Average: 4.78 Controversy: 2.84
KA: I used to go to school with Rich you know. I did I did! 8
TE: Somewhat worrying that the year’s best bassline belonged to 5ive. 7
MD: Achieves a convincing toughness that not even Backstreet’s paradigm-busting “Everybody” could muster. 6.8
DS: Apparently they celebrated a recent success by going off to the red light district of Amsterdam. Can’t see Boyzone doing that. 5
JM: Excessively competent. 5
GE: Hard lad posers. 4
MA: The dishonest successor to East 17, and satirical fodder for Viz. 0
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.73 Controversy: 2.93
AE: The movie was shit. But this is good. Ish. Will sings about slipping his tube steak into the memsahibs, cowboy-fashion. He’s a rough rider apparently. Do you see? 7
FS: As bad as the movie it spawned. (I mean, come on, why else was the movie made besides to promote a Will Smith song? There’s no logical explanation.) 1
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.63 Controversy: 2.86
KA: Definitive choon of Summer ’99. 9
DS: Is this the one that sounds like a nose-flute? I think I like this. 7
MD: Seems like standard issue trance until the uncharacteristically pretty middle. Could be a grower. 6.8
PB: As a dancefloor filler, fantastic. As pop, fucking wretched. Takes me back to Minorca. 3
KG: The feeling of feeling very sick in a club you don’t want to be in with a very long time before you’re due to be going home – in keeping with the title. 1
JM: There is no room in the next millennium for the Ibiza sound. 1
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.6 Controversy: 1.9
GF: I still don’t know what to make of it…so it must be good! 7
TE: It’s a funny, wise, odd little tune, but in amongst all this pop it seems kind of lost. 6
PB: If I had bought it, I’d probably like it. 5
MA: Well, it’s a facial hair issue, this song. Clean-shaven teenagers would imply a kind of nihilism, rather offputting. An Alan Moore beard and it’s indulgent middle-class romanticism. Lamb chops, though? Perfect. 4
IS: Paul McCartney as a one-man-band, in a dodgy pub, very much at the end of his career. 2
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.38 Controversy: 2.18
GF: It’s an Adam Ant rip-off (“Hell’s Eight Acres”) so obviously pretty fly!8
DS: I try as hard as I can to hate this, but I can’t. 7
FS: Would have had more sting if the Offspring weren’t the whitest band in existence. 2
MD: So the Offspring are complaining that Mr. White Guy is making all the wrong consumer choices…how punk rock of them to notice! 1.9
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.34 Controversy: 2.36
GE: Great fun. Reminds me of “Reward” by the Teardrop Explodes, if they’d have had any Spanish blood in them maybe? 8
DS: Perhaps the defining record of the year holidaymakers decided what went in the charts. 7
MA: Disorientating, titillating, sexually intimidating. But it won’t push me off the dancefloor. 6
JM: Latin-tastic. Estupendo and estupido. 6
ML: Because he’s such a tart. 2
KG: The crazy life, eh. Sexually obsessed Cuban gentleman, will ruin parties in the same way as Abba and “Come On Eileen”. 2
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.31 Controversy: 2.75
MA: Nothing wrong with a weak song that a pretty voice can’t revive. 7
GE: Can you destroy a record by faint praise? 7
KA: Isn’t that by the Corrs? 4
NW: It simply tries too hard to be adorable. 1
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.27 Controversy: 2.83
KA: Not as good as Britney but those Yanks sure know how to POP! 8
TE: Nice vacuum-packed beats which sound like someone’s sampled the sound of bubble-wrap being squeezed. And that’s about all you can say for it. 6
NW: While Christina takes forever to make up her mind about her body saying no, etc, her potential boyfriend has probably lost interest and taken off with someone more fun like Britney or Billie. Whiny, whiny, whiny. 1
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.26 Controversy: 3.17
IS: She is great. It is great. 10
AE: Devilishly catchy number, showing maturing of Spice Value System into ultimate form of Hedonistic Me-Child. EXCELLENT. Hasn’t done anything even remotely good since. 9
MA: It’s the trite lyrics that kill it. But – and here’s the but – that wonderful dreamlike big band insert more than lifts it into the sublime. 7
AT: OK, I give in. I finally admit that this is a dull record. Vamp off. 5
DS: She’s spent her whole career going “Look at me”. But I have attention-deficit disorder, so 4
KG: Limited range, sounds like a drag queen. 1
IOD: I so wanted it to be good! 1
Tom in FT • No Comments
Average: 4.08 Controversy: 2.36
Nobody felt particularly eloquent about poor Jen. Which possibly speaks for itself
Tom in FT • No Comments