superbossanova

^ They are both awful, no need to try and argue which one is better than the other. I guess Ironik in general has been forgotten because of the legion of British rappers that came after the two years or so after him - all of which are surely better. My sister was listening to a lot of music like that Stay With Me song at the time. You know, those awful helium-styled vocals. Horrendous stuff. What is the appeal? :no:

I adore this song. Gorgeous chilled R&B (almost the best thing ever when done right!). Still listen to this more than any of their earlier better-known songs (although It's Alright also gets a lot of love from me - if only for the way it goes from ballad to dance stomper with that cheap explosion affect in the background). Betcha Can't Wait was also pretty decent I thought, but it doesn't have the same vibe as this that I just LOVE.

Wow, only two appearances as a backing vocalist before, and nothing after that 911 single? That surely must make her one of the least accomplished singers to appear on a top 3 single. I suppose it's a nice thing to tell any kids she might have later had at least!

Whitney Houston Shania Twain Britney Spears Beyonce Madonna Mariah Carey Alicia Keys Lily Allen Eugh, I wish Mariah could have been drawn against anyone else here. The shame of going down to P!nk...

Who IS she anyway? I was so baffled at the time as I had never seen her before. I mostly associated collaborations with big names at that point so I found it very strange. If they had collaborated with a female singer someone had heard of maybe they could have got an actual decent-sized hit by their standards, but of course a boyband like 911 were always more than a bit low budget. :D

Girls Aloud were often stupid with their release dates in 2003-04. I remember it was a constant source of frustration for GA fans (me included) at the time. It's like they didn't even look at the release schedule when picking when to release. Other examples include The Show going up against Usher's Burn and losing in one of the greatest chart injustices of all-time, Love Machine stalling at #2 behind Eric Prydz :angry: A shame they had to resort to two charity singles to get that next #1 (and an even bigger shame aside from that didn't come for another four years after that - although I remember the excitement when Something Kinda Oooh entered at #5 on downloads alone for it to climb "only" two places with the physical release while frickin' McFly got the #1 that week -_-). Sorry, I'm finished rambling now. Just bringing back a lot of frustrations I'd long since forgotten about. :D

I mostly remember this one for its chart battle with Another Level, in what surely be one of the most crap battles for #1 in history. Two B-list boybands going at it, both with boring and uninspired songs. Did anyone even care about the outcome? The fact that neither got anywhere near #1 again, and were over by the time 2000 rolled around, adds an amusing edge to it in retrospect, with them jostling for their last chance of some relevance and hope of being in the spotlight. If 911 had to get a #1 (although I would rather they hadn't as I believe it reflects badly on the time period), I would've quite liked it to have been Private Number, which was actually decent. Must have been the affect of that random female singer they dragged in.

I agree about Space although I only know their singles - most of the others are great too! Neighbourhood is awesome, LOVE the lyrics. I did think Always There and Seven Ways To Love might be reaching back a bit for most people here to know (apart from Gezza :D) but anything before the late 1990s has been relatively uncovered by this thread thus far. I only know Always There because I have it on a compilation which I was just listening to the other day which reminded me of it, and I remembered the Cola Boy song from looking for the peak of AT on Chartstats... Fair enough, but I don't think any Michelle Gayle song is remembered in general TBH. I almost put Sweetness here as well but as this one had a lower peak and less longevity I assumed it wouldn't be as remembered. Certainly I had no idea of its existence until 2008(?) but Sweetness has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid.

And that's fair enough. I do wish the lyrics were at least less distractingly bad as everything else is strong and it would be another All Saints classic for me. But instead it gets pushed down to just a good track personally. I do think Saints & Sinners is a decent album despite the fact that I've mostly criticised it in this little discussion, but as the debut is one of my favourite albums of its era, it's hard not to compare and contrast it and it was just a huge let-down for me (plus it's easier to criticise than praise something, you know :heehee:). Aww, I really like Take the Key and Alone. Not tracks that wow me like the ones I mentioned but I like the whole vibe and groove of them both a lot. As you said earlier, it's the consistent sound of the album that makes a lot of the tracks shine more than anything. Glad you love Heaven too, though, I would have had to end this discussion if you said otherwise! :D I know what you mean with your other comment. I adore All Saints and they are one of my favourite girl bands of all-time but aside from casual appreciation for songs like Pure Shores and Never Ever it's rare to find someone who loves them the same way. I rave about them on this forum almost everytime they're mentioned and this is the first time it's led to any kind of in-depth discussion so thank you for that! Hopefully you stick around as a member. ^_^

Surrender sounds GORGEOUS, yes. Although again I feel like its let down a bit by poor songwriting. I don't pay too much attention to lyrics of any song (in general terms) but sometimes it's hard not to notice when they drop in a dodgy rhyme or something. But I think the backing track is good enough to compensate. What are your favourites on the debut? I think they mostly made the right single choices but I HAVE to rave about Heaven which is probably up there with Never Ever and War Of Nerves on me in terms of quality (i.e. 10/10 tracks). It wouldn't have worked as a single but it's sooo good. :wub:

I don't think there's any need to extend it to top 20 or whatever when there's still plenty of life left in this thread IMO. This has been a great thread as it is! Loved 1 Giant Leap and Ainslie Henderson from the ones recently mentioned. :) Anyway, some more from me to keep things bubbling over (apologies if any are repeats, it's getting hard to keep up!): FKDZsCcvG1k Good piece of early 90s dance with fantastic vocals from Jocelyn Brown. #6 in 1991. TPeNEMjjwRk Side-project of Saint Etienne, this was in the top 10 at the same time as the above and reached #8. Don't like it personally but maybe someone else will? JujgTMCyfB4 Second top 10 hit from Michelle Gayle, coming in early 1997. Sweetness is a 90s pop classic for me and this one is almost as good. :wub: uiRMzC4aKVQ Had forgotten this one reached top 10. Biggest hit from MJ Cole in 2000 and a better example of garage than most of the big hits of that period. CjUy9rzJ8qc Very good Britpop band but perhaps coming too late in the wave to be up there with the classics. Their best remembered single is probably Female Of The Species which you can still occasionally hear in the background on random TV things. l6gauistUic Another song that only reached the top 10 more because of what it followed. This isn't as good as Missing but coming "just below" the standard of Missing is still a pretty damn brilliant song. 7IEv8VijN60 Single from the actress of Casualty fame. I had forgotten about this completely until recently despite it making the top 10 at the height of my chart geekery (early 2000). :wacko:

I'm glad someone else loves Bootie Call. I have to fight the urge to comment back whenever someone on here unfairly slags it off because they're not a fan of the hip hop/R&B crossover sound it obviously draws from.

Yeah, I know a lot of people prefer Saints & Sinners (and some even Studio 1). I think the fact there's no real consensus on what their best album was is a testament to how versatile, and adaptable with it, they were. Certainly you could never accuse any of their albums of sounding the same. For me, the debut is streets ahead though. I just totally dig that low-key R&B sound and their vocals on that album are SO smooth. Saints & Sinners has its highlights but outside of the Orbit tracks, the songwriting and production is a notable step down from the first album IMO. I mean, I know it's an obvious target but Ha Ha? :no: Just makes the whole thing have an air of tackyness about it compared to the debut which was oozing with class.

LOVE War Of Nerves. See, this is the kind of track that made any comparison with the Spice Girls ridiculous (as much as I love them too). Just gorgeous soulful vocals from Shaznay & Melanie. Exquisite production (as you'd expect from Cameron McVey), too. A divine single. The parent album still remains one of my favourite girl group albums - extremely high standard and I played it to death in 1998/early 1999 - and as you said it's a shame the only way was down from there. :( I'm Doing Fine Now - I like this one. Charles & Eddie would do the same sound much better later in 1992 (and have the #1 to prove it) but this is still a little earworm.

The first minute of this song is the girl group version of pure heaven in recorded form. :heart: (The rest of the song is pretty good, too, for the record.)

The Backstreet Boys popping up in Gezza's current countdown thread yesterday indirectly reminded me of this: EDvRs3SceGo #8 in October 2005. Dropped to #36(!) in its second week, never to be seen or heard of again. It's better than I remember it being, to be honest (the video, however, is not.)

So Iron Maiden and The Clash tie the record if you exclude featured credits? I don't like the practice of counting featured credits in these kind of stats. It completely ruins the chart records as anyone can jump on a song to do a rap verse they wrote in 1 hour and then sit back without having to do anything else like promotion, etc. They can add chart appearances at ridiculous rates because of this. In my opinion, Snoop Dogg has never had a #1. Stereophonics and the Manic Street Preachers must also rank high on this list.

Eww! This one is awful. BSB were only ever good for their ballads. For some reason, their attempts at uptempos were usually embarrassing and cheap (especially since at this point they were the biggest group on the planet), EXCEPT the fluke of Everybody, which is, of course, one of the best party tunes of its era. Larger Than Life doesn't come an inch of the joy of that.

Who are you replying to? My post was saying it ISN'T forgotten. (Unless you're responding to whoever mentioned it in this thread in the first place, but that is just confusing and what the quote button was invented for.)

Saying it's forgotten is a bit of a stretch though. Some songs are so unique (in either a good or bad way) that the public don't need constant reminders of their existence (via airplay or some other form) to remember them. I would also put Babycakes mentioned a few pages back in this category, and various novelty hits.

I preferred Lost Without Each Other. Penny & Me was boring. Their 90s hits are unbearable for me because, whoever the lead singer is (I can't tell them apart, but I think it's the middle one of the brothers), his voice is irritating as hell :arrr: Did he sing lead on those 2005 hits as well? Well, at least he came out alright post-puberty. I loved Bills, Bills, Bills at the time. It was pretty much a lesser No Scrubs but since that was a huge favourite of mine back in '99, I was hardly going to turn my nose up at a similar song coming out a few months later. Bug-A-Boo was the best single from TWOTW though but it did less well (probs due to being a bit less commercial for the typical R&B of that time) so won't be on this list. Ah well. Most of my Destiny's Child favourites were their least successful singles actually...

Emma Bunton Kelis Kylie Minogue Amy Winehouse Madonna Whitney Houston Mariah Carey Shania Twain Rihanna Beyonce Christina Aguilera Cher Geri Halliwell Alexandra Burke Dannii Minogue Lily Allen Hmm, aren't these kind of things supposed to get harder by the round? This was the easiest one yet for me :D

What is the significance of being a member of both here and Haven? Are the two sites affiliated somehow? :unsure: I don't think I've ever heard of Haven. This is the only (active) chart site I'm a member of, though I used to be on UKMix years ago and got banned! (and if anyone would wonder how I get could get banned from a site when I'm so polite and well-mannered here :angel: - well, let's just say I was much younger then.)

This is the albums chart, but when Melanie B's L.A. State of Mind missed the top 200, Music Week mentioned its position as 453 in the sales report. Here's the report - it's in the last paragraph: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?section...storycode=14375

Aww, Don't You Love Me is decent if you look past the nonsensical lyrics. Musically it's great. Of course they had to put the children's choir at the end to add some extra GRAVITAS to the message (but in reality only managing to send the cringe-meter to heights that are off the scale). Kinda bizarre that it became their highest charting hit to that point but I guess their peaks were always going to naturally improve compared to the early-to-mid-1990s when songs weren't so focused into week one. Surely of the songs they released before (obviously the follow-up outsold it by miles!), Power Of A Woman and Oh Baby I at least must have outsold it... Just A Step From Heaven stands out a lot among Eternal's singles. It sounds a bit dated now in places but the chorus still contains a great powerful hook, and it FEELS like it has a bit of personality and identity to it away from the wishy-washy stuff. Certainly one of their few songs that could even begin to match up to the American groups of that kind.