superbossanova

Hmm, I wouldn't say so. It just feels a bit more processed and not as organic to me (while the latter is rather important in "true" soulful stuff). Just my opinion though.

OMG, Cleopatra! I Want You Back proper takes me back to our holiday in '98. My mum bought me it on TAPE (along with Savage Garden's To The Moon & Back :heart:) right before we left to shut me up. I listened to the shizz out of both of them that week, mainly because I had nothing else to listen to, to be fair, but still. Good times. Busted were cack, I guess I was getting too old for that kind of thing by then. I'm quite thankful for the low sales in 2002-04 in regards to this countdown to be honest (even if it does mean my favourite Girls Aloud song, The Show, missed out).

Another one I bought here. Well, I did say they'd get more embarrassing later! :D I always used to like it when songs referenced other celebrities by name though (especially popstars) and this one had them on almost every line, so I was bound to love it. Although at the time I was probably vaguely annoyed that Britney escaped with no mention, apparently O-Town only liked older women :drama: O-Town had a pretty good start in general for a boyband, actually. All Or Nothing was one of the better boyband ballads of the decade, IMO, and their third single We Fit Together was very underrated chart-wise, in fact it's probably the one song of theirs I still quite enjoy now. Can't say I liked anything after that though. As for Crossroads, I didn't think it was too bad, mainly because the original is so good you'd have to do a truly awful job to ruin it. What followed, however, was laughable, cheesed up R&B-lite, and, raps aside, fundamentally no different to any other selection of boybands that came before them.

All of the singles from the first album were AMAZING. They just had a soulful vibe to them back then that completely disappeared once Siobhan left, I can't really think of any song they did after off the top of my head that managed to capture that sound - anyone?! Although I love the Heidi era as well when they turned a bit more "electrovamp" with great affect, I still consider to be an almost entirely different group to the one that made One Touch. Run For Cover is indeed probably my favourite of the four One Touch singles though... :wub:

Eek, I love En Vogue like crazy, but My Lovin' is easily my least favourite of their big hits, just rhythmically annoying as hell :arrr: Could drive me up the wall. Look forward to seeing how Hold On and Don't Let Go (Love) measure up against the rest though. Overload is awesome, so deceptively simple in the way it worms itself into your head. And the fact it still sounds so fresh today is really a mark as to how different it was at the time, relying on little but that hypnotic drum beat and the sort of whirring sounds in the background for most of the song. Also the first single in the top 200 that I bought so we're going well on that front. The true embarrassing ones will come later :D Love Be The First To Believe as well - great example of late 90s British pop IMO - and I Want You Back is one of my favourite *NSYNC songs (although Gone is my ultimate favourite, not that would get anywhere near here). Always found it cool how it debuted on the same chart as ...Baby One More Time as well - can't happen every day that two such huge acts of the future score their big breakthrough hit on the same week! (albiet one made the other look like a minor ripple in comparison :lol:)

I can live with that! Anything less than a third would have seen a severe decrease in my level of interest for this thread though. :arrr: And the first few songs from this countdown do nicely prove my point about boybands being able to get any old dross in the top 10! Bomb Diggy is horrendous, I was never an Another Level fan but I could see the appeal in their first few singles and they were at least all slickly produced with obvious effort put in to them. But that one is just a joke. :lol: The Bros song is AWFUL. First time I've heard it (I only knew their big hits before from random 80s compilations, mainly) and I had to shut the tab with it on after about a minute. His vocal style is just annoying beyond belief and the hook/songwriting itself is as lazy as it gets. Onwards and upwards! Still 197 songs to go. :D

Out of curiosity, what is the breakdown of boyband songs in the top 200 compared to girl groups? Or is this asking too much work for you to go back and count them? If so, don't mind then :lol: I would assume boybands have a far greater share as it was always much easier for them to get any old shit in the top 10 at the time (and still is today, really) as they generally built a fanbase very quickly on their looks, but I am curious as to how much. The fact you were more strict with the definition of boybands might tip the scale a little bit more to an even number though.

I wasn't expecting Made In London to be name-dropped here as they only had one top 40 hit, unfortunately, and not even one that was successful (#15). Although I am now wondering what the process behind these selections was as, without meaning to sound obsessed with them, Hepburn have also been ignored despite being bigger than the likes of Madasun (and I'm pretty sure there was no way I Quit outsold Friends Forever which peaked higher near the end of the year and had a better chart run, so I'm sure it's not in the top 200). I assumed it was groups who had songs that barely missed the list but clearly not - just your favourites, Gezza? :P (Reading back this post sounds very accusatory but it's not meant to, just inquisitive! I'm not exactly crying over Hepburn being ignored, honest - though the kid still inside of me somewhere is probably a little bit miffed! :D)

Oh, Come_along, I think I love you right now. That song is AMAZING and I'm so glad someone else even remembers it, let alone also loves it. One of my favourite "flop pop" singles of all time, without doubt.

Oooh, finally some girl groups! Well, it's time for the rambling to come out now, apologies, I have too much to say about some of these fabulous acts! :D Thunderbugs - I thought Friends Forever was a bit naff really, but It's About Time You Were Mine is a very good slice of classy 90s pop. Although it was such a bizarre choice of follow-up in the sense that I don't know who of their target audience (basically young kids and teenagers) they were expecting to buy it, it really doesn't have a very instant hook at all and the whole song is quite relatively mature compared to Friends Forever - which always felt very kiddish to me, like the song's hook is something you'd expect only 8-year old girls to be saying to each other, made me cringe even at the time. I love IATYWM now but that's when I'm 21 - at the time I didn't pay much attention to it at all. It was also released the week before Xmas which was historically back then a gruesome week of releases, should have been saved for the January lull that even gave Scooch and Point Break top 10 hits in early 2000. Vanilla - No Way No Way is of course a stone cold 90s classic. The entire lack of any kind of professionalism or PLANNING put into the whole thing is truly what makes it genius - like they literally walked out of the office and asked the first four girls they met if they wanted to make a group, told them to go home and fetch their swimwear and doll themselves up a bit then come back, while they dusted off an old keyboard from the cupboard to give them the ready-made backing track, stole from The Muppets of all things for the song's hook, then did the whole song and video that same day. And only in the late 1990s could it have actually become a hit - fabulous. I hope whoever was in charge of that project at least got a pay rise for his services to pop. Girl Thing - Last One Standing was decent IMO and I did buy it. The group though were basically Simon Cowell trying to create a female version of his group Five to make up for the fact that he famously turned down signing the Spice Girls. The funniest thing is that the concept for the video was also suspicously similar to Wannabe, and featured them crashing a wedding and causing havoc there. The video to Wannabe featured the Spice Girls crashing a party and causing havoc there. Hmm. :D Solid HarmoniE - I'll Be There For You is actually one of my favourite pop songs of the late 1990s - it's pretty much typical of the late 90s Max Martin sound but it's such a joyous example of it that I can't help but love it. I heard it out in PUBLIC last year, too, which made me have to pinch myself a couple of times to make sure I wasn't just dreaming it. It was playing from an arcade on the Clarence Pier in Southsea of all places and the best thing was that it was blaring out for everyone in the vicinity to hear. Amazing. I'm not ashamed to say it pretty much made my day, perhaps even week.

God, that's a grim lot there. I actually had the "pleasure" of seeing both V and Phixx perform at Summer XS back in 2004 (along with several other acts that will feature here later - Busted, Girls Aloud, McFly, The 411, Blue - and a few other non-boybands/girl groups, obviously). It was my first concert too (unless you count random acts who came to perform at my school, we had a few semi-famous ones there) but I don't shout about it too often. I guess everyone has to start somewhere. Both were crap anyway - especially Phixx. Surprised Back Here didn't make the list. An average-sized top 5 hit from 2001 isn't enough to make the cut? I guess they perhaps just missed out. This also leads me to believe that Hepburn - I Quit probably missed out on the top 200 as well but I'll see tomorrow. They were childhood favourites of mine. As for Back Here, I didn't think it was that good really.

This should be exciting. My main interest of the two has always lied with girl groups (I'm a huge sucker for the kick-ass feminist, take no shit attitude especially, even more so when it's mixed with killer harmonies) but certainly it was easy to find some boybands to like during the sea of them that were around post-Take That/Boyzone. Ultra were really coma-inducing. One of those uber-serious, trying to be "credible" boybands with REAL INSTRUMENTS(!!) but everything about them, to the lead singer's voice and the tunes themselves, was nondescript as hell. The fact they even managed to get any hits at all is just testament to how teenage girls would cream over any vaguely good-looking group of guys back in the 1990s. I'd love to say I'd forgotten about them but I was actually watching a Top of the Pops episode on YouTube which Rescue Me was performed on only a couple of weeks ago, and the fact that I'm STILL struggling to remember how it goes says it all about what a tune-free bore it is. Upside Down - Change Your Mind manages to sound like perhaps the most painfully 80s song that WASN'T released in the 1980s for the simple fact it rips off Careless Whisper to ridiculous degrees. If I hadn't seen it in the charts for myself in 1996, I genuinely would have believed it was released ten years before that. Shockingly bad. I'm actually not familiar with any of the others. My knowledge of shit budget pop and never was's only REALLY begins in 1997.

This list seems much more repetitious than the 00s equivalent. Not many acts that could successfully appeal to both the singles and albums market in such a big way in the 1990s, I guess. One factor behind that would be the huge popularity of dance in the decade, which is notoriously bad at selling albums, thus limiting the number of #1 single acts who would be able to have a #1 album also - let alone sustaining it for two or three weeks (as would be necessary for this thread as albums tend to come out a couple of weeks after the single). The high singles turnover by the late 1990s also doesn't help that, obviously. Sorry, just random thoughts. The countdown is interesting... I think I know what #1 will be but I shall remain tight-lipped about it.

Ah, Steps. I think I discussed my feelings on them in some length when gooddelta (was it?) did the Steps rate a few months ago - a group who stole my heart with the all-conquering one-two double combo of One For Sorrow and Heartbeat, quickly ascended into the leagues of my favourite acts with Step One being one of my most played albums in late 1998 and early 1999, and then - well, you know how it is when you're 8 years old. Brand loyalty is hardly a concept you're familar with, every act is only as good as their last release, and Steps were simply no longer delivering the goods. They had to go. From 1999 onwards, it was rare for me to be interested in any Steps song, and It's The Way You Make Me Feel didn't exactly break that tradition. In fact, this is exactly the kind of song that put me off them something rotten in the first place - file next to After The Love Has Gone with the tag of shameful ABBA-pilfering and stuff it somewhere in the back of the cupboard. Back then, I just found this boring and lacking in energy, and at a time when there were plenty of songs in the charts I could go to like Britney Spears' "Stronger", Destiny's Child "Independent Women", B.O.N. "Boys", and even rap songs like Wu-Tang Clan "Gravel Pit" or the gripping narrative of "Stan", this (in comparison) was weedy and never once captured my attention. Over a decade later, and I would only describe it as a bit sickly, laugh at Lisa Scott-Lee's woefully inept vocal parts, and move on happily. My loss, perhaps. This single, or rather this period, actually presents us at a rather interesting time in Usher's career. No longer was it 1997, when he was the new kid on the block, the cute teen heart-throb, etc, and the (at this point) ever-evolving R&B genre was also no longer like it was in 1997. So it was time for him to grow up and try and reposition himself in an ever-changing market, right? Well, yes, but perhaps hooking up with the man who had produced some of the biggest R&B hits of the preceding two years (No Scrubs, Bills Bills Bills, There You Go, etc) for the first single from your new album wasn't the most clever way of doing it in retrospect. The result, however, is a decent enough club-styled track. While I agree that Usher surprisingly doesn't quite have the charisma or swag to pull off a "shake 'em off" anthem like this, the underlying production is suitably bubbly, with electronic bleeps, hand-clap percussion and rousing synth-strings, ultimately all coming together nicely and doing enough to keep me interested for the track's duration. For whatever reason, however, this failed to take off at all on US radio, not even making it into the top 50 on Usher's holy stomping ground: the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. So therefore it was perhaps a blessing in disguise that an album leak (back in the days when this was still a new concept) caused Usher to re-write numerous tracks on the album and redirect the entire feel of the record. And lo and behold, six months later he was back on top with U Remind Me, and, in America at least, Pop Ya Collar was swept under the rug like it had never happened, not even making it onto the US edition of 8701. Still, as career derailing singles go, it's not too bad, is it? I'm at a bit of a loss of what to say on this one. A song that never entered my own little bubble at the time, a song that I, again, no doubt found boring - but unlike Steps wasn't rammed down my throat on the music channels constantly, so hardly registers in my memories of the time. With a typically U2-esque chart run, I imagine I simply dozed off into my own little daydream the few times I heard this on the chart show or otherwise. Having had a brief reappraisal just now with a more maturer mindset (I would hope!) than then, I can't pretend I think much different. Some nice guitar and drum work, and an interesting melancholy touch to the proceedings buried in the instrumentation, but Bono's voice has always been a bugbear of mine on these kind of "U2 ballads" anyway. Nice enough but can't say I've changed my opinion much from a whole 11 years ago. Ah, now in stark contrast, this is one you could hardly ignore at the time. It was everywhere, wasn't it? And you don't have to look very far to see what made it such an all-conquering radio hit. It's the anthemic, sing-a-long chorus that seems to crash in at full pelt after the more pleading, diary-styled feel of the verses - that is, of course, what caused this to be one of the biggest hits of the year. And, like many bands of this ilk, Wheatus here only had one big pop hook (that they wrote themselves, anyway!) in them before falling into obscurity, but all credit to them for at least making a song that, going by its brief revival last year, has lasted much more than I would ever have anticipated at the time. In summary, exactly as you said: enjoyable fun and nothing more or less, and one I also liked (although I didn't buy it, actually - for some reason I hardly bought any singles in the first few months of 2001, which went against the general pattern I had developed by then so there must have been some reason why that I can't quite remember...) More later! As I've written more than enough for now... :lol:

Crazy In Love was 'only' the 15th biggest-seller of 2003 so not sure about that one. It was a big hit but in the context of 2003 it wasn't THAT huge (at least sales-wise) and its three weeks at #1 (the last two of them, anyway) was more because of the traditional summer slump then it being a strong place-holder. It's tough to compare things from completely different eras for obvious reasons, but going by their placings relative to others it was released with is probably fairer than most as at least then it's competing with other records under the same circumstances.

Interesting info, thanks! That was a bit before my time so I'll take your word for it. We didn't even get The Box until 1999. Although in that case it does beg the question as to why they waited so long to release it - they surely lost so many sales from people getting bored of or forgetting about it :o Clearly not a very savvy team behind that record (although it still did pretty well as I recall)...

I loved One More Time back in 2000 but I would never listen to it anymore. It is insanely overplayed and it is simply not the type of song that holds up well to that kind of thing, it's kind of lost the euphoria and shine to it if you ask me, and hence becomes dull. And although it's frequently cited as one of those criminal chart results (especially by dance fans), I should also remind that the LeAnn Rimes song that kept it off ended up racking up impressive, consistent sales and spending seven weeks in the top 10 during the competitive Xmas period so in that respect it was the right result, and despite the 'world party' feel of One More Time it ironically simply didn't have as much widespread appeal as Can't Fight the Moonlight! Who Let The Dogs Out? is actually a very interesting one in terms of story (and you've only covered a small portion of it) as it actually was on the music channels for like six months before it eventually came out. I remember seeing the video on The Box several times in the spring (around May) but it didn't start taking off properly there until the summer as I recall, which was kind of an odd route for a song to take on that channel (indeed I can't remember any other song that did such a thing), and god knows why it didn't even come out as a single until OCTOBER. Anyway, it was a proper word of mouth thing more than something taking off on a wave of hype, which in the charts of 2000 is refreshing in retrospect. It was actually marketed as a dance single at first IIRC but obviously it ended up reaching out further to the kiddies after being picked up for the Rugrats soundtrack, which probably would go some way to explaining why it lasted in the charts forever once it took off as mums kept hearing it and buying for their kids. So eventually it went from being a novelty club-type track to more like the Teletubbies of 2000, shamefully. With The Tweenies and Bob The Builder also selling impressively then it was surely a great time to be 6 years old though - and to think when I was 6 all I had to make do with was The Smurfs. I'm Over You is the clear gem from the last few. Even taking in the tinny production and the fact Martine in general was far more suited to the sophisticated pop rather than being a disco dolly, the song still works for the simple reason it just has a REALLY strong melody, especially the build-up to the chorus each time, and then the chorus itself which packs no punches and progresses exactly as you'd expect but is still insanely listenable despite (or perhaps because of?) that. Fab single and kinda wasted on Martine because, as gooddelta said, nobody even remembers it for that reason... This post ended up being far longer than I intended it to be. Clearly I could go on about the #2s of 2000s forever. The last few months of 2000 is actually my favourite "mini period" for the charts ever though (along with the corresponding period from 1998) but the #2s don't really show it in a fantastic light admittedly. I promise I won't have as much to say for every entry, especially when we get to the diabolical 2002... :lol:

Oh, did they? I didn't realise. I just assumed it entered because of Live 8 because it was the download chart the week directly after that, and the fact that there were quite a few singles re-entering because of it that week. All These Things That I've Done didn't chart in the download top 40 that week, no, but unusually Somebody Told Me did as well at No. 28. Perhaps it was another reason then? :lol:

You can pretty much fill this thread with early hip hop singles, to be fair, as the UK had a, at best, niche market for rap (except crap like Vanilla Ice which none of the hip hop audience took seriously) until at least the late 1990s. Other examples: It Was A Good Day, Protect Ya Neck, Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang, Don't Believe The Hype, Express Yourself, etc.

Mr. Brightside charted once in the download chart in 2004 and 2005 - at No. 40 - following Live 8 in July 2005. However, only a top 40 was compiled back then, so it may well have been among the top 100 downloads constantly in that time. In 2006, the download chart was extended to a top 200 for a short while, and it remained a near constant fixture in the top 200 for most of that year, going as high as No. 93 in October 2006.

I don't think this was uncommon at the time. A lot of The Rolling Stones albums don't have any (UK, at least) singles on it either. Not sure why this was done though, except perhaps back then the thinking was that it would be unfair to make people own one track twice when you could replace it with different tracks instead. Or maybe as someone already mentioned, from the record company's perspective, it was perhaps thought to be easier to sell albums if you didn't put tracks people already likely owned on it.

I remember a thread a while ago where someone predicted it would be over 4 million by the end of 2011. A lot of people were skeptical or saying it would need a big extra push to do it, however it's got there pretty much entirely naturally with no real obvious tactics, and as already said not even a 'complete' campaign so far. It's basically the album that keeps surprising, so I wouldn't want to make any predictions about how much more it will sell :lol: That said, is there any news on a deluxe yet? If not, I'm kinda surprised her label haven't pushed for a deluxe version just to at least TRY and attempt to make it the biggest-selling album ever (or maybe there are board meetings as we speak) - even though, if it did make it, it would probably only hold it for a couple of years at best, as a Greatest Hits set will always sell more outside of a campaign than a studio set, it'd still be something from a marketing perspective for her next album (just imagine the adverts - "the follow-up to the biggest selling album EVER")

I guess theoretically it would just be another step to the singles chart becoming more and more like a "tracks" chart. I would think album tracks would perform much better on streaming services as people would be more likely to listen to and/or preview the entire albums, therefore I would not be surprised if hugely popular albums like 21 would be able to have several tracks in the chart for multiple weeks, rather than just a jolt of cherry-picking on the first week and selling small amounts under-the-table afterwards like what tends to happen now. It would probably also lead to fewer new acts being able to find their footing in the singles chart, as seems to be a side affect of every change to the singles chart in the internet age. Which is slightly ironic when it's supposed to be easier than ever to find new music these days but I digress... I agree it seems to be the obvious next step of musical consumption though - I've been convinced of that ever since Spotify gained popularity in 2009. But with downloads seemingly going from strength to strength I'm not sure if the OCC are in any hurry to make any changes. Mind you the CD format was all but dead within about 5 years of its peak in the late 90s so who knows how fast digital downloads could die off.

I only have CDs; I don't do cherry-picking unless I'm desperate to get a track. Anyway, I believe my Whitney collection only goes this far: Albums: My Love Is Your Love The Ultimate Collection Singles: When You Believe (w/Mariah Carey) [second-hand copy] Extras (songs not included on above albums/singles): It Isn't, It Wasn't, It Ain't Never Gonna Be (w/Aretha Franklin) (from "Jewels In The Crown") It's Not Right But It's Okay [Thunderpuss Mix] (from "Massive Dance 2000") Million Dollar Bill [Frankie Knuckles Radio Mix] (from "Now That's What I Call Music! 74") Step By Step (from "New Hits 1997") Try It On My Own (from "Essential R&B Love") :lol: (no idea what the hell this track is...) And no, I won't be buying any more, unless I decide the absence of All The Man That I Need in my collection is literally killing me inside (so far, I appear to be surviving).

Yeah, I know what you mean and sometimes I miss it too - it often created some fantastic top 10 hits that wouldn't have got anywhere near in normal circumstances. But then I remind myself that kind of climate is what helped Westlife to get their ridiculously undeserved 14 #1s and suddenly I don't miss it so much anymore :lol: