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[…]

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[…]

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&#[…]

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 l[…]

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[…]

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[…]

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-[…]

Average: 5.01 Controversy: 3.06
FS: If it was an instrumental, it’d be higher. I just don’t buy Bega as a ladies’ man, and his attempts to be such are extremely repulsive. 5[…]

Average: 5.03 Controversy: 2.71
PL: Ballsy Beatley pop for the 4/4 kids. 9
MD: As anti-climaxes go, it’s still pretty great. 7.6
AE: Fun. Lyrics are meaningless compared to excellent ‘Brothers Gonna Work It Out’ (i.e. “Leave H[…]

Average: 5.18 Controversy: 3.24
AT: Nearly takes the mantle from Sheryl in the drunk-woman-in-bar stakes. I want to see her duet with Bryan Ferry. 10
TE: Variety-show country: great material, good patter, sass, sawdust and showbiz. As instantly, prof[…]