Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 28 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Wednesday.
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 1995 with my verdict on each record:
30. E'Voke - Runaway (New)
At the start of the year we had "Set You Free" by N-Trance, towards the end of the year we had this soundalike record. There's a reason for that, both records were remixed by TTF. There was also a hardcore version of this by Jimmy J & Cru-L-T around the same time which was one of my favourite hardcore records at the time.
Verdict - Good
After this record appeared on the Levi's advert it became Shaggy's second number one out of his first three Top 40 hits. It's a silly record really but great fun to listen to.
Verdict - Good
28. Roxette - The Look '95 (New)
This was a remix of the debut Top 40 hit for Roxette. It came at a time when Roxette were releasing a greatest hits album and they'd only have one more original Top 40 hit to come which was 4 years later. It doesn't sound all that different to the original which is obviously no bad thing.
Verdict - Good
This is a cover of the Real Thing record. Sonia did the same thing 4 years earlier which was just a poor karaoke version. I would say the same for this Sean Maguire version, I guess it was to be expected.
Verdict - Rubbish
I would say that this record is peak Jam & Spoon. Ignoring the technicality that this tune comes from their 1993 album, it really makes me nostalgic about 1995. The next time we'd see Jam & Spoon in the Top 40 would be in 2002.
Verdict - Good
This was originally a Top 40 hit for Smokie back in 1976. Then there was a cover by Gompie that was big in Europe where the audience would reply "Alice, who the fuck is Alice". Smokie therefore decided to revive this song and get comedian Roy 'Chubby' Brown to add the "Alice, who the fuck is Alice" bit. I think it's great.
Verdict - Good
This single was from their greatest hits album "Vault". A relative who clearly knew nothing about my music tastes bought me that album as a Christmas present that year. At the time I was listening to nothing but rave, even when I was into guitar music I never really thought much of Def Leppard. The fact Joe Elliott had gone for the Kurt Cobain look in the video may have been misleading in that respect. That all said, this is the best song I've ever heard from Def Leppard and I did grow to like it. To this very day though I've never listened to the "Vault" album and its never really been in my possession.
Verdict - Good
This seems a bit of an odd time for Ozzy Osbourne to be having a Top 40 hit. It came at a time when the heavier side of rock music was out of favour and Britpop was in. This is the first time I've heard this record and I can't say I think much of it.
Verdict - Rubbish
Saint Etienne made their Top 40 debut in 1991 and this was their 9th Top 40 hit. However it wasn't until this record that I became aware of Saint Etienne. I did however like it enough to explore their back catalogue and ended up buying all their albums.
Verdict - Good
The one about the funny looking buses. I thought that The Beautiful South were finished when they released their greatest hits album the previous year but this record showed they weren't going anywhere. Not my cup of tea.
Verdict - Rubbish
It had been 3 years since we'd last seen Simply Red in the Top 40 and this comeback single gave them their only number one record to date. The not very musical verses followed by a really catchy chorus works really well.
Verdict - Good
This record was from the James Bond film of the same name and was written by Bono and The Edge from U2. Not my cup of tea.
Verdict - Rubbish
This was the only Queen Top 40 hit that was a cover. I use the term 'cover' in a pretty loose sense though, it was written by Roger Taylor and was originally done by The Cross who were another band Roger Taylor was in. The original also featured Freddie Mercury on backing vocals. a great way to do a cover I suppose.
Verdict - Good
Meat Loaf had a hugely successful comeback in 1993 and here he is again in 1995 with another successful comeback. This time it's not his usual songwriter Jim Steinman writing this record, it's Diane Warren. Despite this it sounds like a typical Meat Loaf record, ridiculously long and over the top.
Verdict - Rubbish
Yet another Whitney Houston song from a movie. The film in question is "Waiting To Exhale". It's a movie I've seen but remember nothing about so I guess you could say it was just as boring as this song.
Verdict - Rubbish
I remember hearing this record quite a bit in the summer of 1995 but it took until November for it to make the Top 40. It's in fact a 1993 tune and is one of the weirdest tunes ever. Weird in a good way though, I loved it at the time.
Verdict - Good
The Top 40 debut for Happy Clappers which is also the record they're best known for. It's members included Mark Topham who wrote several of Steps hits. I won't hold that against him though, this is very much a commercial record but an enjoyable one at the same time.
Verdict - Good
Ethics is an alias of Dutch producer Patrick Prins who had remixed "Don't You Want Me" that year. There's something about Dutch music generally in the 90s that just appeals to me to the point where part of me wanted to live in Holland to soak it all up.
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
11. M People - Itchycoo Park (New)
This was a cover of The Small Faces record done in typical M People style. The original version is a great record and the last thing it really needed was a lame generic dance version of it.
Verdict - Rubbish
10. Bon Jovi - Lie To Me (New)
It's speculated that Bon Jovi don't really do much songwriting even though Jon Bon Jovi is a credited songwriter on all their original hits. The first 2 hits from the "These Days" album were also written by Desmond Child and it's said that in reality Desmond Child is the only writer of these songs. This record however was simply Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. If Bon Jovi aren't really songwriters then I believe this to genuinely be written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora as it's not very good.
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
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 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
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
5. Blur - The Universal (New)
When Blur won the chart battle against Oasis with "Country House" I thought it was pretty much the worst song I'd heard Blur do. The other singles from their "The Great Escape" album were pretty solid though starting with this one.
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 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
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
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%. The lowest we've been for some time but still a great score.
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