gooddelta

Guru Josh is the only one I never play from choice, so that, but I don't mind it.

A big welcome to anybody new or thinking about taking part. Looking forward to having you with us whether that's this month or in the future @James. and @DaTilt . Please remember to confirm by the end of Friday to participate in this month's edition. Otherwise we will look forward to your debut when you choose to join. Thank you ❤️

Yes Stardust is another that has grown on me more over time. A bit like Modjo in 2000 I'm not sure I was really ever particularly enamoured with the vocal on it at the time but over time I've come to like the song a lot, mostly thanks to the backing track and music video, and I'm not sure another style of vocal would have worked on it to be fair. I do think it deserved some time at No.1 too. Oh good shout with Hella Good, I can hear that too. For sure, Millennium felt like Robbie being cheeky but knowing he could now get away with it. He definitely had more of a spring in his step after the success of his last couple of singles and it came out in this song, he oozed star power and charm. In the final few months of 1999 everyone was banging on and on about the millennium bug, the upcoming millennium dome, you truly couldn't escape it, but I didn't hear about it that much before 1999 so Robbie did seem early! Haha, must have been fun to hear them all in sequence. One For Sorrow isn't that dissimlar either, in fact Steps have started singing 'Can You Feel It' in the instrumental middle eight of that track.

Rock Steady by All Saints was released (physically) the same week too and I had expected that to at least get to No.2, it felt like all three songs were in the mix that week to me but we got the worst outcome at No.1.

Ooh I remember that digital name adding thing, I did it at the time as was taking the piss adding ridiculous names to it. I agree with everything you said about the song, and it would be clear last for me too. They'd got to the point in the mid to late 00s of pushing one or two singles per album, with a November release and a cash-in album, always leading with a cover. Bah. And where I didn't mind You Raise Me Up, this one is rubbish.

The alt bloc no doubt taking their sweet time to let all their potentials grow on them. Keep the confirmations coming! Up to 38 now, welcome back Ojnoj, Macromia and Pagasa - you are very welcome ❤️ And thank you to everyone else for sticking with us!!

I very rarely can make out much difference with remasters, but wow, that is a great job. Finally the vocal production sounds like something worthy of The Beatles' other greats. Such clarity. I'll check the rest of this album during the week.

I will forever love music TV programmers for doggedly clinging on to Wizzard and Slade over the playlist pushed Bobby Helms who isn't even top 50.

The Tamperer feat. Maya - Feel It Rank: 7/10 Reason: This is my final 7/10 and then we're up to 16 songs I really like or love. Feel It is a song that has grown on me massively over the years, I used to find it annoying as anything and would probably have put it nearer to the bottom, due to the shouty delivery of the famous lyric 'what's she gonna look like with a chimney on her', which was basically being chanted everywhere in my face in brash fashion in the school playground in the closing months of primary school. With time though I can actually see that this is a huge part of the song's charm, and I have very much warmed up to it in the last few years. The Top of the Pops repeats have helped becaue it reminded me that American singer Maya was such a charismatic performer that you almost can't believe she didn't have a solo career. And the production is almost too good not to notice. Using a very prominent sample of Can You Feel It by the Jacksons, the extra Italo house production from Italian act The Tamperer gives it that hard drum pattern that was all over the place in 1998. Listen to this, and then listen to Tragedy by Steps, and ask yourselves if that would have sounded the same without the producer hearing this first. Feel It lifted its key lyrics from a 1996 track called Drop The House by Urban Discharge. And when you listen to that, the strange 'chimney on her' line is suddenly presented in context and the whole thing makes a lot more sense. The combination of these factors all provided one of the most enduring dance hits of the year, unusually for 1998 taking six weeks to finally reach the top after hovering around the top five. The act managed two hit follow ups, including the use of a f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fabulous Madonna sample on top three hit If You Buy This Record Your Life Will Be Better.

Robbie Williams - Millennium Rank: 7/10 Reason: 1998 was a banner year for Robbie Williams, after a stuttering start, thanks to the long-running success of Angels, which was still doing big business well into January and February. He followed that with the No.3 classic Let Me Entertain You and you wonder why he saved releasing two such great songs so long into a faltering album campaign. Was this recovery and career turnaround story the plan all along or did the label genuinely not see the value in these songs over the likes of South Of The Border? Either way, it pushed Life Thru A Lens to the top and he was primed for a much bigger start out of the gate with the first single from his next album. With the millennium a mere 15 months away, there was lots of hype for what was around the corner, although honestly nowhere near as much as in 1999 for obvious reasons, so this single was a little premature. With a renewed self confidence and swagger, Robbie finally looked and felt like the country's biggest solo star by this point, and indeed he was. Built around a well utilised sample of You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra, from the Bond film of the same name, the track cruised to No.1 and was never off the radio for quite a few years. On a personal level, I like the track and it's catchy, with clever lyrics (Robbie is a hugely underrated lyricist - compare what he writes about with many contemporary male solo stars at the time and there's a big difference), but as with a lot of Robbie lead singles, it's not one I tend to go back to through choice that much - if we were discussing the follow-up No Regrets then you'd probably have found that in my top five of the year. For several years the song felt like one of his main signature hits, but I do feel like it was overshadowed several times over by the likes of Rock DJ and Feel while the aforementioned Angels and Let Me Entertain You have probably held up better too. It is not in his Spotify top 10 most played anyway. But still, a good song, his first solo No.1, and another step on his road to becoming a true superstar, it set up the I've Been Expecting You album to do very big things.

Not expecting much from my entry here but went with something I've been meaning to send to something and it fit the theme. In the last contest I flopped badly so not too much to lose even if it does badly too. Some huge names here and lots of others I recognise but not many songs I know apart from CATTY.

Ah yes, I had and loved playing Donkey Konga too, a good selection of hits and lesser known stuff on there. I still love the Mighty Mighty Bosstones track (also from 1998), The Impression That I Get that was on the soundtrack, among other songs I knew very well already.

I like both about equally for different reasons. Giving it to Gabrielle, because that was a great ballad to follow the success of the Rise album.

Will probably make some sort of small prediction when I open the thread!

Not related to 2026, but Janet Leon's Heartstrings (and New Colours) have finally been added to Spotify UK Probably my favourite entry ever that crashed out immediately.

Welcome, delighted to have a debuting nation in this contest and plenty of room for more should anyone wish to join in for the first time!

Good timing as I've just been listening to Now Yearbook 1991. Baby, Baby is great, I love the bit at 2:20 where the instrumental sounds like a funfair. The song itself is very 80s sounding, had it come out in 1988 it would have fit the charts then too.

Ok, have edited it out.

Looking forward to this, 2006 was my favourite 00s year by far - I was having so much fun in the second year of uni (before getting bogged down with dissertations) and the soundtrack was so good. So many artists were on the top of their game and some great comebacks and reunions. Lots of genres were firing on all cylinders. It was the first 00s year since 2000 where my personal tastes were really in line with the charts, after I didn't really enjoy a lot of chart music in 2004 and 2005. The summer in particular was glorious but I'll comment more on specific tracks as they come up. Agreed that it was a pivotal year in terms of things ending and beginning.

I did wonder that recently with Golden spending 10 weeks at the top. Pop always comes back around and currently South Korea are having all the fun (see also APT.). I’d like to see Western acts lighten up a little too!

Yes I don’t know when the world started to take itself so seriously with music. When the physicals era died off for some reason as we didn’t have many fun/colourful pop download hits either. Possibly due to the introduction of social media and camera phones at the same time, and being conscious of oneself at all times? Whenever I watch the old TOTP episodes and you see all the 16-18 year olds having the time of their lives to Steps, Aqua and B*witched and I just think today’s teens of the same age would just find it cringey and never listen to stuff like that. It’s a shame that people care so much more what others think about them now.

Aqua - Doctor Jones Rank: 7/10 After the huge success of Barbie Girl, one of the biggest selling singles of all-time in the UK, it was intriguing to see what Aqua would do next and how they would fare. Would the Danish group remain a one-hit wonder, or as was more likely in the 90s/early 00s, a one and a half hit wonder, where the second song is very similar to the first and peaks at 3-10 and then they slowly fade away. But the answer was, in fact, a second, big No.1 single. Doctor Jones was not dissimilar to its predecessor, a colourful novelty Europop single. But was not this time specifically affiliated with a brand, although the video had more than a whiff of Indiana Jones to it, and the song title suggests that was the aim. The instant school disco favourite Doctor Jones debuted at No.1 - something Barbie Girl hadn't achieved - and managed two weeks there and six weeks in the top ten. It followed much the same template of Lene singing and Rene offering a rap response in places. The post-chorus 'ah-yippie-yi-ooh, ah-yippie-yi-yeah' refrain was an earworm bigger than the chorus and it's easy to see why this was another smash, also hitting the top in Australia and Ireland. But there is only one Aqua single I ever truly loved, and that will come later.

True, the track is not even in their top 10 most played on Spotify!

Still only the one double confirmation so far, from last night, and a replacement has been submitted for that. I've listened to everything confirmed so far and am super impressed, some big hitters from various blocs and genres here, and a few musical swerves which we appreciate, with the whole 'doing a 180' vibe. Hearing these (pending any people reconfirming) certainly gives me an indication as to how the final YTD chart might look. A couple of countries have confirmed some of the best entries I've heard this year. Keep them coming, you've got to be in it to win it, and what better time for a long-awaited return than the final contest of the year? Always hotly contested, imagine having the bragging rights of winning it!

Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground Rank: 7/10 Reason: Here's the final song that didn't make my end of year charts in 1998 (or 1997 for the hangers on). It was lucky number 13 for Jay Kay and his band, as their 13th single (not including a re-release of When You Gonna Learn) became their first chart topper. I think anything they had released at this point would have been a big deal, off the back of a fantastic run of singles from the previous album (Virtual Insanity, Cosmic Girl and Alright). But Deeper Underground was further helped by the fact it was on the soundtrack to summer blockbuster Godzilla, which I remember seeing at the cinema with my friend at the time, so I was very aware of the track. I think it's a good song - the chorus is great and lyrically suits the film while the intro and bassline is very good and sounds more U2 than Jamiroquai to me - it's more rock and less disco influenced than their other material so feels like a slight harder edged anomaly in their back catalogue, as they would be back to disco with Canned Heat the following year. I'm just not really as into the verses, and for a blockbuster film single for a film that was actually quite jumpy and felt epic in scale as an 11-year-old, the song just fades out - it deserved a better ending, but then maybe the fade out was to signify that he is going deeper underground, so we can't hear him anymore. Altogether, for me it's a slightly unsatisfying listen outside of the first 30 seconds and the chorus.