Acclaimed Music Top 40 Songs from 1999 poll

It kinda annoys me when some of these posts seem to judge the entire year of music based on acclaimedmusic's top 40 singles.

Coffee + TV is the exact opposite of "fucking horrible."

it's my gun-to-head favourite blur song i think. i like how backgrounded coxon's vocals are.

Great stuff:

1 342 Eminem - My Name Is
2 398 Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
3 485 TLC - No Scrubs
4 626 The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize
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
14 1504 Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness
16 1611 Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg - Still D.R.E.
17 1693 Le Tigre - Deceptacon
18 1714 Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
26 2347 Macy Gray - I Try
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?
38 2891 Mos Def - Ms. Fat Booty

Madonna, Blink and Dre stand out - voting Madonna.

It kinda annoys me when some of these posts seem to judge the entire year of music based on acclaimedmusic's top 40 singles.

Fair enough, though I really do remember 1999 being an awful year for pop music, and this list contains a few (though by no means all) of the reasons why.

I really do remember 1999 being an awful year for pop music

same

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_That's_What_I_Call_Music!_3_%28U.S._series%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_That's_What_I_Call_Music!_4_%28U.S._series%29

i really really dislike beautiful stranger for some reason.

Are Blink 182 popular on ILM? Curious.

Oh man, I had forgot about fucking "Hey Leonardo."

I never got what was so great about "Beautiful Stranger" either. A throwaway soundtrack cut that has somehow been elevated to classic status--hell, it came in at #20 in our Madonna poll!

FTR, I'm not crazy about this list and agree that '99 was a pretty miserable year for pop music, but there's plenty of other stuff I love from that year (just taking a look real quick, there are some wonderful albums by Basement Jaxx, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Cibo Matto (I know I'm in the minority on that one), Fiona Apple, Jim O'Rourke, Lamb, Mr. Bungle, Olivia Tremor Control, Royal Trux, Sleater-Kinney, Solex, Takako Minekawa, and US Maple). I think I was mostly obsessed with Elephant 6 and GBV in '99, neither of which was hugely represented that year.

xp i'm trying to think of the 60s song it alludes to. Is it Light My Fire? Wiki says it's a Love song, but I'm not sure.

'She Comes In Colors'. Someone mentioned it upthread.

It always did seem like more an allusion or accident than the rip-off some have suggested.

99 could not in any way be described as a miserable year for pop music. This list only like 20 classics.

^^^^

but then if you were paying *any attention whatsoever* to blur in the middle of this golden age of pop, r&b and rap, maybe you would think it was shit

golden age of commercial dance too

There was some great pop music, but this is the stuff I remember dominating '99:

J-Lo
Sugar Ray
Santana
Enrique
Matchbox 20
Third Eye Blind
Shania
'Mambo No. 5'
fucking 'Lullaby'

my overriding memory of pop music in 1999 is the omnipresence of this monstrosity, which I guess was the UK equivalent of Supernatural

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0002/935/MI0002935001.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

(though maybe if I listened to it now, perhaps I might think that some of it is OK? I don't think I've ever heard the Portishead track. 'Sex Bomb' will always be unforgivable though)

oh yes that's the most 1999 thing i can think of. I never want to hear Sex Bomb again.

And I'd managed to blot out his appearance with the Stereophonics but jeez there were a lot of reasons to despair in this year.

'Beautiful Stranger', easily.

I listened to BS on Youtube and it sounded... weird, like a record sped-up or something? I don't know if I was listening to the right version. I remember it being a bit housier than that.

I distinctly remember hearing Re-Rewind for the first time (on Live & Kicking's jukebox jury segment, lol) and having an honest-to-goodness 'this is amazing, what is this, even?' reaction, so I voted for that

There are lots of bad songs on the radio every year. Most year-end Hot 100s from the late '80s to the present contain about half bad songs. (More than half over the past 10 years.)

IMO a slightly higher quality picture of the year's singles (throughout the '80s and '90s anyway) would come from MTV's Top 100 countdown lists from any of those years because they tended to include less adult contemporary stuff in favor of more alt-rock, r&b and hiphop.

The acclaimedmusic lists from these same years bug me because most of the EOY lists it pulls from are from UK magazines whose selections were more or less interchangeable.

wow this list is not good, imo

only thing i can get somewhat excited about is "DOOMS NIGHT"

or "ms new booty"

no cash money = smdh

"i want it that way" is a quality tune

99 is actually one of my all time favorite years for music, maybe my favorite of my lifetime.

I think in '99 I starting avoiding the radio entirely in favor of K and Polyvinyl, but I voted for the Beck song. And no I haven't heard any Prince LPs, why do people keep asking me that

Smooth because it's great and lots of people here hate it.

smooth IS great

i'm usually hesitant to say something was overplayed, but "smooth" was overplayed

Listening to the Spotify playlist, I kinda remember why I didn't listen to much new music in 1999. There's only a few of these that I think have aged well. Top 3: "Big Pimpin" (timeless classic), "I Want It That Way" (hated it at the time, but it sounds pretty good now) and I don't know, maybe "No Scrubs" or "My Name Is". The rest I can do without.

This is going to Sigur Rós.

So if I told you Deceptacon was a Himalayan peak of popular music how many stdevs below the mean would you peg me? The rest is mere shadow puppets on the wall, people, break your chains and glare into the sun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56hJaRNq8go

Little Richard

1. "Beautiful Stranger," 2. "Porcelain." Hate "Smooth." Don't know maybe a quarter of the list.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Race for the Prize" makes the list but "Waiting for Superman" doesn't? Lame.

Swastika Eyes

I don't particularly care for The Soft Bulletin (sorry that's just how I feel). I waited in vain for the Flaming Lips to make another album as good as Transmissions From The Satellite Heart until I finally accepted that that was as good as it got.

i'm usually hesitant to say something was overplayed, but "smooth" was overplayed

― lute bro (brimstead), Friday, February 5, 2016 10:50 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wish it had been under-played, or better still not played at all!

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.