top 10 hits that no one remembers

because sometimes i like to think about the songs that fit a time & place specifically. they were able to ride the promo machinery to success that seemed preordained, yet somehow cast no shadow and had no legacy. they're not remembered among any diehard fans, as the prelude to something better in an act's or genre's future, as jokes or novelties or embarrassments or one-hit wonders. they're just not remembered -- and when they're heard again, the gut reaction isn't to remember the act or the song but rather to remember the tiny space in time when one could hear it first, or at all.

idk, i'm high and i just read katherine's "brooklyn girls" piece on pop's failure state being obscurity, and for whatever reason it got me thinking about songs that were seemingly successful at the time and yet have quickly sunken back to the failure state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlxqpbh7_I8

emmie - more than this '99 (#5 uk)

Can't come up with any good examples (and can't figure out how to google for it - "forgotten hits" just gives lists of one-hit-wonders) but good thread idea, and the Emmie song definitely captures a sound and mood of late 90s England so that even though it's not remembered it resonates with memories.

The description in one of the Youtube uploads is telling:

"Manchester singer Emmie met producer Mark Hadfield (of bands Loveland, Lucid & Lovefreekz) at a party in their hometown & was asked to sing on a track that was originally an idea for 10,000 maniacs. This was the result and they signed it to Mercury records after initially being released as a white label."

The top comment on another upload (that only has 6108 views! easily sets it apart from a proper one-hit-wonder how it has no history in internet era) is very similar to you definition:

"What a fantastic version of "More Than This", I could listen to this over and over again. It brings back so many memories of 1999. It reached No.5 in the UK charts. Thanks for posting."

they're just not remembered -- and when they're heard again, the gut reaction isn't to remember the act or the song but rather to remember the tiny space in time when one could hear it first, or at all.

maybe not the best example since she apparently enjoyed some success beyond 'mouth' in australia, and has been mentioned on ilx a few times, but until now the only time i'd ever heard this song was when it was played on the radio a few times when i had just moved back to the states in 1995 and was getting reacquainted with paved roads and pine trees. i associate it with riding in a champagne-colored honda accord at that golden hour time of the evening over a certain very long bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YIIM1EVDqg

That Emmie song has immortality on dance mats in arcades across the country.

Every time I think of an artist whose work might be eligible like Kele Le Roc or Conner Reeves I find the songs I'm thinking of weren't actually top ten hits, which I guess is a point on the fleeting joy of forgotten pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nqJjT0YVaQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWrcSso_wNw

sina - don't be shy (#2 nz)

(she is the vocalist who sang the chorus to eternal classic "how bizarre")

not sure if a'me lorain is completely not remembered (is anyone?), or if she's just a minor one-hit wonder who a few scattered pop diehards do remember but probably haven't listened to in 20-plus years. but i wish she were a lot more remembered than she is.

this hit #9 in the US in 1990 and, according to one of the handful of times she's ever been mentioned on ilm, it was also #95 on billboard's year-end chart that year. it's good dance-pop. there were a couple other good tracks on a'me lorain & the family affair's lone album, the wonderfully titled starring in ... standing in a monkey sea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI4F--74vu8

or if she's just a minor one-hit wonder who a few scattered pop diehards do remember but probably haven't listened to in 20-plus years.

*feebly raises hand*

but to be fair i remember more about lower-reaching top 40 hits from the '80s and '90s than i know about current number ones! i was obsessed with the pop charts as a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTmYm8eWlPI

Great UK top 5 hit from early 2008 which I really loved at the time but which no one I know seems to remember but me (and my sister). All I remember of him otherwise was on GMTV to promote the song where the presenters said he was like or was going to be a/the British Justin Timberlake. That didn't happen, alas. With a few more hits though he could have ended up a 00s/likeable Finley Quaye, maybe.

Musically it's sort of halfway between Hollywood Beyond's What's the Colour of Money and John Lydon's Sun - some sort of peculiar amalgam of R&B, Irish folk and Eastern textures. Produced by Steven Lipson and released on ZTT (without having ever checked I'm guessing its their final hit single).

Steve/Stephen rather (can someone tell me to get some sleep)

Tanita Tikaram - Twist in my sobriety (1989)

I never see mentioned this one anywhere and it was fairly succesful worldwide.

the single was only a moderate hit in the UK, peaking at number 22, and is Tikaram's last top-40 hit in her home country.

The song was a bigger success when released in Europe, becoming a top-10 hit in several countries, including Ireland (number 10), France (number six), Norway (number six), West Germany (number two), and Austria (number two). The single was Tikaram's only chart hit on the US charts, peaking at number 25 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

I listened to the Liza Minnelli version of that the other day.

xp my mother claims I was absolutely crazy for this one as a child and knew all the words

Twist in my sobriety was on one of the four records I heard growing up.

I have no memory of that David Jordan song. Love these kinds of threads.

It's difficult to go through a night out in Poland without hearing "Twist in My Sobriety". I have no memory of ever hearing the song before moving here.

Yeah I don't remember David Jordan. Late 00s is a period I've been planning to revisit for a few years now as obviously there's over a decade in passing it feels like time. It's an interesting time...in terms of how uninteresting it's so tempting to claim it was.

good song. pretty popular in the Netherlands as well back then. no idea about its legacy here, wouldn’t know if it was still played as a golden oldie

re: “Twisting My Sobriety”

xp

lol, we’re twistin’, we’re twistin’ the sobriety away

twistin my melon man

A song that reached #25 on the Modern Rock chart in 1989 wasn't a US hit tbh but I totally remember "Twist in My Sobriety" from the time (peaked at 40 in Canada). It might be the only song from this thread I do recall. Haven't heard it since, it's true.

Jackie Trent’s Bacharach-ish “Where Are You Now (My Love)” topped the UK Singles Chart in 1965 and it seems it was forgotten quickly. I think it’s great, like a kitchen sink Petula Clark record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXbnZa30Ik8

It’s just called “Where Are You Now”, even. I must’ve invented the (My Love).

Justin Timberlake is haunting these recent posts

don’t remember the David Jordan song. can’t say I’m sure it totally works (it probably doesn’t), but it would have made sense as a Eurovision entry for any of the participating countries in any of the past ten or so years. (Bosnia? sure. Switzerland? hell, why not?)

Tanita Tikaram - Twist in my sobriety (1989)

I never see mentioned this one anywhere and it was fairly succesful worldwide.

VH-1 loved it at the time.

Yes indeed

Over 30M views on this fwiw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8glZ-efMg

50.4M plays on Spotify

compared to e.g. 5.7M for Timbuk 3's "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades", which charted higher

in the US, sure, and in the Western Anglosphere. “Twist In My Sobriety” was much bigger in the rest if the world tho, which probably goes a long way to explain the discrepancy.

the Spotify streaming numbers you see are global, not country-specific, and the US is a country too.

But you were aware of that already, right?

Looking at old cds and I got another one that I never see in any 90’s playlist or have overheard anywhere for decades. 18M global streams on spotify, 16M views on yt:

Billie Myers - Kiss the Rain

Top 10 hit in Ireland, UK, Canada, Netherlands and #15 on the US charts.

My station played it to death. Ugh.

It was played to death in Mexico when it came out for a couple of years. I don’t think I’ve heard it played anywhere nowadays. Canada might still give it airplay.

Other 90’s top 10 hits looking at some mixtapes… not saying any of these are necessarily good:

Bryan Adams - When You’re Gone (feat. Melanie C)

Didn’t chart in the US? Top 10 hit in UK, sweden, scotland, norway, canada, australia…

Another one:

Roxette - wish I could fly

A top 10 hit in several European charts. Almost made it into the uk charts (#11). Music video was played to death on MTV latinamerica… don’t think most people would mention it as one of Roxette’s famous singles.

I love Twist in My Sobriety - the lyrics are maybe a bit heavy-handed but then I had no idea until a few years ago she was 18 when she sang it. The oboe bits are wonderfully gothic.

It’s a real oboe afaik! And yeah there’s a goth vibe to it.

The Mel C hits remembered in the UK now are Never Be the Same Again (I'm guessing this is a Heart FM staple) and maybe I Turn to You (even though the version that was a hit is a really flashy trance remix that would stick out on e.g. Radio 2 for being rather noisy).

The first two singles from her incredibly strange Northern Star campaign were Goin' Down - her 'punk'/noise pop debut - and the title track, both reaching #4. French and Saunders did a parody of Goin' Down/Mel's punk phase which I saw quite a lot in the early 10s on Gold and each time I'd think 'this makes no sense now, no one remembers this song'.

I remember Going Down, Northern Star and that song she did with Bryan Adams AMA

Kiss the Rain was big on whatever radio I listened to in the UK at the time - probably Atlantic 252!

in the US, sure, and in the Western Anglosphere. “Twist In My Sobriety” was much bigger in the rest if the world tho, which probably goes a long way to explain the discrepancy.

the Spotify streaming numbers you see are global, not country-specific, and the US is a country too.

But you were aware of that already, right?

Not sure what you're trying to say but my point was that "Twist" has not been forgotten.

eta my reply: I had Northern Star on this compilation, there’s stuff on there I haven’t listened to in 23 years but I don’t think I even forget the filler on it

Another forgotten UK top 5 hit, from 1990
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpO0Ey7lha8

Outcharting both the Shocking Blue and Bananarama versions but probably not touched by radio since it was a hit. It's not very good - it retains some of the instrumental but isn't really a cover otherwise, more a stock 1990 dance soundscape with very obvious samples for decoration. That said I don't mind it listening to it at all because there are very few commercial dance hits from the 90s I wouldn't.

haha that's enjoyably silly

Twist in My Sobriety was on MTV a lot. Sometimes video airplay and US charts seemed to be in different worlds.

This is my copy of Don Pablo's Animals' version of "Venus" (and the only one o knew for a few years)

Don Pablo's Animals with a pointless but quite fun version of Venus. I have this single in the form of a flexi-disc stuck to the front of a packet of frosties. See - pic.twitter.com/Owv4xlhWW2

— Centuries of Sound (@Centuries_Sound) December 18, 2020

"Twist in My Sobriety" has some of my favorite oboe solos in pop.

xp ha amazing! I do love odd music/food and drink promotions like that - I'm in the process of compiling releases for a thing I'm doing about sponsored 90s compilations.

re:Now 44, I was listening to some of Now 42 only last night and thinking about the inclusion of Fool Boona's Popped, a dance version of The Passenger which they pre-emptively included ahead of its commercial release but which only reached #52. Those sort of failed predictions about dance records are more typical of mid-90s Now albums so it may be the last.

every non-Underwood/Clarkson American Idol leadoff single ever

re:Now 44, I was listening to some of Now 42 only last night and thinking about the inclusion of Fool Boona's Popped, a dance version of The Passenger which they pre-emptively included ahead of its commercial release but which only reached #52. Those sort of failed predictions about dance records are more typical of mid-90s Now albums so it may be the last.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c44JQWLqrCY

#4 UK, #9 US. I was driving through central Illinois a few years back desperate for non-talk radio and this popped up, first time I'd heard it since 1974.

that hair my god

I can’t remember if I posted this yet, but the other day I heard that on the radio and it seemed to me he was doing a Loudon Wainwright III imitation.

Same like another (ex-)ILX0r made the same observation.

Yeah there’s some weird wild card picks on the 90s albums looking back, though I’d put the second half off this non-Now early noughties album for your consideration.

I have that one! The first six songs on CD2 are all compilation staples even now (note how Touch Me is appearing ahead of its commercial release) but then of the remaining songs Dooms Night (masterpiece btw) is the only other one. And then it really is the wilderness. A lot of Telstar/BMG hits comps from the 90s/00s are good at hoovering up the real odds and ends that Virgin/EMI either couldn't license or wouldn't.

Da Muttz (nee Shaft)'s Wassuup! was one of two hits riffing on the Bud advert, which is very strange to think about. Tweenies' No. 1 at least was an early childhood favourite of mine. The key change is like CCS's Tap Turns on the Water.

Also missed opportunity not putting Operation Blade and Phatt Bass next to each other (as per Clubber's Guide to 2001 and Dance Masters.

Who here can confidently hum Mungo Jerry's second UK number one, Baby Jump?

The 'alrigh-alrigh-alrigh-alriiiiiight' bit where the song inexplicably starts again.

A few Popular threads have "the Baby Jump of the [time period]" to denote number ones which are just as forgotten

I think someone gives Celine Dion's Think Twice the accolade on that one's Popular thread.

My Camera Never Lies is definitely one. And probably loads after about 95 or so when first week peaks/fanbase-propelled sales for fourth singles off an album become much more common.

In terms of mega (i.e. number one for at least a month or so) number ones, KWS' Please Don't Go seems to have disappeared from public memory.

Xps to westbury white horse - I can’t recall why but a while ago I suddenly recalled Fused’s Saving Mary, a song that stumped even my better half* and that I have never knowingly heard anyone bring up in conversation, and remembered this album and…what a strange pick to fill the quota, right? Was it even top 40? I’ve never heard it on anything. That Beatchuggers song on that side used to be a staple of Sky Ibiza series and the like.


*we share interest in a lot of obscure/underrated/quite simply bad and otherwise unbeloved stuff (especially pop).I remembered bringing this MTV European top 20 “classic” up in conversation and then getting a parcel in the post - his copy of their album. Reader, I married him.

OCC has nothing for Saving Mary so nope, a non-charter at least within the top 100. Good track tho, feels quite modern. There's definitely more examples of the Hits series (not only in the Telstar BMG era) including some outright non-charters that I've spotted but I can't think what those are atm. Now albums only do it when its album tracks used to represent a best-selling album (or, in the case of Now 42, a non-reissued You Don't Have to Say You Loved Me in memoriam to Dusty) (or import singles, like Coldplay's no. 130 smash Don't Panic).

Popsie's is a new one on me. Very undistinctive except for its distinctive 1998ness.

Leo Sayer was an answer in yesterday's New York Times crossword puzzle (sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone).

Plate of shrimp.

Leo's second best single Why Is Everybody Going Home didn't even chart. His actual best Thunder in My Heart only reached no. 22 (not counting chart-topping remix three decades later). His third best Orchard Road reached no. 16.

In other words I don't feel the charts have served him as well as others might.

Four songs that recently turned up on shuffle that I hadn't heard in ages:

Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before (1981)
June Lodge - Someone Loves You Honey (1982)
UB40 - Our Own Song (1986)
Wee Papa Girl Rappers - Wee Rule (1988)

Just me or are these 'forgotten' elsewhere too?

Didn’t chart in the US? Top 10 hit in UK, sweden, scotland, norway, canada, australia…

Scotland doesn't have its own chart... yet.

As in this particular case, Wikipedia often lists Scottish chart peaks though, based on this source:

The Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100[9] appears in listings on the Official Charts Company's site alongside its charts for the Republic of Ireland and Billboard's Top 20 singles and albums[10][11] (with a link to the full Hot 100/albums 200 via billboard.com).[12]

The Scottish chart is a listing reflecting how sales towards the UK Albums Chart are faring in Scotland. Until December 2020, the OCC published a Scottish singles chart on its website as well, though this chart may only be available via the UKChartsPlus newsletter.[13] This subscription newsletter also includes the Official UK Top 100 Welsh Singles and Albums Charts, which serves the same purpose in Wales as the ones in Scotland, and the full UK Top 200 Albums chart.

Note: contrary what is said in that Wikipedia quote, they still compile Scottish (and Welsh) singles and albums charts, according to their website.

Been going through Faithless hits and it always takes me back that this trailered their only number one studio album - a very obscure No. 1 album at that - and it isn't even the same version. The song itself made no. 7 and isn't recognisably them at all save for Maxi. It's more like something off Palookaville.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzgBD2wysuI

Is Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr's Theme from Mission Impossible the only 90s worldwide top 10 hit - including in the US! - to not be on Spotify? Sometimes feels that way.

Such was its significance at the time that Orbital and Moby were also commissioned to put spy themes through the big beat blender and achieve some of their best single sales ever.

Nick Heyward’s “Kite”, which incredibly hit #4 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart

The modern rock chart was curious.

Kite is the best song EVER and I don't think I've gone two weeks in years without hearing it at least once. But in the UK it petered out at #44. A big shame.

I was thinking about Venus by Don Pablo's Animals only yesterday. I still have it on 7", one of the first singles I ever bought at 9 years old. I assume it was made by one of those Italian Eurodance super-producers under an alias but can't find much info about it at all.

Out of curiosity I researched the Billboard top 10 for each year since I started listening to radio (being really old that would be 1966.) It took me until 1986 to find one I have no recollection of: "I Miss You" by Klymaxx. By 1991 it's 4 of the top 10. By 2001 I can't recall any of them.

"I Miss You" got A/C play well into the '90s. It may be gone now.

Chances are if I heard it I would remember. Ringing no bells. Love "Meeting in the Ladies Room" though.

There's a little two-note percussion motif/hook in "I Miss You" that has stuck in my head all these years.

Imagine the R&B sonic inverse of 'Meeting in the Ladies Room' and you have 'I Miss You'. There's no other way to say it, and I can't deny it.

Okay, listening now and I have never heard "I Miss You." In 1986 my consumption of pop radio/MTV/VH1 was pretty much nil though, and my limited exposure to R&B was via dancefloor bangers rather than quiet storm stuff.

I don’t recall that song either. There was a period where some R&B songs hit the top even though MTV barely played the videos for them.

It hit #3 on the adult contemp chart, so it was pretty huge. Maybe I heard it in a dentist's office...

Klymaxx earned their own Behind the Music where the success of "I Miss You" led to precisely the kind of intragroup conflict you'd expect.

I remember it. and years later it wound up on a "worst breakup songs ever" countdown on VH-1

First time hearing “kite”

Gorgeous

yikes - did not know about this!

https://www.stereogum.com/2152457/klymaxx-say-the-wrong-klymaxx-was-inducted-into-women-songwriters-hall-of-fame/news/

Is Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr's Theme from Mission Impossible the only 90s worldwide top 10 hit - including in the US! - to not be on Spotify? Sometimes feels that way.

Such was its significance at the time that Orbital and Moby were also commissioned to put spy themes through the big beat blender and achieve some of their best single sales ever.

It's available where I am in Canada:
https://open.spotify.com/album/62qBtOk1Nzn6y8h4gE0t72?si=cMlaskP4QZyEdJbNDdUl8Q

It took me until 1986 to find one I have no recollection of: "I Miss You" by Klymaxx.

Being very honest here: this was the song that permanently drove me from top 40 listening. Which is pretty weird in retrospect, but something about hearing it a fair amount in 1986 got under my skin in a bad way; given I was a nerdy 15 year old I am not sure why, but I think I was finally done with a certain kind of easy listening/adult top 40 glop that had just gotten worse throughout the decade. Keep in mind I had been essentially listening to top 40 actively and regularly since 1980/1981 so this was a big move for me at the time! A logical sidestep given the time and place (Southern California_ might have been KROQ or rather 91X given I was in San Diego, but I was unsure about all that too as yet. I essentially took a year away from anything beyond random MTV viewings and things I overheard in favor of a lot of books and some random vinyl purchases, then moved into my classic rock phase in 1987 for a year (all while taking in other things as I did), got my first CD player, went to college in 1988, joined the radio station there and started reading alt-weeklies etc. etc. But "I Miss You" really was the catalyst that shocked me out of where I was at! So call it my weird origin story I guess?

It's available where I am in Canada:

Hmmm, strange it isn't worldwide

(I'm in the UK and it isn't here)

Ned, that's marvelous.

^^^ seconded. Just came here to post that one person's song they've never heard in their life is another's straw that broke the camel's back.

one main's ceiling is another man's floor

Truly one of the most strangely influential songs of my life. (And if I had only heard it once or twice I doubt I would have cared but it got a LOT of play and I was so sick of it. Just thinking about the chorus causes a Pavlovian shudder response.)

Yeah, that Klymaxx song eclipsed their two other hits, none of which I remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiMUVPWE7ec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHg_8-1EBPI

My trajectory is probably similar to Ned's. Top 40 > Classic Rock > the good stuff that defined what I listened to for the rest of my adult life.

The song that I remember singularly responsible for driving me down the radio dial from the top 40 station to the Classic Rock station was... Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" (a song I don't have strong feelings about today, but I think it was extremely over-played on my chosen top 40 station, and for some reason it just drove my 13 year-old self crazy). The song has probably been in "classic rock" circulation for decades by now.

I didn't mind "I Miss You" specifically but there was something about 1986 that broke me too -- the combination of shlocky ballads, horrible Prince copycats, and somnambulant AOR drove me away from following music for about 2.5 years, which is an eternity for a 12-14 year old kid.

Neither you nor Ned are wrong (esp about the categories you cited), but I'll insist 1986 was a wonderful year for pop in every genre.

That's intriguingly counterintuitive from my personal experience but yeah, 1986 feels like a 'problem' year in my head still, just thanks to the personal vector. I figure a lot of it is down to the quality of local stations (or lack thereof) depending on where you were at, compounded by an MTV that was starting to calcify the more it was ingrained. Essentially you had to make your own steps, and mine were ultimately backward for a while. It was never completely the case -- that same top 40 station had a Saturday night dance party block that avoided DJ chatter much and was also where I first heard "Blue Monday" -- random overhearings of "Bizarre Love Triangle" soon after helped tie the two together and so forth. But these were examples of me hearing something in specific and with intent more than not, where before I just had top 40 on by default.