gooddelta

<3 Now you've reminded me of it, it will have to.

The top five will begin tomorrow and features three of the year's biggest dance hits (one sneak, some might say, but this is a personal rank after all), a seminal rap single, and a pop classic that narrowly missed out on being the biggest seller of 2000 in the closing days of the year. I bought four of these on single on release, and the other I owned on an album already. All Saints - Pure Shores Eminem - Stan Fragma - Toca's Miracle Madison Avenue - Don't Call Me Baby Spiller feat Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)

The Corrs - Breathless Rank: 9/10 Rating: Shock? The final result for today sees the only UK No.1 single for my favourite band of all-time, The Corrs. Like many other acts in 2000, the Irish family group had almost set themselves up to succeed due to a huge era immediately prior, in this case with the wonderful Talk On Corners, the biggest selling album of 1998 in the UK. Still, they did release live single Radio from the Unplugged album in the gap between albums and that only got to No.18. But a new studio album is a big deal, and they brought in the big guns for the first two singles in the form of Shania Twain's then husband and producer Robert "Mutt" Lange. This was no country song, but it was poppier than The Corrs had ever gone before, a way bigger and more fully produced sound than their previous more Irish influenced singles (although single mixes by the likes of Tin Tin Out, K-Klass and Todd Terry did make them rather less so). This had more in common with Belinda Carlisle's power pop of the 80s than anything The Corrs had put out before with 'do do' backing vocals by Sharon and Caroline almost sounding like a backing track instrument in itself. But of course it was Andrea's performance that was the star of the show here, looking and sounding like a pop star at the top of her game, this was a deserved No.1 single and one I wasn't certain would get there until the chart was released that week. My favourite Corrs single, Runaway, was released in its 1999 hit version in the same week as Britney's Baby One More Time so clearly stood no chance, but they didn't exactly have a clear run at the top with this either. They had to knock off Eminem's The Real Slim Shady after just one week, and Steps were deemed to pose competition at the time too but ended up at No.5. But they managed it, and their profile had probably never been higher than at this point, with the three sisters' looks into the camera in this video even parodied in an SM:TV skit by Ant, Dec and Cat called 'The Beautiful Corrs' (with Jim in a paper bag, naturally). Breathless is also their biggest song on Spotify, with nearly 250m streams, yet they were in some corners accused of selling out with this single and particuarly the parent In Blue album, which was basically a pop band album in parts, and a world away from their traditional Irish origins. This is a great single, but definitely not my favourite Corrs song - I will, however, always be grateful for that seven days they had in the sun, literally by the looks of it in this video in the desert.

All Saints - Black Coffee Rate: 9/10 Reason: Where Spice Girls were the biggest girlband of the 90s, All Saints were the coolest. Arriving on the charts in 1997 with the fun I Know Where It's At, they quickly released the sublime Never Ever before putting out a couple of other No.1 hits in 1998. Come 2000 it was time for the return of Shaznay, Mel, Nicole and Natalie, and Pure Shores (still to come) couldn't really have given them any better a comeback. Such was the dominance of that single on the airwaves, we had to wait no fewer than eight months for the follow-up, Black Coffee. A cool fusion of pop, R&B and acid techno (?) according to Wikipedia (which must be due to the squelching synthesizer), Black Coffee was for once not written by Shaznay or other band members, but three other songwriters. It was, though, again produced by William Orbit and you could hear his trademark production style all over this sublime song, which is so chilled that it makes me want to reach for a black coffee. The track employs that technique I love of the intro being repeated later in the song (in this case it is also the outro) while the rest of the song gives the gorgeous instrumental plenty of time to breathe, but also allows the band to show off their beautiful harmonies throughout. Sadly, the end was near (until 2006's Rock Steady return), due to fractions within the band, but what a legacy they left with these first two albums and their singles alone. Believe it or not, this wasn't even my favourite single released that week. It went in at No.1 ahead of the trance classic Silence by Delerium and Sarah McLachlan, which debuted and peaked at No.3. So that was a good week for music.

Melanie C feat Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes - Never Be The Same Again Rate: 9/10 Reason: After two singles landing at No.4, the second considerably more successful than the first, Melanie C's upward trajectory continued when she released the inspired single Never Be The Same Again. A collaboration with the late rapper Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes from TLC, who had very recently appeared on No.2 hit U Know What's Up by Donnell Jones, getting Lisa was quite a coup but then Melanie C was one fifth of the mighty Spice Girls, who were a very big deal indeed, including in the US. Given a slight remix from the album version to make the production feel even tighter and cooler, this was an R&B tinged pop song about two friends acknowledging their chemistry and is just effortlessly good, with calm but assured vocals from Mel and her ability to really sing the story in the verses complementing Left Eye's timeless rap style perfectly, and the chorus has such great singalong appeal. The track doesn't reinvent the wheel, it is just two artists in their prime fusing their unique individual musical and vocal styles together to deliver a brilliant package. It was Mel C's first solo No.1, selling nearly 150k on its week of release, and very nearly got a second week at the top but Westlife just got past her with Fool Again in the end.

Melanie C - I Turn To You Rate: 9/10 Reason: Melanie C was always my favourite member of the Spice Girls personally, purely because she BROUGHT the vocals each and every time, even on the limp Headlines she delivered her vocal like her life depended on it. But her infectious personality and cool Sporty Spice persona didn't hurt either. When she went solo from Spice Girls she launched her career (Bryan Adams collaboration When You're Gone aside) with the very unusual choice of Goin' Down, a brash marmite single with punk influences that almost derailed the album campaign before it started. Luckily she had several aces up her sleeve on the brilliant album, starting with ballad Northern Star, and then R&B/pop duet Never Be The Same Again with Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (which will come later). Following up that wouldn't be easy but she pulled it off by genre hopping once more (seriously, how many other pop singers called on so many different genres for their first four solo releases? The versatility!). What was a beautiful etheral ballad on the album, I Turn To You was remixed by American producer Hex Hector into a storming trance/pop monster. Both versions are great, but this completely makes sense as a single remix, Mel's vocal is excellent of course, but the production is a real star, with sweeping strings and a great dance breakdown in the middle eight before it slams back to Mel to conclude her unexpected Ibiza club anthem and second No.1 single of the year. Fun story: when Mel was promoting this single, she came to Brighton for our 'Party In The Park' concert in summer 2000. Her driver must have got lost on the way and asked Mel to phone somebody for directions, presumably a local taxi company? Our house phone number back then was one digit away from the local taxi firm so we got 3 or 4 calls a week asking for a taxi when somebody misdialled. Anyway, the phone rang on this Sunday afternoon and somebody was asking for directions to the park the concert was happening at as they couldn't find it (this was a pre SatNav and smartphone era). As I often did when somebody had been on the phone, I said to my Mum who had answered, 'who was that?' and she said 'it was Melanie C, I know that accent anywhere!'. Which is a story she likes to still trot out constantly.

Britney Spears - Oops!... I Did It Again Rank: 9/10 Reason: I think I first saw the title of Oops!... I Did It Again written down before hearing it and thought it might be a bit of a jumping the shark moment for Britney as it looked so random on paper, but of course it wasn't. Max Martin, Rami Yacoub and Britney read the room perfectly with the first single from her second album - of the same name - which really took the sound heard on her debut album and elevated it in every way, becoming an instant classic and proving that she would not be a one album wonder and definitely was here to stay. Oops! has that classic Cheiron piano style, was very knowing lyrically - as a lot of that album was, like Lucky and Stronger too - in the way that you could relate certain lyrics and song titles to Britney's awareness of her huge position and stardom at this moment. This, along with *NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye were maybe the point Cheiron (that's the last mention for them in this thread!) couldn't possibly outdo themselves any further with this particular sound, and after 2000 they started going their separate ways and/or moving into more beat-driven R&B styles. But 1997-2000 really was such a golden era for this style of pop music and Britney lead the way with her first two albums, including this song which is very nearly a Spotify billionaire! Further kudos for that great Titanic reference in the middle eight, and the fantastic music video.

So here are my top 10 No.1s of 2000, there is probably a questionable choice or three in here for some people but it's not based on anything other than my personal taste, so any attempt at objectivity has gone out the window here I'm afraid. I will say that all ten of these songs I love, I would score 9/10 or higher, were among my favourite songs of the year, hold various memories for me, and I still play them a lot to this day. All Saints - Black Coffee All Saints - Pure Shores Britney Spears - Oops! I Did It Again Eminem - Stan Fragma - Toca's Miracle Madison Avenue - Don't Call Me Baby Melanie C - I Turn To You Melanie C feat Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes - Never Be The Same Again Spiller feat Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) The Corrs - Breathless

Sonique - It Feels So Good Rate: 8.5/10 Reason: Sonia Clarke, aged 35 when she topped the chart with It Feels So Good and with a decade in the music industry behind her, had waited a long time for her glory days. It Feels So Good's own success was not overnight either, it was first released in 1998 where it peaked at No.24, in a slightly different version with production more similar to her take on I Put A Spell On You, you can hear it charting the first time around about five minutes into this. I'm a big fan of strings in dance music, but actually, I prefer this 2000 version of It Feels So Good with the strings over the chorus removed, it brings the great production of the bassline, Sonique's effortless vocal, and the wonderful melody to the fore, rather than being drowned under strings, which could still be heard in all the right moments in the hit mix. This was a really refreshing dance record to hit No.1, and was so popular that it spent three weeks at the top - a record for 2000 - seeing off S Club 7's mammoth pop classic Reach for every one of those three weeks no less, and going top ten in the US. It ended up in the top three sellers of the year and Sonique followed it up with another decent record in Sky, which went to No.2.

Eminem - The Real Slim Shady Rate: 8.5/10 Reason: Following his huge debut album, Eminem was in prime position to open at No.1 with almost anything with the hype generated for The Marshall Mathers LP, but the US rapper decided lived up to the mass hype with a run of instant classic singles on this album. Like My Name Is before it and the likes of Without Me, Just Lose It, Crack A Bottle, and Houdini after, this was one of Eminem's tongue-in-cheek/funny lead singles, many of which went 'viral', in as much as you could in the days of dial-up internet, due to the lyrics, an earworm of a chorus, typically brilliant rap flow and a memorable music video. This single in particular saw Eminem on blistering form, letting us all know that while everyone wanted to be like him, there was only one Slim Shady. While being a product of its time with namechecks for the likes of Christina Aguilera and Fred Durst, it is still a hugely popular single with over 2 billion Spotify streams, and featured the brilliant top 10 chart run: 1-2-3-4-5-7-8-10. Yet, he still had better to come in 2000.

LeAnn Rimes - Can't Fight The Moonlight Rate: 8.5/10 Reason: Still leaving the door open for potential doube top tens from Eminem, All Saints and Melanie C, at unlucky No.13 we give a big Coyote Ugly welcome to LeAnn Rimes, who recorded this Diane Warren track for the soundtrack to that film. I definitely switched off from the pre-release hype of this song, I expected it to chart at No.3/4 behind a big No.1 for Daft Punk's seminal One More Time (which I bought that week), but in fact it was LeAnn who prevailed over the French duo with an unexpectedly straight pop song that was quite a surprise for me after her usual country releases. But I can't deny the brilliant Trevor Horn production and Diane Warren songwriting combo, it's an effortless single that's still heard today that gave LeAnn a big popstar moment and only No.1, and I loved the chart run in the top 10: 1-2-3-5-6-7-8 although another song to come has an even funnier run than that.

Agreed on Ronan, although he tried to pull the same trick again with Lovin' Each Day which I'd happily give 7 to. Other than that his solo career really was not great. That's fair. I did like them, before Paul left and it all went a bit autopilot, and I would definitely include this in their pantheon of pop classics but definitely get why it's not for everyone.

Craig David - 7 Days Rank: 8/10 Reason: Three months after Fill Me In, Craig David was ready with his next single and debut album Born To Do It, and somehow he managed to even better his predecessor to release another classic single - the third in a row if you count Re-Rewind. Ensuring we wouldn't forget his name in a hurry, he pulled the very 2000 trick of singing his own name at the start of the track, which is just an absolutely effortless number. Quoted ever since its release thanks to his diary recalling antics, who else could pull of a song about a three-day love-making session before a chilled Sunday without it sounding ridiculous? 7 Days has brilliant melodic flow in the verses before that chorus which is so undeniable and hooky that you feel it could still go viral again now at any given point. With 380m streams on Spotify, this slick R&B pop production is by far Craig David's biggest and most remembered single, and went top 10 in the US to boot. I also have to give props to that clever breaking the fourth wall moment in the video where he climbs out of the frame to pull a re-rewind of the scene.

Modjo - Lady (Hear Me Tonight) Rate: 8/10 Reason: This is definitely a very cool dance song and No.1 hit. French house had at this point faltered a bit at getting quite to the top of the UK charts with some of the genre's classics before from the likes of Stardust, Daft Punk and Cassius, although Mr Oizo managed it. Lady (Hear Me Tonight) had no such issue for Modjo, who spent two weeks at No.1 with this track that sample's Chic's Soup For One. I haven't actually got a great deal to say about the song - it's just one of those tracks that sounded great on radio, with a video that brings back a lot of carefree nostalgia. I adore the instrumental and the only thing that stops me rating it higher is that I was never a super huge fan of the guy's vocal personally, although clearly it does suit the track well.

Ronan Keating - Life Is A Rollercoaster Rate: 8/10 Reason: I've always been a fan of Boyzone's original mid to uptempos, like Picture Of You, All That I Need, and Love You Anyway. Ronan's vocal growl much better suits having some life in the production underneath it than the ballad covers the band became better known for. His first solo single, in 1999, was of course When You Say Nothing At All from the Notting Hill soundtrack, but Life Is A Rollercoaster was really his first proper big solo release from his own project, and it really was a great choice of single. Sounding for all the world like the follow up to You Get What You Give that The New Radicals never made, that's because the song was co-written by lead singer Gregg Alexander alongside the brilliant Rick Nowels. But Ronan really put his own stamp on it too to make it sound distinctly his, and he was at the top of his game here, with feelgood lyrics I think were perfect for a summer single. It should have been one of our two-week No.1s, but for one of the CD singles being disqualified, meaning that Five and Queen snuck in a week the week after.

Yeah I think there's a couple of songs at least later that probably objectively should be lower but that are all-time favourites of mine that are perhaps pushing others out of the top ten here.

S Club 7 - Never Had A Dream Come True Rank: 8/10 Reason: After their debut with Bring It All Back in June 1999, S Club 7 had become a pretty big but not giant prospect, stringing together four more top three hits of varying stature before finally returning to No.1. But Reach in the summer was a pivotal moment, one of those 'should have been No.1' classic pop singles that was blocked by something even bigger, but probably big enough to convince Children In Need to look their way and offer them the opportunity to release the year's charity single. A lot of charity singles are poor covers, but Children In Need from time to time did throw up good original songs and such was the case with Never Had A Dream Come True. A song with a suitably winter-themed video, it's become almost a psuedo Christmas song like 2 Become 1 and Heartbeat, that you tend to hear around that time of year. Co-written by the brilliant Cathy Dennis (and Simon Ellis), it's really just a lovely ballad with nice backing vocals from the band but powerful lead vocals by Jo O'Meara being the star attraction. This single definitely moved them up a gear too as they followed this with probably their best ever single, yet this was their only song to make a splash in the US, charting inside the top 10 there in 2001!

Gabrielle - Rise Rank: 8/10 Reason: I think the return to No.1 of Gabrielle was one of my favourite chart stories of 2000. With such a distinct and soulful voice, Gabrielle definitely was able to stick around towards the top end of the charts after her unforgettable debut with Dreams in 1993, but never hit quite those same heights again commerically in the 90s (although songs like Give Me A Little More Time were just as deserving). She returned in 1999 with Sunshine, which I thought was a beautiful single and one I wished had done a little better, although it later became a garage classic thanks to a popular Wookie remix. Rise though was the moment she rose again to the top of the pile; built around an inspired sample of Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door, the song builds its own great song around that and doesn't completely rely on it to be good. It's just one of those effortless songs that still sounds good, and was one of the rare songs on this countdown to manage a second week at No.1!

Madonna - Music Rank: 8/10 Reason: Ray Of Light was such a great, seminal album that it was difficult to see how Madonna would ever follow it as she set about releasing her first album of the new decade. And while Music doesn't top that masterpiece, it's still a fascinating album where you can see the logical progression from its predecessor. She bridged the two eras with William Orbit produced tracks Beautiful Stranger and American Pie, and he turned up again as a producer on two songs on this album, but French producer Mirwais had the dominant production influence in this era. Music made a massive splash with its video featuring Ali G, who was really huge at the time, and it was just an incredibly fun song to come off the back of a sublime but mostly quite serious era of music in Ray Of Light. The 'Do you want to boogie woogie' processed vocal is so clever as a hook, as is 'Hey Mr DJ...' and it was a brilliant choice of lead single, although I do probably prefer Don't Tell Me on a personal level.

Craig David - Fill Me In Rate: 8/10 Reason: I think anybody that heard Re-Rewind, released with Artful Dodger in late 1999, could see that its soulful young singer Craig David had a lot of potential and was destined for bigger things. And it didn't take long for him to break out on his own with Fill Me In, released in April 2000 (and produced by Mark Hill from... Artful Dodger). Probably a little overshadowed these days by its follow-up, it's easy to forget that Fill Me In went in at No.1 with huge hype as his debut solo single and even made the top 15 in the US, which was very impressive for a song so British in sound, essentially a garage track albeit with more of an R&B vibe to it than Re-Rewind. A very smooth production with quite unusual lyrics really about parents trying to find out about and stymie a budding tryst, but it was a pivotal moment in Craig's career and the real arrival of a great new British star who still has relevance 25 years on.

Yeah I know what you mean, although Vertigo I think passes that test too but after that I can't think of much of note. I was thinking exactly the same about that No.2s list, so many really brilliant classics songs, especially dance, among those. On A Night Like This is an interesting case as I'm not sure it would have been a comeback No.1 for Kylie if released first, as it's more of a 'normal' pop song than a 'statement' pop song (despite being much better imo). Haha, glad it's not just me, when I was listening back to The Masses Against The Classes for the first time in a while it really made my head turn. So I have actually bought the Better Man Blu-ray based on the great reviews but not got around to watching it yet, I must do that! Maybe I'm easily pleased although 8/10 is a score I generally give to a song I enjoy that I still regularly actively seek out to listen to now. 7/10 is something I like and appreciate but don't love. 6/10 is fine, 5/10 is average (halfway point), and below that is probably getting into not keen territory. Yeah it's a good song - quite different to all of the singles from the previous album that were more radio friendly, while stil being very good, I do like the Manics and have their Forever Delayed compilation, although none of the studio albums. Everything from that 2000 album has aged quite well for U2 I think, especially when you compare it to their last top 20 single, from 2009, Get On Your Boots.

Yeah this was amazing, I was there last night and hoped for Charli but didn't expect it, a great moment. Love 360 and the stage lighting up Brat green Dua is so good live, she suits large stadiums so well. So many songs really went off in that setting in a way I didn't expect them to, like Electricity, Physical <3 They're two of my favourites but I didn't realise they were big general public favourites. And wow, the encore/final section is just stunning - great song choices to end on.

Confirmed a favourite of mine, not sure if it will be deemed too well known but will try it.

Intriguing, at least her huge fanbase should at least give us some Rest of the World votes. Doubt the BBC would really want her as our act though.

And conquering Madonna's lead single would have been really good press for Posh too. If only she'd known how big Groovejet would be.