It's a supernatural delight

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

2000 : Dancing In The Moonlight - Toploader

And we've made it in to the new century with an odd one - it's both a good track and a terrible one.  I don't mind listening to it from time to time, but if anyone was to put it on repeat and leave the room, I would be having strong words with them.  STRONG WORDS, I tell you.

And what a dull video it is - 3:45 of the band playing their song whilst young, smug things have "fun", a lot of which looks incredibly forced - almost as though the band had threatened to keep playing until everyone had jolly well showed them how much fun they were having.

Wikipedia surprised me by telling me it's a cover version - I suspect I probably knew that already, but it had completely slipped my mind.  It was originally recorded by Boffalongo in '70 (Toploader didn't stray too far from their version) and then was a hit for King Harvest in '72 (nicely quirky and quite Van Morrison-esque - getting to #13 in the US).  The Toploader version is the one that really hit the spot globally though - getting to #7 in the UK (2.4 million "sales") and being the second best selling single in Denmark in this year.  

There's also been another version that's done well - Jubël released a version in '18 (yeah, I quite liked this - it's a lot less annoying than all the other versions) that got to #11 in the UK and #9 in Sweden, somehow notching up streaming figures of 8 million in that country alone.  And there are another interesting couple of versions mentioned - The Baha Men (most famous for "Who Let The Dogs Out" and their version of this is BAD) and Chris Lane and Lauren Alaina (a country version with, for no obvious reason, completely different words).  secondhandsongs.com also gives us another couple of interesting versions - Liza Minelli (it's terrible, but in a very Liza way) and Aswad (which sounds EXACTLY like you'd expect).

I still don't understand quite how this track won the year - surely people don't listen to it very often?!?  Or maybe there are a few psychopaths that just listen to it on repeat?  Either way, I suspect there are a load of better tracks from the year.  The best selling track of the year was the absolutely ground-breaking "Can We Fix It?" from Bob The Builder - how did this not take the year?  The rest of the top five were All Saints' "Pure Shores", Sonique's "It Feels So Good", The Baha Men's "Who Let The Dogs Out?" (coincidence, huh?) and Robbie Williams's "Rock DJ".  Decent tracks from the top fifty that jump out for me are Eminem's "Stan" and "The Real Slim Shady", Britney Spears's "Oops - I Did It Again", Melanie C's "Never Be The Same Again" and "I Turn To You", Spiller's "Groovejet" (featuring Sophie Ellis-Bexter), Chicane's "Don't Give Up" and S Club 7's "Reach".  Two songs stood out as being worse that Bob The Builder's effort - Madonna's "American Pie" and The Tweenies' "Number 1" (which never got any higher than #5).

Looking further down the chart throughout the year we have R.E.M.'s "The Great Beyond", Ian Brown's "Dolphins Were Monkeys", Dr DRE's "Forgot About Dre", Moloko's "The Time Is Now", Tom Jones's "Sex Bomb", Darude's "Sandstorm", David Gray's "Babylon", Coldplay's "Yellow", The Corrs' "Breathless", Craig David's "7 Days", U2's "Beautiful Day" and Destiny's Child's "Independent Women" - some decent tracks there but not loads of them.

Looking over the pond, the best selling track of the year was Faith Hill's "Breathe" which I don't remember but it's not available for consideration because it was released in 1999.  Which was followed by TWO Santana tracks (also not available for consideration) - and a load more tracks I don't recognise which are also from 1999, which means the top track from 2000 is, quite obviously, Matchbox Twenty's "Bent" (never heard it!).  And you would not believe how much rubbish R&B there is in the rest of the chart...

I don't mind this song as long as I don't have to hear it more than a couple of times a year - if I had to pick one winner for the year I think I'd give it to Melanie C's "I Turn To You" but I'm quite surprised Coldplay didn't win it.  But the psychopaths have given the year to Toploader, it appears.

1999 - Nice to catch up with this
2001 - Enjoyable cheesy rawk