonder if anyone is left with 3 or less singles

^ I believe so...

We’ll just have to soldier on until they appear….

Lightning Seeds 'Pure' and 'Lucky You' are great. Scouting For Girls 'Heartbeat' sounds very influenced by 'Pure'.

The Beautiful South bring back good memories.

8 hours ago, Jester said:

1994/95 Snap is best imo, love the tracks with Summer such as Welcome To Tomorrow and The First, The Last, Eternity.

Snap! were good. 'Welcome To Tomorrow' is good but also unfortunately like a cooler precursor to some of the cheesy 2004 Clubland stuff eg. Flip and Fill - Discoland etc.

Edited Wednesday at 12:512 days by TheSnake

Simply Red, considering how many albums they shifted, is a bit of a surprise to be this high, even with Fairground being a justified number one, so that's pretty good. Snap! is more obvious with 2 big chart-toppers and 6 years of hits, but still seem flattered a bit. All Saints more predictable with the giant sales of Never Ever and high sales era. I'm still rating their solo stuff in the 2020's, Appleton's Ready To Begin is as good as top-tier All Saints hits bar one and Shaznay's Good Mourning is as good as Pure Shores.

NO 29- BACKSTREET BOYS (2,349,000)

10 UK TOP 40 HITS

BIGGEST HIT: AS LONG AS YOU LOVE ME (466,000)

 

Yes those Girl Groups and Boy bands are falling like dominoes now and here’s the biggest US version of the genre. Though they took a while to take off in the UK where their third single was the one to break them, the band put together a string of nine top 10 singles between 1996 and the end of the decade to cruise into our top 30.

 

 The best year for the boys was 1997 when they sold over a million thanks in part to a delayed release schedule where the band released four singles to catch up with the US releases, all of which went top 4. They continued until 2002 when they took a break which proved costly, upon their return their success was only moderate and their last hit in 2009 reached the princely position of No 72.....

NO 28- THE FUGEES/ REFUGEE ALLSTARZ (2,390,000)

8 UK TOP 40 HITS

BIGGEST SELLER: KILLING ME SOFTLY (1,355,000)

 

Only the Spice Girls outsold this lot in 1996. Two chart toppers in the form of “Ready Or Not” and the million selling “Killing Me Softly” injected the majority of the sales here, but the group had only five singles in total before splitting after just one album, Lauryn Hill had a brief solo career, and Wyclef Jean soon started the guest rapper of choice and appearing on everyone’s else’s singles setting the blue print for Will.i.am a decade later....

NO 27- R KELLY (2,451,100)

16 UK TOP 40 HITS

BEST SELLER: I BELIEVE I CAN FLY (676,000)

 

Let’s file this one under he’s here and we can’t do much about it……..Part 2

I’ve never gotten the hype over The Fugees and Lauryn Hill myself but cannot deny both were massive and had incredible success. Interesting how they both only released one album and that’s it.