Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 27 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Friday.
Here is the Top 40 in full.
Obviously some of the records will be the same as last week so therefore the review will be the same for these. I've indicated which ones are new so you can skip the others if you read last weeks post.
Once again my opinions are inevitably going to differ from other people, but I'm not trying to convince anyone something is good or rubbish, I'm simply giving my opinion.
So this is the top 30 from this week in 1996 with my verdict on each record:
The only UK Top 40 hit for Eazy E who passed away the previous year. My knowledge of rap music at the time was limited. There was a drum & bass DJ called Easy D and someone told me there was also an Easy E and I assumed he meant there was a drum & bass DJ with that name. Then one day I was at someone's house and someone else had brought an Eazy E tape along to play. Needless to say it wasn't what I expected. I few years later I was really into the west coast rap music myself.
Verdict - Good
Yes that's right, Billie Ray Martin had another hit that wasn't "Your Loving Arms". In fact she had 2 Top 40 hits nobody remembers with this being the 2nd and final. I do find as a general rule that if the singer is the credited artist on a dance record then it's a warning sign that it's not very good. This is no exception and I'm not surprised that nobody remembers it.
Verdict - Rubbish
There was a nightclub in Birmingham with the same name that was pretty big in the dance music scene, but as this Q-Club was Italian I doubt there was any connection. It's a cover of the Taylor Dayne record and a pretty lazy effort if I'm honest. I hate the original and this cover doesn't really do anything to improve it.
Verdict - Rubbish
The final original Top 40 hit to date for Corona, so the title is quite appropriate that they're saying they don't want to be a star so get the lowest charting of their 4 Top 40 hits and have no more original hits thereafter. This had more of a disco sound than their previous efforts and I don't remember it sounding like that, but do remember how the main hook went. I'm pleasantly surprised to find I quite like it.
Verdict - Rubbish
I remember when this came out something that sprang to mind was that Madonna had previously made fun records like "Cherish" and "Dear Jessie" but was now making boring crap like this. Given she'd been around for over a decade and was a well established name, she could put any old crap out and people would buy it. This is what happened here.
Verdict - Rubbish
I liked the original of this in 1992, but don't recall hearing the remix which got it back into the charts before. Being a dance record in the first place perhaps makes it less likely to be destroyed by a remix. In fact I would say it lends itself to remixes quite well, probably helped by the fact that Luther Vandross can sing to anything.
Verdict - Good
At the start of 1995 Green Day had just broken through to the mainstream in the UK and I liked what I was hearing. By the start of 1996 I'd more or less forgotten that Green Day existed therefore this record passed me by at the time. A few years later I remembered Green Day again and how I liked them and ended up buying all their albums to date. This record came from the "Insomniac" album which was my least favourite of them, but it means I've been familiar with this record for a long time. The only downside to this record is it's not as good as their "Dookie" material, but as a stand alone record there's nothing wrong with it really, it's pretty solid.
Verdict - Good
This is what Norman Cook was doing before he became Fatboy Slim. A few years ago I put a mix together for a party which included a Norman Cook section which had a record for each of his aliases and I picked this one to represent Pizzaman. I also own the "Pizzamania" album, so this may tell you what I think of this record.
Verdict - Good
I do recall at the time thinking who the fuck is buying Enya records? To me it was music for school teachers. What I really meant though was it sounded so out of place compared to the rest of the music us youngsters at the time were listening to, some of whom are now school teachers themselves. I now appreciate Enya's music for what it is and consider this to be good record.
Verdict - Good
Although the title and the fact it was released around Christmas time may suggest this is a Christmas song, it isn't. It's to do with the landscape Freddie Mercury was seeing out of the window when recording in Switzerland. Having been to Switzerland around winter time myself I can vouch for that. I really want to like this record, but it just lacks that certain something for me to truly like it. The fact the initial recording was incomplete and added to later on may have something to do with it.
Verdict - OK
This is the final Top 10 hit to date for Prince. It's nearly 6 minutes long but I can't help but think it's too short, when it finishes I just want to listen to it for longer. If you can get a record for that long to have that sort of impact on me then you must be doing something right.
Verdict - Good
The lead single from "Up All Night" which was the final studio album from East 17 as we knew them. I would also say that is the East 17 album I've listened to the most. This is one of my favourite East 17 singles too. I can't pin point one thing about it, the piano intro, the chorus, the verse, everything about this song is great.
Verdict - Good
Not to be confused with The Dubster, a drum & bass artist. That's what happened to me when I heard that Dubstar were coming up on the radio but was greeted with this record instead. I wasn't disappointed though, quite the opposite in fact because I was now able to put a name to the record I'd been hearing. Also known as the one about the cup of tea.
Verdict - Good
The Top 40 debut for The Presidents Of The United States Of America. Looking back I can see this may have inspired 21st century bands like The Strokes and The Hives, but don't let that put you off. I'm talking the punk influenced sound performed by men in suits. Always found this a good one to bop along to and nice and snappy too.
Verdict - Good
This was an American single in 1989 but wasn't released in the UK until 1996 to promote a greatest hits album. It also became her joint lowest UK Top 40 hit to this point. That's is perhaps understandable given the fans presumably had the "Like A Prayer" album on which this appeared and others weren't interested in a 7 year old song. The fact it's shit is probably another factor.
Verdict - Rubbish
When I learned about The Beatles as a kid one thing that became apparent was that following their break up in 1970 and the death of John Lennon in 1980 we were never going to have any new music from The Beatles. Then in 1995 this came out, a new Beatles record. It was a combination of a demo recording by John Lennon from the 70s and contributions from the remaining members in the 90s which was put together by Jeff Lynne. The result is something you'd imagine The Beatles would sound like if they were still around in the 90s, which was presumably the whole point
Verdict - Good
You never hear this record at Christmas time anymore, yet you always hear another Tony Mortimer penned record that isn't even a Christmas one. It's a collective of pop singers from the time which includes Peter Andre and the Backstreet Boys who were both yet to have a UK Top 40 hit at this point. It also featured CJ Lewis, China Black and EYC who wouldn't be in the Top 40 again. This record was also the subject in the first post I made in this blog after the introduction posts. I like it on a nostalgic level and the fact it's not rammed down my throat every Christmas ensures that remains the case.
Verdict - Good
I used to hear this on an almost daily basis at this time thanks to a bus driver who used to play Now 33 every day. I remember very well that this came after "Ladykillers" by Lush. As a result I couldn't stand it, though I don't think I've heard it since 1996 so sufficient time for me to reassess. Not a bad record, but it's no "One Way".
Verdict - OK
It's funny how there were a number of us who spent the 90s looking forward to the year 2000, but then as the 21st century got under way we longed for the 90s again. I always liked the story of the song, but I've only just discovered that it was a true story and Deborah, the subject of the song is sadly no longer with us.
Verdict - Good
Prior to this record Mariah Carey had 2 uplifting hits in a row with "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and "Fantasy". She was never going to do 3 in a row, but teamed up with Boyz II Men to allow her to do a dreary ballad that could fall under the R&B banner.
Verdict - Rubbish
This was pretty much the end of the road for The Outhere Brothers after being pretty much the biggest chart act of 1995. I would call this the forgotten gem of their admittedly small back catalogue. They did have one more Top 40 hit, but they're very much a 1995 act and should remain that way.
Verdict - Good
When the Christmas Top of the Pops came on, the announcer summed up 1995 as the year Take That lost Robbie and Eternal lost Louise but we gained Robson & Jerome. I once got slated for describing Robson & Jerome as a novelty act, but they were actors who sang on Soldier Soldier once which made Simon Cowell think they could be the next Zig & Zag. If that isn't a novelty act I don't know what is.
Verdict - Rubbish / Rubbish
In the post Louise era of Eternal they came back with perhaps the most uplifting record they'd released to date in "Power of a Woman". They followed it up with this, which is perhaps their most dreary. It was composed by the writer of "Nothin At All" by Heart and the write of "In the Ones You Love" by Diana Ross.
Verdict - Rubbish
I can't remember if it was the first time I'd heard it, but I can picture myself listening to this on the radio at the time and thinking this is the record I've been waiting to hear all my life. I could even tell you the name of the street I was going down when I was thinking that. There hadn't really been much of the dark side of rap music in the charts prior to this, but that's what I really wanted to hear. I even bought the single for this too which was the only thing I bought around this time that wasn't rave.
Verdict - Good
There's a lot to say about this record, but what springs to mind personally was seeing people who once listened to rave now listening to Oasis. It was reflected on the TV on Byker Grove too. The music aspect had gone from Frew and Barney DJing to characters who's names I don't remember singing "Wonderwall". I was firmly in the rave camp by this point though and couldn't comprehend why people would listen to Oasis instead.
Verdict - Rubbish
At the time I was a big fan of "Gangsta's Paradise" and was convinced it had been in the Top 40 longer than anything else once it had been there a while. Turns out this record entered the Top 40 the same week. As both records fell to the lower reaches, I bought the "Gangsta's Paradise" single to help give it at least another week in the Top 40. Unfortunately "Gangsta's Paradise" dropped out, but this stayed another week and I wasn't happy about that. It failed to reach the Top 40 when first released but a Todd Terry remix gave it a new lease of life. Never seen the appeal myself though.
Verdict - Rubbish
I don't think this was ever considered a true contender for Christmas number one but I guess it shouldn't have ever been ruled out considering how high it did chart. Bjork presented the Christmas Top of the Pops that year which obviously was recorded in advance of Christmas day when they wouldn't have known what was number one. Bjork announced Michael Jackson was Christmas number one, so presumably they recorded all possibilities of who could be Christmas number one and I do wonder whether they recorded Bjork saying she was Christmas number one herself. Anyway I didn't really like it at the time, but it's grown on me over the years.
Verdict - Good
I remember the Chris Evans breakfast show where this played for the first time. They said that "Wonderwall" was a song from the 60s that Oasis had covered. It soon came to light that this was in fact the cover, but made to sound like it was done in the 60s. I thought this was a big improvement and really wanted it to get the Christmas number one, but sadly that wasn't to be.
Verdict - Good
To me this record illustrates all that was wrong with Boyzone's formula of doing lots of covers. The song is supposed to be a father singing to his son, but Ronan Keating was only 18 here and therefore more likely to be the age of the son being sang to. OK it's composer Cat Stevens was only a few years older when he wrote it, but I remember seeing Ronan Keating sing "look at me I am old" and thinking no you're not.
Verdict - Rubbish
I remember the race for Christmas number one and not liking the fact this record won the race instead of Mike Flowers Pops. It seems to me that the only reason this topped the charts was because it was Michael Jackson. It's hard to take the lyrical content seriously when it's being sung by a man who had a funfair in his own back garden.
Verdict - Rubbish
If we give the records which were good 1 point each and those which were OK half a point, the final score is 17/30, or 57%. A solid start to the year.
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