Here are the acts with the most hits:
| Artist | No of Hits | New Hits | |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 101 | |
| = | Cliff Richard | 101 | More To Life, We Should Be Together |
| 3 | David Bowie | 44 | |
| 4 | Elton John | 42 | Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me |
| 5 | Status Quo | 41 | Can't Give You More |
| 6 | Queen | 40 | Innuendo, I'm Going Slightly Mad, Headlong, The Show Must Go On, Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are The Days Of Our Lives |
| 7 | Paul McCartney | 39 | |
| 8 | Stevie Wonder | 37 | |
| 9 | Rod Stewart | 35 | Rhythm Of My Heart, The Motown Song |
| 10 | Frank Sinatra | 32 | |
| = | Rolling Stones | 32 | Highwire |
| 12 | Diana Ross | 31 | When You Tell Me That You Love Me |
| = | Shakin Stevens | 31 | I'll Be Home This Christmas |
| 14 | Lonnie Donegan | 30 |
and the most number ones:
| Artist | No of #1s | New #1s | |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 17 | |
| = | Beatles | 17 | |
| 3 | Cliff Richard | 13 | |
| 4 | Abba | 9 | |
| 5 | Rolling Stones | 8 | |
| 6 | Madonna | 7 | |
| 7 | Slade | 6 | |
| = | Rod Stewart | 6 |
The big talking point of the year though was Bryan Adams with his 16 weeks at number one with "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You". This was an artist who's chart record prior to this was four hits in 1985 which failed to reach the Top 10 plus several singles which didn't make the Top 40. Singles wise this is the success story of the year, but artist wise it probably wasn't Bryan Adams as his follow ups "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" and "There Will Never Be Another Tonight" failed to reach the Top 10, the former dropping out the Top 40 when "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" was still at number one and the latter dropping out the Top 40 the same week as "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You".
Queen have a case for being the success story of the year as they were the only act to have more than number one with "Innuendo" at the start of the year and the Christmas number one "Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days Of Our Lives" but the three singles in between didn't chart so well.
Edging both Bryan Adams and Queen though in my opinion were the KLF. They scored a number one with "3am Eternal" and number two with "Last Train To Trancentral" and "Justified and Ancient". They also scored a number 10 with "It's Grim Up North" as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
Having dominated the charts a couple of years earlier, this year was the last we'd see of Stock Aitken & Waterman with Matt Aitken sailing off into the sunset. Artist wise it was just Kylie and Jason who had hits from them this year, the final one being "Shocked" by Kylie. Stock and Waterman carried on though, the first one being "Word Is Out" which was the first Kylie single not to make the Top 10. We also had the last of Jason Donovan's involvement with "Happy Together". He also scored his last number one with "Any Dream Will Do" but this was nothing to do with Stock Aitken & Waterman.
Dance music wise it was once again the year where things got both faster and slower. Most notable from this was the emergence of breakbeat hardcore music with perhaps the most notable debutants from this year being Altern-8 with "Infiltrate 202" and "Activ-8", and The Prodigy with "Charly".
The debut from the Prodigy had it's critics and was labelled as being Toytown Techno alongside "Summers Magic" by Mark Summers and "Roobarb And Custard" by Shaft.
There were other notable debutants from the rave scene this year including Shades Of Rhythm with "The Sound Of Eden" and "Extacy", Bizarre Inc with "Such A Feeling" and "Playing With Knives", Carl Cox with "I Want You (Forever)", Moby with "Go" and SL2 with "DJs Take Control / Way In My Brain".
From Belgium we saw the last of Technotronic with "Work" but we had new acts in Quadrophonia with "Quadrophonia" and "The Wave Of The Future", T99 with "Anasthasia" and "Nocturne", Cubic 22 with "Night In Motion" and Digital Orgasm with "Running Out Of Time". Only the latter would have any further hits beyond this year.
From Italy we have debuts from DJH featuring Stefy with "Think About…" and "I Like It", Anticappella with "Square Root of 231" and East Side Beat with "Ride Like The Wind" whilst Black Box had a hit with "Strike It Up".
Perhaps the biggest sign though of what was to come from Europe over the next few years was the debut of 2 Unlimited with "Get Ready For This".
Another style of music we would see for the first time in the charts this year was Trip Hop, with Massive Attack debuting with "Unfinished Sympathy", though they had to change their name to just Massive because of the Gulf War which was happening at the time. They had reverted back to Massive Attack for their follow up "Safe From Harm".
Likewise Bomb the Bass had to use his real name to release music but had not Top 40 hits during this time, but he was back to being Bomb the Bass when he released "Winter In July" in July.
Saint Etienne had a side project this year as Cola Boy with the hit "Seven Ways to Love" in July. This however came before the debut of Saint Etienne which came in September with "Only Love Can Break Your Heart/Filthy" which despite it being one of their better known songs, only reached number 39.
The baggy scene was still going strong with many of the acts debuting the previous year continuing this year. Making their debut was the Mock Turtles with their only hit "Can You Dig It", High with their only hit "Box Set Go", Flowered Up with "Take It" and Blur who were considered part of that scene at the time with "There's No Other Way".
Guns N Roses returned to the charts this year with "You Could Be Mine". There were also hits from Thunder, Little Angels and David Lee Roth. Other hard rock from this year though was looking quite 70s with Thin Lizzy having their final hit with "Dedication" and Slade having their final hit with "Radio Wall Of Sound" plus hits from AC/DC and Alice Cooper.
There was a new genre emerging in the rock world though, Grunge. The only Grunge record this years was the debut of Nirvana with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". But did this kill off Glam Metal?
Not at this point it didn't. We had hits from the likes of Motley Crue, Skid Row, Poison, Warrant and Vixen. We also had the debut of Extreme with "Get The Funk Out", but they had their biggest success with their second hit, the ballad "More Than Words".
Iron Maiden scored their only number one at the start of the year with "Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter". They had more company in the charts from the Heavy Metal world with The Almighty making their debut with "Free 'N' Easy" followed by "Devils Toy" and Ozzy Osbourne returning to the charts with "No More Tears". It was also the year of Metallica's black album which spawned the hits "Enter Sandman" and "The Unforgiven", and they were now considered to be Heaby Metal as opposed to Thrash.
In the Thrash world Megadeth had a hit with "Hangar 18" and Anthrax had one with "Got the Time". Most notable though was the Thrash/Rap collaboration between Anthrax and Chuck D with a new version of the Public Enemy tune "Bring The Noise".
There was more Rap/Hip Hop in the charts this year than there had been in previous years with hits from the likes of MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Salt N Pepa and De La Soul amongst others. The notable debuts this year came from A Tribe Called Quest with "Can I Kick It" and PM Dawn with "A Watcher's Point Of View" followed by the better known "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss". We also had Mark Wahlberg have his only UK hit with "Good Vibrations" as Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch.
We had the first and only New Jack Swing number one this year which was the debut single from Color Me Badd with "I Wanna Sex You Up". They followed this up with the number 5 "All 4 Love" which would be their final UK Top 40 hit.
For the first time since 1963 there were not Motown records in the Top 40 this year. We did however have the only Top 40 hit from Ian Levines Motorcity label with "Footsteps Following Me" by Frances Nero. We also had the hit "The Motown Song" by Rod Stewart and the Temptations.
We had a 1952 debutant return to the charts this year after a 29 year absence excluding reissues with Nat 'King' Cole having a posthumous duet with his daughter Natalie Cole with "Unforgettable".
Returning to the charts after a 25 year absence for his final hit was 1960 debutant Frank Ifield with "She Taught Me How to Yodel". 26 years after making her solo debut, Cher finally scored her first solo number one this year with "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)".
It was the year Chesney Hawkes had his famous number one hit "The One And Only". He was not a one hit wonder though, he had another hit with "I'm A Man Not A Boy".
There were 3 instances on non musicians having number ones this year. Hale & Pace had a number one with "The Stonk" which was a comic relief song. There was also a number one for The Simpsons with "Do the Bartman". Finally Vic Reeves collaborated with the Wonder Stuff with a cover of "Dizzy".
Having split up several years earlier and never having a Top 10 hit, The Clash returned to the charts with a reissue of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" which got to number one courtesy of it's appearance in the Levi's advert.
Whilst there was plenty of new music in the charts in 1991, it seemed that the older musicians came out on top. Aside from The Simpsons who were cartoon characters, Chesney Hawkes, Color Me Badd and Jason Donovan, every other number one of the year featured musicians over 30 which is quite surprising.
Next up is 1992 which has already featured on this blog several times this year in records I enjoyed at the time each month, but I will also need to cover what I didn't like and the music that was just ok.
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