Here is the Top 40 in full.
Obviously some of the records will be the same as last week so therefore the review will be the same for these. I've indicated which ones are new so you can skip the others if you read last weeks post.
Once again my opinions are inevitably going to differ from other people, but I'm not trying to convince anyone something is good or rubbish, I'm simply giving my opinion.
So this is the top 20 from this week in 1999 with my verdict on each record:
20. Another Level ft Jay-Z - Be Alone No More
The only Another Level single not to make the top ten. This was a remix of their debut hit which features Jay-Z, presumably in an attempt to crack America. Personally I'd prefer to hear it without Jay-Z.
Verdict - OK
19. B*Witched - Blame It On The Weatherman
The fourth hit and fourth number one from B*Witched. The only logical reason I can think of for so many people buying it is that they desperately wanted to knock Boyzone off number one.
Verdict - Rubbish
18. Steps - Better Best Forgotten
This song title certainly sums up this song, that it's better best forgotten. I had to stop the music after writing that sentence it's that bad. Steps know they're music is shit, but they make a lot of money out of it so keep on doing it and the public keep on paying their hard earned money to subject themselves to this torture.
Verdict - Rubbish
17. Billie Piper - Honey To The Bee
This made me cringe at the time and 20 years later it still does, though until now I don't think I've heard it for 20 years, I certainly wasn't listening to the Chris Moyles show when he campaigned to get this back into the charts in 2007. What was more depressing though is that at the time I had hopes of being a successful musician in the future but she was now 4 singles into her career and she's younger than me, a sign I may have missed the boat already.
Verdict - Rubbish
16. Boyzone - When The Going Gets Tough
I like the original by Billy Ocean, but this is just dreadful. It just sounds like a karaoke song where the singer seems a bit bored.
Verdict - Rubbish
15. Meat Loaf ft Patti Russo - Is Nothing Sacred (New)
When Meat Loaf first came about in the 70s I could imagine his music, or more accurately Jim Steinmans music, would have been perceived as being different. 20 years later it all starts to sound the same, though given he spent most of the 80s in the wilderness before successfully returning to the sound that made him big in the first place you can't blame him really. Not my cup of tea though.
Verdict - Rubbish
14. Catatonia - Dead From The Waist Down
I don't think I've heard this since 1999, I remember it as being the record that isn't actually called "Make Hay Not War". I thought my verdict on this record would be ok until I listened to it just now for the first time in 20 years. It's actually a pretty good tune, much better than I remember it.
Verdict - Good
13. The Cranberries - Promises (New)
When The Cranberries hit the big time in 1994, many people loved them, particularly "Zombie". I personally never liked them though. This was their final Top 40 hit which came 3 years after their penultimate Top 40 hit. I do vaguely remember seeing them on the TV some years after their mid-90s heyday but have no memory of how the song they played went, but it was likely it was this song which is instantly forgettable.Verdict - Rubbish
12. Vengaboys - We Like To Party! (The Vengabus)
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, well actually I'm not sure whether this is worse than Steps but it's pretty close. The Vengaboys had previously charted with "Up & Down" which I thought was ok, though I did get pretty sick of it given how overplayed it was. Then came this, which is essentially "Up & Down" with ridiculous vocals over the top of it provided by 2 females and 2 males that you don't actually hear. The Vengaboys it seems had become the Dutch Steps (yes I know there were 3 females in Steps but there could just as easily be 2).
Verdict - Rubbish
11. Blackstreet With Janet - Girlfriend/Boyfriend (New)
It could be argued that the success of Blackstreet in the mid 90s had a lot to do with the addition of Mark Middleton to the group who was arguably their best singer. Then he left the group and it seems their solution to life without him is to have a song that they don't really sing on. In addition to Janet Jackson, they also have rappers Ja Rule and Eve feature on this track. I have their "Finally" album which this song is on. It was considered a flop but I actually think it's a really good album and despite the lack of proper singing on this track I still like it. I should add that some of the album tracks do have good singing on them.
Verdict - Good
10. Glamma Kid ft Shola Ama - Taboo (New)
It's Glamma and Shola Ama, did this collaboration come about because their names rhymed? Glamma Kid was the vocalist on "Fly Life" by Basement Jaxx and this was his first Top 40 hit as a artist in his own right. It interpolates"The Sweetest Taboo" by Sade. Quite hard to take this seriously, but then does it really matter, I like it.
Verdict - Good
9. The New Radicals - You Get What You Give
One day in 1999 I was in HMV and asked to listen to a CD at the listening post. When I got to the listening post, the man who had just been listening at it told me it's the New Radicals on there, not knowing I'd gone up to the counter to ask for something else. That was the first time I'd heard that name and maybe a couple of weeks later I heard this. I thought maybe it would have been good to have listened to them at that listening post as I quite like it. I still like it today but still haven't heard any other New Radicals tunes, given that after their breakup frontman Gregg Alexander started writing rubbish for Ronan Keating and Sophie Ellis Bextor amongst others maybe it's better that way.
Verdict - Good
8. TLC - No Scrubs
TLC were big in the mid 90s with their "Crazy Sexy Cool" album and then for me at least they just disappeared until this came out. It was a great comeback though, and the funny thing is that had Xscape not broken up the year before it could have been an Xscape single given Kandi and Tiny of the group were two of the writers.
Verdict - Good
7. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
When I first heard this I thought it was alright. Then I heard it so many times that made me hate it. 20 years later I see it as one of these songs that's a bit too American High School for my liking, even though it was written by a Swedish bloke.
Verdict - Rubbish
6. The Cartoons - Witch Doctor
First there was Whigfield, then there was Aqua, then came The Cartoons to continue the cheesy Europop from Denmark in the charts. I guess they're probably more blatant that it's supposed to be cheesy crap, but that still makes it crap.
Verdict - Rubbish
5. Steps, Tina Cousins, Cleopatra, B*Witched And Billie - Thank Abba For The Music
Oh dear, this is just awful. The who's who of shit music at the time doing a medley of Abba songs. Either you like Abba, therefore you'd want to hear the actual Abba songs, or you don't like Abba and therefore you're unlikely to like these covers which are made to sound the same. You could say it was to cater for the fans of the featured artists on this record, but when Erasure, who I like, did their Abba covers a few years earlier I hated it.
Verdict - Rubbish
4. Phats And Small - Turn Around
By the time this tune charted I'd heard it a lot and I remember it appearing on Dave Pearce's Dance Anthems on Radio 1 pretty much every week. I also remember Phats & Small presenting the show themselves one week when Dave Pearce was on holiday. Despite it being overplayed though I have good memories of this tune, despite the lyrical content of someone being down it's a feel good Dance record. Funnily enough "Feel Good" was the name of their next hit.
Verdict - Good
3. Eminem - My Name Is
Here we have the beginning of Eminem's chart career. I could take or leave this record at the time, though I did find the line about what Spice Girl he wanted to impregnate quite amusing. The following year I got into Eminem's music when he released "The Marshall Mathers LP" and I bought "The Slim Shady LP" at the same time and that's when I really started to appreciate this tune.
Verdict - Good
2. Mr Oizo - Flat Beat
Some dismissed this as being a novelty record at the time thanks to Flat Eric, the puppet who appeared on the Levi's adverts containing this tune. However, if you simply listen to the tune it's not cheesy at all. Mr Oizo is also a successful French House DJ on Ed Banger Records.Verdict - Good
1. Martine McCutcheon - Perfect Moment (New)
I ended 1998 watching the death of Tiffany on Eastenders and then going to the pub and wondering why I bother watching Eastenders because it's just depressing. I stopped watching Eastenders from that point, but then a few months later Tiffany comes back to haunt me with this crap. The formula was to take a dreary song by Polish singer Edyta Górniak and in true Eastenders style make it even more depressing.
Verdict - Rubbish
If we give the records which were good 1 point each and those which were OK half a point, the final score is 8.5/20, or 42.5%. Just the one record was OK, the rest were good or rubbish and 6 of the Top 10 were good.
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