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i remember "baby come on over" playing on the radio briefly, i didn't rly like it but it sounds pretty good now
it's kinda funny how much more melismatic and Mariah Carey-esque Jessica Simpson was when she first came out. I mean she didn't have quite THAT capability, but it seemed like what her and her label were going for.
her live/promo performances of that song on tv sounded pretty rough and it's rather surprising she didn't wreck her voice permanently singing like that. but honestly on the recording she sounds glorious. i found the song pointless and boring at first (esp the title line, like girl you don't need anyone's permission to love someone for any length of time) but i came to love it. it actually struggled a bit to get airplay and its chart performance was mostly powered by its platinum sales. aiming to split the difference between teen pop and adult contemporary was pretty normal through the late 90s but by the turn of the millennium this tactic rarely worked at radio anymore except for the boybands, and even they couldn't rely on that. her next single, the duet with nick lachey, tried the same style again but fared much worse, and then with "i think i'm in love with you" she finally settled into a more center-lane style.
based on what i have heard about how christina aguilera felt that "genie in a bottle" did not sufficiently show off her voice, i suspect she would have preferred leading off with a song similar to "i wanna love you forever" but honestly it's probably a good thing that it didn't work out that way. it would be many more years before the mainstream turned up its collective nose at this style of melismatic belting, but i guess around now were the first signs that it may have been on its way out. i suspect american idol killed it off for good, not only for demonstrating several of its absolute worst examples but also b/c the judges would fairly regularly dole out the 'over-singing' criticism, sometimes (imo) for contestants who didn't rly deserve it
― dyl, Saturday, 21 January 2023 22:50 (one year ago) link
2. Ricky Martin & Christina Aguilera - Nobody Wants To Be Lonely
this may have been my first napster download? lol. it's okay
5. S Club 7 - Never Had A Dream Come True
i liked this actually. their show would air on one of the channels here and i found it and them bizarre. it does make sense that this fairly bland ballad that could have been sung by anyone was their only record to make it in america, otherwise it'd be like wondering why steps never had any hits over here
6. Faith Hill - There You'll Be
i was aware of this song but luckily it was easy to avoid if you didn't listen to adult contemporary stations, where it was #1 for months. the pearl harbor movie seemed like heinous dogshit even then and i remember distinctly hoping that faith hill would NOT have her "i heart will go on" moment with this. dj speedo feat. angelica >>>
7. Britney Spears - From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
spears's first single to bomb at radio, unsurprisingly a ballad. it charted decently regardless because, unlike her previous two singles, it was released to retail and accordingly scanned platinum. anyway i didn't mind it then but in retrospect it's obviously shit
23. Evan And Jaron - Crazy For This Girl
it is 100% unsurprising that this was a dawson's creek song but it is actually rly good anyway. the dramatic, echoing bridge! the instrumental break leading back into the last chorus! so cute and wholesome. despite this song being a hit, the album underperformed and they got dropped, and in 2009 jaron came back with one (1) hit country single before being expelled from the major label system once again
25. Mariah Carey ft. Joe & 98 Degrees - Thank God I Found You
forgotten, fake #1 hit that ascended to that position largely because huge quantities of the single were being given as 'free goods' to retailers who'd then be compelled to sell through the glut of stock as quickly as possible by any means necessary. same story as "loverboy" basically, except that one failed to go #1. years later mariah still tries to spin "loverboy" as a success because it sold more copies than any other american single the year it came out (i.e. when the retail singles market in america was in its death throes) even tho it only sold half of what they were hoping to (what got shipped) and they were all sold at rock-bottom/loss-leader prices
28. Toya - I Do!!
the production on this one is really great, and the song's pretty good too. djs on the station i listened to would often talk over its long intro, which i decided i loved before i even realized it was an actual song -- at first i assumed it was just some random instrumental they were using for station promos/announcements. the song took a long time to break because it got pushed to r&b radio and bet first, but they didn't bite. so it just steadily sold as one of the few strong singles at retail for months and months before top 40 stations finally found that it would work well for them and they picked it up instead. nonetheless, like evan and jaron her album didn't take off and she was quickly dropped. the industry is brutal!
35. Daniel Bedingfield - If You're Not The One
i remember one evening this came on during a commercial break on some teen-oriented channel i was watching by myself one night. it might have been during a degrassi marathon on 'the n' or something. a good friend and i -- one who would normally be watching degrassi marathons with me -- had recently grown apart, in part because she was facing pressure to stop hanging out mostly with guys, and she had recently told me in no uncertain terms that the increased distance was intentional on her part. i didn't have a crush on her -- i turned out to be gay and she actually turned out to be a lesbian -- but it hurt. anyway, this song played, i had no idea who it was and didn't know if i even liked it, but the lyrics about struggling to come to grips with the fact that a relationship simply won't go the way you envision it hit me like a ton of bricks and i CRIED on the floor. i came back to it years later and now love it
36. Savage Garden - Crash And Burn
i love this song actually. i feel like half the songs i liked during this era were sappy or earnest/corny + aimed at the middle-aged
38. Smash Mouth - Then The Morning Comes
i have to bet that the reason this isn't played anymore is b/c "walking on the sun" exists. in fact when this song came out you would still sometimes hear "walking on the sun" in recurrent rotation so i actually didn't realize they were distinct songs at first
41. Craig David - Fill Me In
this is my vote. i liked it then, but not as much as i would come to years later
42. P!nk - There You Go
i have to wonder if "most girls" is faring any better -- i would guess not by much. by and large radio doesn't seem to want to remind listeners that she initially broke through by cosplaying as biracial. tbh i prefer "most girls" to basically anything she's released since but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
46. O-Town - All Or Nothing
yes i liked this one too. it makes sense that it was written by westlife songwriters. their first single, the shameless/bad "liquid dreams" charted well but mostly on sales, and it seemed to be an mtv-only phenom as radio largely shunned it. so i remember being surprised when this song actually went all the way as far as mainstream success goes. of course that wasn't going to last because they were a pretty bad group, but oh well, it was all right while it lasted
― dyl, Sunday, 22 January 2023 00:09 (one year ago) link