"Heartbeat" - Steps
"So young" - The Corrs

Ah, that's more like it. Steps sold a squillion of their single, The Corrs a shedload of their album, both groups were absolutely everywhere - and made great telly. SM:TV would have flopped without them.

"Heartbeat" in particular is a top-grade song, well-composed and with room for a great singer to make their mark.

Question for the panel: Which member of Steps for #CelebrityTraitors?

#TOTP #Steps #Corrs

"Up and down" - Vengaboys
"Move mania" - Sash! ft Shannon

A bit of Eurodance, one with some great singing, the other with video effects from 1982.

The original show put something in the middle, "I'm your angel" by Céline Dion and A Perv. The song's been memory-holed. It's no loss, as welcome in Céline's Christmas album like a sprout baked so long it turned into charcoal.

#TOTP #Vengaboys #Sash

"Dreaming" - Ruff Driverz

Don't think i've heard this since 1998, which feels like a slight error on my part.

"Until the time is through" - Five

Known for their fast dancing and vigorous jumps, Five put on their suits and dance around their chairs and make a "sensitive" "slow" record and try to look all grown up. And it just about works.

Let's hope Ronan Keating doesn't get any ideas from this.

#TOTP #RuffDrivers #Five

Around the time of these Topses of the Popses, Tony Blair gave an address to the Oirechtas, it emerged that bribes were paid to take the Olympics to Salt Lake City, and we remembered the late songwriter Hal Davis.

"They Think It's All Over" and "Heartbeat" were big tv shows, "Drop the Dead Donkey" and "Fort Boyard" were on the minor channels.

#TOTP

"I love the way you love me" - Boyzone

Remember when Boyzone made uptempo songs you could move your feet to? Us neither; feels like they've always been grannies-in-waiting.

"War of nerves" - All Saints

Unlike certain other acts, All Saints kept pushing themselves to do different and experimental things. It is in the nature of experiments that not all will succeed.

#TOTP #AllSaints #Boyzone

"Searchin' my soul" - Vonda Shepard

Vonda had been in the biz for a decade without much success, and "Searchin' my soul" was originally from her 1992 album. Her blues-country hasn't had much commercial or critical success since.

Theme to the tv show "Ally McBeal", an office comedy about a neurotic lawyer and her wacky co-workers. Massive ratings success at the time, but when was the last time anyone watched it?

#TOTP #VondaShepard #AllyMcBeal

"Tragedy" - Steps

Hands behind your ears, like you're a traffic bollard.

My money's on Claire for Celeb Traitors. Looks ditsy, actually has the social nous to go a long way.

"Take the long way home" - Faithless

Faithless? That's traitor talk. Voting for yourself, Rollo.

Massive in the clubs at the time, but completely forgotten in favour of their other hits. And that's no surprise.

#TOTP #Steps #Faithless

"The power of goodbye" - Madonna

Never did play "Ray of light", did they? Never mind, "Power of goodbye" is the best bit of the album "Frozen". (Other than the title track. Maybe.)

Had Madge been in the studio since that business with the pink frightwig? Ah, yeah, when she was in the dumper circa 94...

#TOTP #Madonna

"Miami" - Will Smith

Will's showing his straight man privilege, going to Miami like that.

"Believe" - Cher

It's still number one. Still.

And if it's keeping dreck like Borezone and Céline 'n' the perv off number one, more power to Cher.

#TOTP #Madonna #WillSmith #Cher

Christmas 1988 next.

This week in 1988, scientists developed a process to remove noise caused by scratches on vinyl records. Clicks and hisses were taken out through digital processing.

They'd tested it on works by Ravel, Andres Segovia, the Andrew Sisters, and The Grateful Dead; all sounded much better than before. A test on Status Quo resulted in an unlistenable mess, so no change there either.

#TOTP