My Top 500 Songs (complete!!)

La Bush quite the anamoly in that top 20

Better Off Alone is PHENOMENAL. But I do get annoyed everytime a superstar DJ uses it for a lazy sample. It IS possible to ruin a good thing.
 
Shoat said:
La Bush quite the anamoly in that top 20

Better Off Alone is PHENOMENAL. But I do get annoyed everytime a superstar DJ uses it for a lazy sample. It IS possible to ruin a good thing.
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Sad she never did a disco album. The first time I heard White Love by One Dove on the radio I actually thought she had.
 
Shoat said:
La Bush quite the anamoly in that top 20

Better Off Alone is PHENOMENAL. But I do get annoyed everytime a superstar DJ uses it for a lazy sample. It IS possible to ruin a good thing.
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It is an anomaly, but the track being there isn't so weird - it's synth laden and with luxurious female vocals. Much like the rest of the top 100!
 
For the record the highest male vocalist on the list is Karl Hyde from Underworld. I don't have a perverse aversion to male vocalist, but I do have a preference.
 
To boot I don't think there's a single guitar in the top 100 and just a handful of songs that can't be considered dance music :disco:
 
I think if I had made a list like this in the mid 90s I’d probably struggle to have more than 10% of male vocalists. Nowadays it would be more like 50/50
 
I'm convinced that if Kylie and ABBA are the top 2 most heavily represented artists here, Mariah Carey is Top 5
 
Now I'm nearly at the end, a little insight into the numbers behind the list. Those who have been here since the start will know I used last.fm, and attempted to bring all versions of the tracks included together. Not a perfect science, but a better measure than I could find

Anyway what were the number of spins needed for each position? Well...

500 Kait Toome - Verona (60)
250 Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin (97)
100 Rui di Silva - Touch Me (147)
50 Kylie Minogue - Get Outta My Way (193)
10 Alice Deejay - Better Off Alone (318)
1 ??????? - ?????? (524)

As I say it's not a perfect science, it removes vinyl or YouTube (Eurovision tracks suffer from this), but it's certainly reflective of my taste.
 
5 Culture Beat - Mr Vain (1993)

If Rhythm is a Dancer is the mother of eurodance, then Mr Vain is the overachieving prodigal older son. Like Snap! they were formed via a Frankfurt based production team in 1989. Unlike Snap! by the time Dancer was an international smash, Culture Beat, with their low key ambient dance sound hadn't broken through.

A year later this was all about to change. They went techno, increased their BPM, brought in a relentless (and I mean RELENTLESS) snare drum, and added singer Tania and rapper Jay to the mix.

The result was Mr Vain, a not so subtle slight at the archetypal narcissistic man, the early 90s was full of. With retrospect this could easily be tied to the free-market capitalism that produced a generation of wankers in the 1980s. Mr Vain - a socialist anthem? Jeremy Corbyn thinks so.

An absolute explosion of a track that doesn't let up at any point and is absolutely worthy of it's place among the great and good of the era. It was songs like this that brought me a lot of joy, while I struggled with pretty much everything as a teenager. My first boyfriend gave me romantic Shakespeare lyrics as a gesture. I responded with the lyrics of this.

 
4 Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (2001)

I recall the promise of CGYOOMH. According to the press Kylie was going to do an Ibiza anthem. IIRC was premiered it in Ibiza, a few shitty videos leaked, but nothing to get excited about.

Then one night after drinking, me and my then boyfriend came home, switched on a music video channel and there it was. We were hypnotised. But that was the point - hypnotic obsession. It very much did what it said on the tin.

But it was more, it was cool, it was sensual, it was new. It set templates in what dance pop could sound like. It elevated Kylie to superstar status - who does that 15 years into their career?

And the video, trend setting fashions and dance moves. She literally had everything going for her and the world agreed. I remember all my cool rock kid friends lapping it up like it was a brave new world.

And least we not forget the massive Blue Monday mashup, and THAT giant CD.

It came out in the weeks after 9/11. For me and maybe others, CGYOOMH was light needed to bring joy back to the world.



 
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So the top three, all feature female vocalists, two have appeared once before, the other is making their only appearance. They span almost 20 years of music.
 
Spying Latoya Jackson GIF
 
Songs that don't feature but should:

Cheeky Song - Cheeky Girls
Time to Say Goodbye - Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
East 17 - It's Alright
 
Agneeta said:
4 Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (2001)

I recall the promise of CGYOOMH. According to the press Kylie was going to do an Ibiza anthem. IIRC was premiered it in Ibiza, a few shitty videos leaked, but nothing to get excited about.

Then one night after drinking, me and my then boyfriend came home, switched on a music video channel and there it was. We were hypnotised. But that was the point - hypnotic obsession. It very much did what it said on the tin.

But it was more, it was cool, it was sensual, it was new. It set templates in what dance pop could sound like. It elevated Kylie to superstar status - who does that 15 years into their career?

And the video, trend setting fashions and dance moves. She literally had everything going for her and the world agreed. I remember all my cool rock kid friends lapping it up like it was a brave new world.

And least we not forget the massive Blue Monday mashup, and THAT giant CD.

It came out in the weeks after 9/11. For me and maybe others, CGYOOMH was light needed to bring joy back to the world.



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SET
ME
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
 
Can't Get You Out of My Head is one. of. the. greatest. things. to. ever. exist.

It felt like such a phenomenon. I think only Baby One More Time eclipsed it in terms of being an absolutely all-conquering pop behemoth in my lifetime. And yes, I am including Believe, My Heart Will Go, Bad Romance, etc. in that.
 
It's almost funny to think that its initial narrative was a chart battle with Victoria Beckham. Unlike Groovejet, that is now not even a footnote in its legacy.
 
Loufoque said:
It's almost funny to think that its initial narrative was a chart battle with Victoria Beckham. Unlike Groovejet, that is now not even a footnote in its legacy.
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Poor old Posh also beaten by DJ Otzi, Alien Ant Farm, Bob The Builder & a Shaggy song I've no recollection of that week :(

Screenshot_20260528_140658_Chrome.jpg
 
I have no recollection of that Shaggy song, but he really was one of the big hitters in 2001.
 
Mr Vain set the playground abuzz in a similar fashion to No Limit. Yes, they had follow-ups, but they didn't really stick in my consciousness like 2 Unlimited managed. I guess they weren't quite as distinct sonically despite those brilliant, waspish vocals.

CGYOOMH only clicks with me via the Blue Monday version, but I absolutely appreciate what a vehicle it was. AI couldn't programme a more precise execution of Kylie - it shouldn't be humanly possible, and yet it's all Kyle's doing (could you imagine if Sophie Ellis-Bextor had huffed over it instead? I wouldn't want to underestimate anyone who gave planet pop Mixed Up World, but Kylie made it an effortless international glide).
 
3 N-Trance - Set You Free (1992/1994/1995/2001)

And in a strange twist of fate, a track that was also in the top 10 when CGYOOMH was first no.1 (albeit in remix form)

Dame K-Llo has been derided on here, too much and too often, but she really puts her all into this poptastic rave number. The yeah yeah yeah bits are almost angelic.

A lot of people have dreary acoustic ballads for their wedding song. We walked back down the aisle, as a married couple to this. I'm not sure a candlelight version of a better song would have been remotely authentic.

It had a long afterlife, being a staple in clubs for over a decade after it became a hit. Least we not forget K-Llo had the best selling album by a British female in 2002. Take that Karen Parry. When your only album is a greatest hits, you know you're the true queen of pop. Sadly N-Trance went down an inexplicable disco covers route. Sad!

There are about 200 remixes of this, I'm partial to the glorious pop mix!



 
Set You Free is one of the most GLORIOUS & TRIUMPHANT moments in the whole GLITTERING CATALOGUE of 90s dance. Why oh why did they go down the route of cheesy 70s dance covers a la Clock from the next single onwards when they could have kept giving us anthems like this.
 
Sardonicus said:
Set You Free is one of the most GLORIOUS & TRIUMPHANT moments in the whole GLITTERING CATALOGUE of 90s dance. Why oh why did they go down the route of cheesy 70s dance covers a la Clock from the next single onwards when they could have kept giving us anthems like this.
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It was a worse fall from grace than M People!
 
2 Loreen - Euphoria (2012)

The song that did exactly what we Eurovision fans were waiting for. From that iconic opening horn, you know you're for a treat. Little did we what the next 2m 58s would entail.

It was of course enormous, we'd had high energy dance music before at Eurovision, but this sounded like something you'd actually hear in a club. Without a whiff of schlager in sight, Loreen rewrote the rulebook and the gay gods were grateful.

The performance had to be special too - minimalist staging, yet the whole thing felt huge, utilising light and shade to great effect. Loreen moves around the stage with incredible breathing and vocal control. It looked like a music video. Your faves literally can't do this.

The whole thing is such a rush, the build up and the pay off is incredible, almost emotional. Of course it won, of course it's the fan favourite. Tracking it from the first moment it popped up on Melodifestival, I think we all knew it would not only win that, but likely go on to sweep away all competitors - and it did.

I was of course absolutely obsessed with it, so much so it ends up in silver spot. I did see it performed once - at the Eurovision 60th concert. It was terrible, she looked like a greased up bull, a did a ballad version IIRC - what was she thinking? Obviously one bad performance doesn't take away any of it's glory. It's literally perfect.

 
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So we have arrived, it's almost time for the no.1.

Before I do that, a big thanks to everybody who's contributed to the topic, whether it's likes for the songs or genuinely engaging with the material. You know who you are - it's felt like a fun little clique.

I started this in January and we're almost at the end of May, which averages out at 100 songs a month, or about 25 a week. I had no idea I'd end up doing such extensive write-ups, but with the songs you love, there's almost always something to say.
 
Recorded when she was just 9, Set You Free is sung so powerfully it's hard to tell what organ the noises are coming through. It's a testament to the production that she doesn't actually overwhelm the entire thing. Only the gorgeous, but much less commercial, Mind of the Machine made any similar bids creatively, but I do love Turn Up The Power and Electronic Pleasure. I blame Clock for them calling time on their creative side.

Oh Loreen. Euphoria is Tina Cousins getting her Hounds of Love. It's incredible.
 
Two 11/10s, this has been such a great list that I can only imagine the number one will be perfect!
 
1 Livin Joy - Dreamer (1994/1995)

And here we are. No.1.

It has never been anything else. Ever since I bought it on the day it came out (second time around) it has always been right at the top and the stats prove it.

Few anthems shine with fierce incandescent brilliance of Dreamer. The coming together of Italian house wizards and the American gospel soul of Janice Robinson, was simply magical.

The opening line "love, life and laughter" is simply iconic, although perhaps rather ruined by Facebook mums. It builds up through the verse and then all hell breaks loose with one of the most earth shattering glitterball explosions - the cascading synth rift, serenaded with the ho ho ho money note and we haven't even got to the chorus.

It's the most luxuriously expensive silk encapsulated in music. I can even overlook the rhyming of 'love' with 'love, because the rest of it just exudes all the (livin) joy found within humanity. This song convinces me that humans are inherently good.

If you've been good today, treat yourself with the Loveland Remix below.

And that as they say is... it.



 
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