UK Singles Chart: 1998

Cliff Richard returns to the Top 40 extending his lead for most hits. Joining the 30+ Top 40 hits club this year are the Bee Gees:

	Artist	No of Hits	New Hits
1	Cliff Richard	112	Can't Keep This Feeling In
2	Elvis Presley	102
3	Elton John	57	Recover Your Soul, If The River Can Bend
4	David Bowie	53
5	Status Quo	49
6	Queen	48	No-One But You / Tie Your Mother Down, Another One Bites The Dust
7	Madonna	47	Frozen, Ray Of Light, Drowned World (Substitute For Love), The Power Of Good-Bye / Little Star
8	Michael Jackson	45
9	Rod Stewart	44	Ooh La La
10	Paul McCartney	43
11	Diana Ross	41
12	Stevie Wonder	39
=	Rolling Stones	39	Saint Of Me
14	Prince	38
15	UB40	36	Come Back Darling, Holly Holy
16	Frank Sinatra	33
=	Depeche Mode	33	Only When I Lose Myself
18	Shakin Stevens	32
19	Roy Orbison	31
20	Lonnie Donegan	30
=	Beatles	30
=	Pet Shop Boys	30
=	Bee Gees	30	Immortality

The Spice Girls and Madonna join the Rolling Stones and Take That in fifth place for most number ones:

	Artist	No of #1s	New #1s
1	Elvis Presley	17
=	Beatles	17
3	Cliff Richard	13
4	Abba	9
5	Rolling Stones	8
=	Take That	8
=	Madonna	8	Frozen
=	Spice Girls	8	Viva Forever, Goodbye
9	George Michael	7
=	Michael Jackson	7
11	Slade	6
=	Rod Stewart	6

No Prince in the Top 40 this year, in fact we would have no further new hits from Prince in the Top 40 again at the time of writing. Whitney Houston has now the most consecutive years of hits:

	Artist	Hits Every Year Since
1	Whitney Houston	1985
2	Madonna	1989
3	Elton John	1990
=	Rod Stewart	1990
=	Mariah Carey	1990
6	Paul Weller	1991
=	Bryan Adams	1991
8	Boyz II Men	1992
=	Daniel O'Donnell	1992
=	East 17	1992

Having reached number one with all their singles to date, the Spice Girls only managed a number two with their first release of the year, "Stop". Following this Geri Halliwell left the group, though the first post-Geri single "Viva Forever" did still feature her and did get to number one. They finished off the year with the Christmas number one with "Goodbye", their third Christmas number one in a row.

Although they didn't officially split up, we saw the start of the solo careers of two Spice Girls towards the end of the year, but not from Geri. Mel B was first who scored a number one collaborating with Missy Elliott on "I Want You Back". Then Mel C scored a number three collaborating with Bryan Adams on "When You're Gone".

With 3 singles and 3 number ones, the success story of the year was B*Witched. Unlike the Spice Girl before them, they managed to go straight in at number one with their first three hits "C'est La Vie", "Rollercoaster" and "To You I Belong".

The All Saints started the year reaching number one with "Never Ever". Their following two singles, "Under the Bridge/Lady Marmalade" and "Bootie Call", also reached number one whilst their final hit of the year "War of Nerves" reached number 9.
Previous years debutants N-Tyce and Vanilla both had their final hits this year, N-Tyce with "Telefunkin" and "Boom Boom", and Vanilla with "True To Us".

There were a couple of new girl groups to the charts this year. Cleopatra debuted with the number three hit "Cleopatra's Theme" and followed it up with two number four hits "Life Ain't Easy" and "I Want You Back".

Solid Harmonie had their only year in the charts this year with "I'll Be There For You", "I Want You To Want Me" and "I Wanna Love You". None of them made the Top 10 with the second single being the highest charting at number 16.

With no Eternal in the charts this year, September brought us three British female R&B groups ready to fill their shoes. Most successful of the three were the Honeyz who reached number four with their debut "Finally Found" and followed up with the number five "End of the Line".

Kleshay, who's members included the sister and cousin of Honeyz member Celena also made their debut with "Reasons". They would have one further Top 40 hit the following year. Finally we had Truce who had their only Top 40 hit with "Eyes Don't Lie".

From America we had the debut of Destinys Child with "No No No" which made number five. Their follow up "With Me" didn't do as well reaching number 19. They also collaborated with Matthew Marsden on "She's Gone".

One of the biggest R&B records of the year came from Usher with his debut hit "You Make Me Wanna" which made number one. He followed this up with "Nice And Slow".

Another big R&B hit was the collaboration of Brandy and Monica with "The Boy Is Mine" which made number two. Brandy also had hits with "Top of the World" and "Have You Ever" whilst Monica also had a hit with "The First Night".

There was also a British male R&B group making their debut this year. Another Level debuted with "Be Alone No More" and followed up with their cover of Silks "Freak Me" which made number one. They had one more hit this year with "Guess I Was A Fool".

After Brian Harvey's comments on ecstasy the previous year had seemingly been the end of East 17, this year they were back minus Tony Mortimer as an R&B group and had appropriately (or inappropriately) renamed themselves to E17 and had a number two hit with "Each Time".

Boyzone were the success story of the boyband world this year with two number ones with "All That I Need" and "No Matter What" and a number two with "I Love the Way You Love Me".

5ive were going from strength to strength this year starting with a number four hit "When the Lights Go Out", then a number three with "Got the Feelin" and then number twos with "Everybody Get Up" and "Until the Time Is Through".

It was a solid year for 911 who made the Top 10 with all three of their singles this year, "All I Want Is You", "How Do You Want Me To Love You" and the number two "More Than A Woman". The Backstreet Boys had just one hit this year with "All I Have To Give" which made number two.

It was the end of the chart career of OTT who's final hit was "Story of Love". Making their debut this year was Ultra who's first three hits were "Say You Do", "Say It Once" and "The Right Time". They would return the following year.

Robbie Williams was the only former Take That member to have hits this year which included his first solo number one "Millennium". He also had a number three with "Let Me Entertain You" and a number four with "No Regrets".

It was a much quieter year for Brit Pop with the remaining bands that were classed as Brit Pop being referred to more as Indie music.

Of the so called big four of Brit Pop, there was no Blur or Suede this year. Oasis had a number one in January with "All Around the World" which would be the last we'd see of them this decade. Pulp did have three hits with "This Is Hardcore", "A Little Soul" and "Party Hard" but none of them made the Top 10, nor did any future hits from them.

Pearl Jam were back in the charts this year with the hits "Given to Fly" and "Wishlist" but they were no longer considered to be Grunge music. Thunder had their final hit before a 6 year absence from the charts with a cover of "Play That Funky Music" which wasn't really considered to be Hard Rock.

It was the year Green Day had a hit with the acoustic song "Good Riddance" and they also had a hit with "Redundant". We also had the only hit from ska punk band Mighty Mighty Bosstones with "The Impression That I Get".

From the Nu Metal scene we had the debut of Deftones with "My Own Summer (Shove It)" whilst Korn had a hit with "Got The Life".

With Led Zeppelin finally making their chart debut the previous year, this year saw the only Top 40 hit from Page & Plant with "Most High".

Jimmy Page also collaborated with Puff Daddy on the number two hit "Come With Me". Other big Hip Hop records of the year included "Turn It Up / Fire It Up" by Busta Rhymes and the solo debut of former Fugees member Pras with "Ghetto Superstar" which featured ODB and Mya.

Having their only Top 40 hits this year were Jurassic 5 with "Concrete Schoolyard" and Canibus with "Second Round K.O.". There was also the debut of Cam'ron with "Horse And Carriage".

Both 2Pac and Notorious BIG continued their posthumous careers this year which included a collaboration between the two rappers with the hit "Runnin".

Having not seen any Hip House in the charts since the Outhere Brothers, this year brought us the number one hit "It's Like That" by Run DMC vs Jason Nevins which was the record responsible for keeping the Spice Girls off number one and stayed there for six weeks making it the second longest number one of the year. There was also a Hip House hit for Afrika Bambaataa with "Gotta Get Up".

The record which spent the most weeks at number one was "Believe" by Cher which spent seven weeks at the top. This was a dance record for Cher and it knocked off another dance record, "Gym & Tonic" by Spacedust.

The man responsible for some of the biggest dance records of the year was Norman Cook. He did a Big Beat remix of "Brimful of Asha" by Cornershop which made number one. He also did a Big Beat remix of "Renegade Master" by Wildchild which made number three. He also had hits as Fatboy Slim with "The Rockafeller Skank" and "Gangster Trippin'" and as Freak Power with "No Way".

Roni Size had a hit this year with "Watching Windows" and also had a hit with "Breakbeat Era" under the alias "Breakbeat Era".  It was also the year that the Fabio & Grooverider show on Radio 1 began and Grooverider had his only Top 40 hit with "Rainbows Of Colour". There were also hits from Goldie with "Temper Temper" and Adam F with "Music In My Mind".

Goldie also had a downtempo record with "Believe" and we had a notable debutant from that genre this year, Air. They debuted with "Sexy Boy" and followed up with "Kelly Watch The Stars" and "All I Need".

From the Trip Hop scene we had the final hits for Portishead with "Only You" and Tricky with "Money Greedy / Broken Homes". Massive Attack had their biggest hit with "Teardrops" and followed this up with "Angel". There was also a hit for Morcheeba with "Part of the Process" and a Trip Hop debut from David Holmes with "Don't Die Just Yet".

We finally had the first and only Acid Jazz number one this year which came from Jamiroquai with their only hit of the year "Deeper Underground". Carleen Anderson her final hit with "Maybe I'm Amazed" and the group she'd join the following year, Brand New Heavies, had a hit with "Shelter".

There were still plenty of Garage records in the charts including "Kung-Fu" by 187 Lockdown, "Sincere" by MJ Cole and "Straight From The Heart", the latter would chart higher when rereleased the following year.

The year brought us "Café Del Mar 98" by Energy 52 which was the first version of this record to make the UK Top 40. It wasn't the only "98" version of a Trance record this year though, we also had "Rendez-Vous 98" by Jean-Michel Jarre & Apollo 440, "Sundance 98" by Sundance and also "1998" by Binary Finary. There was also the debut of Paul Van Dyk with "For An Angel".

Although not a number one, what is considered to be the biggest dance record of the year is "The Music Sounds Better With You" by Stardust who were Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk and Alan Braxe.

Culture Club made a comeback this year with the single "I Just Wanna Be Loved" which made number four. It would prove to be short lived with their following singles not doing so well and they'd split again by 2000.

We had the first and only chart act to date from Chile this year. Deetah had a hit with "Relax" and would return the following year with "El Paraiso Rico". We also had the first and only chart act from Cameroon with Wes charting with "Alane" which would be his only hit.

I left 1997 with the question will 1998 see the rise of the DJ and fall of the guitar and I would say the answer is yes. There is still plenty of guitar music in the charts helped by the sheer quantity of chart hits we had by this point, but dance music had branched out into several sub genres which dwarfed the presence of guitar music.

Next up is the final year of the 20th century, how will the century conclude?