This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

If the entire decade had been building towards one moment, 1999 was it — a glittering, bug-fearing, millennium-hurtling, pop-culture crescendo. There was excitement. There was panic. There were an awful lot of silver trousers.

Prince's prophecy finally came true, and everyone was partying like it was 1999 — because it was 1999. Ricky Martin brought the Livin' La Vida Loca energy, Steps kept us synchronised, and Christina, Britney, and J.Lo took over our CD shelves, our walls, and our dial-up internet connections.

The charts were shiny and sugar-rush silly, but the cinema was all about cool black coats and coded messages — The Matrix blew our minds and bent our spoons. Meanwhile, Fight Club told us not to talk about it, and The Blair Witch Project scared the VHS fuzz out of us. Sopranos changed TV forever, and The Sixth Sense made us realise we'd been wrong the entire time.

We got S Club 7, we got Craig David, and we got Napster — which meant we could now ruin the music industry from the comfort of our own bedrooms. All while anxiously hoarding baked beans in case the Millennium Bug turned off the world.

1999 — the year the '90s took a final glittery bow, and the 2000s peeked around the corner wearing wraparound sunglasses.