A Titanic love song, a French football miracle, and a boy band reign
A Titanic love song, a French football miracle, and a boy band reign
Ahmed Kajee
A Titanic love song, a French football miracle, and a boy band reign
1998 Was the year where Titanic fever refused to sink, Cher made Auto-Tune cool, and France shocked Brazil to win the FIFA World Cup. Whether you were watching The Truman Show at the movies or dancing to Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) at a school social, this was a year that made you feel things – loud, proud, and on repeat.
It’s the featured year on this week’s HOT Classic Countdown with Steve Bishop, taking place every Sunday from 12 to 3pm on HOT 102.7FM.
Remember when you couldn’t walk into a club without hearing Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You or Will Smith getting jiggy with it? Cher’s Believe wasn’t just a song — it was a comeback for the ages, turning 52-year-old Cher into a dancefloor queen and introducing a robotic vocal trick that would shape music for decades. Meanwhile, My Heart Will Go On from Titanic was still sailing strong on the charts after winning an Oscar — and everyone secretly tried to hit that note in the shower.
The world was changing fast. Google was founded, the iMac G3 made computers funky and translucent, and teenagers were lining up to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Over in South Africa, Mandela was finishing his final full year as president, while Sun City played host to the Miss World pageant. When You’re Gone, the unlikely duet between Bryan Adams and Spice Girl Melanie C, was all over SA radio — right next to Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply and Faith Hill’s breezy This Kiss.
Did You Know? Cher’s Believe was the first mainstream song to use Auto-Tune not to fix pitch — but as a deliberate effect. The producers called it the “Cher effect”… until it became a global standard in pop production.
1998 was also the year Sex and the City debuted, Pokémon arrived on our screens, and Brandy & Monica told us “The Boy Is Mine.” And as George Michael cheekily turned scandal into satire with Outside, the world leaned into both freedom and fun — with a soundtrack that still holds up today.
From pop duets and dancefloor bangers to power ballads and rock anthems, 1998 gave us a little bit of everything. And we’re pressing play on it all this Sunday.
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