"Hey, what would happen if we combined 'My Heart Will Go On' with the beat from Cher's 'Believe'?" Disco My Heart Will Go On! For the spawn of a supposedly-amazing singer, his vocal is pretty '90s generic. But I guess it was good enough - or he was good-looking enough - to bag a career that saw him charting thru 2014, albeit with diminishing frequency after 2002 or so. This Frankenstein's monster of a track is his second and final #1, but he'd score 3 more Top 5 hits. I noticed it in the intro!
Adore "Little Jeannie", Elton's huge Yacht Rock hit. I'm not sure why he doesn't care for it - it brought him briefly out of the commercial wilderness. Maybe it reminds him of a bad time in his life, although he used one track off the album to title his duets record back in the '90s, so... Ironically, while this wasn't an especially fertile or commercially or critically successful period, two of my five or so favorite Elton songs - "Little Jeannie" and "Chloe" - hail from it. The latter was such a minor hit I'm surprised nobody has tried having a hit cover of it.
Did Aaliyah pick her name so she could be first in alphabetical order in the CD racks? LOL From about 1994 - 2004 I was super into Hong Kong movies. Seattle is home to Scarecrow Video, one of the best Video Stores in the country (at least it was back then). They had an insanely great selection of DVDs from HK, Korea, etc., that you couldn't at the time find anywhere else in the States. I had an all region DVD player and could rent and watch any of them (and did!). 2000 was probably the height of my interest in those films; the year both Crouching Tiger and In the Mood for Love came out. I remember being really excited to see Jet Li in Romeo Must Die with Aaliyah as his Juliet (see how I brought this digression back to the topic?). They kind of wasted him, if my memory is correct. I don't recall it being particularly good as a fight movie, and I remember thinking they even screwed him out of a good romance story by being unusually unwilling to show him making out with Aaliyah all that much. Ah well, Jet soon made up for it by appearing in the epic Hero in 2002.
We now take a look at the other #1's of this first half of the New Millennium, courtesy Radio & Records and the Billboard airplay chart. As usual, a record that makes #1 on one of these other charts without doing so on the Hot 100 is delineated by bold; and if they make the top of both R&R and BB airplay without sitting at the summit of the Hot 100, it is marked as bold italics. (For reasons having to do with one of the songs on one of these charts making the top on the Hot 100 in the next half, it will be held back to the next analysis.) And so . . . Radio & Records #1's Jan. 7-Feb. 4: "I Knew I Loved You" by Savage Garden Feb. 11: "What A Girl Wants" by Christina Aguilera Feb. 18: "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely" by the Backstreet Boys (BB Hot 100 #6, BB Airplay #2) Feb. 25-Apr. 28: "Bye Bye Bye" by 'N Sync (BB Hot 100 #4) May 5-26: "I Try" by Macy Gray (BB Hot 100 #5) Jun. 2-16: "Oops! . . . I Did It Again" by Britney Spears (BB Hot 100 #9) Billboard Airplay #1's Jan. 29-Mar. 4: "I Knew I Loved You" by Savage Garden Mar. 11-Apr. 1, Apr. 15: "Bye Bye Bye" by 'N Sync Apr. 8: "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child (R&R #3) Apr. 22: "Maria Maria" by Santana Featuring The Product G&B (R&R #2) Apr. 29-Jun. 10: "Thong Song" by Sisqó (BB Hot 100 #3, R&R #4) Jun. 17-Aug. 12: "Try Again" by Aaliyah (R&R #3) Between January and June, the Billboard Hot 100 netted eight #1's. Only two topped Radio & Records; one of those, plus another three, also reached the summit of the BB Airplay chart. Of the remaining three, they were, in that order: - "Thank God I Found You" (R&R #28) - "Amazed" (R&R #6) - "Be With You" (R&R #5)
Yeeeesssss. Great great song. A bit surprised this didn't hit number one. She was so popular at this time.
It would be a staple of Radio Disney for years - only they pulled a "Shaft" (single version) and muted out the "I'm not that innocent's."
Be With You - Enrique Iglesias So Enrique was Spanish right? And the girl in the video is "Nadia" (Shannon Elizabeth) from the "American Pie" films? We knew she was an exchange student but now we know she's from Spain? Her accent in the film certainly didn't sound Spanish to me. I'm so confused. I think Hollywood tricked me. As for Enrique's tune, aside from Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" continuously popping into my head while I tried to watch and listen, because, well, the video is a model shoot, it's an OK song. Again, "it's got a good beat and I could dance to it" and since Enrique doesn't have to shove Diva chops into our ears, I get to focus on the song as its own entity instead of someone showing off in front of a band which we're going to get a heavy dose of in this chart. I didn't run out and stand in line at the record store for this on its release date, but I didn't roll my eyes and want to leave the room either. 3/5
"Be With You" by Enrique Iglesias Written by Enrique with Paul Barry, Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling 'Of Cher Believe'; Who worked with on the 1999 Enrique, album and would continue to produce on his subsequent albums. Nice song, but not a stand out on the album this was taken from by far! This wasn't released as a single in the UK, I didn't get the album until "Could I Have This Kiss Forever" duet with Whitney Houston. I deemed "Be with You" an album track and didn't realise it was such a US hit until it was included as a Bonus Track on his 3rd English album. Much preferred his previous single "Rhythm Divine"/"Ritmo Total" Which only made it it #32 on US Billboard Hot 100. Seeing as it wasn't #1 but a popular Hit at the time, a random little fact is that the aforementioned team who wrote and produced Believe for Cher, were also responsible for his big future hit ballad Hero. "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely" by the Backstreet Boys Brilliant ballad, with excellent vocals. I really like the line "How can it be you're asking me to feel the things you never show".
"Be With You" - No recollection of this whatsoever. It's not as bad as some of the recent hits that have come up, but can't say I particularly like it either.
The glorious Pop return of Kylie Minogue! Fantastic song and pop moment! Fun fact our old fave, Paula Abdul co wrote "Spinning Around" "Abdul had based the song on her divorce from clothing designer Brad Beckerman and had originally intended to record it for her own studio album, but it was given to Minogue after the album failed to materialise."https://web.archive.org/web/20120511011206/http://www.paula-abdul.net/html/kylie_minogue.html
"Oops! . . . I Did It Again" by Britney Spears (BB Hot 100 #9) It was fun singing the verses and chorus of HMBOMT while this one played. Nope, no formula here!
Speaking of formula . . . we turn next to . . . #859 (9th of 2000): "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon (#1 for 1 week - July 15, 2000) Now this one, I don't really have any memory of hearing or listening to "back then," only got familiar with it by reviewing the video. Thus it wouldn't be surprising that in Radio & Records, it just missed the top, going no farther than #2. (And forget Billboard's own Airplay chart.) Fared even worse across the pond, where it could only get as high as #42. Meanwhile, this very week, in the UK a record by an Irish group called The Corrs topped the charts, that would make it in the next year to #34 here.
Not only do I not recognize this song, but also I don't recall ever hearing the name "Vertical Horizon". Generic rock of the era. I should probably be happy a rock song got to #1 in this period, though!
Sorry, in spite of me having a sense of humor that pops up from time to time, this is very much real. Alas, alack. The skinny: Vertical Horizon - Wikipedia
"Everything You Want" - I definitely remember this one, in fact, I've been waiting for it to drop here, as it's one of the few recent songs I enjoy. I've never been a big fan of late-90's/early 2000's rock, and this has all the genre trappings of the era. But it's got a neat hook and clever wordplay, and it's such a nice detour from all the other dreck that's reached the top. It's welcome relief.