You can't fight the tears that ain't coming

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1998 : Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

I don't recognise this from the name, but I suspect I'll know it when I hear it.

Ah, it's that one - "and I don't want the world to see me - 'cause I don't think that they'd understand".  Yeah, this is a decent track, with a very telescope-y video, but it's fair to say they didn't overly storyboard it.  I'm expecting some decent cover versions as well - but last time I said that I got none at all, so let's see.

Wikipedia tells us the song was written for The City Of Angels soundtrack, which is an album we  bizarrely gained as a result of the DJ not turning up at our wedding - but we never listened to it.  Apparently a big motivating factor for John Rzeznik writing the track was that he'd be on a soundtrack along with U2, Peter Gabriel and Alanis Morissette - and it really seemed to work for him.  Wikipedia also notes that many people have commented on the similarities with Billy Joel's "Piano Man" - it's not something I'd have noticed, but when pointed out, I can hear it.

The commercial performance in the US is a curious tale - the song was #1 in the airplay charts for 18 weeks, but because it wasn't officially released as a single it wasn't allowed into the proper chart - until it was past its peak, at which point they changed the rules and it still managed to debut at #9 in the main charts.  So we can only imagine what it might have done under different circumstances over there - we just let it in the charts without any fuss and it got to #3, but it got to #1 in Australia, Bengium, Canada and Italy.

Wikipedia does give us some cover versions - the most surprising one being by Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers after Phoebe said she'd cover it if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election (it got to #57 in the US, but doesn't appear to exist on the internet).  Other covers they mention are by Josh Ross (perfectly pleasant, but adding nothing to the original) and Mod Sun (slightly different, I guess).   secondhandsongs.com gives us Ronan Keating (exactly what you'd expect, but with a fancier video), Boyz II Men (even cheesier that Ronan!), Tangerine Dream (I don't mind this at all - and it comes from a very peculiar covers album) and The Wanted (not what I was expecting at all).

I quite like the song but I find it hard to believe it really took the year over here, so let's check out the competition.  The best selling track of the year over here was Cher's "Believe" which I suspect not many people listen to very often these days and the rest of the top five were Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", Run DMC & Jason Nevin's "It's Like That", Boyzone's "No Matter What" and B*Witched's "C'est La Vie" - OK, I guess but nothing amazing.  Tracks I like from the year end top 40 are Cornershop's "Brimful Of Asha", Madonna's "Frozen", Mousse T's "Horny", and Robbie Williams's "Angels" - probably the most surprising track is Chef's "Chocolate Salty Balls" at #7.

Looking at the charts throughout the year, we come up with Radiohead's "No Surprises", Catatonia's "Mulder And Scully" and "Road Rage", Massive Attack's "Teardrops", Fatboy Slim's "The Rockefeller Skank", Billie's "Because We Want To" (the lass has done well for herself in the intervening years - except maybe in her choice of husbands), George Michael's "Outside" and Bryan Adams's "When You're Gone" - not many tracks, but some goodies in there.

Looking across the pond, the best selling track was "Too Close" by Next, which apparently got to #24 over here, but I can assure you I don't remember it.  And #2 was "The Boy Is Mine" by Brandy & Monica who were absolutely massive in the US, but this was their only charting single over here, spending a whole two weeks in the chart!  Looking in the rest of the chart, there is a LOT of R&B nonsense in there or it's stuff we've already mentioned, so we can safely skip over it.

I think it's fair to say that a load of the best-selling music around in 1998 was bang average.  I wouldn't have picked this as my track of the year, but I don't think there's really an obvious winner - Cher took the year for ubiquity at the time, but it's not a track you hear much these days and it does sound pretty dated, which isn't an accusation you can level at "Iris", so let's let them have it shall we?

1997 - A good track, but better stories
1999 - Nice to catch up with this