The first all-time chart since 1982 was voted for and compiled alongsde the 1999 Festive Fifty and was due to be broadcast at the same time, but due to unforeseen problems finding the necessary records (so Peel said), it was held over to January of 2000. For this reason, Mark Whitby (in The Festive Fifty, Nevin Publishing, 2005) refers to it as the "1999 All-Time Festive Fifty".
He comments: "Because of its somewhat predictable nature, Peel would only broadcast it in clutches of five records per programme, a decision that, once the chart was complete, was difficult to argue with. Despite this, there are a number of surprise entries and it certainly differs from the 1978-82 fifties in its willingness to recognise music from the pre-punk era, though the top thirty only includes one pre-punk track...Interestingly, great Peel bands like Siouxsie & The Banshees, Stiff Little Fingers and the Jesus & Mary Chain are completely absent." (Whitby, ibid., p. 52).
Unsurprisingly, Joy Division were the top act with five entries, and their reincarnation New Order a further four. However, five acts (Beach Boys, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Culture and Velvet Underground) entered the Festive Fifty for the first time, and one record by an established act, the Fall, somewhat surprisingly had not made the chart previously.
"If there was slightly less diversity in this chart compared with the preceding years, it's perhaps partly due to the release of great albums, and thus multiple entries, by Festive Fifty regulars such as the Delgados, Hefner, PJ Harvey and the Fall. This was still, in any case, a very good Festive Fifty and, at the end of the broadcast, Peel pronounced 2000 a great year for music and his generally upbeat tone during the top twenty broadcast suggested he was happy with the voters' choices. Country music enjoys rare prominence, which is not surprising in one sense given Peel's ecstatic ravings about Neko Case and Laura Cantrell throughout the year." (Whitby, M., The Festive Fifty, Nevin Publishing, 2005, p. 54.)
Top acts were the Delgados, Hefner and PJ Harvey, with four entries each.
Only one session track, by Cat Power, made the chart: the ballboy entry was only played in the session version because JP had lost the record.
