Dive into the time machine with us and go back to the Top 40 of the past. We highlight a variety of tracks, including number 1s, fastest climbers and newcomers. This week we go back to the Dutch Top 40 of August 22, 1998.

Des’ree rejects Marco Borsato from number 1
In 2006, Des’ree’s Life was voted the song with the worst lyrics ever. Thankfully, that was a long time ago, in 1998. On August 22, 1998, the UK took over the number one spot from Marco Borsato’s De Bestining. More than six years after her UK debut (with Feel So High), she had now achieved success in our small country. Life also contained the line that made many laugh: ‘I don’t want to see ghosts, that’s the sign I fear most. I’d rather eat toasted sandwiches and watch the news.’

Des’ree had already said at the time of its release that you shouldn’t take the lyrics too seriously. “Not everything goes smoothly. You just have to look at life with a little humor,” she concluded. The video for Life was shot in Jamaica and is based on Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. The illustration is a plane passing by, while the singer rides in a black Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible, among sugar cane fields. We can now call Des’ree a real one-hit wonder: after Life she reached Tipparade twice more, but the Top 40 ranking failed to materialize.

Level and other Ultimate shirts cause sweat drops
The boy band did well in the Top 40 on August 22, 1998. Although Five dropped five places at the end of the List with Got The Feelin’ and Roméo dropped from 13th to 16th with Secret Love, there was plenty to offer the group to celebrate. Another Level covered Silk’s Freak Me and shot up from 8th to 4th. While the American R&B group’s version was sultry than sultry, the British version went one step further. And what the American version failed to achieve, Another Level managed to do: reach number one in the UK.

To be fair, Silk managed to reach number one in the United States and Mark Baron, Dane Bowers, Bobak Kianoush and Wayne Williams can’t say that. A little lower on the list, at number 8, Ultimate Kaos got a place. The Simon Cowell-formed group broke through this year with Casanova which managed to reach number two in our country. Haydon Eshun, who does most of the vocals, sings on My Lover that he wants his ‘lover’ to believe in him and that everything will be okay. Meanwhile, he can’t get over her.

Both boy bands ‘sandwich’ girl bands and what kind: The Spice Girls remained at number 7 this week in 1998.

_{Scare Me on Another Level}

_{Viva Forever by Spice Girls}

_{My Lover from Ultimate Kaos}

Aerosmith is going the fastest
Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” was the fastest climber this week in 1998. The soundtrack to the film Armageddon rose from 18 to 9. For frontman Steven Tyler, there was a special perk in this disaster movie: his daughter, Liv, played one of the lead roles. It wasn’t the band that wrote the hit, but none other than Diane Warren. In 1997 she saw an interview on TV with Josh Brolin and Barbra Streisand, who also happened to be getting married in 1998. Brolin said in the interview that he even missed Barbra when she was sleeping. That fact fascinated Diane so much that she wrote in her notebook: I don’t want to miss a thing. She eventually developed it into a full song, with someone like Céline Dion in mind. Surprisingly, Aerosmith got the track. The group had to get used to it, but once the band played it, it automatically became an Aerosmith song, according to drummer Joey Kramer. In the Netherlands it became Aerosmith’s biggest hit, with 148 more Top 40 points than Cryin’.

B*Witched sings more than you think
‘Say you will, say you won’t. Say you’ll do what I won’t’. That’s what the Irish girls from B*Witched sing on C’est La Vie. In its third week, Keavy, Edele, Lindsay and Sinead have risen from 29 to 24. At first glance, C’est La Vie seems like a cheery pop song, especially when you look at the clip. The girls – dressed in denim jackets and jeans – chase after a boy. But if you zoom in on the lyrics, you’ll find that the girls are singing about more than just their crush on a boy. So they sing: ‘Do you play with the girls? Do you play with the boys? Do you ever feel lonely when you play with your toys?’ It refers to the struggle the boy goes through: does he like boys or does he like girls?

In the Netherlands, the track would climb to number six in the following weeks, but in the UK it was all over: the group would reach number 1 there and would become the first of a total of 4 number 1 hits there. In our country, the Irish women would only enter the Top 40 once more, via Thank ABBA For The Music, with Tina Cousins ​​​​and Cleopatra and Billie. The highest entry was exactly four places lower than C’est La Vie. That was Love Me In Slow Motion by Total Touch. This would be the last Top 40 project made by Trijntje and Tjeerd Oosterhuis. In total, Total Touch was in the Dutch Top 40 six times.

_{C’est La Vie by B*Witched}

_{Love Me In Slow Motion with Total Touch}

You can listen to the August 22, 1998 Top 40 on Spotify for a week. You can see it here.

(08-22-2024)