My Top 500 Songs (complete!!) (1 Viewer)

22 ABBA - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (1979)

Every song now starts, with an explanation mark of delight and praise and this has them built into the title.

I feel like Benny and Bjorn looked each other over an uninspiring song writing session on the island and one of them said "gay anthem?" and GGG was born.

That famous rift has forced itself into mass consciousness, combined with Agnetha's desperate, campy yet glamourous, almost explicit pleas for a late night Grindr fuck, the combined package is irresistible and has now travelled generations reaching never previously realised adoration. And that money note from Ag. Frida was just happy to be there.

I have always adored it, it's pure hedonistic, straight to the point tits out disco drama. Gays have always loved, the straights seem to have finally appropriated it, and I don't care. Long live ABBA!

 
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21 Rozalla - Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) (1991)

Like a spiritual awakening, it used to be my morning alarm clock.

An absolute ray of light from the happier more hopeful days, as the world gave up on the Cold War, and saw a bright new decade in, Rozalla came along, to soundtrack the momentous events with some commercial rave.

Ironically the 90s ended up in a big cynical mess and eventually lost the plot, but that didn't mean it always felt that way. This is earnest, utopian, sunrise dance music at it's absolute best.

 
There are moments when I think that GGG is the greatest pop song ever recorded.

A hill that I will die on is that it is miles better than Hung Up.
 
Just TWENTY songs left! The next 10 is wall to wall 90s dance anthems (with one technical exception)
 
Everybody's Free is good, but I actually prefer Rozalla's other 90s singles.
 
20 Everything But The Girl - Missing (1994/1995)

Step off the train...

What a way to start the top 20. The song which moved R Trace and R Ben from folksy sophisti-pop bores to purveyors of house and drum n' bass. A highly unlikely jump, but Missing was such a track that it seemed to link the two versions of EBTG with ease.

Of course it was Todd Terry that elevated Missing into the humble megahit that it became. Suddenly that singer-songwriter sound, was sharing the dance music space where not long prior, N-Trance and others had occupied. It was a game changer, a year later a similarly coded remix of Un-Break My Heart became a huge hit.

It is of course a personal favourite, the simple lyrics hit hard, even more when paired with the deep house beat. It's quite shocking, that it doesn't really have the same legacy in the way that say Believe does, but time will tell.

 
19 Alex Party - Don't Give Me Your Life (1995)

Alex Party tired of receiving lives :(

From the Haus of Livin' Joy came Alex Party with this very silly, very full on, surprising well-aged cut.

A rejection song implanted into a big old handbag house super smash, generously elevated with some of the least subtle piano house of the era.

I know from the Dance Rates we did, this unsurprisingly, has quite the fanbase on Moopy, paging @Kate.

 
I cannot BELIEVE we are in the Top 20. We’re all gonna need a replacement thread when this ends
 
Missing's epic top 10 run satisfied the chart geek in me greatly at the time. Although overplay means I prefer the follow-up singles from Walking Wounded now.

Alex Party just 1995 dance all over. Lots of people at school did impersonations of the duck sounding synth bit.
 
Sardonicus said:
I stand by Leftism by Leftfield being the album that gave dance acts credibility for making a really strong cohesive album rather than 2 hits plus filler.
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Agneeta said:
M People would like a word.
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Sardonicus said:
Forgot about Elegant Slumming. Getting the Mercury Prize over the Britpop critical darlings was quite the achievement.
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The often forgotten Sunscreem put together a fully realised album in 1993 with O3 too. The Boy's Own remix of Perfect Motion probably their best moment, but the album was very good altogether.
 
Can't Speak French (album edit) doesn't mean... nothing to me (nothing to me). Single edit is divine, but still not even in my Tangled Up top 5.

Alex Party were quite low rent compared to the ever so slightly sharper Livin' Joy aesthetic, probably thanks to Janice's honeycomb rasp rapture being an outer body experience and Tameko's star turn n' gurn rapture being a PVC body suit experience.

And yet it was the Alex Party moniker that they used for more remixes. Including this cheap, but somehow mesmerising cover of this:



Sannie is back at it on the circuit. A bit of a better footing inside the industry than her Never Mind The Buzzcocks line-up of has-beens appearance where we were assured new music was being made. #soon
 
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straightorbroken said:
Can't Speak French (album edit) doesn't mean... nothing to me (nothing to me). Single edit is divine, but still not even in my Tangled Up top 5.

Alex Party were quite low rent compared to the ever so slightly sharper Livin' Joy aesthetic, probably thanks to Janice's honeycomb rasp rapture being an outer body experience and Tameko's star turn n' turn rapture being a PVC body suit experience.

And yet it was the Alex Party moniker that they used for more remixes. Including this cheap, but somehow mesmerising cover of this:



Sannie is back at it on the circuit. A bit of a better footing inside the industry than her Never Mind The Buzzcocks line-up of has-beens appearance where we were assured new music was being made. #soon
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My favourite other Alex Party work is this:

 
18 Livin Joy - Don't Stop Movin' (1996)

Livin’ Joy are an act mentioned so often in this topic, and yet here we finally find them. Their follow-up to the number one smash Dreamer featured a brand new singer: the wonderfully named Tameko Star.

Where departed singer Janice Robinson brought a soulful, gospel-style diva energy, Star had a wonderfully sleek pop-dance voice, making for a far glossier, more streamlined affair — a joyous, relentless dance smash.

The piano house is just as prevalent; in fact, where Dreamer is a track you wail along to, the thumping kinetic energy here provides a track you'll really dance to. It commands you!

Very fond memories of this one — GCSE revision, home alone, with just MTV Europe as my friend, this was on almost every hour.

 
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17 Gina G - Ooh Aah… Just A Little Bit (1996)

30 years ago today, Gina performed to Europe. It went on to become a UK no.1, and an international hit including top 20 success in the US. On the night, the juries who had been relentlessly voting for the dullest option year on year for a while now, couldn't get behind a fun, punchy dance track performed by a beautiful woman and an on stage computer, to a standard that few have been able to imitate. It came a disappointing 8th, but marked not only the start of Gina's career, but brought my interest in Eurovision into focus.

Horrifying to realise this was 30 years ago (30 years prior to that was 1966 and Manfred Mann was no.1). That aside it marked an elevation in my pursual of gay interest music, I came out around about then and suddenly campy dance pop wasn't just catchy fun, it was iconic, it was an obsession. This was absolutely a landmark moment in that journey.

Where is Gina now? I suspect I've lost up to 24 hours endlessly searching for Gina Mary Gardiner, to no avail. She doesn't want to be found, and honestly that's not cool.



 
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Ooh Aah represents the beginning of modern Eurovision for me (although Love City Groove was a bit of an experiment the year before too) - it obviously screamed HIT & I was sure it'd win, right up until the shaky live performance of it on the night. Rewatching it again now, it still sounds off at times.

It'd definitely get higher than 8th in the televote era, & I don't think the DULL AS Irish entry would be winning, but I'm still not convinced the live performance would be enough to win outright. A definite moment in popular culture for the contest though, & paved the way for the next year's win. Now, we're happy that our entrant earned a single measly point.

As for Livin' Joy, I thought they'd been consigned to one hit wonder status when it took forever to follow Dreamer, but that was a classic, that was a classic.
 
Agneeta said:
25 Ace of Base - The Sign (1994)

Starting the top 25 with a song, that those of us of a certain vintage will recall vividly, probably had the single and album on tape. A genuinely international hit, huge in the US, and equally dominant in Europe.

What was the sign? Well based on certain pre-AoB activities by one of the members, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a swastika, however perhaps it's more likely a symbolic sighting like seeing a robin in the garden after someone dies, allowing a period of recovery to begin. Perhaps.

Meanings are barely of consequence, with Ace of Base, so long as the words fit within rhyming couplets, and some of the most deeply infectious music written this side of the 18th century then who cares?

I knew that all my rock/ grunge loving friends had this tucked away in their tape collection and I strongly expected played it as much as Nirvana or Therapy tapes, because between all those self harming sessions, there is time for joy.

Also what the fuck was she grunting in the intro - WE'RE GONNA BOOM YA?

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Still a banger to this day, but it always reminds me of Pitch Perfect now when I hear it, which is really annoying.
 
What a double whammy. Both absolutely unstoppable tour-de-force anthems. Tameko encapsulated the mix of propulsive piano-led beats with a vocal that goes right through you whether you like it or not. It was definitely a worthy follow-up wallop to Dreamer. Ooh Ahh's siren of homosexual hysteria is even more everlasting if ever so slightly niche given how unquenchably camp and excitable it all is. Gina was inexplicably front of the pop princess pack during her run quite frankly, regardless of whether than meant diminishing chart success balanced with incredible remixes or simply the bias of insatiable gays.
 
16 Gala - Freed From Desire (1997)

Dear ChatCPT what do homosexuals and heterosexuals have in common? Freed From Desire by Gala.

We should have known the straights would appropriate it from us. She gives off a sapphic aura, it has a chant ripe for the terraces, and it turns out straight people also like 90s dance music.

It anything this one is for them. While it's entirely appropriate in a homosexual establishment, the radiant Sheila Diamond recently proved it's also entirely appropriate for the likes of Benidorm and Wigan.

Of course I love it. On the surface it’s a hypnotic, euphoric rush, but underneath there’s a distinctly Nietzschean strain running through the lyrics, giving it an existential weight that sits just below the gloss.

 
Agneeta said:
16 Gala - Freed From Desire (1997)

Dear ChatCPT what do homosexuals and heterosexuals have in common? Freed From Desire by Gala.

We should have known the straights would appropriate it from us. She gives off a sapphic aura, it has a chant ripe for the terraces, and it turns out straight people also like 90s dance music.

It anything this one is for them. While it's entirely appropriate in a homosexual establishment, the radiant Sheila Diamond recently proved it's also entirely appropriate for the likes of Benidorm and Wigan.

Of course I love it. On the surface it’s a hypnotic, euphoric rush, but underneath there’s a distinctly Nietzschean strain running through the lyrics, giving it an existential weight that sits just below the gloss.

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TROMBOLISE!
 
15 Robert Miles - Children (1996)

They called it dream trance. That's fine but I'm here to rename it BLEAK TRANCE. It's either so severe or so traumatic throughout.

I knew this point would come, I have nothing else to say about a well loved, famous, "instrumental" track. Why would I?

Okay, let's forget Angel City mashed it up with Michelle Gayle's Do You Know. NEVER FORGET.



 
For a song that stayed at number 2 for ages (was it Babylon Zoo that kept it off the top?) & was UBIQUITOUS back than, Children is never heard or mentioned any more.
 
Agneeta said:
17 Gina G - Ooh Aah… Just A Little Bit (1996)


Where is Gina now? I suspect I've lost up to 24 hours endlessly searching for Gina Mary Gardiner, to no avail. She doesn't want to be found, and honest that's not cool.
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You obviously don't have my DETECTIVE SKILLS
Gina, 54, has changed her life entirely after relocating to Santa Monica, California with her husband and her two kids. The star, real name Gina Gardiner, is married to Tommy Hudson, with whom she runs her own record label Stunt Girl Music. The couple share their record label since moving to the States, where Gina has opted to bring up her children away from the fame game. Gina opts away from social media, in light of her space away from showbiz.
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What in the mid-90s dance prolapse :disco:

Missing, Don't Stop Movin', Don't Give Me Your Life, Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit, Children, Freed from Desire

*** twirls ***
 
14 JX - There's Nothing I Won't Do (1996)

JX have a small but glorious back catalogue - You Belong To Me, Son of A Gun, Restless, Close To Your Heart... but sitting on the top of the pile, there's no question it's this top 5 smash from 1996.

By now you'll realise desperation is one of my favourite genres in pop, and this brings it in droves. It brings joy and fear in equal measure as all good dance tracks should. With just a nod to N-Trance, with an eye on the burgeoning trance movement, this was a glorious pop dance blast that ticked all the right boxes.

 
13 Nightcrawlers - Push the Feeling On (1994/1995)

HURNING THEIR LIVES AGAIN

It was always a giddy thrill when I picked up a single it's initial release, only for it then to become a hit months later. From memory there was Love Fool, Professional Widow, Insomnia and this.

Of course MK, who to everyone's surprise is a current chart force, was the real talent on the track. John Reid who was the Nightcrawlers was essentially a dull soul singer, before MK got his mitts on this and turned it into a horny, intense house megahit.

In a twist bigger than The Sixth Sense I don't really care for the 95 mix with the female vocals, feed me the original pure hit with the vocals that never quite sounded like what they were. I'm glad R Di lived to see this become a hit.

 
Coming up before we hit the top 10, two of the biggest dance smashes of all time on the UK charts.
 
Sardonicus said:
For a song that stayed at number 2 for ages (was it Babylon Zoo that kept it off the top?) & was UBIQUITOUS back than, Children is never heard or mentioned any more.
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I'm off to one of those Ibiza Orchestra events over the summer. I anticipate Children may well be making an appearance.
 
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