After securing big features ( Blackstreet, Dru Hill, Jay himself) for each of her Ill Na Na singles, “Hot Spot” was the first solo single for Brown - but when she closes out the chorus with “This is our world, me and my girls,” the track changes to a crew cut, a perfect ladies’ night anthem. Brown co-wrote the banger with Jay-Z, and together they set flexes like “My coat is ostrich, flow is the hottest/ You ain’t got dough, you can’t go with the Fox bitch” to a bright and scratchy beat from producers Irv Gotti (of Murder Inc.
The low chart showing of “Hot Spot” doesn’t do it justice - this song, from the rapper’s Billboard 200-topping second album Chyna Doll, still slaps. While 13 S Club references - as well as an entire bridge dedicated to shouting out each individual member - could come off as self-involved, the unshakeable melodies and singalong chants in “S Club Party” were appropriately convincing 20 years ago that there really ain’t no party like an S Club party. The seven-member British pop group made sure they’d be remembered 20 years later with a song that not only gets the party going, but serves as the perfect introduction to its hosts. S Club 7 poses at 'Power In The Park' concert on Jin Southampton, Britain. The song may have been all about the soul-crushing banality of living the quiet life - guitarist Graham Coxon, in a frontman cameo here, had recently gone sober - but its infectiousness is a vice unto itself, and the milk-carton odyssey that served as its video accompaniment was adorable enough to even leave A.J. Two years after crashing American shores with a grunge send-up potent enough to become a Jock Jam perennial, Blur scored their last major hit of the millennium with a mid-tempo strummer so jaunty and precious it wouldn’t sound out of place on a Belle & Sebastian album. That chauvinistic streak still hasn’t broken in popular music to this day, but unfortunately that’s the way the cookie crumbles. - BIANCA GRACIE But 20 years ago, the oft-maligned genre feels more like a refreshing shift that cleared out the last remaining vestiges of grunge - thanks to smashes like Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie.” Lifted from the band’s sophomore album Significant Other, the single showcased frontman Fred Durst’s petty misogyny, not-so-tightly concealed by the obnoxiously undeniable groove. Let’s face it: the nu-metal era that rattled the late ‘90s and early ‘00s was weird as hell. Kelly says he persuaded Maxwell to drop his ambition to record the Life soundtrack’s title cut in favor of this quiet storm jam - and we are all better for it. If fans of the neo-soul prince’s first album Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite thought sophomore LP Embrya lacked direction, “Fortunate” steadied the course, as a swooping falsetto run bursts forth seconds after pressing play, and envelops the listener in a lush, intimate vocal verse. But the song hangs on its unique one-word title to simply and completely describe the mood Maxwell creates: Plenty of singers have been “blessed” or “lucky” throughout pop history only one remains fortunate. Over time, it’s become a staple at mile-marker events, from campfire sing-alongs to send offs of any sort - meaning that in an ironic twist, “Remember” very well could now be an ode to itself. The lyrics to Sarah McLachlan’s gently timeless piano ballad - a surprise hit off her live Mirrorball set, four years after its initial debut on the Brothers McMullen soundtrack - so perfectly capture the concept of saying “so long” and moving on that one can’t hear it without visualizing a montage of playing behind it. Sarah McLachlan, “I Will Remember You” (Live) (No. See our list below - with a Spotify playlist of all the songs at the bottom - and look out for more content from the year that brought Kenny G back to the Hot 100 all week on .ĩ9. So apologies to “Say My Name,” “What a Girl Wants,” “Maria Maria” and several others - we’ll probably see them on this list next year.
1 until the year after, we’re counting ’em for ’00. But if they didn’t hit the Hot 100 until the next year, or if they debuted in ’99 but didn’t hit No. The 98 Greatest Songs of 1998: Critics' Picksįirst, though, a note about eligibility: Songs were counted as eligible if they were released as singles in ’99, or if they debuted on the Billboard charts in ’99.