The Top 50 of 1995

"Country House", just ahead of "Wonderwall". "Roll With It" is also amazing.

The other entries are not all bad (I mean, Supergrass and Pulp are obviously great, for instance), but still left very much in the shadow of the great band war here.

1995 was a good year, but of course there are some really horrible entries here too: Robson & Jerome, Celine Dion, "....Hotstepper". All really horrible.

The great war between the 20th biggest-selling single of 1995, and Oasis' third biggest-selling track of that year?

Torn between Bucketheads, Pulp, Livin' Joy, Back for Good, Shaggy, Coolio and Simply Red. I also need to check out that Def Leppard track

(Simply Red may win for its superior rhythmic qualities, obviously)

obviously 'Think Twice'
'Baby this is seeeeriouss'
I was taping the top 40 all year

The great war between the 20th biggest-selling single of 1995, and Oasis' third biggest-selling track of that year?

Note that "Wonderwall" continued to sell into 1996. It is Oasis' biggest selling single.

hang on is that og 'fantasy' or odb mariah/pacifiah rmx??

(And these statistics rank chart positions rather than sales. Singles released in December will usually sell way more than the rest of the year, without neccessarily performing too well on the chart)

hang on is that og 'fantasy' or odb mariah/pacifiah rmx??

Actually it is Tom Tom Club featuring Mariah Carey....

oh actually regardless the winner is TLC obv.

got loads of renewed affection for 'shy guy' as my hip-hop dance teacher has taken to playing it in our classes esp the dancehall-themed week. 'set u free' is the ultimate house diva monster.

honorable mentions - 'dreamer', 'missing', 'sunshine after the rain', '2 CAN PLAY THAT GAME' OMG!!!!

Ooooooooooooooooonly loooooooooove can set you freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

seven-minute version w/storm noises ftw

Y'know what we were saying about revisionist history and chart placings and everything but I'm surprised it takes until #20 before you get to a Britpop track.

The gulf between classic and dud here is more pronounced than ever but surely no one was more dud than MJ at this point? Not even Oasis.

The Nightcrawlers Push The Feeling On

This is due a revival any minute now.

Roll With It is the exact point where Oasis went shit.

N-Trance. By forty lengths.

Actually this is pretty much the first year when I was old enough to go out and drink beer and dance to stuff (well, not ACTUALLY old enough but you know what I mean), so my memory of most of this is coloured by what it sounded like down the New Cross Venue. How long did it take provincial nightclub DJs to cotton onto the fact that Gangsta's Paradise was impossible to dance to?

Hotstepper. Geir is wrong, this is not "horrible".

'gangsta's paradise' is really easy to dance to!! again i refer u to my hip-hop dance class, when lil' j played it everyone cheered a bit and the slower tempo was handy for getting the trickier bits of the routine down pat

then she played 'when i grow up' which is so fucking fast and at least three people (not me!) actually fell over when it came to the turns :(

1. Pulp Common People
2. N-Trance Set You Free
3. Take That Back For Good
4. Everything But The Girl Missing
5. Simply Red Fairground
6. Edwyn Collins A Girl Like You
7. TLC Waterfalls
8. Oasis Wonderwall / Round Are Way / The Masterplan
9. Bobby Brown Two Can Play That Game
10. Oasis Some Might Say / Talk Tonight / Acquiesce
11. Livin' Joy Dreamer
12. The Bucketheads The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)
13. Seal Kiss From A Rose / I'm Alive (Sasha & BT's Atraxion Future Mix)
14. The Original I Luv U Baby
15. Take That Never Forget

Scatman

seven-minute version w/storm noises

^this^ wins. Didn't notice it first time round

N-Trance or Hotstepper. I hope Back For Good gets a couple of votes as well.

man didn't anyone here hate N-Trance at the time?

knopwing ilm, this will end up a fight between pulp and nightcrawlers.

knopwing = knowing

all these songs suck donkey balls

I wasn't that keen on N-Trance at the time, but this was a few years before I got into dance music.

Never Forget >>>>> Back For Good by the way.

I wasn't that keen on N-Trance at the time, but this was a few years before I got into dance music

yeah it's a given in that sense i guess but i can't have been the only one who liked Bucketheads, Nightcrawlers etc. but thought 'Set U Free' was awful. disliked 'Dreamer' too for similar reasons (ostentatious vocals that seemed too out-of-tune at times...came round to that sooner tho) even tho '95 was the year i got "back" into House. it's funny when you look back at dance stuff from this time tho as most people seem to either think 'omg awesome' or 'don't remember that one'.

I didn't like N-Trance either, but I did liked Bucketheads and Livin' Joy. I was younger then, though, and probably thought N-Trance were too popular, and therefore uncool, to be worth bothering with. I must've been great fun. That's what I'm looking for when I see these old lists, really, great tunes that don't take themselves too seriously

The Pulp and the Livin' Joy records were the only two things I was compelled to buy at the time. Out of those two, I think I'd probably enjoy hearing 'Dreamer' more right now.

^ good call. love the Rae & Christian mix of that too.

I didn't care for "Set You Free" at the time. Its greatness only dawned on me a couple of years ago.

My Top 20 singles of 1995 (as compiled at the end of 1995):

1. common people - pulp
2. sorted for e's & wizz / mis-shapes - pulp
3. hideaway - de'lacy
4. hooked - 99th floor elevator ft tony de vit
5. yes - mcalmont & butler
6. back for good - take that
7. your loving arms - billie ray martin
8. wake up boo! - boo radleys
9. missing - everything but the girl
10. blueprint - attica blues
11. wonderwall - oasis
12. right & exact - chrissy ward
13. glory box - portishead
14. reverend black grape - black grape
15. a girl like you - edwyn collins
16. fairground - simply red
17. the first rebirth - jones & stephenson
18. waterfalls - tlc
19. waking up - elastica
20. doll parts - hole

i have some weird promo mix white label 12'' of "fairground" from back then that sounds all spooky and trancetastic, think it's probably the quivver or rollo mix, maybe? god i love it. i voted bucketheads, just because it was EVERYWHERE that year and really makes me think of '95. it *has* held up remarkably well, and also hasn't been remixed and re-released 793 times since.

lololol I was scrolling through this list thinking "how long will it take Geir to pick that Blur song" and then BAM 1 post

My Top 20 singles of 1995 (as compiled at the end of 1995

1. Leftfield - Original
2. Goldie - Angel
3. Splash - Babylon
4. Therapy? - Loose (Photek Mix)
5. De'Lacy - Hideaway
6. The Bucketheads - The Bomb!
7. Ruffneck ft. Yavahn - Everybody Be Somebody
8. Tricky - Black Steel
9. Wildchild - Legend Of The Dark Black Part 2
10. Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness
11. T-Power vs DJ Trace - Mutant Revisited/Rollers Instinct
12. Gusto - Disco's Revenge
13. New Order - Blue Monday (Hardfloor Mix)
14. Model 500 - The Flow
15. Everything But The Girl - Missing (Remix)
16. Ken Ishii - Extra
17. Alex Reece - Feel The Sunshine
18. Pascal - P Funk Era
19. Chemical Brothers - Life Is Sweet
20. Nicolette - No Government

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haha was about to say NOT ENOUGH INDIE

well i had Toni Halliday at the top effectively

That Therapy? remix is amazing.

i've never heard of eight of stevem's 20.

stevem if i had made a list back then it would have looked similar, but with more Nu-NRG/early trance stuff (Harthouse, React, Hooj, Skinny Malinky) and more capital T techno (was really into Dave Clarke, Dave Angel and the whole Warp output that year, esp the Elecktroids). but that was the year i cast off my indie cloak and went headlong into the exciting realm of the DJ.

i've never heard of eight of stevem's 20

i'm guessing 3, 4, 9 (but this is actually 'Renegade Master' so you have), 11, 12, 14, 16, 18

Thought about it long and hard but had to go with Smokie in the end.

You so crazy

Common People, obviously.

"obviously" wtf

i will never understand how 'common people', a slightly above-average indie song (which means in the overall scheme of things it's solidly mediocre) with really annoying lyrics ended up being lionised by so many. i mean it was better than most britpop but if you seriously think it competes with 'waterfalls' or '2 can play that game', that's o_0 x 9 million

BOYZONE

lex why do you hate Pulp?

i don't hate pulp. they're above average by britpop standards, perfectly listenable.

common people, obviously.

again.

Y'know what we were saying about revisionist history and chart placings and everything but I'm surprised it takes until #20 before you get to a Britpop track.

Chartwise, 1996 and 1997 were much better years for Britpop than 1995 was.

Like what, Geir? Other than The Verve, I get the feeling that britpop pretty much shot its bolt in this list

You will see in the 1996 list, but what happened in 1997 is that there was a larger number of Britpop acts who had bigger hits. Not only the biggest one like Blur, Oasis and Pulp, but also acts such as Ocean Colour Scene, Dodgy and The Bluenotes scored Top 5 hits. Plus Suede had their biggest ever chart year in 1996.

but what happened in 1996, I mean.

Weren't those years with, like, 40 different number ones? Britpop produced a lot of minor hits, but not many chart-toppers. If you're doing your lists based on chart positions, I wouldn't have thought many britpop acts qualified. You're sure you're not doctoring them?

Oh, what do I care, I already know I'm going to vote for Three Lions

at first I thought this thread title said "My Top 50 of 1995" and I was happy Geir was repping for the Outthere Brothers

also: what a terrible list

Weren't those years with, like, 40 different number ones? Britpop produced a lot of minor hits, but not many chart-toppers. If you're doing your lists based on chart positions, I wouldn't have thought many britpop acts qualified. You're sure you're not doctoring them?

These lists are computer generated based on chart positions and longevity. Which means songs that stayed on the chart for ages will do better than songs that made #1. A lot of Britpop songs stayed on the charts for quite a long time.

Jesus Christ "A Girl Like You" is one of the most boring songs ever written.

I haven't heard JC's version, but Edwyn Collins' version is kinda cool.

lots of great pop dance i enjoyed very much as a kid in 95:

stone cold classics:

The Outhere Brothers Boom Boom Boom
The Outhere Brothers Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)
Rednex Cotton Eye Joe
The Bucketheads The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)

but i'm voting for: N-Trance Set You Free, which is just fucking awesome.

honourable mentions to shaggy and mariah carey too, although i much prefer the remix with odb on it.

I used to have demons.

Common People. Even though it's not as good as Shatner's version.

bucketheads duh

i remember some guy at school saying he liked the bucket heads record because unlike most house music, it had "real instruments on it, a horn sexction and stuff, not just keyboards". lol

sexction!

Pulp V Nightcrawlers V bucketheads.

Went for Pulp although that's the one I'd least like to listen to at this point in time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in. System say, Bucketheads. DUH.

― System, Saturday, October 11, 2008 7:01 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Smokie featuring Roy 'Chubby' Brown Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice)

This song is so fucking incredible. Who would've thought inserting a single extra line into a song would make it 10,000x better?

First pass narrows it down to these:

Shaggy Boombastic
Scatman John Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)
Oasis Some Might Say
Mariah Carey Fantasy

...of which really, I can't pretend to love Scatman or Some Might Say as much as "Fantasy" or "Boombastic," which are both two of my favorite singles of the decade. Giant beats, unstoppable hooks. "Fantasy" is probably more exhilirating and beautiful, but "Boombastic" is actually possible to sing along to... hrm.

wtf is Perez Prado doing in there? Is there an interesting story behind that?

Voting for "Fantasy" just in case this is charting for the stupid guitarred-up loud version of "Boombastic" that I had to sing on top of at karaoke a while back.

xpost

The Perez Prado tune was used on the soundtrack of a Guinness advert that got near-incessant airtime that year.

gotta be missing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i chose "common people" only because nothing from alien lanes was included in the poll

Horrible, HORRIBLE list! The mid 90s were so awful.

awesome list.

Ended up voting N-Trance but it was a tough one.

Nicki French - Total Eclipse of the heart was awesome.

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

"Common People" on top assures this is sligthly better than the Top 50 it began with. :)

N-Trance suffering from the Bradley effect here

The Nightcrawlers Push The Feeling On

This is due a revival any minute now.

― Matt DC, Friday, 10 October 2008 10:21 (2 years ago) Bookmark

Give or take two years, eh?

surprised that no one voted for 'kiss from a rose'

not that I would have, mind

Cher, Chrissie Hynde & Neneh Cherry With Eric Clapton Love Can Build A Bridge

wtf is this

Some really good songs here.

xpost: That was a particularly awful charity single, released by Comic Relief for the 1995 Red Nose Day telethon.