My Top 500 Songs (complete!!)

66 2 Unlimited - No Limit (1993)

There's no lyrics!

A genuine masterpiece within the context of mass culture, a musical behemoth. Derided at the time by the snooty heteronormative press, yet beloved by the audiences. Now understood by all and one as a moment that rocked popular culture for a generation.

 
Oh yes, I was obsessed with Maximum Overdrive. It's what I was most excited about getting the cassette of Hits 93 vol. 4. I think the compilation may even have came out before the single (edit: same day release).
 
64 Whitney Houston - It's Not Right But It's Ok (1999)

Ok, let's switch things up a notch or many million. We all know what's coming - the greatest gay remix of all time, and I own the LeAnn Rimes remix album.

Obviously the original was quite a quirky sassy fuck you track, with one of the best uses of a xylophone on a pop track - period.

Now onto the remix. I purchased the 2000 GH and I know I wasn't the only gay life completely changed as a result of the second disc. Packed to the glitter coated rafters with tits out, poppers o clock remixes.

Standing tall above all the others, was the most dramatic affair since What Ever Happened To Baby Jane - the Thunderpuss remix of said track. It became such a part of me, that it was a lifestyle choice, I lived a part of it every day, it entered my blood stream. It's indescribable, it's a feeling you can't bottle, it is EVERYTHING.



 
63 Corona - Baby Baby (1995)

I'll let @Penelope do the talking

Penelope said:
Is this the MOST IMPORTANT SONG RECORDED OF ALL TIME? Scientific research indicates - PERHAPS!
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Penelope said:
It honestly astonishes me that it hasn't been a lip sync on Drag Race yet. It feels like it has all the ingredients to make it SUCH an obvious potential all-time classic in the making that they could literally just drop any time they liked!
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Penelope said:
Actually, it's funny you say that - I was meditating on this work of high classical art earlier, and the thought came to me that one of the most crucial, viscerally thrilling elements of it all is that it doesn't quite start at full pelt, but with that spine-tingling, goosebump-inducing, hair-raising build that's like going up and up the towering roller-coaster.....always seeming just on the verge of reaching the peak but so often just continuing to power on through.... before all HELL breaks loose :disco:
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Penelope said:
BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY
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Penelope said:
BABY BABY
BABY BABY
BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY!
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Penelope said:
God, that CACKLE OF ANTICIPATION all throughout that OPENING BUILD :disco:

BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY
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62 Jennifer Lopez - Waiting For Tonight (1999)

Sometimes the most important pieces of music comes from the least likely sources.

Jennifer Lopez, a notorious talent void, with possible evil intentions (although I'll forgive a lot for her performance of Let's Get Loud at Biden's inauguration :disco:) was named as the act that performed this thrilling act of homosexual pandering. In the wake of Believe I was highly susceptible to ANY OLD BIRD dropping queer bait. But honestly whoever sung this really decided to let us have a generic pop voice over a generic dance track and we lapped it up like the pathetic little homos we are. 13/10



 
Just 60 songs left! Coming up a Eurovision winner, a Queen of Disco and the vocal talents of Ann Lee.
 
My Whitney remix of choice (also on the GH) is the CJ Mackintosh mix of Queen Of The Night which I never really clocked at the time sadly, but have since decided it’s one of the greatest remixes ever and is possibly the best handbag song ever made, or something
 
60 Donna Summer - I Feel Love (1977)

This changed everything. I mean everything. Moroder and Summer genuinely changed history You can draw a line from this futuristic, hypnotic, pulsating, dreamy track through Hi-NRG, house, synthpop, techno, trance, eurodance, EDM. Honestly 90% of this list wouldn't exist without it, it would just be some ballads, Motown and Enya.

I'm not sure there's a track as influential on this list, I even did a talk about it at University - through which I discovered most youngsters had never heard it. I felt like a preacher, bringing the good word to heathens.

This MY kind of Christian music.

 
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59 Kylie Minogue - Say Something (2020)

I stand by the fact, this is one of the best tracks she's ever released. It's not just the lockdown nostalgia. And the sheer amount of glitter on display in the video. Strong structure is over-rated. And don't get me started on the version with the House Gospel Choir.

Is it disco? Who gives a shit when it's this good.



 
58 CeCe Peniston - Finally (1991/1992)

Some peak early 90s Diva house, something that might even bring @funky back in the fold. It's a joyous handjob of a track, a sweet release for Ce Ce, finally meeting her Mr Right, the one who showed her true love, or at least it seemed. You know the guy with brown cocoa skin and curly black hair.

For years I never knew the video version which differs from the radio edit. I prefer the radio edit, much cleaner and more pop. I may have got the specific mix names wrong, so many seem to be lost to time. Sort it out record industry.



 
Agneeta said:
58 CeCe Peniston - Finally (1991/1992)

Some peak early 90s Diva house, something that might even bring @funky back in the fold. It's a joyous handjob of a track, a sweet release for Ce Ce, finally meeting her Mr Right, the one who showed her true love, or at least it seemed. You know the guy with brown cocoa skin and curly black hair.

For years I never knew the video version which differs from the radio edit. I prefer the radio edit, much cleaner and more pop. I may have got the specific mix names wrong, so many seem to be lost to time. Sort it out record industry.



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Another of those songs that I never get tired of no matter how many times I’ve heard it.
 
Yeah it doesn't age does it. Peniston has been a recent revelation as well, as I've discovered some deep cut gems from my 90s thread.

Also Say Something is one of the best things Kylie has ever done. Most people identify with Padam, but this was the big Kylie Comeback for me personally.
 
I Feel Love is one of those songs that is impossible to review in any kind of respecful way, as you could never accurately illustrate its power and importance with mere words. You have to wonder what direction both R&B and dance music would have gone in without this song. You could almost argue that EDM would have been solely a white genre, with only the Kraftwerk-New Order-Daft Punk route a way in to electronic music. As it goes I Feel Love extended the life of disco and opened up possibilities to what electronic black music could be. The fact that it's from the year I was born is hard to compute. As Madonna has recently shown us with her new single, you could listen to "I Feel Love" and believe it was made yesterday.

You could romanticise about this song being a happy accident, the way it's tacked on the end of an album that sounds nothing like this song, a mix of fluffy disco and radio friendly R&B, one of those experimental add-ons that took on a life of its own, like Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams" or Soul II Soul's "Back To Life". But apparently it was very intentional to create something futuristic to close the record. Brian Eno called it "the future of music". He wasn't wrong.
 
funky said:
I Feel Love is one of those songs that is impossible to review in any kind of respecful way, as you could never accurately illustrate its power and importance with mere words. You have to wonder what direction both R&B and dance music would have gone in without this song. You could almost argue that EDM would have been solely a white genre, with only the Kraftwerk-New Order-Daft Punk route a way in to electronic music. As it goes I Feel Love extended the life of disco and opened up possibilities to what electronic black music could be. The fact that it's from the year I was born is hard to compute. As Madonna has recently shown us with her new single, you could listen to "I Feel Love" and believe it was made yesterday.

You could romanticise about this song being a happy accident, the way it's tacked on the end of an album that sounds nothing like this song, a mix of fluffy disco and radio friendly R&B, one of those experimental add-ons that took on a life of its own, like Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams" or Soul II Soul's "Back To Life". But apparently it was very intentional to create something futuristic to close the record. Brian Eno called it "the future of music". He wasn't wrong.
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It was a tricky one to say anything about, without giving it the credit it's owed. The same applies to many of these - I mean Scooch was a nightmare.
 
I Feel Love still sounds like the future, despite influencing every damn thing for the last fifty years.

Say Something is stun gorge ihihihi.
 
57 Dario G - Sunchyme (1997)

The perfect light for the shade that was the very weird period around the death of R DI. One of the most impressive uses of a sample in the 1990s, converting the rift from dreampop adjacent Life In A Northern Town by Dream Academy, into a euphoric blast of sunshine dance pop.

Can still put a spring in your step on a sunny day like today. Candle in the Wind 97 did not make the top 500.

 
56 Whigfield - Saturday Night (1994)

Diddy dah nah nah!

Let me explain. Actually no, there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure—but if that tired label had to apply anywhere, this would probably be the closest thing on the list. An absolute phenomenon in the UK, at the time mainly for knocking Wet Wet Wet off the top and having a silly dance.

I have no regrets.

 
55 Dana International - Diva (1998)

Probably my first and indeed most people's first introduction to a transgender celebrity. I was absolutely fascinated by Dana, how could a boy make such a beautiful woman? And how could somewhere as distant and exotic sounding as Israel produce such thrilling, grand, theatrical europop and even win Eurovision?

It opened my eyes and my mind to a whole new world of possibilities - it was also a gay awakening of what was possible in the world. It's probably the UK no.11 hit I've seen performed the most.

 
52 Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky (1988)
53 Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's For Real (1989)

The highest placing SAW penned tracks. Lucky gets a pass from me, because, I without shame love it, but also it's the first song I ever loved. When it became a hit we taped off the TV and watched it endlessly. I've been obsessed with it for forty years. If I ever have a bath, I still imagine I'm in the video blowing bubbles at the camera.

This Time is another league. An absolute triumph for everyone involved, getting Donna back in the top 3 for the first time in a decade. Placing a powerful experienced vocalist like Donna into a fat free, pure pop, hi-NRG track, full of positive imagery and an irresistible drum machine is gay heaven. All hail our problematic queen.



 
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Was “What is Love?” A COVER?

Because everything else of its ilk around that time was. I’d love it if it wasn’t. It’s one of my favourites of the euro dance anthems.
 
51 Royksopp, Robyn - The Girl and the Robot (2009)

God this is still hot 17 years later (!)

A dream pairing of two of my favourite Scandinavian electropop acts. There really must be something in the snow water up there, to turn icey cold, sterile rifts into throbbing bops. Why wasn't this a huge hit?

 
funky said:
Was “What is Love?” A COVER?

Because everything else of its ilk around that time was. I’d love it if it wasn’t. It’s one of my favourites of the euro dance anthems.
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Nope, and neither were Mr Vain or Rhythm is a Dancer for example. Of course the convoluted stories of several eurodance tracks are messy and deceptive (particularly the Italian stuff), but I'd say the really big hits were all original. This was a German produced track, the only thing nicked was the iconic woe-oh-oh's.
 
450 songs complete. Just 50 to go. I can't see me finishing it all before Eurovision.
 
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