Wednesday, January 21, 2015

WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millenium

On December 31, 1999, the WHFS 99.1 team wrapped up the old year with a listener-vetted collection of songs known as the WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium. Well, sort of. As Rob Timm pointed out, there weren't any party songs written in the 13th, 14th, or 15th centuries, so it is really more like the Top 99 Party songs of the 20th Century. And after losing an argument with his "old man" at the dinner table, and feeling compelled to add a song that pre-dated WHFS by about half a century, Bob Waugh allowed that "some times you just have to add a few."
And what a broadcast it was. The program began at 2PM and lasted until after midnight. Bob Waugh presented the first five hours, and Rob Timm came on at 7PM -- the REAL Y2K moment, given that all that computer stuff runs on Greenwich Mean Time anyway. Between them, they played one song twice, several songs that had never before been heard on WHFS, and we learned a few things that evening. Rob Timm likes his Kiss loud, and Bob Waugh posed a verbal conundrum on the difference between the meanings of "Party Man"(a man belonging to a political party) and "Party Girl" (a physically attractive young woman hired to entertain male guests at parties).
And at ten o'clock, WHFS wrapped up the Millennium Party Song Collection and switched over to the MTV Millennium Mayhem Broadcast from Times Square, NY, what they called Y2K Ground Zero, for live music by Blink 182, No Doubt and others, and to HEAR THE BALL DROP at midnight. And with breathless amazement, the announcers on the scene observed "the lights are still on ..."
Not surprisingly, the list itself was rather loaded with songs of the last half of the '90s. After all this is the music we all had in our brains that year and that week. But it does make me wonder: how different would that list look today, fifteen years on, if a certain pair of millennium veteran DJs were to do it again this New Year's Eve?

The Program, as it aired in December 31, 1999

WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 1.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 2.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 3.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 4.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 5.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 6.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 7.mp3
WHFS Top 99 Party Songs of the Millennium 8.mp3

If you enjoyed this program, please post a comment and let me know ... think of it as signing a guest book. Thanks and, as they used to say on Einstein's HFS, Feast Your Ears.

5 comments:

  1. What? Not one comment? I am downloading them now. Will give it a listen and report back.
    One helluva collection!

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  2. Thank you Thank You THANK YOU!!! These are classics! I really appreciate it. These are a testament to music and radio greatness. I was actually surprised at how the nostalgic memories I have of those times were in actuality not hyperinflated by time but quite the opposite, I had forgotten at how great these broadcasts actually were and would be today.

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  3. Great stuff! Just learned of this page from the Rockville Facebook group. I'll go grab these while they're still up. My blog is WHFS and other Cool Music on blogspot. It's a bit discombobulated and I haven't posted there for a while.

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    Replies
    1. your blogspot seems to have been hijacked by adware/mallwaer or somesuch

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  4. I was listening to a mix tape of the top 99 of 1990 that I found in a shoe box and searched for a track list. I was led to this gold mine of HFS in the 90s. Wow. But all the MP3s for this and the other blog posts are expired. Is there any way for them to be refreshed or some other way to get a hold of them??? Thanks!

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