Acclaimed Music Top 40 Songs from 1999 poll

Individual feelings about these lists may have a lot to do with age and how engaged one was in the music of a particular year. But I'm not really feeling this one.

2 398 Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
3 485 TLC - No Scrubs
5 753 Kelis - Caught Out There
6 873 The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
7 971 Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money
8 1167 Destiny's Child - Say My Name
9 1259 Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
11 1348 Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
22 1985 Basement Jaxx - Rendez-Vu
24 2062 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue
27 2356 The Roots feat. Erykah Badu - You Got Me
28 2359 Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
29 2360 The Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)
32 2601 Dr. Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre
35 2762 Moby - Porcelain
36 2844 Azzido Da Bass - Dooms Night
39 2900 Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills

one of these

Coffee & TV is fucking horrible.

Kneejerk vote for Windowlicker.

I almost kneejerked that one too but then I remembered how fucking perfect "I Want it That Way" was

My engagement with pop music in '99 pretty much began and ended with Destiny's Child. Which I'd blame mostly on the pop station that played constantly at my job and seemed to focus on only the worst of the worst. But even just straight pop songs that I'd happily swap with a lot of the ones on offer:

Monica - 'Angel Of Mine'
Brandy - 'Almost Doesn't Count'
Madonna - 'Beautiful Stranger'
Eiffel 65 - 'Blue (Da Ba Dee)'
Sixpence None The Richer - 'Kiss Me'
Len - 'Steal My Sunshine'
TLC - 'Unpretty'
Christina Aguilera - 'What A Girl Wants'

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
TLC - No Scrubs
Kelis - Caught Out There
Jay-Z - Big Pimpin'
Beck - Sexx Laws
Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
Blur - Coffee + TV
Santana feat. Rob Thomas - Smooth
The Roots feat. Erykah Badu - You Got Me
Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly
Dr. Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre
Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills

voted for madonna. 'steal my sunshine' and 'what a girl wants' are huge omissions

ooh yes to both of those

Oh, of course 'Beautiful Stranger' is in there. Duh, me.

Not as big an omission as "All Star"

On this list I think I'd vote for the Goo Goo Dolls...two great hooks. But man there is a lot of horrible stuff from 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1999

Coffee & TV is fucking horrible.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 4 February 2016 15:00 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we're not friends any more

Kneejerk vote for Windowlicker.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 4 February 2016 15:00 (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh, alright :-)

Re: 1999 hot 100, I remember a lot of Shania, a lot of Enrique, a little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side...

I'm still anxiously awaiting "Mambo No. 6", c'mon Lou

1999 - I came from quite a progressive 6th form college in Cambridge and started uni on my 18th birthday. One of the first things I remember doing there was walking into the SU club and they were playing Blue by Eiffel 65 and people were DANCING, and not even ironically. My dreams of university being some sort of cool alt-music paradise were further smashed to pieces on attending the local indie night they played 9 Limp Bizkit songs in a row.

can't imagine looking at this list and thinking 1999 was a BAD year

ditto the 1998 thread that i've only just read in horror

extremely fond memories of

3 485 TLC - No Scrubs
5 753 Kelis - Caught Out There
6 873 The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
7 971 Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money
8 1167 Destiny's Child - Say My Name
9 1259 Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
10 1265 Jay-Z - Big Pimpin'
11 1348 Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
16 1611 Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg - Still D.R.E.
17 1693 Le Tigre - Deceptacon
18 1714 Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
19 1764 Armand Van Helden - U Don't Know Me
22 1985 Basement Jaxx - Rendez-Vu
25 2126 Santana feat. Rob Thomas - Smooth
26 2347 Macy Gray - I Try
27 2356 The Roots feat. Erykah Badu - You Got Me
28 2359 Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
29 2360 The Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)
32 2601 Dr. Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre
36 2844 Azzido Da Bass - Dooms Night
39 2900 Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills

winner is between the artful dodger and one of the DCs

Wait how is '14 Zero Zero' so high in this list? Blogospheric heights...

I like every other song on 13 better than "Tender" and "Coffee & TV." If "Battle" had placed, it would've easily gotten my vote.

Probably going with either "Beautiful Stranger" (great ripoff bit from Love's "She Comes In Colors") or "No Scrubs."

I think I've come to appreciate a lot of these songs in retrospect. I'm quite a different person to when I was 18/19 and all stuff is subjective but 1999 is not my time.

Oh yeah, 1999 was also the start of my parents' separation and eventual divorce, so that's obviously a big cloud over my memory. But it's not as though there weren't good times too!

It's just when I think of 1999 it just makes me think of provincial club nights with blokes in shiny shirts and too much hair gel spilling Smirnoff ices as they danced like crabs to bad commercial garage music (really didn't dig garage at the time, probably cos I only experienced it in these contexts). UK 'indie music' now meant Travis. Chris Evans and Chris Moyles were all over the place. An axis of spoilt white brats coming out of the US, spearheaded by Blink 182, Tom Green, Limp Bizkit and Eminem. Dance music was all about superclubs and trance, and I remember going on a very miserable mission to Home in Leicester Square in my only pair of smart shoes and a crappy Burtons zip-up shirt I'd bought at last minute with part of my student loan so I could get in.

There was something very hollow and spangly about that very specific era that really repulsed me. I know I started to appreciate dance music a lot more once the millennium came round.

"Say My Name" by infinite distance tbh

not sure eminem circa slim shady lp was "spoilt"

Have to admit that I've never heard of these:

Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
The Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)
Console - 14 Zero Zero
Azzido Da Bass - Dooms Night

Assuming the Artful Dodger here is not a late in the game hit from the 70s power pop band.

Eminem certainly a white brat but not spoilt

haha xxp

Assuming the Artful Dodger here is not a late in the game hit from the 70s power pop band.

haha no, this was a UK garage track featuring Craig David

this was a pretty important year in music for me

these are the ones i am familiar with, im sure i know the others but i can't think of them off the top of my head. i hope yall dont mind some personal reminiscences from me:

Eminem - My Name Is - eh, this is okay i guess, i never got the appeal of eminem, there was a brief period when i listened to the MM album a lot and dug it but eventually grew to kind of hate him, he is so unlikeable

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker - amazing song, easily #1 here, i listened to this ALL the time, smoked hella weed to this tune w/ a very good friend driving around suburbs of cleveland, we had this on-again/off-again physical relationship throught high school that we didn't tell anyone about, we'd drive around together on the way to a party or at the end of the night and listen to a lot of aphex twin, basement jaxx, other popular late 90s electronic musoc, it is so closely tied to a very specific period in my life in high school and my relationship w/ this dude

TLC - No Scrubs - idk why but i didn't like this at the time but it is a classic

The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize - very good song, i came to this a little late, maybe in 2003 or something

Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money - good song, classic late 90s tune, i feel like this and ghetto superstar were always in the background during this time in my life

Destiny's Child - Say My Name - i was close friends w/ some v cool positive girls who LOVED this tune so much, they knew every word, would listen on repeat, it is undeniable, such a great tune

Jay-Z - Big Pimpin' - i'm mostly tired of this now because boston's hot 97 plays it way too much but it's pretty good, timbaland's production was amazing at the time

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness - i didn't listen to this song or album until a few years ago, pretty much perfect, easily oldham's most powerful song

Sigur Rós - Svefn-G-Englar - i don't have any time for this band anymore and havent in many years but i remember loving this and thinking it was v beautiful

Le Tigre - Deceptacon - i liked this at first a lot but in college i hung out w/ a lot of leftist anarchist(ish) activist kids and they played this song like 10 times at EVERY SINGLE party and i grew to really hate it. a few years ago i went to my old college roommate's 30th birthday party and it was playing and i was like really dude you are still listening to this stupid ass song, idk it is a fun song but just so annoying to me now bc of the associations w/ those activist kids

Armand Van Helden - U Don't Know Me - SO SO good, classic 90s house tune, 2 future 4 u was a v important album for me in high school, i v strongly associate it with that same relationship i had w/ the dude who i mentioned re windowlicker, he was the main person i listened to house music w/ and he had a good pipeline of music since his older brother lived in san francisco and new york in the 90s and went dancing a lot. van helden eventually went to shit but thos album was great and this song along w/ "flowerz" are the highlights

Basement Jaxx - Rendez-Vu - same thing as the van helden tune, i think of getting stoned w/ this dude driving around and anticipating sex w/ him later on

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue - this song kind of sucks but i kind of have a mild soft spot for the sad-ass RHCP tunes like this, under the bridge, and soul to squeeze, idk why, they are a terrible band

Santana feat. Rob Thomas - Smooth - straight garbage obv although my entire family -- my parents and 4 siblings and my toddler nephew at the time all went to go see santana either right before or after he blew up again w/ rob thomas and that was a good experience. fuck this song and rob thomas forever though

Blink-182 - What's My Age Again? - another prob bad song that i have some affection for, decent pop punk song i guess that i have positive associations w/ because of some good folks i was friends with who loved this band

Dr. Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre - eh idk i don't have a lot of enthusiuasm for dre or eminem, too many experience of wannabe hard-ass white dudes i knew who were total dicks who loved this tune and blasted it at their lame ass parties

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication - trash i guess

Moby - Porcelain - beautiful song, easily the best tune off of play, i loved this album v much, everytyhing is wrong is the better moby album but great tune. i grew up in the suburbs of cleveland but around 1999 i started spending more time downtown w/ my older siblings and their friends and one of the first times i heard this song was driving around downtown with them and some of their friends in one of the first "new wave" volkswagen bugs and i felt very "future" lmao for a teenager

Travis - Why Does It Always Rain on Me - lol i remember liking the travis album while i was waiting for new radiohead (spin magazine explicitly named this as something to ease the wait for new radiohead after ok computer) but this such a complete garbage piece of music, fuck this band

Have to admit that I've never heard of these:

Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat

I have a hunch that this will au your contraire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmsbP13xu6k

Have to admit that I've never heard of these:

Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
The Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)
Console - 14 Zero Zero
Azzido Da Bass - Dooms Night

Assuming the Artful Dodger here is not a late in the game hit from the 70s power pop band.

― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Thursday, 4 February 2016 16:20 (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Other than Console (no idea what this is either) these were all ubiquitous int he UK. How anyone can not be familiar with Re-Rewind is amazing to me.

well for one, I think cryptosicko is in Canada

Oizo was also ubiquitous in a bunch of Levi's ads in (at least) the States.

I never really hated Eminem. I liked 'My Name Is' and like marcos, I listened to the MM album a bit but now he just seems a part of a maelstrom of over-entitled pre-9/11 US door-slamming music that just got too big and bloated for its own good.

haha very much so

also: floor sweeping bell-bottom jeans, wallet chains and ridiculously overlong belts and people in black band Ts dancing to nu-metal like they'd been kicked in the crotch (even the girls!)

I must have spent most of 1999 discovering all the acts on Warp Records (Autechre, Aphex) and listening to all those classic rock/pop albums people that age check out (London Calling, Pet Sounds) and also a bunch of metal compilations my friends back home made me. also, I didn't admit it at the time cos I was a 'cool' 'alt' kid who stood at the back of the club rolling his eyes and not talking to anyone, but I had a fair bit of time for Destiny's Child and TLC.

Dude, I had almost your exact '99 in like '98, minus the metal comps.

If Ny Batteri had been the Sigur Ros pick. I'd have gone for that. I didn't listen to them past the first album but they felt like such a unique and special band when they first broke, like something from outer space and unlike any other music from before.

Moby - Porcelain - beautiful song, easily the best tune off of play, i loved this album v much, everytyhing is wrong is the better moby album but great tune. i grew up in the suburbs of cleveland but around 1999 i started spending more time downtown w/ my older siblings and their friends and one of the first times i heard this song was driving around downtown with them and some of their friends in one of the first "new wave" volkswagen bugs and i felt very "future" lmao for a teenager

Love this tune - I think I was 13 when I bought Play, hearing this immediately takes me back to those days, my paper route, Goldeneye 64, Pokemon cards, uncertainty about growing up, etc. I think "Jumbo" by Underworld would be a better choice but it's not on here

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12654612_10205469229390985_3886713803089120157_n.jpg?oh=4bd724e644bc6c15e9735a35c7b582c0&oe=5731E2B8&__gda__=1461982845_19d79cdb6cde3db3c372a9a5e8251149

fucking "my name is"? good god

for me it's "i want it that way" or "caught out there"

"beautiful stranger" is v great too

Nnnjyustlaktheeyoshun

Yup, Canadian boy here, and the radio here was all BSB, Eminem, Limp Bizkit and all that shit at the time.

Also surprised that "Steal My Sunshine" isn't here. One of the few pop singles I liked from that year, along with Blondie's "Maria" (this may have been late '98?) and Tal Bachman's "She's So High."

all three of those were in pazz and jop's top 40 that year

Play was such a weird phenomenon. it's v pretty but Moby is such an obvious hack. though I will still rep for these:
http://www.discogs.com/Moby-Go-Remixes/release/6290276
http://www.discogs.com/Moby-Ambient/master/2667

I don't know why I always incorrectly think Joshua Kadison was a thing around '99. His soul-demolishing AC blandness just seems to fit in better a few years later, I guess.

I will rep hard for Moby's Ambient. I have a sweet playlist of that and all of the other ambient cuts sprinkled throughout his discography. It's what he does/did best imo.

There was that article in Select (or NME) at the time where the writer tried to go a whole week without hearing any song from Play out in the wild. He lasted about a day and a half I think?

Steal My Sunshine, Drinkin In LA (UK hit in 99) and Get What You Give, make up a triumvirate of nice 1999 jams I didn't mind too much that summer.

dEUS have the best Blur song on this list

So I guess you guys fall less on the "give me your heart, make it real" side of the debate and more on the "or else forget about it" team

9 1259 Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
36 2844 Azzido Da Bass - Dooms Night

ah the days when the wub-wub bass was an exciting novelty

one of those two or Windowlicker

first thought was that it was not a good list but then I kept finding more and more things I could happily vote for, so... not that bad

I waited in vain for the Flaming Lips to make another album as good as Transmissions From The Satellite Heart

voted for DC's Bills Bills Bills but it could've been one of these:

1 342 Eminem - My Name Is
3 485 TLC - No Scrubs
5 753 Kelis - Caught Out There
7 971 Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money
8 1167 Destiny's Child - Say My Name
10 1265 Jay-Z - Big Pimpin'
11 1348 Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
14 1504 Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness
18 1714 Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
28 2359 Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
29 2360 The Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)
31 2585 Blink-182 - What's My Age Again?
32 2601 Dr. Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre

I forget what I voted for... it was either "Re-Rewind" or "Ms. Fat Booty"

So I guess you guys fall less on the "give me your heart, make it real" side of the debate and more on the "or else forget about it" team

my take: "man it's a hot one"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Mr. Oizo was robbed.

Can't remember how that Aphex Twin song goes and keep singing "I'm Your Windowlicker" to the tune of that Fire Starter song from the last poll.

The love for Sigur Ros and that specific Madonna song will baffle me until my dying day

"Windowlicker" as a track is cool but I've always had kind of ill feelings toward it cause of the racist-ass video.

I voted for "What's My Age Again?" which i like, but wish i could have voted for "Adam's Song"

"What's My Age Again" instead of "All the Small Things" is a minor calamity

1999 seemed crap at the time because I was associating with a group of friends who only listened to Canterbury scene, psychedelia and early 70s soul, and the indie music we heard other friends listening to was approaching the all-time nadir of the following year, while the pop music heard on TV and in shops was increasingly just dull boybands and generic funky house. Of course this is a myopic view, but yeah, just because there's a lot of great music out there it doesn't mean that everyone is getting to hear it.

Wow, I'm surprised I was the only one who voted for "No Scrubs".

Never really cared for Windolicker, and Extended Mix is correct that the racist video just makes it worse. I thought people would've forgotten about it already and mentally locked it to the "LOL 90s" box where it belongs, but I guess not?

Who the hell voted for "I Try"?

there must be a Wayans lurking on this thread

"i try" deserves more votes than many of the top-voted songs tbh (i didn't vote for it)

"i want it that way" is a quality tune

― lute bro (brimstead), Friday, February 5, 2016 4:30 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a ripoff of "Atlantic City" by Springsteen

in my head 'I Want It That Way' syncs up or somehow segues with 'True' by Spandau Ballet

i think that i just don't like max martin at all

I've always thought "I Want It That Way," as with every other Backstreet Boys song I heard against my will at the time, was crap. I did hear "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" on a playlist today, though, and I have to say it sounded kinda pretty.

"i want it that way" is a quality tune

― lute bro (brimstead), Friday, February 5, 2016 4:30 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a ripoff of "Atlantic City" by Springsteen

― flappy bird, Tuesday, February 9, 2016 10:09 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huh, haven't listened to Nebraska in years and years, i'll have to check this out!

"no scrubs" is another song that i've just heard too many damn times. it's good, though.

i wasn't feeling "windowlicker" at the time, seemed like a hastily made track he rushed out to appease Sire records' wish for him to be the next Fatboy Slim or something.

maybe not hastily made... it just kind of sounds dumbed down and smoothed out in a way.. like the suits made him simplify it for the masses. *blows dust off tin foil hat*

around these parts "Deceptacon" is only known through Tiga's DJ-Kicks CD

It's a jam, I can't deny

(Decepticon)

ILX forgot about Forgot About Dre

I love the production/sound of that sigur ros album but the vocals... Not so much. Wish they would spend more time rocking out.

It's a good album. The second half is gorgeous. Never cared for anything that came after.

This is the first track I ever heard by them, and I was always disappointed they never really rocked out as much as this on their other songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeSIK4NnDc