So 1999 was the year that Prince sang about, and I was just sitting here thinking back to 1999. I remember Kid Rock was on the radio all the time with stuff like "Cowboy" and I was gearing up, reading some press ads about a new Michael Jackson album around the corner. (Invincible.)

Hard to believe all that was 10 years ago. Anyone else remember 1999 in music?
It seems like just yesterday, at least to me. I hear songs that were popular back then and go, "Wow, that couldn't have been 10 years ago. It feels like 2 years ago."

Wow..

I've forgotten mostly anything post 1992

As much as people complain about popular music today, I think it was much, much worse in 1999- Ricky Martin, Backstreet Boys, Creed, Kid Rock, etc.

Moonbeam said:

Sorry i don't see the difference with today, if you think of Lady Gaga, Usher, Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, ....wtf you're on about? it is equally rubbish

Moonbeam said:

I agree.

But then again, there was still much emphasis on "SINGERS" as opposed to "trickers"

I remember "Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas was friggin' everywhere that year. Other overplayed songs I can think off the top of my head: "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega, "Blue" by Eiffel 65, "I Try" by Macy Grey and "Steal My Sunshine" by Len.
[Edited 9/23/09 4:32am]

1999 - The height of the trance in the world of dance music, you could actually go into most nightclubs in the UK and have a decent session on the dancefloor (a rarity these days), thanks to the likes of Nalin and Kane, ATB, Chicane, Underworld, Ferry Corsten, Oakenfold, Art of Trance, etc. Spent soooo many nights on dance floor during that year (finished my A-levels that summer so it was a long hot one!)....and Madonna had jumped on the trance bandwagon before it really got rolling the year before, proving once again when it comes to great dancefloor music she's always a step ahead of the pack!

Was it really a decade ago?! Damn!!!

I'm not saying it was as good as early 90s, 80s, 70s etc....but 1999 was still a lot better than now for music.

Those boybands like Backstreet Boys were better than a lot of the music out today.
There were better hip hop albums out than today: Dre 2001, Snoop Dogg's Tha Last Meal, Marshal Matthers LP etc.

R&B was better, too. R Kelly had his TP-2.com album, which is better than most R&B out now, and better than any of his music now!
[Edited 9/23/09 6:09am]

ISF said:

I don't know about that R. Kelly album (it was kinda garbage to me except for a couple tunes like "Final Warning" and "R&B Thug"....).

1999 I thought was a nice year in music. There were alot more diffrent genres of music I liked and opened my ears to diffrent styles. I got in2 Kid Rock actually....Len was good...Backstreet came out with their last good album Millenium..N*sync was doing their little thing what whatever mess they had at the time...I liked that year in music actually. Macy Gray "Why Didnt You Call Me" was part of that year.... That was the first time in years that the sound of funk was kind of coming back in again thanks to Erykah Badu and Maxwell.

I though 1999 was a pretty good year for music.

1. Believe, Cher
2. No Scrubs, TLC
3. Angel of Mine, Monica
4. Heartbreak Hotel, Whitney Houston
5. ...Baby One More Time, Britney Spears
6. Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer
7. Genie In a Bottle, Christina Aguilera
8. Every Morning, Sugar Ray
9. Nobody's Supposed to Be Here, Deborah Cox
10. Livin' la Vida Loca, Ricky Martin
11. Where My Girls At?, 702
12. If You Had My Love, Jennifer Lopez
13. Slide, Goo Goo Dolls
14. Have You Ever, Brandy
15. I Want It That Way, Backstreet Boys
16. I'm Your Angel, R. Kelly and Celine Dion
17. All Star, Smash Mouth
18. Angel, Sarah McLachlan
19. Smooth, Santana Featuring Rob Thomas
20. Unpretty, TLC
21. Bills, Bills, Bills, Destiny's Child
22. Save Tonight, Eagle-Eye Cherry
23. Last Kiss, Pearl Jam
24. Fortunate, Maxwell
25. All I Have to Give, Backstreet Boys
26. Bailamos, Enrique Iglesias
27. What's It Gonna Be?!, Busta Rhymes Featuring Janet
28. What It's Like, Everlast
29. Fly Away, Lenny Kravitz
30. Someday, Sugar Ray
31. Lately, Divine
32. That Don't Impress Me Much, Shania Twain
33. Wild Wild West, Will Smith Featuring Dru Hill and Kool Moe Dee
34. Scar Tissue, Red Hot Chili Peppers
35. Heartbreaker, Mariah Carey Featuring Jay-Z
36. I Still Believe, Mariah Carey
37. The Hardest Thing, 98 Degrees
38. Summer Girls, LFO
39. Can I Get A..., Jay-Z Featuring Amil (Of Major Coinz) and Ja
40. Jumper, Third Eye Blind
41. Doo Wop (That Thing), Lauryn Hill
42. Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...), Lou Bega
43. Sweet Lady, Tyrese
44. It's Not Right But It's Okay, Whitney Houston
45. (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You, 'N Sync
46. Lullaby, Shawn Mullins
47. Anywhere, 112 Featuring Lil'Z
48. Tell Me It's Real, K-Ci and JoJo
49. Back 2 Good, Matchbox 20
50. 808, Blaque
51. She's So High, Tal Bachman
52. Bella (She's All I Ever Had), Ricky Martin
53. Miami, Will Smith
54. Hands, Jewel
55. Who Dat, JT Money Featuring Sole
56. Please Remember Me, Tim McGraw
57. From This Moment On, Shania Twain
58. Love Like This, Faith Evans
59. You, Jesse Powell
60. Trippin', Total Featuring Missy Elliott
61. If You (Lovin' Me), Silk
62. Ex-Factor, Lauryn Hill
63. Give It to You, Jordan Knight
64. Black Balloon, Goo Goo Dolls
65. Spend My Life With You, Eric Benet Featuring Tamia
66. These Are the Times, Dru Hill
67. I Don't Want to Miss a Thing, Mark Chesnutt
68. I Do (Cherish You), 98 Degrees
69. Because of You, 98 Degrees
70. I Will Remember You, Sarah McLachlan
71. Chante's Got a Man, Chante Moore
72. Happily Ever After, Case
73. My Love Is Your Love, Whitney Houston
74. All Night Long, Faith Evans Featuring Puff Daddy
75. Back That Thang Up, Juvenile Featuring Mannie Fresh and Lil' Wayne
76. Almost Doesn't Count, Brandy
77. Man! I Feel Like a Woman!, Shania Twain
78. Steal My Sunshine, Len
79. I Need to Know, Marc Anthony
80. So Anxious, Ginuwine
81. Faded Pictures, Case and Joe
82. Back At One, Brian McKnight
83. When a Woman's Fed Up, R. Kelly
84. How Forever Feels, Kenny Chesney
85. Amazed, Lonestar
86. Sometimes, Britney Spears
87. Ghetto Cowboy, Mo Thugs Family Featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
88. Out of My Head, Fastball
89. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem), Jay-Z
90. Jamboree, Naughty By Nature Featuring Zhane
91. Take Me There, BLACKstreet and Mya Featuring Mase and Blinky Blink
92. Stay the Same, Joey McIntyre
93. Lesson In Leavin', Jo Dee Messina
94. Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
95. Satisfy You, Puff Daddy Featuring R. Kelly
96. Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out), Citizen King
97. Music Of My Heart, 'N Sync and Gloria Estefan
98. Write This Down, George Strait
99. When You Believe, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey
100. God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You, Alabama Featuring 'N Sync

daPrettyman said:

Damn, now that's a list!

daPrettyman said:

These are my bottom 100 songs of all-time. 1999 is well-represented.

1 Ricky Martin - Livin' la Vida Loca
2 Barenaked Ladies - One Week
3 Sixpence None the Richer - Kiss Me
4 Chumbawumba - Tubthumping
5 Dan Baird - I Love You Period
6 Mase - Feels So Good
7 Aqua - Cartoon Heroes
8 OMC - How Bizarre
9 Creed - Higher
10 Ashlee Simpson - Pieces of Me
11 Josh Groban - You Raise Me Up
12 Will Smith - Gettin Jiggy with It
13 Dave Matthews Band - What Would You Say
14 Hootie and the Blowfish - I Only Wanna Be With You
15 Nelly Furtado - I'm Like a Bird
16 The Rembrandts - I'll Be There for You
17 Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
18 Color Me Badd - I Wanna Sex You Up
19 Lit - My Own Worst Enemy
20 Sister Hazel - All for You
21 Vanessa Carlton - 1000 Miles
22 Edwin McCain - I'll Be
23 Puff Daddy - Mo Money Mo Problems
24 Shawn Mullins - Lullaby
25 Eagle Eye Cherry - Save Tonight
26 Green Day - Time of Your Life
27 Beyonce - Crazy in Love
28 Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
29 Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
30 Alan Jackson - Chattaahoochee
31 Black Eyed Peas - My Humps
32 Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart
33 Kid Rock - Cowboy
34 Sarah McLachlan - I Will Remember You
35 Destiny's Child - Bug-a-boo
36 AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long
37 Pink - There U Go
38 The Beatles - Yellow Submarine
39 Beyonce - Diva
40 50 Cent - Candy Shop
41 Backstreet Boys - The Call
42 Linkin Park - The End
43 Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
44 The Eagles - Hotel California
45 Uncle Cracker - Follow Me
46 Creed - My Sacrifice
47 All 4 One - I Swear
48 Chely Wright - The Bumper on My SUV
49 Ricky Martin - The Cup of Life
50 Savage Garden - I Knew I Loved You
51 Smashmouth - All Star
52 Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
53 Lonestar - Amazed
54 Dave Matthews Band - Everyday
55 Paula Cole - I Don't Wanna Wait
56 311 - All Mixed Up
57 Creed - With Arms Wide Open
58 Meredith Brooks - Bitch
59 Bowling for Soup - 1985
60 Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag
61 Sugar Ray - Every Morning
62 Nelly Furtado - Turn on the Light
63 Eamon - Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)
64 Bob Marley - No Woman, No Cry
65 Nickelback - How You Remind Me
66 Black Eyed Peas - Don't Phunk With My Heart
67 Green Day - When I Come Around
68 Ricky Martin - Shake Your Bon Bon
69 Sum 41 - In Too Deep
70 Gretchen Wilson - Redneck Woman
71 Simple Plan - Addicted
72 Cece Peniston - Finally
73 Barenaked Ladies - If I Had a Million Dollars
74 Evanescence - Call Me When You're Sober
75 Los del Rio - Macarena
76 Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red White and Blue
77 Hootie and the Blowfish - Hold My Hand
78 Wilson Phillips - Hold On
79 Pink - U Make Me Sick
80 Fergie - Fergalicious
81 Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
82 Ricky Martin - She's All I Ever Had
83 Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much
84 Sublime - What I Got
85 Barenaked Ladies - Pinch Me
86 Counting Crows - Mr Jones
87 Aaron Neville - Don't Know Much
88 Shannon Noll - Lift
89 Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life
90 Paul McCartney - Freedom
91 Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills
92 Geri Halliwell - Look At Me
93 Blind Melon - No Rain
94 Matchbox 20 - Bent
95 John Mayer - Your Body Is a Wonderland
96 Color Me Badd - I Adore Mi Amour
97 Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You
98 Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl
99 Beyonce - De Ja Vu
100 Akon - Smack That

What I voted as my top ten albums at the end of 1999:





Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Faith And The Muse - Evidence Of Heaven
Moby - Play
Kelis - Kaleidoscope
Chemical Brothers - Surrender
The Creatures - Anima Animus
Fiona Apple - When The Pawn...
Tori Amos - To Venus And Back
Wolfsheim - Spectators
Mary J Blige - Mary

I must not have liked that Chemical Brothers album much as time went on. I sold it on ebay a few years later.

photos edit
[Edited 9/23/09 16:19pm]

1999..

Britney Spears didn't win me over with her first single, but "Sometimes", "You Drive Me Crazy (Stop! Remix)" and her medley at the MTV European Awards made me come around, lol.

Christina Aguilera was liked from the start.. remember reading a review of "Genie In a Bottle" in Entertainment Weekly. They gave the song an A-, but gave..

Fiona Apple's cover of "Across the Universe" a C+ (which I disagreed with then, and still do to this day). Her album When the Pawn... was and still is brilliant. She was my top artist around this time.

Although I was discovering Tori Amos and Rufus Wainwright around the same time as well.

Total Request Live was really big at this time (keep in mind, that I was an impressionable 14 year old ). My diet consisted of a lot of it.

Also read lots of Rolling Stone and Spin around this time.. still have "The Top 90 Records of the 90's" issue somewhere..

And that issue of Spin introduced artists of which there was little acquaintance beforehand..

Chief among them.. P.J. Harvey.

Oh! And I was into the Rage Against the Machine song that was in that god-awful Roland Emmerich "Godzilla" remake.

More memories to be remembered for sure, but these were fresh.

ISF said:

TP-2 came out in '00.

1999 was the year Pop music went to shit! and R&B was slowly declining as well

I Want It That Way was from that year, and I think that's the greatest pure pop song of the last 20 years.

All of the following would be 4 or 4 1/2 star albums for me:

The Fall - The Marshall Suite
Smog - Knock Knock
Bonnie Prince Billie - I See A Darkness
Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
Shelby Lynne - I Am Shelby Lynne

And I really liked these ones, but wouldn't rate them quite so highly:

Apples in Stereo - Her Wallpaper Reverie
Built to Spill - Keep It Like A Secret
Jim O'Rourke - Eureka
Randy Newman - Bad Love
Pavement - Terror Twilight
Sam Prekop - s/t

That's quite a bit more than what I'd be able to list from the last year or two, but that's a reflection of how much new music I listen to these days (almost none), and that doesn't have much to do with quality.

Moonbeam said:

I agree with THAT^ one. Creed was and still is one of THE most OVERrated bands in rock & roll history. Even today, I still don't seen OR hear any thing great about them at all.

kanamit said:

1. Lady Gaga is the potential David Bowie for her generation, NOT to mention her performance artwork is inspired by The Illuminati.

2. Usher had done well with his own career since his debut in the mid 90's. He is THE only artist (besides The Beatles & The Bee Gees) the ever have 3 hit songs in the top 10 of Billboards Hot 100 Singles charts at the same time from one album (Confessions). And yes, his talent was inspired by the late Michael Jackson.

3. Kanye West is a douche bag! NEXT!!!

4.

Although, their debut album was released in 1998, THIS^ was hail as one of the best alternative rap albums of 1999. At the time, The BEPs were like the west coast version of A Tribe Called Quest.

Even today, a lot of orgers here are more fans of this version of the BEPs with Kim Hill than of the BEPs with Fergie.

DaveT said:

I was never a fan of trance. I always felt that it was one of THE worst genre in electronic music. And besides, I still feel that breakbeats, electro, and french house was WAY better genres in 1999.

Albums released in 1999 that I liked/(some) still like...

Make Yourself - Incubus

When the Pawn... - Fiona Apple

FanMail- TLC

Millennium - Backstreet Boys

On the 6 - Jennifer Lopez

Kaleidoscope - Kelis

Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers

On How Life Is - Macy Gray

Unleash the Dragon - Sisqo

The Writing's On The Wall - Destiny's Child

Mary - Mary J. Blige

Christina Aguilera - Christina Aguilera

Burn to Shine - Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals



... This list is shameful, I know

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale - Prince (though I wasn't 'in to' Prince yet and I didn't get this until a few years later)

Felons & Revolutionaries - Dope (didn't get this until later either)

To Venus and Back - Tori Amos (didn't get this one until this year)

The Fragile - Nine Inch Nails (only bought this cd last year)

Black On Both Sides - Mos Def (got this 2 years ago)

Tiger Army - Tiger Army (bought more recently)

Hooray for Boobies - The Bloodhound Gang (got as a gift a couple years ago)

Modified - Save Ferris (bought last year)

Tortilla said:

I hear ya! Back then I thought Rolling Stone and TRL were the authorities on all things 'music'

Growing out of that phase has been really enlightening

thekidsgirl said:

TonyVanDam said:

That was a good album! "Joints + Jams", "Movement", "Fallin' Up", "Love Won't Wait (ft. Macy Gray)" were the jam.

Moonbeam said:

I should've known you'd have a bottom 100 songs list.

I only like 43 songs on your list.

I remember this garbage that Prince released onto an unsuspecting populace.

I don't remember, I was too busy trying to get knocked up that year!

ZombieKitten said:

you didn't have any "mood music"?