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:
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
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
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
Often when one is a one hit wonder its just a reflection on their Top 40 career and they have a much bigger back catalogue. In the case of Nu Soul though this is the only record they ever made according to their discogs page. It's an American house track and is pleasant enough.
Verdict - Good
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
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
Dreadzone have been around for years and are still going strong today, but this was their only Top 40 hit. This is their best known record and I recall it being different to anything else I'd heard before at the time. I liked it enough to buy the album and indeed other Dreadzone albums as well as going to see them in concert.
Verdict - Good
I don't know whether this remix was done in response to the Q Club cover which charted a week prior to this. It's the same idea anyway. As I mentioned in the Q Club review, I absolutely cannot stand this record and this remix does nothing to improve it.
Verdict - Rubbish
22. Judy Cheeks - Reach (New)
This originally charted in 1994 but was remixed and entered the charts again in 1996. Judy Cheeks had already had her final original Top 40 hit the year prior. Not a bad record but nothing to get excited about.
Verdict - OK
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
One thing I remember hearing when listening to the Top 40 countdown one day in 1996 was that Tori Amos got expelled from school when she was a kid. It may have been ahead of this record, the point is I remember hearing that fact but have no memory of the actual song that was played. It sounds exactly like the sort of song I would forget.
Verdict - Rubbish
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
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
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
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
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
14. Gene - For The Dead (New)
Gene were one of those Britpop bands who were pretty much there from the beginning to the end but you never really hear them talked about like many other Britpop bands are. This was their biggest hit and it does ring a bell, but it's rather boring and I can understand why they're now long forgotten by many.
Verdict - Rubbish
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
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
The 4th top 40 hit for Shaggy and the first not to reach the Top 10. It's proof that he did have hits in between "Boombastic" and "It Wasn't Me" which is what people were saying he didn't have when the latter was released. I like pretty much all of the Shaggy hits of the 90s.
Verdict - Good
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
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
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
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
The 2nd Top 40 hit for TLC which came nearly 3 years after their first. It was the lead single from their "CrazySexyCool" album. Like their first hit, this was composed by Dallas Austin. Hearing the intro to this tells me its going to be a good tune, and the rest of the tune doesn't disappoint.
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
3. Baby D - So Pure (New)
The 3rd Top 40 hit for Baby D and the best one in my opinion. It came at a time when in the rave scene happy hardcore and drum & bass had become separated, but this record is more reflective of the time before the scene split.
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 18/30, or 60%. An improvement over a solid first week.
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