superbossanova

Surely B*Witched weren't expected to beat Christina Aguilera? :o Maybe I had an advantage being closer to the age of the kind of markets they were aimed at, but I clearly remember the huge trail of hype Christina had behind her. Smash Hits were going on about her for months before I had even heard the song, all the comparisons to Britney in the media, the video seemed to be all over the place, everyone I knew loved it, etc. Plus the hip urban production and electro-stylings made it far cooler and with wider appeal than anything B*Witched could muster (although this one I only say in retrospect). :D It was easily the most popular song of the last few months of 1999 at my school anyway. To be honest, B*Witched seemed to diminish in popularity VERY rapidly among people I knew after Rollercoaster so I wasn't too surprised at them missing #1... even I had stopped caring by this point. It was a pretty weak track to be honest. Not bad, just flat and losing the spark that made them popular in the first place a bit. I Shall Be There was a bizarre trend-jumping collaboration, roping in The Soup Gang when any casual interest from that advert had long since evaporated. However, I did like Jump Down ("you ran away with my spoon, you've stolen my heart"). :)

Plus it's one of the few songs you just HAVE to listen to from start to finish every time because of the amazing outro :heart: (which I somehow forgot to mention before).

Yep, remember it well. I was slightly terrified of the song for ages exactly because of THAT performance. Watching her thrashing on stage in that straight-jacket like she was possessed was just a bit o_O for me at the time (although that was the point I guess!) Here's the TOTP performance. Doesn't look so scary all these years later though. :D nOAfwfhjpn8 AMAZING song, by the way. One of my favourite dance tunes of the 90s, easily.

Such a lush song. It just floats along in this zen-like state, with the slightly detached vocals, lyrics that sound like half-finished sentences and spacious electronic bleeps washing over you. I LOVE the short but sweet bridge ("each moment is new, freeze the moment"). And then the chorus is beautifully harmonious. Gorgeous single. As you said, this single was really botched by the situation in the band at the time. If they had promoted it more it could have sold a lot more, I think. Mind you, the album still went 2xPlatinum (although mainly only because of Xmas sales) off the back of it so what do I know... *shrug*

Lady Gaga - I own one album each by these two, but the Kylie album belongs in the trash TBH. Madonna - Very easy, even though I haven't liked any Madonna song since What It Feels Like For A Girl (11 years ago!) there's no denying the catalogue that came before.

Can a moderator please delete my last post in this thread (post #46)? I didn't even realise that had gone through. Well, I say "gone through" but considering most of that post was eaten by the forum I guess it didn't exactly. Bizarre. ANYWAY, so this post looks less random when/if the above post is deleted, I like the new design too. Looks a bit more modern without losing its simplicity and becoming a clunky, difficult to navigate mess. Not sure how I feel about the singles and albums chart being on the same page though - it's a good idea in theory but the two columns don't line up very well which irks me a little bit. I have noticed already though if you follow the links from the artist and songs pages you can still see the singles or albums chart for that particular week on its own though.

+15 Wu-Tang Clan - Gravel Pit +12 Wyclef Jean featuring Mary J. Blige - 911 +10 Shania Twain - Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You) +8 Pet Shop Boys - You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk +6 MJ Cole - Crazy Love +5 Jamelia featuring Beenie Man - Money +4 Mandy Moore - Candy +3 Dr. Dre featuring Eminem - Forget About Dre +2 Fatboy Slim - Sunset (Bird Of Prey) +1 Mariah Carey - Thank God I Found You -2 Bon Jovi - Say It Isn't So OMG. Can not believe I had to leave out songs I LOVE, probably a first for me in one of these games. In fact I could have easily voted for ANOTHER ten and still not even be beginning to struggle to find songs to vote for. Special mentions to the Honeyz, Moby, Wookie/Lain, Mansun, Savage Garden, Billie Piper, Texas, Coldplay, Madison Avenue AND Ricky Martin/Meja - I really wanted to vote for all of those too. :(

I don't think there are any others but I haven't exactly checked thoroughly and I'm not that geekish to know the rough chart run of every single song here. :lol: The Mary Mary song just jumped out at me when scanning through as it was HUGE at the time and I thought there was no way it could have only been in the top 10 for one week so went to double-check. Anyway, I'm not sure I can vote this round. I have enough trouble ordering my votes in these kind of things even on lists of about 20 or something, let alone when there are as many fabulous songs as on this one. 2000 was such a great year. :( I might TRY and do it tomorrow but it'll be painstaking [/overdramatic].

It's probably a bit late to say this now when so many people have voted already, but this song was in the top 10 for four weeks...

Not too fond of When The Lights Go Out. It's fair to say Five hadn't quite found their own style yet at this point. Not surprising it did well in the US when it got a push there - it's hardly worlds apart from being the same sound the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC were pedalling around this time. Of course this was after the Spice Girls had opened up America for a whole assortment of British pop acts - Cleopatra, B*Witched, Jimmy Ray... is it any wonder US radio practically blacklisted British acts in the years directly afterwards after some of the stuff that made it over there in that period? :D TLC!! :heart: I was a big fan of them in '99 - had all three of the singles and of course the album. Unpretty was the worst of the three for me but still good. On a related note, shame that Creep missed out on the top 200 (even if you combined both releases of it I doubt it would be enough to go over the 200k mark considering its bigger release was in the lower January period and its first release missed the top 20). That one is all-time favourite material for me. :cry:

Yeah, I did notice that before. What was that all about? I didn't even realise it had any kind of enduring popularity. It's a decent song, although the lead singer's voice has a shrieky tone to it that grates after a while, so it's one that I can only stand in small doses. Their brief US popularity looks rather ridiculous over two decades on - only at the transition into the 90s when the likes of Phil Collins and Richard Marx were dominating US radio could THAT kind of shit happen. I guess in terms of Billboard chart history they were a bit like the US version of poor B*Witched and their four #1s, all forgotten bar the first. On a slight tangent, SWV are another girl group who were HUGE in the US for an album or two but virtually one-hit wonders here, and will probably be coming up shortly with their one big UK hit. (Although their biggest US hit is a different song that was also far superior.) Back on topic, Take On Me was an unnecessary cover. What a shame that A1 had to go the easy way to get a #1 hit after some quality pop tunes on their first album. :( Although perhaps in this case I can give it a pass as I doubt the rather fantastic follow-up Same Old Brand New You would have reached #1 otherwise.

Haha, not really a fan as such - so I guess my perfectness ends here! :D I didn't like them all at the time, mainly because they just made my brain reach for the snooze button. With age I guess you can appreciate ballads more and they certainly had their fair share of well-crafted ballads. So that and probably partly nostalgia as well has turned me into a bit of a casual fan. I have their Greatest Hits but that's it.

I remember I only got "hand-me-downs" from what my brother had before (who is quite a bit older than me and was in secondary school at this point), so I had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one despite the TV show being past the peak of its popularity. I also had a Turtles lunchbox and back pack. :cry: Things like this is why it absolutely SUCKED being the youngest. I had loads of Spice Girls merchandise but not any for school. They were the only act I've ever really bought any of that stuff by but I think even at that age I realised there was something a little girl-y about the way lots of them were designed with copious amounts of pink used, etc, so at the risk of being teased I managed to contain myself from buying things like Spice Girls lunch boxes and pencil tins and taking them into class. It's strange but I REALLY don't remember what everyone else had on their pencil tins and lunch boxes at primary school. I guess I wasn't very observant!

Just realised the single they released after SMTMOBL was actually The One, then Shape Of My Heart after that. As a Backstreet Boys fan you should have been corrected me on this! :D Well, that song is just crap anyway so who cares if anyone airbrushes it from history. They have a lot of songs on a similar level for me. I like quite a few but don't LOVE them. However, I say with only a tiny amount of shame that I really like I'll Never Break Your Heart, Quit Playing Games, Everybody, I Want It That Way, Shape Of My Heart, and Drowning. :drama:

Most people won't listen to the YouTube links though. Pointless waste of time for maybe one or two people who will. I remember when I did a couple of rounds of the Ultimate #1s games while Daniel was banned for a week, I put in YouTube links to the songs as I noticed a lot of people voting for songs they didn't know by "default" to fill up the required 10 votes before yet they ignored them anyway - and that was with far less songs. I hope you know in the early-to-mid 00s it was very common, if not normal, for there to be 2-3 new entries PER WEEK that only spent one week in the top 10... I think it needs to be stricter than that. Perhaps top 10 hits that spent less than a certain amount of weeks in the top 40? Not sure how many really.

Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely is a bit TOO overly serious for what I look for in a good Backstreet Boys single. Not enough sugar-y pop sweetness in the chorus for me, Mr. Martin. The single they released after this though - Shape Of My Heart - was rather ace and one of their best. If You Love Me is classy as f***. It doesn't even matter that it's a fairly generic, run-of-the-mill R&B ballad as the vocals and harmonies elevate it SO much - brilliant stuff, and definitely does NOT deserve to be forgotten. 5 Miles To Empty and Kiss & Tell also get a lot of love from moi in the Brownstone catalogue.

They were as useless at uptempos as they were at everything else in general (Party People... Friday Night is one of the limpest efforts for a party tune I've EVER heard) - but this one is so of its time production-wise, being a noted 90s freak I can't help but quite like it.

I barely even remember how the I Love The Way You Love Me one goes myself to be honest - they were the proto-Westlife in the respect they had so many ballads unless you're a huge fan you'd struggle to tell them apart. Didn't help that some of them have similar titles either. I know "love" is a common topic, etc, but Every Day I Love You vs. I Love The Way You Love Me, All That I Need vs. You Needed Me! Ack! :arrr: I only know that You Needed Me was the one that kept off Geri Halliwell's Look At Me in another one of the all-time great chart injustices (do we have a thread for these somewhere? :D) My favourite Boyzone song is actually Love You Anyway - it was jumping on the 60s revivalism trend but it was a surprisingly good direction for them to go down at their age which I liked and they definitely should have continued on, rather than seemingly abandoning it as soon as they got their foot through the door again. A bit like a sister song to Picture Of You which also had that same kind of thing going on.

I was right there with you up until I Love The Way You Love Me - that surely would have been one of the biggest "how does this go again?" #1s ever if it got there. :D Until The Time Is Through is great but Got The Feelin' is my favourite Five song, brings back serious memories of Summer '98 for me - the very summery video helped that! Could have been their first #1 if they didn't release it the same week as the battle of football songs (Baddiel & Skinner/Fat Les). Both should be coming up here later anyway.

Also RE: the album chart mentioned above - having just checked I believe he has the chart for 19/2/2000 posted as the 12/2/2000, so that's the one he seems to be missing and has somehow repeated that chart twice instead. It does affect the peak of some albums (e.g. Primal Scream - Exterminator peaked at #3, not #7). Does anyone have the album chart for 12/2/2000 they could also send him to correct that? I don't myself, but I'm sure someone here MUST have...

Well if anyone has the rest of the top 75 albums chart for those years, then send it to him! If you go to the contact page and say you've got some chart data to send you should be able to find some way to get it to him as an e-mail attachment or some sort. This is what I did when I sent him some data a few years back.

I think the T2 song is well remembered in some circles. It was quite unique at the time to be fair, and spawned a bit of a bassline trend that led to H Two O and probably some other hits I've forgotten. I only remember being annoyed that it stopped Call The Shots from even going to #2, let alone #1. Porn Kings vs DJ Supreme... yep, another January one for this thread, which used to be THE prime month for top 10 hits that would be forgotten by March. :D Anyway, some more from me (all from the year 2005!): pa8rOBxJ9n8 Garbage's last decent-sized hit (let's face it, the singles from their next album will be lucky to make the top 100), this reached #7 in April 2005. I played this one on REPEAT back then - so addictive. :heart: QUnXTAD9JR4 And also the last time Melanie C reached the top 10 on the exact same week! I bought both, probably at the same time I'd assume. Anyway, this was her last decent song really (I no longer pay attention to her but what I've heard has been dreck). xwhBRJStz7w&ob=av2e And completing a trio of 2005 forgotten top 10 hits, this one gave Nine Inch Nails their biggest UK hit by miles, perhaps more as a knee-jerk reaction to their long break before than anything else, plus the low sales threshold no doubt helped too. I guess it's a well-remembered by a certain (rock) audience but the public would draw a blank here I'd expect. This one was on MTV2 constantly at the time!

Oh, and what a fabulous (and underrated!) song to be the first you remember! :wub:

1999-2001 were my years of full on chart loondom, where I could tell you what position a song was at on that particular week, recite all the #1s from that period in order (which is quite an achievement when you consider 2000 famously had the most #1s in a year ever, yet I used to be able to name every single one of them!), and other things I'd be embarrassed about now. After that, I mellowed a bit and become less obsessed, and have held a more casual interest ever since. The music now is... well, I'm sure some people like it, but overall it's not to my taste, but I still like the stats side of things, watching the way the songs move, etc, even if I don't necessarily appreciate them. Stretch that back to 1997 and it's my favourite five year period as that's when I begun watching TOTP and hearing music of the time first hand. And I also liked 2003-2005 (which is the period where I bought more singles than ever before - ironically, considering the public did the opposite!) First song? Hmm... I'd say Saturday Night in 1994. Or maybe that's just more imprinted in my mind because of HOW huge it was, but it sticks out anyway.

Lady Gaga Madonna Britney Spears (...) Beyonce