Listening to Number One songs through the years

[BUTT]

I admit that I do like "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" (some of the best electric piano of the era) but it's the only one of Bolton's hits that I enjoy. At some point I will check out his two hard rock albums from the 80s and see if there's anything good there. Fun fact about HAISTLWY is that Bolton wrote it but gave it to Laura Branigan - I guess he felt it wouldn't have fit in with the Journeyesque material he was recording at the time - and her version was a #12 hit in 1983. Bolton recorded his own version for his album Soul Provider and had his first #1 with it - did people forget about the original recording or were they just so impressed with Mike's crooning that they were willing to give the song another chance a mere six years later? Another thing that just doesn't happen anymore.

 

[alkeiper]

1992

Live songs are in vouge. George Michael hits with "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" while Mariah Carey charts with a cover of "I'll Be There."

More rap making number one. Vanilla Ice had come along a year or two prior. Now we've got "Jump" and "Baby Got Back."

Speaking of, "Baby Got Back" being followed by Madonna's "This Used To Be My Playground" got a chuckle out of me.

The ballad seems to be big in this era. Boyz II Men kept "End of the Road" at #1 for almost three full months. They set a record which only lasted a couple months until Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" topped the chart 14 weeks in a row.

Songs last longer on top. 1993 has just eleven different songs at #1. Contrast with 1973 when 29 different songs hit #1.

 

[alkeiper]

1994. Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You" spends fourteen weeks at #1 and is followed by another of their songs, "On Bended Knee," for another six (non-consecutive) weeks. That run is interupted by the classic Christmas hit, "Here Comes the Hotstepper."

I spent the '90s listening to alternative and didn't like Pop/R&B. But really I can't hate on this music. I have a new appreciation for Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Madonna. Good pop musicians.

At the end of the year someone had the idea of combining Carey and Boyz II Men and given trends it's amazing it ever left the #1 spot. The sixteen week run of that song was only broken by Despacito, if I live long enough to cover 2017.

 

[alkeiper]

1997. Pop music is starting to get insufferable and I blame Puff Daddy. The last quarter of the year is dominated by Elton John's remake of "Candle In the Wind 1997" in honor of Princess Diana. A cultural milestone.

1998. I hate the songs from Savage Garden, Next, Usher. I still can't listen to My Heart Will Go On without throwing a tantrum. The hip hop from Brandy/Monica is good though, and of course Lauryn Hill.

 

[Epic Springs]

1998 gave us Garage Inc. and Offspring's Americana! It wasn't ALL bad!

 

[Valeyard]

Savage Garden is hilarious looking back. The video for "I Want You" is the most late-'90s three or so minutes you can ever want, down to fake Mila Jovovich. "Truly Madly Deeply" is godawful.

Defy any '90s pop radio kid to not have their mind a little blown when they realize the Can't Hardly Wait soundtrack is basically junior high/freshman year.

 

[King Kamala]

1997-98 is when I was finally allowed to watch MTV by my parents so I have a lot of fond memories of that era. '97-'02ish was peak of my pop music consumption so it always has a place in my heart no matter how mediocre most of it is.

I remember the explosion in popularity for Puff Daddy & The Family in the Summer of '97 was first instance of my music tastes diverging with Pops Kamala's. He couldn't believe all those classic rock songs were ruined. In retrospect, he was probably right. Maybe I should have just stayed listening to classic rock & oldies with Pops Kamala.

Pops Kamala also correctly predicted that the singer of Savage Garden was gay...which I mean looking back now isn't a bold prediction.

 

[alfdogg]

NKOTB and Milli Vanilli were the first groups I can remember being popular at my school, thus they will always be a guilty pleasure for nostalgic/sentimental reasons.

Blame it on the Rain is one of the best songs of the 80's. Fite me

 

[BUTT]

Savage Garden is hilarious looking back. The video for "I Want You" is the most late-'90s three or so minutes you can ever want, down to fake Mila Jovovich. "Truly Madly Deeply" is godawful.

Defy any '90s pop radio kid to not have their mind a little blown when they realize the Can't Hardly Wait soundtrack is basically junior high/freshman year.

I don’t care for “Truly Madly Deeply” or their other number one hit “I Knew I Loved You” (coming in late ‘99) but their song “To the Moon and Back” is legit good.

Excellent ending with the piano and strings. When I was in eighth grade there were some younger girls on the bus who would get the driver to play their mix tapes of boy band trash and this was on there. I sat there never letting on that I thought this was a real jam. They released this as a single in the US twice and it barely reached the top 40 both times, while their other bad singles topped the charts. What a shitty country.

 

[BUTT]

Blame it on the Rain is one of the best songs of the 80's. Fite me

http://culturecrossfire.com/forum/threads/dianne-warren-classics.15037/

Please share this sentiment in this recent GTG thread, sir.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

I forgot that Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy With It" was 1998. I remember that being big at my school for a while too. Crazy to compare that to the sea change in '99 with 'teen pop' and the rise of the Latin pop song movement: Britney, Christina, Ricky Martin, J-Lo, and Enrique Inglesias all hitting the chart in '99.

 

[alkeiper]

1999. Color me pleasantly surprised. "Livin' la Vida Loca" struck me as a good song. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, like those. No boy bands at #1. A good year.

 

[King Kamala]

If @BUTT 's Diane Warren thread is successful enough, maybe I will start a Desmond Child thread in GTG. On the surface, it seems like a dated artifact but it's subtly timeless (in its own big dumb way if that makes sense). If you tweaked it just a little bit, it could have been one of his Bon Jovi hits from 10-12 years earlier.

 

[Valeyard]

To make this era of this list accurate, listen to "Smooth" eight million times.

 

[alkeiper]

2001. America responds to the tragedy of 9/11 with....Nickelback. I've always drawn a comparison between Nickelback and Olive Garden. People think they like rock music, or they like italian food. And it's the most basic option out there.

I was actually surprised a bit, I figured some patriotic bombast would've topped the chart in the aftermath but no, Jennifer Lopez kept on for a couple weeks and Alicia Keys took over again.

2002. Mostly hip-hop. Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" is a reminder of a dark time when American Idol was the most important thing on earth. Eminem hits with "Lose Yourself." Generally I can't stand his music but that's a damn good track.

 

[alfdogg]

IF Nickelback is Olive Garden, then who would be Fazoli's?

 

[alkeiper]

IF Nickelback is Olive Garden, then who would be Fazoli's?

I've honestly never heard of Fazoli's before this moment.

 

[alfdogg]

I sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that because a certain chain exists here, then it exists everywhere. Upon further search, it's mostly a midwest thing. Guess that joke fell flat

 

[King Kamala]

IF Nickelback is Olive Garden, then who would be Fazoli's?

Three Day Grace? They've had like 15 Rock #1s yet 90% of people have no idea who the hell Three Day Grace is. Also Canadian. Thanks Trudeau!

 

[Epic Springs]

The answer is Default, whose debut album was produced by Chad Kroeger.

This was a minor hit in 2001:

 

[JHawk]

Three Day Grace? They've had like 15 Rock #1s yet 90% of people have no idea who the hell Three Day Grace is. Also Canadian. Thanks Trudeau!

I feel this is the best answer.

 

[alkeiper]

2004-05. Hit songs are becoming more vulgar, for better or worse. Lots of hip hop, dance music, general weirdness. Gwen Stefani starts spelling out bananas and mumbling about her shit. Some classic hooks but most of this I could do without.

 

[strummer]

I was a freshman in college in 97-98 so I guess I have an odd attachment to the music of those years. I just remember Third Eye Blind, the Verve, Wallflowers (96?) constantly playing on the radio. I think Beastie Boys "Intergalactic" was 98 as well

"The Freshman" by The Verve Pipe and "Standing outside a broken phone booth with money in my hand" by Primitive Radio Gods were played all time in summer of 97

 

[Valeyard]

Solo Gwen Stefani is some of the worst the first part of the decade had. I leaned much harder into the bandz whu wil save rock (Hives, Vines, Strokes) out of preservation. Then the Killers showed up and "Mr. Brightside" invented a whole new kind of white people turnt.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Solo Gwen Stefani is some of the worst the first part of the decade had. I leaned much harder into the bandz whu wil save rock (Hives, Vines, Strokes) out of preservation. Then the Killers showed up and "Mr. Brightside" invented a whole new kind of white people turnt.

I was into the Hives/Vines/Strokes/White Stripes period a lot too then the Rap Rock really came to the forefront in the mid-2000s and I mostly shied away after the Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped "Snow (Hey Oh)" in 2007 and I had to dig harder to find any adequate truly hard rock stuff. Too much of the rock stuff was either light/soft rock or just bland and I never could get into the pop style of modern-day radio despite trying now and then.

 

[King Kamala]

Rap rock came to the forefront in the MID 2000s? Are you from NEW HAMPSHIRE, @HarleyQuinn ?

 

[Valeyard]

White Stripes were so reliable. Jack White's a lot of things, but at least he's consistent. It was a good time for crossovers, though. Like, that era of Madden sountracks were a totally decent little collection. Stacking the 49ers while listening to the Hives is a good memory for me.

Also gotta say, and this is probably one of those hot takes, that American Idiot was way way better than it had any right to be. Listened to it recently and it is VERY dated but I'm a rock opera mark and it's the only Green Day I can genuinely praise as being great.

 

[King Kamala]

American Idiot was one of those things that was SO POPULAR when I was in 10th grade, I grew to resent it purely based on how much other people liked it. Angry nerd Kamala. Now I really regret not seeing Green Day (with a just starting to explode in popularity My Chemical Romance opening) on that tour at the local arena. What can you do? I made a lot of crappy decisions in high school.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Rap rock came to the forefront in the MID 2000s? Are you from NEW HAMPSHIRE, @HarleyQuinn ?

There was obviously the 90s stuff but in terms of the Billboard Top 100, the early to mid-2000s saw Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life", Linkin Park, Crazy Town, etc. coming far more to the 'mainstream'. Korn's first BillBoard Top 100 was "Here to Stay" in 2002, which peaked at 72 as an example then "Did My Time" hit 38 in 2003.

 

[King Kamala]

"My Immortal" is RAP ROCK!?

I know KoRn plugged away as a smaller arena level act until '05/'06 (and made their only SNL appearance during that era, which seemed really odd) but by the mid '00s, Linkin Park was just quickly inching towards becoming a straight up pop rock act, Limp Bizkit was on hiatus, Crazy Towns of the world were broken up.