Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 26 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Wednesday.
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 30 from this week in 1998 with my verdict on each record:
Geri Halliwell had left the Spice Girls but this song had already been recorded with her on it. England United were a supergroup consisting of the Spice Girls and a few indie musicians and this was the official England song for the World Cup and was universally hated and was overshadowed by "3 Lions" and "Vindaloo". I agree with popular opinion on this.
Verdict - Rubbish
Todd Terry may have now been finished in the Top 40 as an artist but he was still around. It was his remix of this Fleetwood Mac cover by The Corrs which gave The Corrs their Top 40 debut. At the time I recall someone asking me if I liked The Corrs, I thought about it and then said actually yes they are pretty good.
Verdict - Good
At the time I remember this being this opening song of Top of the Pops for a few weeks in a row. At least that's what it felt. There also seemed to be a lot of people on the stage so I assumed they were a band with many members, but it turned out there were only 2 of them in Savage Garden. Never before have I seen a song contradict a band name so much. I do like some of their music, but not the soppy ballads.
Verdict - Rubbish
After being pleasantly surprised by who much I liked the first two hits for All Saints I decided to buy their album. On it was 2 covers and these were released as a double a-side for their next single. Maybe having 3 decent singles in a row was a step too far, the cover of "Under The Bridge" is particularly poor given how good the original is.
Verdict - Rubbish / Rubbish
I bet you didn't think Lionel Richie was still having Top 40 hits in 1998. I didn't think he was either, but here he is and it wasn't his last Top 40 hit either but was his final one of the 90s. It was also his only Top 40 hit that he didn't write himself, it was written by Diane Warren. It did nothing to improve it though.
Verdict - Rubbish
In the early 90s Stock & Waterman tried transforming Bananarama into the new Abba with this being one of their records but it failed to reach the Top 40. Now Pete Waterman tried the same with Steps and was more successful in doing so. Each female was given a verse each whilst you wouldn't even know the males were on the record from listening to it. Unfortunately we'd get more of these over the next few years.
Verdict - Rubbish
This was taken from the musical of the same name and was written by Mr Musical himself Andrew Lloyd Webber along with regular Meat Loaf songwriter Jim Steinman. A recipe for a shit song then, which this is. It was the final Top 40 hit to date for Tina Arena.
Verdict - Rubbish
The 2nd and final Top 40 hit for Jambo from Hollyoaks. It was written by Pete Waterman who obviously knew a thing or two about writing hits for soap stars. It never really worked out though and Will Mellor went back to acting after this.
Verdict - Rubbish
We'd had teenage female R&B singers with Brandy, Monica and Aaliyah, a teenage male R&B singer with Usher, a teenage female R&B group with Destiny's Child. All that was left was a teenage male R&B group which Imajin were. The featuring of rapper Keith Murray is presumably to give this some credibility, but it doesn't.
Verdict - Rubbish
When I first heard this record with it's sample of "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons it caught my attention because I like what it is sampling. Then I listened to the record the whole way through and realised that was the only redeeming feature, the rest was cheesy nonsense.
Verdict - Rubbish
20. LCD - Zorba's Dance (New)
This was a Greek record that was taken to the UK Top 40 in 1965 by Marcello Minerbi. LCD were a computer generated dance act who took this very cheesy eurodance version back into the Top 40. Very much a novelty record.
Verdict - Rubbish
Bus Stop were Daz Sampson, the person who represented the UK at Eurovision a few years later and Flip & Fill. This is a cheesy eurodance remake of the Carl Douglas record which featured the man himself. I already knew the originally and remember wondering why people were singing it all of a sudden, then heard this and thought oh dear.
Verdict - Rubbish
When I was reviewing her previous hit "Butterfly" I mentioned how I recalled Mariah Carey promoting it on The Big Breakfast. I'm now thinking it may have been this single she was promoting. Put it this way they are pretty similar to each other and people must have felt cheated with her transformation to R&B singer on "Honey".
Verdict - Rubbish
The Top 40 debut for Leann Rimes. I once took part in a quiz where a question was who charted in 1997 with "How Do I Live" to which I confidently answered Leann Rimes. The answer was Trisha Yearwood who reached number 66 with it. Leann Rimes was in 1998 and is the better known version. Although not the first person younger than me to chart, I do recall a younger Leann Rimes charting making me start to think have I missed the boat already in my music career.
Verdict - Rubbish
The 2nd Top 40 hit for Sweden based American singer Lutricia McNeal which was also her highest charting Top 40 hit. It was also the first Top 40 hit as songwriter for Rami Yacoub, one of Max Martins sidekicks. I did find it a little irritating at the time but I'm not minding it now.
Verdict - OK
The highest charting Top 40 hit for Des'ree which was her penultimate Top 40 hit to date. It had also been 4 years since she'd last been in the Top 40. This record has been widely ridiculed for it's stupid lyrics and I'm inclined to agree.
Verdict - Rubbish
There was a pub near where I grew up that had live music at the weekend. When I say live music I mean a singer, ocassionally one with a guitar and a karaoke machine. They'd sing the classics, but this song immediately slotted into the sets and I recall one particular night I swear the singer did this song around 5 or 6 times. Needless to say I got sick of it very quickly.
Verdict - Rubbish
13. Janet Jackson - Go Deep (New)
I remember watching the video to this on The Chart Show. It was of a teenage boy who's parents had gone away for the weekend and then Janet Jackson turns up to his door, but it all turns out to be a dream. It distracts from how much of a non-entity this record is.
Verdict - Rubbish
When I first heard this record, I liked it. Then I started to hate it from hearing it all the time but started to like it again when the hype around Fatboy Slim started to die down. It was his 2nd Top 40 hit but the first that really made people notice,
Verdict - Good
11. Dana International - Diva (New)
This was the Eurovision winning song of 1998 which became the first Eurovision winning song not form UK or Ireland to make the UK Top 40 since 1982. The winning country was Israel which made me think since when is Israel in Europe. I was also surprised how modern it sounded compared to what I'd been used to hearing from other countries at Eurovision. Still crap though.
Verdict - Rubbish
One of the big songwriting teams in the R&B world is Rodney Jerkins, Fred Jerkins and LaShawn Daniels. This was their first Top 40 hit as songwriters. Both Brandy and Monica had only been in the lower reaches of the Top 40 prior to this. I remember hearing how great Brandy's "Never Say Never" album was supposed to be and given I liked this song I decided to buy it. This song aside it really wasn't that great and I ended up selling it.
Verdict - Good
This was a cover of an Everything but the Girl record and knowing that fact I can tell that it is. I always thought of this record as being Billie Ray Martin mark 2. You may recall from my Billie Ray Martin reviews that I wasn't a fan and I'd say this was worse if anything.
Verdict - Rubbish
More football music for the World Cup. No lyrics this time, instead it was taking a sample of music used in football and making a dance version of it. As you've probably gathered by now I'm not a fan of football music, but I actually don't mind this.
Verdict - OK
This brings back memories of the god awful TV show "Man O Man" that was hosted by Chris Tarrant. This was the theme music to that as I recall. The TV show and record suited each other though given how dreadful they both were.
Verdict - Rubbish
The film "Lost In Space" was out around the same sort of time as this record but as far as I can tell this record has nothing to do with the film. Although not their final Top 10 hit I would say this marked the end of the commercial peak of the Lighthouse Family. Like some other hits of theirs it's quite soothing.
Verdict - Good
I remember watching the video to this and thinking what the fuck? It's a boy band trying to be gangsta rappers and is absolutely ridiculous. I stand by that, but at the same time I couldn't help but like it. I would say this is one of my guilty pleasures.
Verdict - Good
On May 31st 1998 we had the news that Geri Halliwell had left the Spice Girls. The same day B*witched topped the charts with this their debut single. They really couldn't have timed it any better. I immediately thought come back the Spice Girls all is forgiven. Actually I didn't because the Spice Girls weren't finished yet, but this is every bit as bad as your average Spice Girls record.
Verdict - Rubbish
The fist time I heard this record was on the radio one morning when I was half asleep and I remember later on that day thinking what was that good tune I heard on the radio earlier. I soon found out what it was. It was the solo Top 40 debut for Fugees member Pras so should really come as no surprise I'd like it given how good the Fugees were.
Verdict - Good
This was the alternative of alternative England songs for the World Cup. It's a very non musical song that was nothing more than something for the fans to sing from the terraces. That's the very reason this record appealed to a number of people, but it didn't appeal to me.
Verdict - Rubbish
After topping the charts with "3 Lions" during Euro 96, Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds were back for the World Cup in 1998 with a remixed version which was basically the same as the original but with different lyrics. I never liked the original.
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 7/30, or 23%. Not the worst week of the 90s but getting there.
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