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Post by Smurfie on Jan 4, 2012 20:42:45 GMT 1
Just proving how moronic the rules on formats were/are. Should have been one format, and one format only, to count. Instead the industry decided to permit itself to rip off consumers all the more by selling the same dross over and over and over again. Especially when both formats were exactly the same, just one had postcards with it. Look At Me should have been a good idea on paper, however her vocals were awful on it. I remember Zoe Ball fawning over it on her breakfast show when it got its premiere with GH in the studio. Nevertheless, I bear no grudge as I bought the promo for a £1 in a second hand Brighton record shop and sold it on e-Bay for £40. It was much appreciated as a student.
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Post by Smurfie on Jan 4, 2012 20:44:12 GMT 1
05 JUNE- OOH LA LA- The Wiseguys (1 week)Thoughts on song= pants. ^ this.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 5, 2012 19:13:43 GMT 1
19TH JUNE- BEAUTIFUL STRANGER- Madonna (1 week)With more than just a whiff of Love's "She comes in colour" about this i'm surprised that didn't result in some kind of lawsuit. Anyway whilst Madonna didn't quite finish the decade where she had begun it, she didn't manage to claw back much of the commercial clout which had eluded her post "The Immaculate Collection", this william Orbit produced tie in with the Austin Powers film being her final output of the decade. I was bowled over with BS when I first heard it, never having been a 60s fan (I blame my father for ODing me on it when I was growing up) it's psychadelic feel was all a bit too retro for me but it grew on me over the years and now I don't mind it too much. For an artist as future focused as Madonna was in the 80s and 90s this seemed a curious retro step (taking the film connection out of it) which perhaps jarred but I have no problems with it now. Flirty, confident, and oddly vulnerable, it's a track which now reminds me of the old Madonna, back with a spring in her step which the "Ray Of Light" era must have left her with. The Victor Caldrone remix was for me, much better and a significant boost to the track, which had it been the main version would doubtless have propelled this to No 1.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 5, 2012 19:26:37 GMT 1
3RD JULY- MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE- Whitney Houston (1 week)Why don't I like MLIYL? I feel like I should, it's critically lauded as one of her finest songs, certainly of the 90s which was patchy for Whitney. I've just realised I've never reviewed one of her records in this thread yet- I loved Whitney back in the 80s in fact up to "Bodyguard" which just overkilled the whole thing for me. After that the occasional song was ok but it wasn't the same until the might of "It's Not Right But It's Okay" (specifically the Thunderpuss remix) which was one of my tracks of 1999 without a doubt and somehow managed to bring something new to the tired old theme of "my man did me wrong so i'm gonna get myself rid" or similar sentiment. Perhaps because I loved that this song seems something like an anti climax. I can certainly appreciate it's a well crafted song, nice sentiment, a cute bit of backing vocal from her daughter, and it treads along nicely, but for all that it just misses providing me with little X factor to get me truly hooked. It seems therefore a little like Houston treading water for me, I'm not a fan of R N B so I think that didn't help its cause but can I really be the only one who's left with the impression "next" when I reach the end of the song?
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borneoman
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Post by borneoman on Jan 5, 2012 23:13:34 GMT 1
I love MLIYL to pieces, fabulous song. That's her best era imo, especially I Learned from the Best, which sadly under-performed...
the Madonna song is just ok for me, not her best but not bad either...
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 7, 2012 15:09:38 GMT 1
10TH JULY- WILD WILD WEST- Will Smith Featuring Dru Hill (1 week)So it's the summer of 1999 and Smith returns with another piece of instantly forgettable R N B infused pop. I can't deny the man's popularity but looking back records like this are the filler to the decade, proof if anyone needed that the decade just as much dross as any other. Naturally being Smith it is tied to his most recent cinematic release and really there is nothing more to this record than simply a promo for that film. Yes by this time Will will treating the charts quite dismissively using it for other ends than producing good music, lots of acts do that but usually this is for an album or promotion for a tour- normally something musically related. The sample, in case you're interested is Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" but really that's incidental. This is appauling and miind numbingly dull if I'm honest. I had long lost interest in Smith by 99 and this was just the final nail in the coffin- thankfully, in terms of recording, the public wasn't that far behind me, but it isn't the last time we'll see him sadly..
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 7, 2012 15:25:00 GMT 1
24TH JULY- LOVE'S GOT A HOLD ON MY HEART- Steps (1 week)After Will Smith THIS comes as a blessed relief I can tell you! Ok so its not the best thing they ever did but LGAHOMH is as bright and breezy pop a la 99 as you could wish for, full of daytime pop cheer and an infectious chorus that most acts would be pleased with even to this day this si the sound of the group during their greatest era before the songs became rather more hit and miss. Another story of lost midweek No 1 here this time to another sensation of 99 Ricky Martin, who I recall was a big hit with the girls. ooops :lol: Co-Penned by Waterman he held on to this track for 8 years before handing it to Steps to launch that do or die second album, and whilst it didn't give them a second chart topper I've always rather liked this song. To say that it's cheap manufactured pop is to miss the point of Steps, and in 1999 quite frankly there was a lot of cheaper manufactured pop around (step forward Lolly), Waterman here is playing to the demographic he has always played to, the gays and the kids, and proved once more that it's a lucrative market to appeal to. With the unofficial demise of the Spice Girls there was a huge vaccuum in the pop arena of 1999 which was filled more or less with Steps, with B*Witched, A1, Adam Rickett et al mopping up the residue, OK it moved on quite quickly but every genre and every time produces some good music, and tracks like this, I would say, are if nothing else, the sound of 1999 and for some that was a very good year indeed.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 8, 2012 14:13:23 GMT 1
31ST JULY- IF YA GETTIN DOWN- Five (1 week)The search for a No 1 continued for the band who for a second time lost a midweek No 1 position this time to Ricky Martin who turned that trick for a second week in a row. With a healthy slice of "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" thrown in this is in my opinion a superior boyband record and a definite step up quality wise from the first album, and it's also a clear attempt to position themselves market wise in opposition to the Boyzone/ Westlife monopoly that had emerged throughout 1999. Far more "urban" than those bands the problem with the band was perhaps that they never really established themselves as personalities in the way that the Spice Girls or Take That managed, and whilst this works well in a collective band kinda way it makes it harder to expand beyond the "boyband" category they were in. For all that FYGD is a full on assault on the pop senses, just as bright and breezy as the Steps track that preceeded it, it has just enough of a dollop of pop to engage the listener adn is probably one of the songs that non Five fans would tend to like. Some good pop DID come from 99 and this is a shining example, the follow up "Keep On Movin" did finally award them the chart topper they needed just before the decade end and as Boybands go I'd have to say that Five were one of the bands I'd much prefer to listen to now.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 8, 2012 14:27:20 GMT 1
14TH AUGUST- BETTER OFF ALONE- DJ Jurgon Presents Alice Deejay (3 weeks)After spending a year off working after I finished my degree I decided I was going to a masters in Brighton and so spent several weekends down there flat hunting. THIS was the soundtrack to that summer, it is therefore the soundtrack to a fantastic part of my life and a song that instantly takes me back to 1999 like no other. It's also a FANTASTIC record and if ever there was a case for brevity in a record this si it the repetition of "Do you think you're better off alone" simultaneously can be taken two ways (i.e "you'd be better off alone" or the opposite "I don't think you'd be better off alone" it's a nice little contrast with just one phrase. I know this could be dismissed as "car horn music" which many did at the time, but the electronica in the track give the song a very melancholic feel i've always thought, for all the fast beats and dance track backing there is a situation going on here and it's not altogether good. How all of this can be communicated tot eh listender through minimal vocals is just magic. Of course they went to denegrate their own name by pumoing out either carbon copies of this or naff dance music but once you've produced a dance classic like this I can almost forgive them anything. The only other line in the track "Talk To Me" referenced the Eurythmics "Here Comes The Rain Again" and the song is actually written after the lover of one of the writers left him, but it's brilliant that they chose not to construct a whole song and scenario around the story, almost as if that would be unbearable for the writer. I can't praise it any more highly than I have- My favourite song of 1999 by a long chalk.
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Post by evansabove on Jan 8, 2012 15:51:10 GMT 1
I loved everything that Alice Deejay released around that time but Better Off Alone was by far the best. I still have that cd single lurking around here somewhere
Love's Got A Hold On My Heart was Steps in their prime where everything they did was massive
Loathed all of Will Smith's output with a vengeance
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Jan 8, 2012 16:05:06 GMT 1
Five? Urban? Can I nominate the city for which they should be urban? If so, I suggest Nagasaki 1945.
Steps had a prime?
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Post by evansabove on Jan 8, 2012 16:16:51 GMT 1
I only have to mention Steps and vas comes running. I think he must have a fixation about them
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Post by Earl Purple on Jan 8, 2012 16:59:48 GMT 1
I would not describe Five as urban, maybe Blue to some extent could be but not Five (or 5ive). Keep On Movin' was a decent uptempo song by them, and for me the "disco" route is the one that perhaps suits boybands most. With that though I mean decent disco songs like Keep On Movin' not the stuff Steps put out.
My favourite UK chart hit of 1999 was "Why Does It Always Rain On Me" by Travis. My favourite that peaked at #2 - well that's already gone, being "Tender" by Blur.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 9, 2012 18:59:36 GMT 1
4TH SEPTEMBER- SWAY (MUCHO MAMBO)- Shaft (1 week)Whilst this song annoys the tits off me, I have to confess that in terms of being representative of 1999 then this hard to beat. With dance leanings that make a nod to Ibiza and a latin flavoured percussion it brings together the main two themes of the charts in that year. In a year when Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Lou Bega and Enrique Iglesias all broke through into the charts (you can even shove "Mi Chico Latino" here if you must) then this was a landmark year for latin music in the UK Charts. Mexican bandleader Pablo Ruiz was responsible for writing this way back in the 50s when it was made famous by Dean Martin and spawned countless covers over the decades before being turned into this version which samples the Perez Prado version. With Lou Bega at No 1 it meant that in effect two covers of Prado songs competed for the top spot in this week, the british duo coming of the worst in this battle. Never a song I could remotely stand at the time I've mellowed since (probably as I haven't heard it in such a long time) and it's also saved by the fact that it isn't the next song.....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 9, 2012 19:04:46 GMT 1
11TH SEPTEMBER- THE LAUNCH- DJ Jean (1 week)Perhaps my propensity to avoid recreational drugs is responsible, but records like this just leave me cold. Clinical dance music designed to be little more than sequential bleeps just seems barren of much thought in my opinion. DJ Jean (real name Jan Engelaar) only hit the charts once here and on the evidence of this he was damn lucky to do that. I can't write anything good about this song, I'm lead to believe this was a big hit in Netherlands. Say no more.
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Post by Smurfie on Jan 9, 2012 19:57:01 GMT 1
Five - If Ya Gettin Down is a guilty pleasure of mine. In fact Five are full stop. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have already listened to the Greatest Hits three times so far this year.
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Post by evansabove on Jan 9, 2012 22:25:54 GMT 1
5ive are a pleasure of mine and i certainly dont feel guilty about it!
Couple of fantastic dance tracks there. This was the period when i really started getting into dance music and it started to influence the charts more and more around this time
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Jan 9, 2012 23:15:09 GMT 1
Really liked the Shaft single, although it was somewhat tempered by them not being the same Shaft that did "Roobarb & Custard". Wasn't the real Rosemary Clooney on it, they had to get a soundalike. It was however better than Lou Bega by the sort of factor by which the observable universe is bigger than the Planck length.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 10, 2012 20:44:52 GMT 1
2ND OCTOBER- S CLUB PARTY- S Club 7 (2 weeks)After what was practically the perfect pop of "Bring It All Back" the Sclubbers attempted to provide more, and whilst "S Club party" is far from a bad record it seems a little cluttered, with a hundred different little hooks, and quite a dodgy key change. Whilst it's a good pop record it can't quite the pop brillance of the debut and I am forced to conclude that its position on this thread is probably justified, especially in light of Eiffel 65's chart topper of the time, in all honesty I was never sure I wanted to see Bradley do his thing, me bad. Taken together though the first two S Club records took a clear shot at the big names in the pop field of the time, B*Witched, Steps, Billie et al, and I recall it seemed like no time at all before they seemed as though No 1 hits were always an option. Like I say it hasn't quite the lightness of touch and pop sensibility of its predecessor but "S Club Party" did the job of maintaining the TV group in the public eye and indeed not many would have predicted the 11 top 5 hits they would eventually accrue before the demise in 2003, so if for nothing more than nostalgia I conceed I quite liked hearing this again.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Jan 10, 2012 20:58:02 GMT 1
16TH OCTOBER- 2 TIMES- Ann Lee (2 weeks)During my recent thread of "Best selling female solo hits of the 90s" I was a little surprised by the marmite reaction to this song inspiring hatred and love in equal quantities. Annerley Gordon was a Sheffield born singer/ songwriters only real claim to fame pre "2 Times" was co-writing the 1994 No 2 hit "Rhythm Of The Night" by Corona, and just like that hit this was a massive hit all over Europe in late 1998 before finally make it across the Channel to us. Ok if you're expecting some kind of profundity from this then you'll be disappointed but take as it's intended, a harmless dance track designed for a good time, and really you can't go wrong. In a chart awash with boybands and acts appealing to pre pubescents it is actually a refreshing little tune that I find it hard to begrudge it's position here, certainly opening sales of over 150k would ordinarily have granted this song a No 1 position, and had it not been for the might of "Genie In A Bottle" it would have done just that. Worse records have been made than this- MUCH worse.
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