superbossanova

Surprised that Blondie are in with a chance of qualifying. I thought they'd be lost among the other 35 #1s. Pleased though - such a great comeback. I guess the start of the year was good for variety of #1s, but by the end it had descended into generic Westlife/eurodance/Geri Halliwell/other British pop tosh :( What happened, British public? Plus, there was no urban #1. That could have been corrected easily if No Scrubs got to #1 like it deserved though :angry: I think 1995 was very varied. I thought that when I put together the list for that round when I was running it - it had Swedish cheese, ballads, charity singles, dance-rap, boybands, rock/indie, dance, granny pop, cod-reggae, dance-pop, hip hop :lol: I'm not sure what to say to this! :D Why have your votes been edited by Euphorique? :unsure:

No, it's the fact that it's a song from 1971 that puts people off. On this site, good music didn't exist back then. That only arrived when Madonna saved us all with her life defining anthem Holiday in 1984. My favourites on the list are (going down in list order): Feel Good Inc, Ghetto Gospel, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, Shot You Down and Gold Digger. Please don't vote them all out. They are good songs, honestly :(

Amarillo in the lead? Really? Talk about ridiculous. Voted for Candy Shop. I thought this would be one of the first to go! You disappoint me, BuzzJack.

+15 Britney Spears - Baby One More Time +12 Armand Van Helden - U Don't Know Me +10 Blondie - Maria +8 Five - Keep On Movin' +6 Martine McCutcheon - Perfect Moment +5 Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way +4 Eiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee) +3 Shanks & Bigfoot - Sweet Like Chocolate +2 Christina Aguilera - Genie In A Bottle +1 The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) Nowhere near as good as 1998, but still decent. Most of the songs that make me all nostalgic from this year didn't even get close to #1 though - like No Scrubs (TLC), Coffee and TV (Blur), Secret Smile (Semisonic), I Quit (Hepburn), You Get What You Give (The New Radicals), Steal My Sunshine (Len), Drinking In LA (Bran Van 3000), I Try (Macy Gray), Say It Again (Precious) :wub: Not necessarily my absolute favourites of that year but those are the ones that take me right back to those days. Oops! Forgot my -2: -2 Cliff Richard - The Millennium Prayer I wonder if this will get the lowest score so far? :lol:

Haha, I don't know. I remember you saying before that Dana Rayne was more surprising to you a few weeks earlier, but that wasn't a surprise to me as it was definitely one of the releases that week I had heard the most in advance. But with Hanson I don't recall hearing it much on either the radio or music channels at the time. But then I always found the song mind-numbingly boring so perhaps I didn't notice it in the background on many occasions, who knows :lol: My sisters were more into acts like 50 Cent and Eminem than Hanson, anyway - although I did find them quite useful in forecasting what urban songs would be big here in the next month or so, as they usually had them playing several weeks in advance. But yeah, to me when Hanson popped up into the top 10 it was a big surprise. Though I was even more surprised that it blocked Ashlee Simpson, which I HAD heard quite a lot at the time, and combined with the fact it was irritatingly catchy I was sure it would be fighting for the final top 5 spot that week along with Lovefreekz. So to see it come in at #11 behind Hanson of all bands was definitely a minor shock to me. The charts were so ridiculously unpredictable in early 2005, though, so I definitely had a few minor shocks before that :lol: Anyway, moving back on to the right track of this topic: your comment about has-beens entering the UK national final show and thus Eurovision has just reminded me of another act who qualifies for this thread - Shakin' Stevens, who returned to the chart in 2005 with his "winners single" after winning the ITV show Hit Me Baby One More Time. His last chart entry before that was I'll Be Home For Christmas in 1991. So that's a 14 year gap between chart appearances.

I think your years are mixed up here. Love Shine A Light was in 1997?! What about Dusty? She only had one "hit" between 1970 and 1987 (a #61 with Baby Blue) before Pet Shop Boys revived her career on the brilliant What Have I Done To Deserve This? :heart: She later went on to have two more top 20 hits off her own back in 1989. Not bad for a woman who was around 50 at the time and considered a mere relic of the 1960s! The gap between "chart appearances" was only 8 years, but a massive 19-year gap between top 10 hits! As for Cher, she had a 13-year gap between chart appearances from Dark Lady in 1974 to I Found Someone in 1987. In terms of top 10 hits the gap stretches even further to 16 years (to Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves [amazing song!] in 1971). Although she did have an uncredited appearance on Meat Loaf's Dead Ringer For Love during this time. Several of her songs in that period were US hits though, most notably Take Me Home which was finally a hit over here over two decades later thanks to an inferior version by one Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Also, I've just remembered Hanson and their totally random top 10 hit with Penny & Me back in 2005. Even taking into account the dire sales climate, surely there weren't so many people interested in a Hanson comeback to make this go top 10?! It's a bit like Gareth Gates coming back with a hit now. Well, clearly there weren't so many people who cared after all, as the follow-up Lost Without Each Other only got to #39. Maybe people just really liked the song *shrug*

^ This :lol: And Barbie Girl is not THAT good musically either. It's average musically, hardly something that is "wow!!! this instrumental is mind-blowingly good! :lol:" For me: Average musically + retarded lyrics + terrible singing = not a good song Pretty much the same with Axel F. If both were amazing musically, I might be able to ignore the obvious flaws, but really they're not. I try to judge everything in relative measure when I'm judging a song. I say relative because if something is like Get Right and has the most ANNOYING INSTRUMENTAL LOOP ever then I simply cannot stand it already, regardless of how good everything else is (not that the rest of that song is particularly good either tbh.) No offence, but you're like the first person I've ever seen with this opinion! Lyla was Oasis by numbers. Terrible song. The Importance of Being Idle was wonderful :wub:

First of all, I think this is a really good year. Easily the best so far - in 2006 and 2007 I liked very little. 2008 was probably the best before now, but this just about pips it for me based on numbers of songs I like in the top 40. In terms of variety it could be better (quite urban-heavy) but the quality of urban songs here is quite high IMO. I mean, Ghetto Gospel, Signs, We Belong Together, Gold Digger, Don't Cha, Don't Phunk With My Heart, 1 Thing are REALLY good. I wish we had urban songs of that quality in the top 10 at the moment to be honest :( Second of all, I hope Amarillo doesn't go stupidly early. It really isn't that bad. I mean, it's nowhere near as good as the follow-up (the fantastic Avenues & Alleyways, which I bought on CD single at the time) but no way is it anywhere near the worst. I think people give these kind of records a hard time and kind of vote for them by default, really. Based on charity single standards, Amarillo is actually great, IMO. I also hope JCB Song does much better here than it did in 2006. I'd like it to become the Chasing Cars of this year to be honest. The fact that it went out third in 2006 is still ridiculous to me. Hopefully people have more sense this time :) Anyway, after that pointless waffling, I voted for Candy Shop :lol:

Fairly happy with the 1997 results. Absolutely thrilled that White Town qualified for the final, especially since I thought they were doing terribly at one point! And Blur in the wildcard round :D Excellent! But Eternal REALLY should have had that extra push to qualify over Puff Daddy (or even The Chemical Brothers, Tori Amos, Spice Girls). Spice Girls are really doing quite badly here so far - as the group that got me into music (like with many people my age, I'd imagine), this slightly saddens me :( Hopefully their career opus - Viva Forever - will change that though! +15 All Saints - Never Ever The ultimate girlband 90s song - this is PERFECTION from start to finish and a very well-written and constructed pop song +12 Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This... You kept Steps - One For Sorrow off #1!11!1! bast*rds +10 Spice Girls - Viva Forever As already said, their best song by far. Only 10 points though because 1998 is a good year +8 Cher - Believe Absolutely classic pop single. Unfortunately it gets unfair hatred for what came out of it +6 Run DMC vs Jason Nevins - It's Like That The first of two great remixed #1 hits here +5 Madonna - Frozen Effortlessly classy moody ballad. One of the finest singles of her career +4 Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha And here's the other great remixed #1 hit in this year +3 Aqua - Turn Back Time Kinda surprising this got to #1 in retrospect when it was clear novelty Aqua were more popular, but lovely anyway +2 B*Witched - C'est La Vie Nostalgia points. The amount of times I danced/jumped/sung to this back then was ridiculous +1 Robbie Williams - Millennium Great Robbie single from when he was knocking them out constantly Special mention to Feel It, Goodbye, No Matter What, To You I Belong, Bootie Call, Deeper Underground which I also like quite a bit. My favourite year for #1s so lots of stuff had to miss out, unfortunately! -2 Spacedust - Gym and Tonic WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS?!?!?!?!?!

Tom Jones had a gap of 12 years between lead top ten hits with A Boy From Nowhere in 1987 on one end and then Burning Down The House in 1999 on the other. Of course the parent album Reload ended up being the most successful of his career so that was QUITE the comeback and an impressive career reinvention (far better than the awful attempt a few years later with Tom Jones International :lol:) I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet - I thought this was quite a famous one! He also had a massive gap between top 10 hits from 1972 to 1987 but I think the Reload revival was more impressive despite not being as long, as that reeled off three top 10 hits and a huge album rather than just the one minor spike in success. Embrace generally faded in the late 1990s, perhaps being overshadowed by other "post-Britpop" bands like Travis, Stereophonics, Coldplay, etc - and had no big success at all until Gravity got top 10 in 2004. Then another #1 album with Out Of Nothing. Then their next album This New Day gave them their biggest career hit, Nature's Law. Texas are another one who followed the "Robyn mould" of kind of one-hit wonder to a much bigger act later on. Got to #8 with their debut single I Don't Want A Lover in 1989, but never came close to repeating that success with anything from their next couple of albums. Then in 1997, they changed their sound from limp rock to shiny radio pop and reaped the rewards - Say What You Want gave them the biggest hit of their career and they became commercial radio darlings for the next few years.

Sometimes risking your credibility isn't worth all the sales and money that might come with it, and this is definitely one of those times!! :cry: I kid. You're right that he'd already done some awful songs before then. The one with The Rock (massive cringe), the Brian Harvey one you mentioned (dire indeed), an entire album he released with Tom Jones (WTF? :blink:)... at least Lauryn had the sense to only make one (absolutely incredible) album to avoid the massive decline in quality control Wyclef suffered :(

Sorry to drop that bombshell on you unannounced :lol: How many Fugees songs have you heard though? He says his name at the start of Killing Me Softly for one :lol: And I don't really know anyone else called Wyclef, let alone another singer/rapper. So it should have been pretty easy to guess just from that. And he actually sings on other songs of theirs like No Woman No Cry.

Shakira. I mean, I suppose it deserves to be in the final three based on impact and representiveness of that year in chart music, but on quality? No way!! What was Wyclef thinking when he signed up to this embarrassment? Then again, it's not really that much worse than some of the other $h!t he's put his name to post-Fugees. Gnarls Barkley will go though. But it did well to get to #3 - that's higher than the usual glass ceiling for male acts (#4/5 is the typical result :lol:) I do think Maneater has the win in the bag though, and a deserved win it would be, as it's pretty fantastic.

I have all of them since 18 :blush: That said, the only ones I bought at the time are from 40 onwards. The rest I either stole from my mother or bought second-hand. I dunno... 44-47 were quite poor in that respect. The last two (76 and 77) as well. I think this is probably the worst that I can remember though - with a measly 1. Even those ones have at least two (although you have to push with Fyfe Dangerfield and Pendulum on 76) :cry:

Thanks! That's a great list, too - You Might Need Somebody, Angel of Mine, Together Again, Closer Than Close, Free :wub: It would definitely be faster. But I quite like doing each year one-by-one, as it allows it to look at each year more broken down, invokes more discussion about each year, etc. Putting them all together kinda takes away that in some form. I'd say it gives a better overall picture, too, and usually ensures people can at least get a chance to give points to most songs they love on at least one occasion, whereas in a big one like that isn't necessarily the case. But then I'm a bit of a geek, anyway :lol: I guess it's up to whatever the most popular opinion is. There's a list of #2s and #3s on this site (in the Chart Vault) so those two positions wouldn't be a problem. Not sure about lower than that, though - someone would probably have to go looking through the charts to get them.

The only problem with that is things would get more and more unknown the further you moved down. Some people struggled to come up with 10 songs they knew even with the #1s, and those are generally more well known songs than the #2s, #3s, #4s etc. Also, it would take a long time, so maybe two different people can run the 90s and 00s one at the same time? I don't think that would be too confusing...

What were the #4s? It was pretty good for every position clearly :D I think it was one of the last years of true variety to be honest.

It should be 90s #2s and then 90s #3s :kink: I won't settle for only #2s when I think the #3s of the 1990s are just as amazing. Puff Daddy is going to qualify?! Oh jesus. This is truly sickening. What would Biggie think of this?! :( And yeah, 1997 is my favourite year ever for chart music :D And yes, it was a fabulous year for #2s. Quite a few well-remembered #3 hits, too - Paranoid Android, Say What You Want, You Got The Love, C U When U Get There, Everybody, Honey, As Long As You Love Me...

He/they stopped updating the chart records page for quite a good few months before he/they stopped updating the chart database, too. For example, it still says the biggest faller from #1 album is George Harrison, when we all know that was broken by Christina Aguilera in June last year...

I think the problem with the crediting on Chartstats that you're talking about mostly occurs because of these single versions that have featured acts added. Watch out for the same happening with Cee Lo Green - currently it's credited to him solo but I'm sure OCC will add Wiz Khalifa to it soon, and then two pages for it will pop up on Chartstats :kink: That said, he didn't do that with JLS for some reason... have you tried e-mailing him about this? I've e-mailed him before and actually got a reply, so I don't know why he ignored my comment about the re-releases, except maybe he simply doesn't want to separate them :lol: But usually he seems quite gracious about accepting corrections and things. Fair enough about thinking re-releases shouldn't be separated, but to separate all of them pre-2006 and then none of them after is just silly. Consistency would be nice. The only logic I can see in why he doesn't separate them now is because it's harder to tell what's a re-release and what isn't just a random re-entry these days, plus their number has significantly dwindled in the last few years anyway (compared to the 90s when there were loads of hugely successful re-releases). Ha, I've actually seen a few artwork errors on there before. But considering he has over 35,600 covers on there according to the stats page, it's fairly few.

Doesn't DanielGaga usually say what's doing well anyway? I mean, when I was running it, I never specifically said where songs were, but I remember he has done that in the past. I'm disappointed how Blur and White Town are doing :( I was expecting Blur to do crap because it's not well-known at all and doesn't have any appeal to most people who aren't fans of them, but I was actually hoping White Town would pick up a lot of points... :cry: There were probably loads of copies reduced in the bargain bins :nocheer:

There's also zobbel.de - another essential chart site :D

I believe he gets the recent charts from the OCC website, so if the crediting keeps changing it's probably because of them, not him specifically. My biggest gripe with Chartstats is that some albums have like three separate pages, and loads of them have two. They're the same albums, so should be on one page, but because he's collected his chart data from several different sources its led to this, as not everyone writes some album titles (I'm talking more specifically Greatest Hits, which is where most of the things like this are) in the same way. See the UB40 page for example to see what I'm talking about. Also, his policy with re-releases is so inconsistent it's actually annoying. They should all be separated, and before about 2006 most of them are, which is fine. But after that most of them aren't. I actually sent him an e-mail a while ago telling him about loads of 2007/2008 songs that were re-releases so should have two separate chart runs but I got no reply, and he didn't correct any of them :( As for the search function, I find it works most of the time, but occasionally I search for something and get nothing from the in-site search, or the google site search it links to at the bottom. Maybe I just search for more obscure stuff than you, though :lol: That said, I do think Chartstats is a great site, and it's also ironically (considering that's not really its purpose) probably one of the best sites for old CD artwork :lol:

If Aqua qualifies for even the wildcard round I'll officially lose my faith in this site. I can understand Whigfield qualifying in a $h!t year for #1s such as 1994, but 1997 is the second best year for #1s ever (after 1998 :heart:). Would be just insulting to even call that one of the best :( Also Puff Daddy and his utter faux-sentimental money-grabbing tosh, but I'm pretty sure that won't qualify anyway.

True, but EveryHit has some very nice features such as the Chart Records section and the Retro Charts (which haven't been updated for a few years, but still) :P All have their different uses, IMO. Chartstats has a few errors and a really clumsy search function (not to mention bad crediting) so I only really use it for looking at weekly charts, and then use Polyhex for looking at singles peaks/runs.