superbossanova

In all honesty, this probably WAS the worst single they released in the 1990s. Not that it's bad as such, it's a perfectly catchy and well-constructed pop song, etc, but it's a TOUCH characterless by the Spice Girls standards. Although one could perhaps say the same about their ballads but I actually think they have something special about them compared to other girlgroup ballads and are some of the finest entries into their canon. Plus why was it almost a RULE of 90s pop that every group had to do some motown-aping song and release it as a single? Some fitted that style better than others - with the Spice Girls it was far from being a good sound for them. All that being said, it's hard to see any song that would have done better against the might of It's Like That or even sold much more than the 115k opening figure, even if I prefer almost every other song on Spiceworld compared to Stop. Incidentally, I used to absolutely love watching the video of ILT with all the break-dancing when it was shown at the end of TOTP during its stint at #1 so I can't say even as a Spice loon I begrudged it too much for keeping them off. :lol:

I think I've just realised what the other two are now. One who had a #1 single in 2002, and another who had a high-selling #2 in 1997 I believe. Have to say both have never entered my mind as fitting into this category for some reason. Going off-topic slightly but I'm sure this is the 3rd or 4th time you've been on holiday in the past year!! Someone certainly isn't strapped for cash. :D

Well, yes, we are basically rinsing out the Boyzone and Westlife catalogues now before we get to the upper percentile of their hits that actually managed to reach further than their ever-devoted fanbases. A Different Beat is a turd-like bore that sounds like they recorded it after listening to The Lion King soundtrack. And as for Every Day I Love You, I'm not sure there has been or will be a more non-event of a song on this countdown. I scarcely remember it from the time (I imagine I used it as a prime TOILET BREAK opportunity during its stint in the top 40) and despite having just listened to that clip, I really do not remember a thing about it STILL apart from the title was mentioned somewhere in the song - but considering that can be said about the near enough absolute majority of popular music it doesn't say much. Amazing that both these outsold Picture Of You which as gooddelta said is certainly one of their few classics IMO but I guess with the dramatic change in style/tempo at the time it was either going to reach out in a huge way or relatively underperform and it seems it ended up being the latter. Interesting to see MN8 feature so high up. Does that make them the highest act with only one appearance? I've Got A Little Something For You is a good song anyhow and I have to say I didn't realise until now they were British! Whether that's a testament to how well they slipped into the American R&B sound of the time or what I do not know.

Hmm, even the likes of Take That had the moment/year where they were bigger than the rest of their career though. 1993 in Take That's case. I can't really comment as Spicemania was the first of that kind of buzz I was around for to remember (and even that's a bit hazy in my mind). Perhaps it's the case with Take That and Boyzone that they had more appeal to the old as well as young as they also dabbled in with the ballads, compared to Bros who (apart from that song with the title I refuse to type on principal) mostly did the same kind of packaged, upbeat pop which you tend to associate more with kids. And obviously self-respecting adults aren't going to be so involved in that kind of frenzy in the same way as they've seen it all before so to speak. Also perhaps the thing with Bros is that it was still so relatively new that it felt exciting for both kids and older teenagers to be a part of. With the likes of Take That and Boyzone, while there's a new generation of kids around to enjoy it, the ones who were younger when Bros were big would have now been teenagers and would probably also have that sense of knowing and refusing to get sucked in by the hype again (as they did before).

Oh dear, I was dreading the moment Westlife entered the picture here! At least we should be getting most of their songs out of the way in quick succession as all bar a few sold similar amounts - but on the other hand that's going to lead to a grim next few days in this thread. :o :D As for this one, I would say it was decent but that's only in comparison to what came after. I didn't like it too much at the time at all. I say with any due amount of shame that I LOVED the debut at the time and also bought it - this, on the other hand, just did nothing for me.

This has always been one of my Five favourites as well. Great funky vibe, and one of the rare occasions where Abs raps don't make you cringe and only serve well in adding to the flow of the record. I would say it SHOULD be a radio staple (rather than being practically a forgotten #1 :() but I think Keep On Movin' already had that sewn up anyway. I imagine radio programmers would rather die than have more than one Five record in rotation... like most acts from that era they've been shafted to the uncool category other than that one solitary song.

An awful song that sounds like it's been overproduced to within an inch of its life to act as a smoke screen to the fact it's an incredibly poor tune. :no: How much did their first album sell out of interest? I know that album sales were in better shape than that of singles in the late 1980s which might have helped their sales to match the hype a bit more. Although it's not uncommon for the opposite to be the case with these kind of things - why? Because kids are easily led to want to fit in with the rest of their class (so will be happy to buy the latest Bros merchandise, perhaps) and more importantly, the music always comes second with these kind of groups anyway. :D

I wouldn't say Boyz II Men were a controversial inclusion if you were including En Vogue, who they were essentially a male version of! (Well, except without the attitude any killer tunes, but you get the idea). And En Vogue themselves were a 90s remake of 60s groups like The Supremes and The Ronettes - who nobody in the music press ever denies are girl groups. So by that conjunction I agree they were a boyband. I was expecting them to come up really. I'll Make Love To You, though... umm, no thanks! :D One True Voice - just pitiful. Mind you, Sacred Trust was full of life compared to After You're Gone (which I am possibly the only person in the world who remembers it, even though it's dreary as f*** and without any memorable characteristics - blame the fact I used to be glued to the music channels until about 2004/05).

+15 Idlewild - You Held The World In Your Arms +12 Pink - Don't Let Me Get Me +10 Celine Dion - A New Day Has Come +8 George Michael - Freeek! +6 Coldplay - The Scientist +5 Manic Street Preachers - There By The Grace Of God +4 Moony - Dove (I'll Be Loving You) +3 Afroman - Crazy Rap +2 Milky - Just The Way You Are +1 U2 - Electrical Storm -2 Blazin' Squad - Love On The Line (despite stiff competition, this gets the nod as the worst effort here. Truly atrocious in EVERY way - I feel a bit sick just thinking about it. :no:)

This song is loveliness personified, beautifully sung. :heart: The Monica version, in comparison, is crap (and I far prefer her to Eternal in general) - she just doesn't put the same soothing tone to it that Eternal do IMO. I actually quite like Drop The Boy... by Bros standards, anyway. Although it still has that awful plastic 80s sound to it, somehow it's not as overbearing with it as WWIBF?

Bootie Call was too urban to have mass appeal and sell that much (considering this was 1998) and maybe didn't deserve to be #1 in that respect but it's still ace. I just love the ominously creeping production that manages to make the whole thing sound like some dark, sordid fantasy.

You can find loads of examples of these on the chart records page at Everyhit.com: http://www.everyhit.com/record.html#r1

FYI, the version of J-Lo's Ain't It Funny is the Ja Rule/Murda Inc. remix and NOT the original version that was out in 2001. This should really be specified on the list so people don't get confused as the two songs are completely different (despite only being a "remix") and from entirely different genres...

Well yes, Holler is really rubbish, and another song that was shamelessly ripping off No Scrubs in 1999/2000. Let Love Lead The Way is a flat retread of former glories that never gets even close to lifting off the ground. Phoned in pretty much defines both. The worst thing is this was still one of the "best" things on THAT album. A truly tragic fall from grace when you consider the previous album Spiceworld is practically the magnum opus of the late 90s teen/bubblegum pop era. Makes me still a bit sad now TBH. :cry:

Speaking of B*Witched's first album, this is possibly the most WTF moment on any late 90s pop album: ugUCuVNbIT0 Irish Jig (DRUM AND BASS remix). T'was wasted as an intro - we needed a full version and for it to be a single! :(

Hmm, I was never a fan of those kind of songs from Five. They tended to suffer from lack of melody and awful shouting/straining vocals. Not my cup of tea. Better than their We Will Rock You cover (which is one of the worst #1s ever) but that's all the praise I can give it. And Blame On The Weatherman is a bit of a BORE too. No real hook and their unfortunately characterless vocals don't help matters. I know for a fact there were better songs on that album just crying out for release, such as the Jackson 5-sampling Rev It Up and the rather lovely Oh Mr. Postman, which I thought was like the most beautiful song ever as a kid. (And yes, I did just listen to the album the other week, hence why I can remember these so vividly.) That 1-9 drop was definitely a shock though! Although I was more floored when Emma Bunton went 1-1-8 with What Took You So Long? The concept of her only getting two weeks because it was dead the second didn't even enter my mind back then, being at #1 for more than a week ALWAYS suggested the song was hugely popular to me in those fleeting days, so dropping to #8 after that seemed inexplicable. :o

I've just checked and there are about SEVEN #2 singles from 2003 that I full on love, and a few more I like. I don't really know your music taste though so it's hard to tell which ones will get slagged off and which you'd be more kind to. I kind of have a rough idea but... we'll see. :thinking: Luckily Wayne Wonder only peaked at #3! That is honestly probably my favourite song of 2003. It makes me go all fuzzy with nostalgia inside. :D

Oddly I felt that 2003 was a MAJOR improvement. In fact, 2002 is the only year from 1997-2005 that I don't love, which is rather strange. I have a big soft spot though for R&B music as much as a lot of older people see it as trash, and the summer which really felt like the "summer of R&B" with the likes of Wayne Wonder (:heart:), Blu Cantrell, Beyoncé, etc. really holds a lot of memories for me. Plus I felt the pop of 2003 was much better than 2002 (I'll christen this "the Sugababes affect"), and rock music was on the upswing commercially again which made things a bit more varied than 2002 IMO.

I had forgotten about this thread! Blame your girl group/boy band thread for distracting my interest. :D And what a time I picked to view it again! I really despised 2002, at least at the upper reaches of the charts. Probably the first year since I started following music five years before that, where I really felt a bit out-of-touch with what was popular. There was a definite notable decrease in the number of singles I bought compared to 1999-2001, and most of the songs I bought in this year didn't get anywhere near the top 10. Most people cite the reality TV domination as the nadir of the year, and while that was BAD, at least it came out with a few good songs - it was the awful move to more "urban-pop" acts, probably a consequence of the rise of garage years before that I found completely without merit. The likes of Liberty X and Blue were just horrendous attempts to market pop with a bit more coolness (while in reality having none), and then of course the worst came with *shudders* Blazin' Squad. For the record, the success of Scooter was once again almost ENTIRELY down to The Box, where it was a hugely popular song - I think it was in the Boxtops chart for about three or four months, at least two of those before the rest of the public caught on (hence its low entry down the top 10 before climbing up). So basically The Box got it into the top 10 and then once it was there, OH DEAR. The success of almost any novelty-ish song from about 1996-2004 can be blamed on The Box to be honest (it's no coincidence that they died out a bit after that - well, except for Swagger Jagger). Anyway, I absolutely frickin' DESPISED it at the time and don't think much differently of it now. Another thing I hated about in the charts in 2002 was all these shitty eurodance songs. S Club Juniors - yuck, yuck, yuck!! Hated them. Maybe their songs WOULD be more liked if they were sung by someone else but then they wouldn't have their kiddy, paper thin voices over them so it's a bit of a pointless argument IMO. Just a bad, cynical concoction. I am in agreement that Automatic High was their worst though. Ironically the first single of theirs I actually liked was their last one - Don't Tell Me You're Sorry, but clearly I was alone on that as it was a relative flop. I actually have no thoughts on the Coldplay, Oasis OR Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes - sorry, but they're so inoffensive to me they're just there. All have done miles better. I'd be rather useless if I was running this thread to be honest, wouldn't I? :D EDIT: Sorry for this rather long post! I was just posting my thoughts on the songs but it ended up being more like a rant! :D

Rihanna, if only for Russian Roulette (+ a couple of others). I probably like more Gaga songs on pure % of material, though... This is far from being my preferred final. In fact I think I've voted against Rihanna almost every round yet now I'm voting FOR her to win, so go figure there.

+15 Basement Jaxx - Romeo +12 Robbie Williams - Let Love Be Your Energy +10 Madonna - What It Feels Like For A Girl +8 Ash - Shining Light +6 Gabrielle - Don't Need The Sun To Shine (To Make Me Smile) +5 Sum 41 - Fat Lip +4 M.O.P. featuring Busta Rhymes - Ante Up +3 A*Teens - Upside Down +2 Oxide & Neutrino - Up Middle Finger +1 Cher - The Music's No Good Without You -2 DJ Otzi - Doo Wah Diddy Well, that definitely wasn't as tough as 2000, but still had to leave out a few songs I really like. :(

Actually the last Five single was the Closer To Me / Rock The Party AA-side in October. Penultimate would be a more accurate term. :D For the record, I think this song is an abysmal cover. So typical for a boyband to go to complete and utter dross after a decent start. It happens with almost all of them - JLS, McFly, etc. Heck, even Westlife were bearable for their first few singles! Then they realise that they don't need to make any effort to get pretty much the same return, so out comes the endless display of lazy, dull, unimaginitive crap. At least All Rise is deservedly Blue's highest entry in this chart, although I imagine Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word (a duet with Elton John, so excluded here because of that) might have outsold it overall.

I have to confess this is BY FAR my favourite and most played Eternal track. I have a huge amount of love for generic girlband ballads in general anyway, but the understated approach, both vocally and production-wise, really hits the spot for me on this one. Proper lovely stuff. That cover sleeve is a bit dodgy though... especially poor Kelle at the end, who looks positively beaverish!

Yuck! For some reason I really HATE the expression "cat among the pigeons" (not that you hear it much, thankfully) - why would anyone use it as a song title? :puke2:

Biggest sum totals of the top 3/4/5 singles in a week? There was that other classic top 3 earlier in 1999 where Whitney sold something ridiculously high to debut at #3, with Britney spending a second week at #1 and Blur debuting at #2. I think it was 160k off the top of my head.