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Jan 15
Popular ’99
I give a mark out of 10 to every Popular entry. In these year end polls, you get to tick any of the singles that you would have given 6 or more to.
With the most #1s yet, 1999 saw me give my highest scores (9s) to Britney and Fatboy Slim, and a brace of 1s to Baz Luhrmann and (less controversially) Sir Cliff. Over to you, and use the comment boxes to talk about the year in general. Tomorrow I’ll put up a decade poll too.
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13 out of 36, and I suspect I’ll be one of the more generous ones.
Popular (Not Popular) Top 10 – the Wikipedia page for Top 10 hits for 1999 is missing, so for now I’ve fallen back on the ten biggest sellers not to feature here.
1. Shania Twain – “That Don’t Impress Me Much”
2. Alice Deejay – “Better Off Alone”
3. TLC – “No Scrubs”
4. R Kelly – “If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time”
5. Macy Gray – “I Try”
6. Ann Lee – “2 Times”
7. Whitney Houston – “My Love Is Your Love”
8. Madonna – “Beautiful Stranger”
9. Phats And Small – “Turn Around”
10. Whitney Houston – “It’s Not Right But It’s OK”
At least 7 of those would get a tick here, leading me to suspect it was an unlucky year for number ones as much as a bad one.
I voted for 13 also, which is a lot more than I would have thought before I voted. A lot of those were barely 6’s though. Amazing how many UK hits had no US impact that year…a trend that will only increase as we enter the 2000s.
Billboard’s #1’s for 1999:
“Have You Ever?” Brandy
– Don’t remember it well. Brandy and Monica were pretty much interchangeable for me at this point.
“…Baby One More Time” Britney
– Already discussed
“Angel of Mine” Monica
– See above
“Believe” Cher
– Already discussed in 1998. Billboard’s top single of 1999
“No Scrubs” TLC
– TLC disses loser men (that include me?). Also had an answer song “No Pigeons” by Sporty Theivz.
“Livin’ La Vida Loca” Ricky Martin
– Already discussed
“If You Had My Love” Jennifer Lopez
– Mildly surprised this wasn’t a UK #1.
“Bills, Bills, Bills” Destiny’s Child
– First #1. I think we may hear from them again.
“Wild, Wild West” Will Smith
– From the movie. Pretty forgettable – at least I forgot it.
“Genie In A Bottle” Christina
– Already discussed. For those keeping score, #1 for 5 weeks vs. Britney’s 2.
“Bailamos” Enrique Iglesias
– The latin craze of 1999 continues.
“Unpretty” TLC
– Positive body image song. Unusually for TLC, I actually like this.
“Heartbreaker” Mariah Carey f/Jay Z
– And Mariah goes 10 for 10 in the 90’s. This is the video with the Sliders guy in it. Also, I think the first #1 appearance for a certain rapper.
“Smooth” Santana f/Rob Thomas
– And in a year in which latin-flavored music was everywhere, 50-something Carlos Santana teams up with the Matchbox 20 singer and shows ’em how it’s done. I was initially happy to see Santana get a late career #1, but I certainly didn’t expect this to stick around for 12 weeks (plus another 10 weeks for its followup in 2000). It was disappointing for those like myself who would’ve expected something more futuristic-sounding at the turn of the millennium. Although like I said in the previous thread, at least it wasn’t Westlife.
Music-wise, 1999 looks better to me now than it did at the time (I was so unhappy with Pop then, I actually turned to Country for a time). Maybe that’s because there’s so much worse to come. Or maybe the 2000’s won’t be as bad as I remember either? We’ll see….
I voted for 13 as well coincidently. If the cut off had been 7 points then I’d have voted for about five or six singles – not a vintage year for number 1s.
13 from me, also. Unlucky all round…
Would gladly have seen some Macy Gray and TLC here…
The NME Top 50 Singles of 1999 (courtesy of http://www.rocklist.net)
1. Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
2. TLC – No Scrubs
3. Super Furry Animals – Northern Lites
4. The Flaming Lips – Race For The Prize
5. Eminem – My Name Is
6. Mogwai – EP
7. Fatboy Slim – Praise You
8. Primal Scream – Swastika Eyes
9. Beck – Sex Laws
10. Madonna – Beautiful Stranger
11. Death In Vegas – Dirge
12. Campag Velocet – To Lose La Treck
13. Sigur Ros – Svefn-G-Englar
14. Blur – Tender
15. Shack – Comedy
16. Travis – Writing To Reach You
17. Sebodoh – Flame
18. Monster Magnet – Space Lord
19. New Radicals – You Get What You Give
20. Supergrass – Pumping On Your Stereo
21. Basement Jaxx – Rendez-Vu
22. The Flaming Lips – Waiting For Superman
23. Blur – Coffee + TV
24. The Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy Hey Girl
25. Badly Drawn Boy – It Came From The Ground
26. Gay Dad – To Earth With Love
27. Mercury Rev – Goddess On A Hiway
28. Moloko – Sing It Back
29. Pavement – Carrot Rope
30. Smog – Cold Blooded Old Times
31. Underworld – King Of Snake
32. Buckcherry – Lit Up
33. Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Got Your Money
34. Shack – Natalie’s Party
35. Super Furry Animals – Fire In My Heart
36. The Fall – Touch Sensitive
37. U-Ziq – The Fear
38. Underworld – Jumbo
39. Armand Van Helden – U Don’t Know Me
40. The All Seeing I – Walk Like A Panther
41. Pavement – Major League
42. Puff Daddy – Pe2000
43. Mr Oizo – Flat Beat
44. Hole – Malibu
45. Low – Immune
46. Zan Lyons – Suicide
47. The Charlatans – Forever
48. Mercury Rev – Opus 40
49. Roots Manuva – Juggle Tings Proper
50. The Micronauts – The Jag
there are some dreary drone-y tracks from the USA mixed in there – I bought some of them on the recommendation of Mojo I think. Fool me once…
Fourteen for me, thanks in part to my love of the two Vengaboys tracks for reasons not entirely related to their musical quality. Hadn’t remembered I’d handed out sixes to some of these until I checked. A pretty dud year overall, really: no tens or nines from me, only seven getting seven or eight, and twelve I gave three or under. No quibbles with the top end or bottom end of the results so far.
Here were Australia’s number ones of 1999:
The Offspring, “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”, 6 weeks
Cher, “Believe”, 5 weeks
Britney Spears, “…Baby One More Time”, 9 weeks
TLC, “No Scrubs”, 7 weeks
Sixpence None the Richer, “Kiss Me”, 3 weeks
Jennifer Lopez, “If You Had My Love”, 3 weeks
Lou Bega, “Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)”, 8 weeks (highest-seller)
Eiffel 65, “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”, 9 weeks
6, and I find that ‘Keep on Movin” has grown on me and I’ve mellowed on ‘Boom Boom…..’ I’m surprised that there’s no Beta Band on the NME list @#5.
Only 9 for me, and nearly all from the first half of the year. Not a great year.
Here’s the tsort chart aggregation top 20 (full top 100 is here – http://www.tsort.info/music/yr1999.htm)
1. Britney Spears – Baby One More Time
2. Ricky Martin – Livin’ La Vida Loca
3. Rob Thomas & Santana – Smooth
4. Lou Bega – Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit of …)
5. TLC – No Scrubs
6. Eiffel 65 – Blue (Da Ba Dee)
7. The Backstreet Boys – I Want it That Way
8. Christina Aguilera – Genie in a Bottle
9. Jennifer Lopez – If You Had My Love
10. Sixpence None The Richer – Kiss Me
11. Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)
12. Will Smith – Wild Wild West
13. Madonna – Beautiful Stranger
14. Savage Garden – I Knew I Loved You
15. Shania Twain – That Don’t Impress Me Much
16. Mariah Carey – Heartbreaker
17. The New Radicals – You Get What You Give
18. Bloodhound Gang – The Bad Touch
19. TLC – Unpretty
20. Sugar Ray – Every Morning
#6 Interesting to note every AUS #1 that year was also either a US or UK #1, except for “Kiss Me” which was US #2. Also, after I praised the AUS chart for balanced turnover in the previous thread, it turns out to have had only have 8 number ones that year. It appears to have been an unusually low turnover year though.
#9 Definitely an anomaly, considering by the next year that number would more than double, and if memory serves correctly it is the smallest count in at least the last 50 years. But for what it’s worth, that count should be 9 as Pearl Jam’s sole chart topper “Last Kiss” was also in the mix. Also joins “Kiss Me” as a US #2.
#9 Yes, I was thinking of that comment of yours when I posted the list above. It was an atypical year, though – in fact, the lowest turnover of Australian number ones ever. Usually your point about it being a good middle ground is quite true; in 2000 there were 21.
11 from me: the current top six plus Armand, Offspring, Lou, B*Witched and Robbie. Some of those just scraped through though. Some interesting results emerging already: the appeal of Flat Beat eludes me now as it did then, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at its 40%, but I did think ‘Sunscreen’ would do better, for some reason. And the boybands’ fanbases certainly haven’t been here – four Westlife and two Boyzone entries barely scraping a dozen votes between them.
The Face list (I don’t think I voted that year – I know it did in 2000):
1. Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
2. TLC – No Scrubs
3. Madonna – Beautiful Stranger
4. Eminem – My Name Is
5. Basement Jaxx – Rendez-Vu
6. Armand Van Helden – U Don’t Know Me
7. Moloko – Sing It Back
8. Britney Spears – Baby One More Time
9. The Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy Hey Girl
10. Shack – Comedy
11. Whitney Houston – It’s Not Right But It’s Ok
12. Sasha – Xpander
13. Macy Gray – I Try
14. Basement Jaxx – Red Alert
15. TLC – Unpretty
16. Pete Heller – Big Love
17. Leftfield – Afrika Shox
18. Chemical Brothers – Out Of Control
19. Shanks & Bigfoot – Sweet Like Chocolate
20. ATB – 9pm (‘Till I Come)
21. Q-Tip Feat. Raphael Saddiq – Get Involved
22. Armand Van Helden – Flowerz
23. Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around The Block
24. Blur – Coffee & TV
25. Destiny’s Child – Bills Bills Bills
26. Mr Oizo – Flat Beat
27. Isolee – Beau Not Plage
28. The Roots Feat. Erykah Badu – You Got Me
29. Chicks On Speed – Eurotrash Girl
30. Phoenix – Heatwave
As Tom suggests at 1, the No.1s don’t necessarily capture the vibe of the year, especially with Westlife fanbase effect. To me, the new R’n’B was definitely the story of the year – both at the time and now. With Bills Bills Bills and Get Your Money, for instance, it’s hello to a couple of major characters for her on in…
Other things I like(d) on those end of the year critics include Sing It Back, Hey Boy Hey Girl and Smog’s Cold Blooded Old Times, which I’m guessing might be one of the things Lonepilgrim regrets buying on Mojo’s recommendation.
#10 It occurred to me that had “Last Kiss” gone all the way in the US, it might have been the most extreme case of “famous group has their only #1 with unlikely record” in Hot 100 history.
#10 Whoops, sorry I missed that one, must have scrolled past it in error at Wikipedia. Seven weeks at the top between JLo and Lou Bega.
Top 20 singles for 1999 from Rateyourmusic – as usual for recent years there’s a slight bias towards indie stuff.
1. Sigur Rós – Svefn-g-englar
2. Björk – All Is Full of Love
3. The Flaming Lips – Race for the Prize
4. Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
5. Blur – Coffee + TV
6. Blur – Tender
7. The Roots – You Got Me
8. Modest Mouse – Heart Cooks Brain / Shit Luck
9. Mercury Rev – Holes
10. Mos Def – Ms. Fat Booty / Mathematics
11. OutKast – Rosa Parks
12. XTC – Easter Theatre
13. Placebo – Without You I’m Nothing
14. Black Star – Respiration
15. Blur – No Distance Left to Run
16. Tom Waits – Hold On
17. Elliott Smith – Happiness / Son of Sam
18. Supergrass – Moving
19. Wilco – A Shot in the Arm
20. Belle and Sebastian – She’s Losing It (This was a single?!)
I’m outraged that OutKast aren’t bunnied – not even Hey Ya! I’d bet my house on Tom giving that a 10.
I’m glad it wasn’t as I’d have hated to render you homeless, Inanimate Carbon God – “B.O.B.” and “Ms.Jackson” were the peak for me. (though I’ve come to like “Hey Ya!” more than I did when it was omnipresent, and admit it’s a great pop song).
That’s a fun idea for a poll though, which I might do in the month off – round up a bunch of non Number Ones, some of which would have been potential 10s, and see how well my readers know my “tastes” aka prejudices by no. To keep myself honest I’d send the ‘answers’ to someone by email first.
Voted for 19 of them, because now we’re solidly into what I was growing up to. Would I look on them as fondly if they were new singles today? Probably not. But in a project this long you can’t disentangle music from life.
@20: Do it! Most definitely. You could get all the “premier league” of FT commenters to make their own “see how well you know me” poll, though that could cause a cult of personality, to quote Living Colour*
* Why would an American band use British English spelling? The mind, ahem, boggles. Still better than The London Suede. Or Massive Attack becoming… :cough: just “Massive.” I understand the sensitive climate around the first Gulf War but they’re the last act anyone would associate with redneck imperialist warmongering.
Living Colour*
* Why would an American band use British English spelling?
@22, I dunno, because the UK spelling looks better? At any rate there’s massive precedent on exactly this orthographic point with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’, not ‘Rumors’.
Re23: Except that version of Fleetwood Mac is still 60% British in personnel, despite being California-based.
@22, isn’t “Living Colour” a by-line from an old advert? It’s either Colour TV or Paint, but I can’t remember which. It’s probably hair dye or something other.
Re22:For what it’s worth, Vernon Reid – Living Colour’s leader – as I probably once knew but only know now because I looked it up, was born in London to West Indian parents, although he did grow up in NYC.
swanstep @23 leaving aside whether Fleetwood Mac is an American band, there’s a contraindication in the oh-so-English Richard Thompson’s Rumor and Sigh.
@ Mark M, 24. Good point. Better case for ‘my’ side then is Foo Fighters’ second album ‘The Colour & The Shape’ (and I wonder in that case in particular whether the ‘Rumours’ example of rock-stars using UK-spelling wasn’t in the back of Grohl’s mind). Also ‘Black is the Colour (of My True Love’s Hair)’ is an American standard that uses the UK-spelling.
#5 – I’d completely forgotten that the utterly magnificent ‘Space Lord’ was a 1999 single. This is probably because its parent album, Powertrip (best American album of the 90s) was a big part of the summer of ’98 for me.
That said, it’s just nice to see Monster Magnet mentioned in a Popular Comments Thread.
#27 Not forgetting Stephen Duffy’s “Music in Colors”
John Peel’s Festive Fifty comprised of 51 records in 1999. Here in all its Hamstery glory:
1. Cuban Boys: “Cognoscenti vs Intelligentsia”
2. Hefner: “Hymn For The Cigarettes”
3. Hefner: “Hymn For The Alcohol”
4. Fall: “Touch Sensitive”
5. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci: “Spanish Dance Troupe”
6. Elastica with Mark E Smith: “How He Wrote Elastica Man”
7. Fall: “F-oldin’ Money”
8. Flaming Lips: “Race For The Prize”
9. Murry The Hump: “Thrown Like A Stone”
10. Low: “Immune”
11. Half Man, Half Biscuit: “Look Dad No Tunes”
12. Flaming Lips: “Waiting For A Superman”
13. Cinerama: “Pacific”
14. Mogwai: “Cody”
15. Orbital: “Style”
16. Sonic Subjunkies: “Do You Even Know Who You Are?”
17. Super Furry Animals: “Fire In My Heart”
18. Cinerama: “King’s Cross”
19. Salako: “Look Left”
20. Clinic: “The Second Line”
21. Godspeed You Black Emperor!: “Hungover As The Oven At Maida Vale (Peel Session)”
22. Hefner: “I Stole A Bride”
23. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: “I See A Darkness”
24. Super Furry Animals: “Northern Lites”
25. Mogwai: “Stanley Kubrick”
26. Kraken: “Side Effects”
27. Super Furry Animals: “Turning Tide”
28. Cuban Boys: “Flossie’s Alarming Clock”
29. Dawn Of The Replicants: “Science Fiction Freak”
30. Half Man, Half Biscuit: “24 Hour Garage People (Peel Session)”
31. Pavement: “Major Leagues”
32. Hefner: “I Took Her Love For Granted”
33. Gene: “As Good As It Gets”
34. Plone: “Be Rude To Your School”
35. Smog: “Cold Blooded Old Times”
36. Broadcast: “Echoes Answer”
37. Add N To (X): “Metal Fingers In My Body”
38. Melt Banana: “Plot In A Pot”
39. Atari Teenage Riot: “Revolution Action”
40. Blur: “Tender”
41. Badly Drawn Boy: “Once Around The Block”
42. Aphex Twin: “Windowlicker”
43. Six By Seven: “Helden”
44. Appliance: “Food Music”
45. Pavement: “Carrot Rope”
46. Stereolab: “The Free Design”
47. Marine Research: “Parallel Horizontal”
48. Miss Mend: “Living City Plan”
49. Hefner: “Hymn For The Things We Didn’t Do”
50. Wheat: “Don’t I Hold You”
51. Monkey Steals The Drum: “Injured Birds”
@27: The biggest running joke amongst Lancastrians is “Ah, Fleetwood Mac, it’s always good to support a local band.”
One artist on Popular more famous than their homonymous place, unlike, say, Chicago, but Fleetwood Town FC are now doing their best to disprove that.. well, they will until the money runs out! (A cautionary tale: remember what happened to Rushden and Diamonds. And Parma.)
ICG @32 Well yes, one of them is a lass from Bouth so what’s not to like?
Comment deleted – I was going to note that 911 were yet to open their account, but apparently they’ve had one vote (still 0% though)
Scottish/UK chart no 1 differences
No 1 in Scotland but not UK :
1) DJ Sakin & Friends – Protect Your Mind (For The Love Of A Princess)
2) Texas – In Our Lifetime
3) Offspring – Why Don’t You Get A Job?
4) Shania Twain – That Don’t Impress Me Much
5) Steps – Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart
6) Five – If Ya Gettin’ Down
7) Alice Deejay – Better Off Alone
8) Ann Lee – 2 Times
9) Vengaboys – Kiss (When The Sun Don’t Shine)
No 1 in UK but not Scotland
1) Armand Van Helden – You Don’t Know Me
2) Lenny Kravitz – Fly Away
3) B*Witched – Blame It On The Weatherman
4) Westlife – Swear It Again
5) Shanks & Bigfoot – Sweet Like Chocolate
6) Ricky Martin – Livin’ La Vida Loca
7) Westlife – If I Let You Go
8) Christina Aguilera – Genie In A Bottle
9) Westlife – Flying Without Wings
(and possibly also Geri Halliwell – Lift Me Up: there is a week missing on the OCC database when that was UK no 1)
Interesting. Above all for Westlife’s first three singles not making it to the top in Scotland. And Ann Lee is no substitute for Christina Aguilera. Pity that B*Witched’s best single didn’t make it (not least as “C’est la Vie” had had a much longer run at no 1 in Scotland than throughout the UK). Shania Twain and Alice Deejay are kind of very much the sound of 1999 in my book, but do we really need another Vengasong with naff lyrics? The Braveheart ambient-house dance number is really damn good though.
If the 19th century Ewings had stayed north of the border it seems I’d know a lot more about the career of Texas than I do.
I gave 26! thumbs up.
The year I was born, this was actually better than any later year except 2000 or 2006 (both good).
The not-so-good ones: 911, Offspring, You Needed Me, Bring It All Back, both Vengaboys outings, Ronan, Lift Me Up, Cliff and IHAD/SITS.