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:
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
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
Yes that's right, Michael Barrymore had a Top 40 hit. He was all over the telly at the time so I guess it made sense for him to make someone's unwanted Christmas present. The abrupt end of his TV career means that this record is now long forgotten.
Verdict - Rubbish
Whigfield is seen by many as a one hit wonder but she actually had 5 Top 40 hits in a Top 40 career that lasted just over a year. This was the 5th and final Top 40 hit for her, a cover of the Wham! record and some cheesy rubbish on the other side.
Verdict - Rubbish / Rubbish
Passengers were a side project of U2 and Brian Eno. This was their only Top 40 hit under that name and it features vocals from Luciano Pavarotti. An unlikely collaboration but it was one that worked in the case of this record.
Verdict - Good
I would have had this record down as being more 1993, not just it sounding more 1993 but seems to fit more in with my life around 1993. It's different to your typical 90s rap record and a lot more radio friendly, but it's good.
Verdict - Good
After Coolio and LV topped the charts with "Gangsta's Paradise" it's Coolio who's the best remembered, some forget LV was even on it. It was however LV who was first to release a follow up, though this would be his final Top 40 hit and would leave the Top 40 whilst his debut was still in it. "Throw Your Hands Up" is a great record, the other side is an LV solo version of his chart topper.
Verdict - Good / 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
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
The only Top 40 hit for Crescendo. It's a progressive house record which basically means it's a dance record that doesn't obviously fit any category. I do miss the days of music being more experimental like this/
Verdict - Good
A one off charity record by a collective of musicians including Paul McCartney doing a cover of the Beatles record. I like the original Beatles version of this and this cover is decent enough too.
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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%. Back above 50%, can we stay there one more week.
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