gooddelta

I would imagine they just reached their full Westlife quota of two songs on each of the 1999 releases and picked Swear It Again/If I Let You Go instead of Seasons In The Sun. I guess it will be on one of the 1995-1999 editions. I guess with S Club 7 they have no plans to do 2000 yearbooks so felt they could include releases from December 1999 even if they peaked later.

Maybe the presence of David Sylvian/Donna Summer etc along with a few choice inclusions on the 97/98 Extras suggests we won't be getting 90s Vaults. I hope we do though as there is so much potential. Aww, I'd overlooked that Don't Stop was missing, they sure don't like to represent how big European dance was at the time on the Yearbooks.

Good point, I expected As to open it. Maybe saving it for one of the Final Chapter releases. Pet Shop Boys seem to be one of their fallback choices when there is no George or Queen (see also Extra 93). Only qualm is I'd have liked to have seen a few more of the trance hits from this year (Gouryella, Binary Finary, System F, DJ Sakin) but dance is very often overlooked on these albums.

Oh this is just wonderful, almost everything I wanted. Texas, Corrs, Precious, The Cardigans (omg Hanging Around!), Thunderbugs (!), Alice Deejay, Charlotte (under her current name) next to A*Teens is perfect sequencing. Whitney! And so much more. Six No.1s is definitely a new high for an Extra, as 1998 had five. Best Yearbook related album yet for me. So bizarre that Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! is only on an Extra, but then Vengaboys had so many big hits that year. Going to assume Ann Lee and Eiffel 65 have been saved for the Final Chapter rather than being unlicensable, maybe along with Cliff (Final Chapter Extra?). The true unlicensables must be Offspring, 2Pac, Eminem etc.

Very much looking forward to hearing the new songs, and also it will be the first time on streaming for No.51 smash Theme To St Trinians, assuming it's uploaded to streaming sites but the other albums were so it should be. Agreed the alternative mix of Girl Overboard sounds a bit basic. The version we know and Black Jacks are two of my favourite Girls Aloud songs, this album was just so good. Edit: Having said that, I see it's on Spotify now via the video upload, which allows you to just listen to the audio too anyway:

Fair 5th place. I think I actually prefer Poison still to this, I really loved that. But it was a pleasant, breezy kind of track and nice to see Nicole get a solo No.1, not sure at the time I expected it to get to No.1. Fully agree on the top four and three of the remaining songs are in my all-time top 100 songs.

Going for VS. Teenage Life is great, studio version moreso than the live Eurovision version.

Good week for dance there, Welcome To The Dance has to be one of the most forgotten top five hits of the 00s, I don't mind the instrumental although it's a fairly basic production for the time. I'm not fond of the way the title is spoken and surprised it went top five overall, Pitchin' is a better dance track at No.6 there. Pop Music Activism has just posted that the radio edit of Welcome To The Dance is now available to stream, in a masterstroke of timing. I find the Scanty Sandwich track annoying due to the vocal sample but the backing track is fantastic. A Little Bit Of Luck is such a classic, it was great to see that slowly climb into the top ten and bucking trends to do so. Born To Make You Happy is definitely a solid Britney track, it did well to buck the trend of diminishing returns of singles from that album, but maybe pop fans felt starved of new product at the time. They actually did commission a single remix (Bonus Remix) for the song with some new vocals but ended up releasing the album version as the single in the end. It's another strong Cheiron production of the time anyway.

Nice, I do have one I love that I've been saving up for a theme like this. I consider it to be an instrumental track myself in as much as I do something like 9PM (Till I Come) but I'll let the mods decide on it.

Taylor, Ariana, Madonna/Sabrina.

It's a melody sample/interpolation as Nelly and co are on the credits. Maneater being a former BJSC runner up a VERY long time ago of course as well as big hit! Faztickle were feeling inspired.

Some good debuts in this chart, I still like that Manics track and Donnell Jones (enhanced by the Left Eye version), very smooth R&B track. Cool to see Scooch and Point Break taking advantage of the low sales climate to score bigger hits too, I do really like all four of the singles from that first Scooch album (When My Baby less than the following three but it's catchy and fun at least). I was also so impressed by the longevity of Alice Deejay (again), leaving the top ten to then return for another month was very unusual at that time.

Looks like my top four are still here while I like the remaining song too and it would be in my top 15. Price Tag is a good track, I did like Jessie in her debut era and B.o.B worked well on it.

Was this recorded during the B'day era? Surprised as it sounds nothing like that album. It's ok background music only for me. I ended up being quite fond of a lot of the singles, remixes and visuals from that era, it ended up generating a lot of hits in the end, but as a complete album she's definitely had better.

Work Your Magic is easily my favourite entry from Belarus, and one of my top three from that year along with Russia and Bulgaria (great year for the east). The production is very Bond, it has a big chorus, and he had a striking look (at the time people said he looked like Princess Diana's long lost son). I wouldn't say I ever really enjoyed a single one of their other entries to the point I still play it today. Maybe only My Galileo for the novelty of it being their first entry and being such a strange song straight out of the gate (in terms of that vocal anyway).

Great timing for PSB, brave week to release and finally got a top ten single off that album. I also absolutely love that song, it's hugely underrated and definitely in my PSB top ten.

Definitely Nu Generation at this point. I remember thinking the track was so short for a hit single in 2000 but now just over two minutes is fairly standard.

I do quite like Give Me Everything, more for 'club night nostalgia' than anything else. That Kodak line was amazing free marketing for them! Heart still play it constantly, but often a short edit with just Ne-Yo's part over and over again, it's quite odd really as the track is nothing without the Pitbull raps.

Savage Love (Laxed - Satie Beat) As we seek to avoid our first DNQ hat-trick since the dark days of summer 2013 (that was how you end a consecutive qualification run of 42 in some style), we turn to our old friend Swedish pop and the brilliant artist Esther with her new single Savage Love. Stockholm-based Esther (Lennstrand), who incorporates the vibraphone into her electronic pop music, launched in 2019 but only last month released her excellent debut album Fragmentality, which features a lot of lovely and unusually structured electronic pop songs. Ricardo Delta explains the choice of Savage Love: "Two and a half minutes of pop perfection, Savage Love has twinkly production almost reminiscent of Zero 7 at times, but with an urgency and quirkiness only found in Swedish indie-pop. We saw Esther supporting The Cardigans last month – the band hand-picked her as its support act so you knew she was bound to be good – and good she was; such a talent on the vibraphone, and this delightful track interpolates Satie's classical masterpiece Gymnopédie No. 1. Throw in a video full of charm and we had to take a chance on another Swedish pop entry, and to dare to dream for more than DJ Suzy achieved a few months ago. We hope you enjoy! Esther has also toured with Lykke Li, Kite, Amason, bob hund, Deportees, and Miike Snow. Savage Love hit the top of the Rontvian charts on release in June, seeing off competition from the likes of Taylor Swift and Delta Goodrem.

Yeah, it's been quite some time since they released a truly essential track for me. Probably going back to These Days. I did like Cry, Giants, Hey Boy and This Life a fair bit but they are not top tier for me.

Landslides being called already, people must have checked all the entries very swiftly!

Lest we forget Scooch's other No.5 smash Flying The Flag (For You)!

Unexpectedly funky kind of track, a definite improvement on You're A Superstar. I still wouldn't say it's setting my world alight tbh, I sound like a broken record but I'd love a big ballad.

I think it's hard to compare the periods. There were more focused channels for promotion, but the options were very narrow. If you weren't on kids TV, in magazines, on the music channels, or the radio, or had a strong existing fanbase, you didn't stand much chance of charting. And if your single wasn't available in major stores you pretty much stood no chance. And then there were only ever about 100 songs vying for buyer attention in the shops at any given time, a lot fewer in shops like Woolworths and the supermarkets. Now consumers can pick from millions of songs easily. So we had far less choice, and therefore were hungry for whatever new product that emerged, particularly when it was trailed for six weeks in advance of release.

Thanks Gezza, looking forward to it. Enjoyed the first few weeks. I need to dig out my copy of New Hits 2000 as it has a fair amount of songs covered on these episodes, some not on any other compilations, like Stand Tough by Point Break which I completely forgot how catchy it was. That Scooch song was far better than they were probably given credit at the time for too, as good as many Steps singles.