dandy*

Oh my god, I really wasn't expecting to Q this month! Especially after seeing the predix thread so this is a major surprise 😮 Thank you for not leaving that until the end Klumzee! So far I think most of my faves are through so everything is going pretty well ☺️

All I Wanna Do was such a huge step up for Dannii, I really liked it at the time and I hadn't really liked anything she'd put out before. Tubthumping! Such a shame this didn't make #1, although obviously it still did amazingly for a band like them. I definitely went off it through overplay but it's grown on me a lot again since and is a very unique 90s hit. Filmstar is another decent track from Suede, the lyrics are a bit basic but it does have a strong enough melody and production. Which leaves us with Men in Black... I really liked it at the time, but it definitely hasn't aged that well. Culturally the film and the single felt like a pretty big deal though. Still not bad, just disappointing that it blocked Tubthumping. Still miles better than I'll Be Missing You though so still very happy it came along to get rid of that

Apparently this is my order for Discography: My ranking of Discography: The Complete Singles Collection: 1. It’s a Sin 2. Rent 3. Left to My Own Devices 4. So Hard 5. Being Boring 6. Always on My Mind 7. What Have I Done to Deserve This? 8. West End Girls 9. Suburbia 10. Domino Dancing 11. Jealousy 12. Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) 13. DJ Culture 14. Heart 15. It’s Alright 16. Love Comes Quickly 17. Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You) 18. Was It Worth It?

I actually don't know which I prefer. I'm going to have to think about it and then have no effect voting when Bad Romance wins regardless.

A sex trafficker with a tribute based around stalking no less 🫣

Not looking good for poor Julia-Sophie to qualify then - but that's okay, I knew it was more of a laid back grower when I entered it so only ever expected bottom half of the final at very best.

I kinda think there could be something in this. It's sort of like an extension of the Buzzjack Presents... series that Colm, Gooddelta and Wardy work on, but with members collaborating to create the ideas. I don't know if it's something that just appeals to me personally or whether it would also appeal to others.

191 | Jason Donovan - When You Come Back To Me This was the very first #1 of the 90s for me, ruling for the first week of January. This was a huge favourite at the time and would have been #1 all the way from its release had I been doing a chart in 1989. Obviously this is very dated now but at the time I thought it was easily his best single, and I was gutted when it never made #1 - never more so that this week when New Kids on the Block leapfrogged him whilst he stayed at #2 ahead of all the christmas songs that had beaten him in December. I think this is the biggest casualty of my format as it would be 91st on chart points alone (and that doesn't even include anything from 1989) yet is torn right down by it being one of the few songs in this countdown that I have really played since. Stuck at #2 in my chart was Madonna with another track that appealed to kids, the slightly magical Dear Jessie. The song never really gets a look in these days, it's one of those that I think she likes to pretend doesn't really exist, along with the likes of Hanky Panky and even True Blue. I don't think I realised it at the time but it definitely has a slightly Beatles-esque production that you could kind of see sitting with their work such as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or I am the Walrus etc - possibly a stretch but I'll stand by it 🤭 The other pick of this week is the Soul II Soul track that had also been big in the UK over the christmas period, but was probably a bit too cool for me - going with that as I can't say I'm huge on any of the new entries this week. The stats: Date: 07 January 1990 Weeks: One 1990s chart rank: 91 2020s plays rank: 258 Biggest song it kept from number one: Madonna - Dear Jessie Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: Soul II Soul - Get a Life

192 | Paula Abdul - Opposites Attract We go back to the beginning of the decade for the next track, Paula Abdul's sole #1 on my chart. Helped out by that oh so cool cartoon cat (performing the vocals of the Wild Pair), this does a pretty good job of encapsulating the style and tone of 1990. I always think it's so funny looking back at videos like this one, it really did seem very convincing at the time to me, yet it clearly is so basic in retrospect. It remains a really fun track though and one that I do still enjoy, even if it has been let down a bit in this ranking by the fact it isn't a genre or style I find myself listening to that often. Worth noting that it was a slow climb to #1 for this, it spent a few weeks at #2 behind a song still to come and I rather suspect I gave this a token week at the top to try and ensure that my faves all made it (those sorts of things are important to 10 year olds!), in reality I think this would have never made it past being my second favourite song at the time. Stuck behind the top 2 that locked out at least a month was the also excellent Dirty Cash, one of 1990s biggest dance singles. It's not a track I return to that often nowadays but it does have that great early 90s sound to it. Oddly the biggest fave now that I didn't love back then was the highest new entry of the week, the comeback single from Kylie! I don't really remember paying it too much attention at all, I think I'd decided by this point that it was too childish to like Kylie (as you do as you're preparing to go to secondary school and you need to be much more cool) and so I think I decided I wasn't going to like it without ever really thinking about whether I did. Now I think the singles from her third album are actually easily the best of her early career so it definitely should have done better for me. The stats: Date: 06 May 1990 Weeks: One 1990s chart rank: 132 2020s plays rank: 224 Biggest song it kept from number one: The Adventures of Stevie V - Dirty Cash Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: Kylie Minogue - Better The Devil You Know

Glad to see some immediate love for the Lenny Kravitz track, I wasn't sure how that one would go down ☺️

I hope we get quite a few more singles from the album. Vanish Into You is good, but it wouldn't be my preferred choice - I think I'd opt for all of Garden of Eden / Zombieboy / How Bad Do U Want Me ahead of it

I see Gala is still gaining in popularity, raising to over 90K on week 4 is great and it feels very unlucky really to have not topped the chart so far

Surprising at the top this week, thought Bridget would easily return to #1. Also surprised that Black Bag didn't do a bit better. I haven't yet seen it but it looks quite good to me

The first one that springs to mind is Hands Open by Snow Patrol: Put Sufjan Stevens on, and we'll play your favorite song, Chicago bursts to life in your sweet smile remembers you

Has anyone else been watching this? I must admit I'm struggling a bit with this season, I think it is really missing Jennifer Coolidge and the light relief she brought to the stories. It all just feels really slow at the moment. I feel like the Jason Isaacs story could all be heading in a direction where someone is playing him, either from back home or from within his family. I love Aimee Lou Wood in everything I see her in but even she isn't managing to rescue this one for me yet, albeit she is my favourite character.

I don't have a full setlist in mind but I think Garden of Eden should segue into Bad Romance - every time I'm listening to the former and she sings the woah-oh-oh-oh bits I can't help but think that it would be pretty easy to merge it seamlessly into the latter in a live setting

Was an interesting listen through last night - my general takeaway was that it is an interesting contest to sit through, I particularly liked the sheer variety of styles and it is going to be very difficult to order these. Whilst nothing struck me as being a bad entry, I suspect the amount of songs that I'm likely to revisit after the contest is pretty low as I don't think many of them touched the original in terms of quality

Yes the 90s when having the word bitch in a song felt remarkably risky! I remember being amazed that they would play it on the radio and my parents thought it was disgraceful 😂

Never would have called Twigs holding off Tate on here - of course she will be toppled by Gaga but three weeks as our fave is amazing 😍

I'm going to try and be there to listen along but I'll be busy in the background so may not be able to join in the chat much

California Dreamin' is by far the best track in the top 10 this week, an all time classic <3 I bought that re-issue, it was good value as it had Mama Cass's 'Dream a Little Dream of Me' on it as well. Aside from that - we've finally reached a week where I'm happy to champion a Backstreet Boys single, Everybody was peak boyband for me

193 | Joan Osborne - One Of Us We move to the mid 90s next in the form of one hit wonder Joan Osborne. Thanks to Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette, I was beginning to really appreciate female singer songwriters and I was very optimistic when Joan appeared on the scene with this - although my assumptions have proved to be quite incorrect as Joan in fact didn't write this at all! This had entered the week before but climbed up to the top as I found myself listening to it a lot, I think it was largely the lyrics that made it stand out to me as it was rare that you had a song that debates the relationship with god. I also remember being fascinated by the voice at the beginning of the longer version of the track, which I always thought sounded like it was either a child or a very old woman, which gave it a slightly unnerving quality - I'll link that version in the video so you can judge for yourself. The biggest song this kept from #1 was I Got 5 On It by Luniz. You could say that me in the 90s was the prototype Buzzjack of today, in so much as generally I hated anything that was vaguely hip hop... but this became only the third (I think) big hit on my chart from that genre. It never made it higher than #5 for me but it stuck around for a long time as I was particularly taken with the production. My second choice is one of the early Cardigans singles, Rise and Shine entered the real chart at #29 this week and I didn't know it until I had it on one of the Shine compilations later that year. Like most of their earlier singles, this is such an upbeat track and is full of infectious joy... they had better still to come and I think they are generally very underrated in terms of their later singles, but this was a lovely introduction to them. The stats: Date: 11 February 1996 Weeks: One 1990s chart rank: 180 2020s plays rank: 176 Biggest song it kept from number one: Luniz - I Got 5 On It Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: The Cardigans - Rise and Shine

Sooooo... let's casually just start this again as though it hasn't been two years eh? 194 | Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over We begin things again with a song that was a little out of sync with my tastes of the time. Back in 1991 I was more generally into pop and dance, but for some reason this soulful track from Lenny Kravitz also caught my attention - I say 'for some reason', that reason was more than likely something to do with my dad as it's very much the type of song he would have been listening to. I do really still like this track and I think it is easily his best song, it's like a lost classic from the 60s or 70s and I'd definitely believe anyone who told me it was someone like Marvin Gaye or the Temptations etc. I'm going to stick with name checking another couple of songs as per the previous format. The first one comes from the Pet Shop Boys as Jealousy was chosen as the final single from their Behaviour album. The song was the second biggest from the era on my chart, peaking at #5 whilst Lenny was #1. It's a single of theirs that I like even more now, it's one of their best ballads and I particularly love the extended version with the orchestral introduction. My other pick for this week is Primal Scream who were new at #40 in the official charts with Higher Than The Sun - a single lifted from their excellent Screamadelica album. I wasn't even aware of this at the time but it's a great slice of psychedelic indie, backed with some great mixes by the likes of the Orb and Andrew Weatherall. The stats: Date: 16 June 1991 Weeks: One 1990s chart rank: 216 2020s plays rank: 142 Biggest song it kept from number one: Pet Shop Boys - Jealousy Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: Primal Scream - Higher Than The Sun

The Wild Robot <3 Definitely my favourite of the ones to feature since I last posted, even if it took me until 2025 to see it

You're on the spreadsheet PCF ☺️