Popular '98

Hmm, I have a feeling this has been raised before then, but for any given week of the charts, is the date listed on the post (and so the year they’re counted for) based on the Saturday rather than the Sunday?

It’s the same one as Official Charts! as well – just curious. And yes, I can definitely see a case for the next as the first trump of the year that was in it.

OK, a ludicrous quantity of chart-toppers (ah! how we thought at the time) – but, well, a lot of quality among them. I voted for 22, and thoroughly endorse the current situation whereby Another Level, Oasis and Boyzone (ATIN) are bringing up the rear in most unceremonious fashion. Would have gone for six of the 10 that hung about the top 10 without topping it too. (Yeah, I prefer Trisha Yearwood’s version to LeAnn Rimes’s – but still: great.) Best pop year since 1990, perhaps?

Was expecting one more entry before this. Anyhow, the Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 1998:

“Candle In The Wind 1997” Elton John
– Two final weeks at #1 for Sir Elton. Actually managed to be Billboard’s 10th biggest hit of 1998

“Truly Madly Deeply” Savage Garden
– And finally the epic run ends with an unexpected #1. Had previously hit #4 with “I Want You”. Wouldn’t be their last US number one either.

“Together Again” Janet Jackson
– Don’t remember it well. Wasn’t a big fan of her during this time.

“Nice & Slow” Usher
– After UMMW was blocked by CITW97, the still teenager gets his #1. Wonder if we’ll be hearing from him again?

“My Heart Will Go On” Celine Dion
– Only #1 for two weeks due to a belated release date. Billboard dedicated an entire column at year end about why it wasn’t the year-end number one (it was #13). Perhaps one of the final straws in allowing non-singles to chart.

“Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” Will Smith
– Finally, his first US #1.

“All My Life” K-Ci & Jo Jo
– Rap ballad. No, not that JoJo.

“Too Close” Next
– Surprisingly, Billboard’s official year-end #1. I say surprisingly because while it did get a fair amount of airplay and such, it seemed to have a low profile compared to other year-end #1’s of the 90’s. Not as unexpected as some others though (e.g. “Look Away” in 1989).

“My All” Mariah Carey
– Token week at #1. A year in the 90’s wouldn’t be the same without her.

“The Boy Is Mine” Brandy & Monica
– 13 weeks at #1 and the song I assumed would be the year-end #1 (it was #2). It’s easy to forget how popular these two were at the time.

“I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” Aerosmith
– Good: Aerosmith finally hits #1 after nearly 30 years. Bad: It was with this POS.

“The First Night” Monica
– After TBIM, Monica and Brandy seemed to trade off hits to point I forget who recorded which song.

“One Week” Barenaked Ladies
– Guilty pleasure time! I loved this song and still do. Proof that alt-rock could still hit #1 if given a proper single release. It was #1 for exactly one week…go figure.

“Doo Wop” Lauryn Hill
– First former Fugee to hit #1. Last song to debut at #1 in the “singles only” era. Too bad she would later implode rather spectacularly.

“Lately” Divine
– This slipped into and out of #1 with no notice from me at all. A harbinger of things to come.

“I’m Your Angel” Celine Dion & R. Kelly
– The #1 in the week that the Hot 100 finally started allowing non-singles. Although it was released that week so it would’ve been #1 anyway. Despite it technically being Celine’s longest running #1 (6 weeks), I hardly heard it at all and it never gets played today. Bet squeaky-clean Celine would rather forget she ever teamed up with you know who.

So that’s that. The end of 1998 kind of marks a watershed of sorts. First, no longer requiring singles to be commercially released to appear on the Hot 100 shook things up a bit obviously. I expected this would help the kind of music I most enjoyed and it did somewhat initially, but as time went on, popular music and my personal tastes would diverge significantly. Which leads to the second thing: From the 80’s until now, I would recognize almost every #1 on the Hot 100. But now unfamiliar #1’s, like the final two of 1998, would become increasingly common until by the mid-00’s I recognize very little. This would gradually reverse itself by around 2010, but for now we’re starting to enter less charted waters for me.

Cornershop and MSP at the top? ROCKIST BIAS SHOCKER

People really have it in for I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing, don’t they?

Maybe, at some point, I will come back and attempt to score the latter half of this year and fill in this poll. For personal reasons that I won’t go into, I am just so massively disengaged with music that I can’t even listen to stuff that I supposedly like*, never mind trying to be fair to a bunch of records I haven’t listened to in over a decade.

That said, the Festive Fifty list raised a smile – I loved Ten Benson’s ridiculous heavy rock (though neither The Claw nor Evil Heat really fit into that – it was more stuff like Rock Cottage or Robot Tourist that I loved) and seeing Ice Hockey Hair in there was pretty great too.

Assume describing Cornershop as rockist is some heavy irony.

*Exception being Neil Young’s Ditch Trilogy – about the only non-spoken word stuff I am listening to at the moment.

It’s odd how things which seem genuinely liked on the comments end up doing poorly in these polls. B*witched suffer while the Manics prosper! Pfffft. Fanbases.

Having said THAT, Never Ever had a pretty rough ride and is currently neck-and-neck with Believe.

1998 is my first ‘full’ Popular year in the sense that I discovered the site around the time of Tom’s review of ‘Perfect Day’, and with 1998 being my first year of getting into ‘pop’ I think I voted for most of these for nostalgia’s sake…but I was still pleasantly surprised when looking at that list…

Tom at #4, agree with Brandy and Monica, but would also have loved to hear your take on Ghetto Supastar!

All I Need was an intro question on Popmaster the other day. “Right Here Waiting” said the contestant, confidently.

12: Jennifer Paige, “Crush”, 2 weeks

Ah, now there’s a tune. It seems to have been the bridesmaid nearly everywhere, Australia being one of the few countries where it reached the top.

Re: 22 That feels like one of the weaker Face lists, although there’s some good stuff in it. I can’t remember whether I voted that year – I know I did the year after. Blimey, they loved that Air album – it was inescapable for months.

Anyway, here, meanwhile, for a bit of pop cultural context, is the first and only Neon magazine films of the year (the magazine’s brief existence took in three Januarys, but there was only one poll). I mentioned it in the Popular ’97 comments, because people were talking about films that actually came out here in ’98, but here’s the list itself:

1) Boogie Nights
2) Buffalo 66
3) Starship Troopers
4) There’s Something About Mary
5) Velvet Goldmine
6) Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
7) Saving Private Ryan
8) Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
9) The Wedding Singer
10) Hana-bi (Fireworks)
11) The Truman Show
12) The Daytrippers
13) The Big Lebowski
14) The Last Days Of Disco
15) Carne Trémula (Live Flesh)
16) In The Company Of Men
17) The Castle
18) U-Turn
19) Out Of Sight
20) Jackie Brown

1998’s chart bothering contributions to my 200 Fave Songs Of All Time List (compiled 2001 – see Popular ’96):

Fatboy Slim – The Rockafeller Skank
The Bluetones – If…
Spice Girls – Viva Forever
B*Witched – To You I Belong
The Divine Comedy – The Certainty Of Chance
The Honeyz – Finally Found
Aerosmith – I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing (I REGRET NOTHING)
Air – All I Need (#23: there’s a reason everybody went nuts over Moon Safari)
Rialto – Monday Morning 5:19
Placebo – Pure Morning (sacrilege in some quarters)
Pulp – This Is Hardcore
Fatboy Slim – The World Went Down (B-side to Gangster Trippin’)
Space – Begin Again
Mansun – Legacy (oh how I laughed when this appeared on Now! 40)

Said 200 was compiled for the benefit of a Buffy forum (oh, how 1998 can you get?!); the soundtrack for that included Bif Naked, whose I Bificus album contributes a further four songs (none of which would have even made a dent this side of The Pond).

This feels like the year I started to not give two tosses about what was number one; which given I was The Bloke In The Town’s Record Shop, this was quite an achievement. At this point I was far more interested in Oakenfold than Oasis, and as the lifeblood of the Spice Girls ebbed away I must admit I laughed. What a twat I was.

Still not a bad year, though. I’m dreading 2004. What? What… who are you, big teethed monster? Ow….

#28, I was 26 in 1992, kind of not feeling grunge and The KLF disintegrated. Maybe Danny Baker had a point.

Killer should be in there somewhere – certainly was last I looked.

#28 I turned 26 in November 1998. So…yeah.

#27 2004 seemed like a pop music nadir on both sides of the Atlantic, although for slightly different reasons. Not sure whether I’m dreading it, or perversely looking forward to everyone’s reactions….

#30 Notable that the collective performance of the 90’s has actually gotten worse since I made the observation that they weren’t doing well several months ago. Among other things, the top-rated song at the time, “Ready Or Not”, has fallen out of the top 100 entirely. Good to see White Town and Beats International hanging in there though.

A little unjust on the 90s, these scores, I think. I remember some concern from commenters past that The Modern Era would be overscored compared to some perceived Halycon Era: that really hasn’t happened.

30th December 1998 saw the first broadcast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on BBC2, as noted here: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/sf/tv/buffy/1.htm

Scottish/UK chart no 1 differences

No 1 in Scotland but not UK :
1) Madonna – Ray Of Light
2) Del Amitri – Don’t Come Home Too Soon
3) Dario G – Carnaval de Paris
4) 911 – More Than A Woman

No 1 in UK but not Scotland
1) Usher – You Make Me Wanna…
2) All Saints – Under The Bridge/Lady Marmalade
3) Baddiel, Skinner, Lightning Seeds – 3 Lions 98
4) Billie – Because We Want To
5) Another Level – Freak Me
6) Manic Street Preachers – If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
7) All Saints – Bootie Call
8) Melanie B ft Missy Elliott – I Want You Back
9) Spacedust – Gym & Tonic

World Cup allegiances at play for half of the Scotland-only number 1s. (Can this really be the last time Scotland qualified for the world cup finals?). Otherwise, urban dance music misses out north of the border, along with Billie’s better single of the year. And 911 reach the top with a crap cover version in Scotland before they do so UK-wide… And how would popular cope without a chance to discuss the Manics? (Kept off the top by Boyzone, to boot)

NINETEEN. “Chocolate Salty Balls” would make 20.

Though mostly sixes. I’ve been suffering from burnout.