A (half) Century of Music

[Hotfoot]

I'm sure it's no question that Livin' on a Prayer is going to be above With or Without You in my books, but I'm not going to hate on U2's music from this year, that'd just be silly.

Interestingly enough, the first time I remember hearing "Land of Confusion", it was the 2005 Disturbed version, but I SWORE I'd heard it before. After seeing the video the for the Genesis version, I immediately remembered the trippy-ass puppets. Also, I could have SWORN the Disturbed version had the lyric "Man of Steel, unfuck these men of power", but no, I was sadly wrong.

That said, I still really like that song, and of course I'm sure I'll surprise you by saying I prefer the darker, angrier Disturbed version to the Peter Gabriel Genesis version (though I do like that one just fine).

[Lys]

Despite my fondness for dark and angry in general, and Disturbed in specific, the Genesis version of Land of Confusion is far superior. The entire "I remember long ago..." part just doesn't work in Disturbed's version, there needs to be softness and melancholy there to break up the righteous anger and call to action in the rest of the song, but they totally drop the ball. Honestly Disturbed was simply trying too hard there, the lead singer does hoarse screaming thing for the entire song and it is just too much.

[LadyTevar]

I have to agree, Disturb's version rocks hard, but it does miss out on the way "remember long ago" could be/should be sung wistfully, looking back on what used to be. The Puppets in the Genesis version were all from a satirical new site on one of the BBC stations. They were totaly unknown in America at the time, iirc.

Now, "Wanted Dead or Alive" was a huge hit, but then they UnPlugged it, and it hit the top again. I recall there was a lot of talk over which version was 'better'. Personally, it's the unplugged. There's an added pathos and depth Jon and Ricky give when its just the two of them.

This is the period where I was really starting to dislike "pop" rock (with exceptions), and diving headlong into Hair Metal. While the sexy bods had a bit to do with it, there was also (for me) just too much 'Happy-hippy' in songs like "Dance with Somebody" and "Time of My Life".

[General Havoc]

A minor interlude before we get to 1988:

This song was never released as a single, and consequently did not appear on my lists at all, but it would be criminal to leave 1987 behind without mentioning it at all...



Queen - Princes of the Universe
1987 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I defy anyone to listen to the opening chorus of this song and not get pumped up. This is one of the great movie themes of the 80s, gents, a rollicking bombastic overture to Highlander, one of the most metal concepts of the period, that of immortal warriors swordfighting with one another across the centuries to the accompaniment of rock music. Whatever the terrible sequels, I don't know anyone who doesn't like Highlander a little, and this song is a big part of why.

[LadyTevar]

It would be fantastic -- if you'd not linked "Lady in Red" to that picture...

[General Havoc]

It would be fantastic -- if you'd not linked "Lady in Red" to that picture...

*Grumble grumble grumble*

Fixed...

[General Havoc]

1988




Yearly GPA: 1.808

Following a surge in 1987, '88 is now where we are seeing the cracks in the edifice of the 80s becoming more and more visible. Rock has degenerated into Glam Metal for the most part, while Pop has gotten more superficial and overproduced. The year isn't AWFUL, certainly, but it is characterized not so much by its overall score as by a lack of high-quality within it. By this point the 80s were running out of ideas, and it wasn't really until the end of 1992 that someone would come along with new ones to rejuvenate the medium. There are still good songs to be found, mind you, but we're approaching the point where this exercise turns a lot less triumphant, and begins to metamorph back into all of you mocking my pain.

Yay.




Whitney Houston - So Emotional
Number 1 song from January 9th-15th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
A painfully generic love song, one even Houston's vocals can't save. Written by the famous 80s team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, responsible collectively for a lot of 80s love songs from Madonna to Cyndi Lauper, this one must represent an off-day for all concerned.



George Harrison - I Got My Mind Set on You
Number 1 song from January 16th-22nd, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
With respect to those who hate this song, I just don't see the awfulness here. It's not amazing or anything, but the song is catchy, Harrison sings it reasonably well, and while the video plays like a ripoff of Evil Dead 2, it's hardly enough to condemn it to the worst songs ever lists as I've seen done before. As always, if this is the worst thing you can find from the 80s, you may need to look harder.



Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel
Number 1 song from January 23rd-29th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
This isn't a masterpiece, but The Way You Make Me Feel is a very solid electro-R&B number, one that showcases Michael's stronger suits. The song has a weird electronic edge to it, and Michael is allowed to belt his lines out the way he should. I can't say I love it, but it's certainly not a bad song at all.



INXS - Need You Tonight
Number 1 song from January 30th-February 5th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
A whole lot of ink has been spilled on the question of where INXS' keyboardist Andrew Farriss got the "signiature" riff for this song, whether it came from Prince or Bowie or Queen or the Rolling Stones. I could not possibly care less, as lost in the conversation somewhere is the fact that this song sucks, as does INXS itself, a bunch of wannabe funk rockers from Australia trailing in the wake of much better Aussie bands. This song is useless, and I do not wish to speak about it further.



Tiffany - Could Have Been
Number 1 song from February 5th-19th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Tiffany could sing, I'll give her that. That's about all I'm prepared to give this morose tearjerker of an adult alternative pop ballad, which whines its way through four minutes of air time. This song is maudlin and boring. Go find something else to listen to.



Exposé - Seasons Change
Number 1 song from February 20th-26th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
A complete waste of time. This pop-R&B number I've never heard of by a band I've also never heard of is nothing but a languid ballad, the sort of which the late 80s produced by the tens of thousands. This song sounds like a karaoke backing track over middling-quality singing. Useless.



George Michael - Father Figure
Number 1 song from February 27th-March 11th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Huh. So that's what this song is called. Not that it improves the song in the slightest, indeed it makes it worse. How sexy is it for a man to tell his girlfriend that he "will be your father figure". Does anyone else see undertones to this that are less than healthy.

Regardless of that, this song is just a forgettable, ultra-soft song straight out of the George Michael whispers-too-much stable. Nothing worth listening.



Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
Number 1 song from March 12th-25th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
There's a joke to be made here somewhere.

Yes, before it was the greatest meme on Earth, Never Gonna Give You Up was a number one hit, and frankly it's better than most of the crap we've heard so-far. Try and look past the overplay and the joke and just consider the song. It's high-energy, well-sung and arranged, and ear-wormy enough to trigger a massive internet craze two and a half decades after coming out. I unironically like this song, and while I do agree it gets overdone, I'm probably one of the few people who doesn't mind getting occasionally rickrolled. Beats the hell out of screamer videos.



Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror
Number 1 song from March 26th-April 8th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I almost failed this song, but it's not as mealy-mouthed as I remember it being on repeat listening. Not MUCH less, mind you, but the sentiment at least feels genuine, and while the lyrics are insipid as hell, Michael has enough passion to make the song work, despite the ballady-arangement of it.



Billy Ocean - Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car
Number 1 song from April 9th-22nd, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Now this is more like it, both for the year and for Ocean himself. This high-energy R&B Rock hit is probably Ocean's best work, nothing particularly standout about it, but an excellent example of late-80s poprock. It's not an earth-shattering song, but it's one I simply like. The definition of a B-grade in my mind.



Whitney Houston - Where do Broken Hearts Go?
Number 1 song from April 23rd-May 6th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This song was inescapable for the first half of the 90s, but to be honest, as love ballads go, it's hardly the worst thing ever sung. Whitney was simply such a good singer that even mediocre material such as this she could effortlessly elevate into something at least tolerable. One of the simplest ballads around, perhaps this just proves that I dislike overcomplexity with these sorts of things. Or perhaps I just have bad taste.



Terence Trent D'Arby - Wishing Well
Number 1 song from May 7th-13th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Boooooooooooring. This song off the laughably named "Introducing the Hardline" album, is a waste of time, sounding like something a children's show might feature, complete with Calliope. I can't hate it enough for the dreaded F, but I've no use for it in any context.



Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine - Anything for You
Number 1 song from May 14-27th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I confess I had completely forgotten that this song existed at all. I could have stood to keep forgetting. A maudlin, noodling little song, it carries none of the energy that late-80s Cuban music had, which is of course why it hit number one at all. I was never a fan of Estafan's, but she could do better than this.



George Michael - One More Try
Number 1 song from May 28th-June 17th, 1988 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
A weird, stripped down R&B number supposedly derived from a choral version of Pachelbel's Canon written by an insane Polish composer in the 1730s, who shot himself upon completing it, this song has quite a pedigree. I'm not wildly fond of the song, but it's interesting enough to be worth a listen, even if it really just boils down to George Michael doing his George Michael thing for six minutes over what sounds like organ music. To each their own.

This is, incidentally, not the last time we will see a song by this name. We'll get to that one when the time comes...



Rick Astley - Together Forever
Number 1 song from June 18th-24th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
If Rick Astley winds up being the salvation of this year, I may have to go shoot somebody.

Together Forever is Astley's other hit song, and I actually like it more than his internet meme, which is surprising given that it's the exact same damn song. I just find the chorus here a bit catchier is all. Otherwise it's more of the same, Rick Astley combining his Leave-it-to-Beaver looks, his horribly bad attempts at dancing, and his rich singing voice that simply does not belong on someone who looks like that, Brit or otherwise. It's nothing that will stand the test of time as a fantastic song, remembered throughout the ages, but it's a solid piece, worth the listen. There hasn't been much else of that yet.



Debbie Gibson - Foolish Beat
Number 1 song from June 25th-July 1st, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
This song made Debbie Gibson into the youngest artist to produce, write, and sing a number one hit, at the age of 18. I don't know if that record holds to the present day, but I hope not, as this song is a waste of time. It goes strictly nowhere, building to nothing whatsoever in an incoherent fashion. I could say the same for most of Gibson's career.



Michael Jackson - Dirty Diana
Number 1 song from July 2nd-8th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Dirty Diana represents the King of Pop's most direct foray into hard rock, and it's actually nowhere near as bad as I would have expected something like that to be. It has a very credible industrial rock sound to it, and Jackson was always at his best when he was allowed to simply belt songs out without restraint. Nobody's entirely sure who this song is supposed to be about, theories (hotly denied in both cases) included Princess Di and Diana Ross, but it's a clear attempt to re-create Beat It. Not as good, certainly, but a worthy effort.



Cheap Trick - The Flame
Number 1 song from July 9th-22th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
The story goes that Cheap Trick's lead guitarist Rick Nielsen hated this song so much that he pulled the master recording out of the tape player and crushed it with his boot. It's not quite THAT bad, but the song isn't of much use, a rambly hair metal ballad, interchangeable with a hundred others. Indeed the other story associated with this song states that they picked this one randomly from a hat, with the remainder being given to Chicago.



Richard Marx - Hold On To the Nights
Number 1 song from July 23rd-29th, 1988 (1 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Richard Marx' signature ballad is about average for his and his contemporary's careers overall. I give it a pass because, despite the reputation Marx and company have, this song just isn't that bad. It's a simple ballad sung simply, and that's all there really is to it. I couldn't find a more amusing anecdote for this song after an hour's trying.



Steve Winwood - Roll With It
Number 1 song from July 30th-August 26th, 1988 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
There appears to be a great deal of confusion as to who actually performed this song. BMI, the music publisher, insisted that credit be given to Motown's legendary songwriting trio Holland-Dozier-Holland due to a similarity to the 1966 Junior Walker song (I'm A) Roadrunner, a song and artist I've never heard of before. I, meanwhile, assumed that this was Peter Gabriel's work, as it sounded nigh-identical to his Sledgehammer. All mistaken identity aside, this pop-rock/blues number isn't bad, managing to turn a simple rhythm and sound into something I at least don't mind listening to. One could do far worse this year.



George Michael - Monkey
Number 1 song from August 27th-September 9th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Probably the worst thing about this ludicrous dance-pop piece by perennial straight-man George Michael is that if you listen to it long enough, you actually start to like it. It's a manifestly awful song, built around a terrible double-entendre that should have been laughed off the stage, and yet give the full six minutes of it a listen and tell me if it doesn't wind up in your head. Or better yet, don't.



Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Number 1 song from September 10th-23rd, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
There is absolutely no chance that I can tell you anything new about this song, Guns N' Roses' magnum opus, bearer of one of the greatest opening riffs in all of rock. Famously created as a string-skipping exercise by lead guitarist Slash, the song was completed in about five minutes, by all accounts, and while Axel Rose is very good on this song, it's Slash' guitar work that cemented this song as legend. I don't adore it the way I do other contemporary rock overtures, but this song makes a B purely by its first ten seconds if nothing else, a justly-remembered legendary piece of music from a band that would never be this good again.

Incidentally, Axel Rose's first draft of lyrics concerned an Asian woman smuggling a baby into the United States only to discover that the baby was dead and its body packed with Heroin. Wouldn't that have been charming?



Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy
Number 1 song from September 24th-October 7th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
A purely A Capella Reggae number that made McFerrin's career, with a video starring Robin Williams and Bill Irwin, Don't Worry, Be Happy was supposedly inspired by the works of Indian mystic Meher Baba, who used that phrase as something of a mantra. It's a decent enough little song, one that generated a huge amount of controversy when George H W Bush (the first one) used it in his campaign for President in 1988, causing McFerrin to refuse to play it anymore and deluge the press with objections to its unlicensed employment. Bush caved in, but I want to know why he thought this song of all songs was the one he wanted to use as his theme song in the first place. There's a joke here somewhere...



Def Leppard - Love Bites
Number 1 song from October 8th-14th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Meet Def Leppard's only number 1 hit, ladies and gentlemen! Never heard of it before? Well that's because it's a positively generic, harmony-less ballad, unworthy of the band or of listening to. I can't find anything else worth saying about this bottom-of-the-barrel glam metal song, and so shall leave it there.



UB40 - Red Red Wine
Number 1 song from October 15th-21st, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Do you have any idea how much of the internet is convinced that this was a Bob Marley song?

Red Red Wine was originally written by Neil Diamond of all people, remixed into reggae by Birmingham Reggae/Poppers UB40. Diamond himself claims this is one of his favorite covers of his songs, but I just find the entire exercise a bit flat. It's a decent enough song, but nothing I'm going to play again and again.



Poison - Nothin' But a Good Time
Number 1 song from October 22nd-November 4th, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Poison was never my band, being a little too far on the Glam side of Glam metal for my tastes. This song isn't awful though, just a bit generic, with nothing to really reach out and grab one. Hair Metal had so many endless followers that there's really no need to stoop this low, but I can't really hate this KISS-wanna-be track.



The Beach Boys - Kokomo
Number 1 song from November 5th-11th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I have to apply the America defense here. Kokomo is a song commonly placed on worst-songs-of-all-time lists, and while I don't love it the way I do the early Beach Boys classics, this Jimmy Buffet-inspired ditty is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. The Beach Boys' signature perfect harmonies and layered singing remain intact, and the addition of saxophones and steel drums to their repertoire does them no harm. It's a bit schmaltzy and superficial, yeah, but the thing sounds just fine, and I do not understand the hate for it.



The Escape Club - Wild, Wild West
Number 1 song from November 12th-18th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
No, not the one you're thinking of. This Wild, Wild West comes courtesy of British Alt-rockers The Escape Club. Allegations abounded that this song was ripped off of an Elvis Costello tune, but I don't think it's worth getting that upset about. The song's... okay. High enough energy but bereft, more or less, of a good hook. Still, as early-90s/late 80s alt-rock goes, we can (and will) do a hell of a lot worse.



Bon Jovi - Bad Medicine
Number 1 song from November 19th-December 2nd, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I wanted to like Bad Medicine better than I did, but the base fact is that for all its hard rock credentials, nothing in this song really grabbed me the way that several of Jovi's songs have been known to. It's just sort of... there. Hitting all the right rocking points but without anything in between to really elevate it. The effect is strangely ephemeral.



Will to Power - Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley
Number 1 song from December 3rd-9th, 1988 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Yeah, this is a thing that actually happened, guys. A medley from a completely unknown band named after a Nietzsche book, who put together a soft-rock, synth dance-beat medley out of two songs, one fantastically overrated, and the other cordially terrible. I'll let you all decide which is which. Even so, I almost gave this song a pass, as I have heard good things out of medleys before and it did at least improve on half the songs derived. But ultimately the terrible production values of this thing, which sounds like something I'd have put together at age 8 on my Casio, and drags on endlessly without end, dragged me back to reality. I don't hate it like some do, but it's a more or less useless song that was justly forgotten about in the aftermath of 1988.



Chicago - Look Away
Number 1 song from December 10th-23rd, 1988 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Do NOT EVER do an image-search for this song's title. I'm serious. I may not eat for a week.

So I know I'm gonna take a huge amount of flak for this, but I actually quite like Look Away, Chicago's first number 1 hit following the departure of Peter Cetera, a transitional song for them, that has a genuine sentiment missing from a lot of the 80s. I know this reveals my lack of taste, but that was never in question. One takes what one can get at a certain point.



Poison - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Number 1 song from December 24th, 1988-January 13th, 1989 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Speaking of morose power ballads from Glam Metal bands, we have Poison's most enduring legacy, a song written by Poison frontman Bret Michaels after he called his girlfriend from a laundromat in the middle of the night and heard a man's voice in the background. Is it a surprise the song is a morose joke nowadays? Maybe not, but the song isn't a bad one, indeed it could well have been a particularly good one if it had been able to take itself to the next level. Unfortunately, it never was, the song being content to be a vaguely-country-inspired ballad on heartache, the same as a hundred others. It still has kitsch value and I certainly don't hate it, but it's not for me.






Supplemental Songs

So if the number 1s were disappointing in 1988, was there anything else worth listening to that year?


Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me
1988 Billboard Top 100 position: 19


Havoc's Grade: A
Now THIS is what I think of when I think of Def Leppard. Pour Some Sugar On Me might be the best Glam Metal song ever recorded, a thunderous, stomping rock anthem, released as a single only after Hysteria's soaring production costs threatened to bankrupt the band. This song is a monster, and I adore it to death, going back and forth periodically between Living on a Prayer and this one as to which is the finest.



Eric Carmen - Hungry Eyes
1988 Billboard Top 100 position: 25


Havoc's Grade: B
Say what you will about Dirty Dancing, but it had a hell of a soundtrack, and while I'm sure people are going to mock me for this one, but I like this song best of all of them. It's just a well-crafted piece of late-80s pop-rock, replete with saxophone, one that stands up even today.

I just like the sound of it, okay? You guys are no better...



Elton John - Candle in the Wind
1988 Billboard Top 100 position: 71


Havoc's Grade: A
Originally written in 1973 for Marilyn Monroe, and named after a T.H. White novel from the Once and Future King cycle, this song hit the charts fifteen years later after a live performance at the Sydney Opera House was recorded and exploded in popularity. I didn't get a chance to praise this song back in the 70s, but I will here, one of the finest memorial songs ever written, performed beautifully by one of my favorite musicians. I wasn't much of a fan of the 1997 remake for Princess Diana, forced as I found the entire exercise, but the original stands on its own as a classic. I can take ribbings for a lot of my bad music tastes, but this one I'll stand by.



Whitney Houston - One Moment in Time
1988 Billboard Top 100 position: 89


Havoc's Grade: B
You may laugh, but this song, theme song to the Seoul Olympics of 1988, has one of the greatest pedigrees in history behind it. Written and produced by John Williams (yes, that one), in conjunction with the Four Tops and the Bee Gees, this song was prepared for Whitney Houston personally to sing, as it was deemed she had the right voice for it, and the result, while schmaltzy as hell, is an extremely well-crafted song, evocative of the finest moments in Olympic history. I understand anyone who doesn't like it, but I have fond memories of this song, and they aren't going to go away just to preserve some non-existent credibility.



Other noted songs from 1988:
Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible
Patrick Swayze - She's Like the Wind
The Time Lords - Doctorin' the Tardis
David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise
Bobby Brown - My Prerogative
REM - Orange Crush
Enya - Orinoco Flow
Echo & The Bunnymen - People are Strange
Mel & Kim - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton

[LadyTevar]

Once again, as a senior in high-school/freshman in college, this was "my year". The music was great, I was finally able to get out clubbing (I got my new ID just before the State started turning under-21 IDs sideways. So, 17-18yr old with a 'Over 21' ID that wasn't Fake = WIN!)

"Doctorin' the Tardis" had me on the dance floor. It was just too damn fun, and you could tell the True Fans. "Wild Wild West" was another 'pile onto the dance floor song. "Orinoco Flow" was my introduction to Enya (and Clannad) and I went looking for her from then on.Chicago "Look Away" was the breakup with my first BF. "Every Rose" I could sing by heart. "Red Red Wine" would get everyone's head bobbing in island rythym. "People Are Strange" came from the now-cult-hit Lost Boys (vampires on the beach!). I still have DLR's "Skyscraper" cassette, I'd slip it in my Walkman to drown out the other sounds in the dorm so I could sleep. I liked the whole album, especially "Knucklebones", "Damn Good", "Hot Dog an'a Shake", "Perfect Timing". and "Two Fools a Minute."

But the one that was, and is, the most fun, and my #1 song for that year has got to be "Don't Worry, Be Happy". It was everywhere, but it never got old. Even when the Marshall University Radio parodied it as "Don't Worry, Beat Appy" (Appalachian State, our rivals. MU damn near skunked Appy that year).

Now, I just have to wait for you to get to 1989 -- Paula Abdul, Tone Lôc, Young MC, Madonna, and the return of Aerosmith and Alice Cooper :-D

[General Havoc]

1989
Yearly GPA: 1.577





The 1980s did not end with a bang, but a whimper. And that whimper would go on, as it happens, for several more years, through the waters of comedy-hip-hop and adult alternative, until finally being put out of its misery in 1993. But as this is the chronological last year of the 80s, it's worth looking at how far the mighty have here fallen. Not that every song is awful, but the vast majority are, and they are awful in that special way the late 80s could only produce. There is good music ahead of us, it should be mentioned, but this is really a year in which music rather fizzled out.






Bobby Brown - My Prerogative
Number 1 song from January 14th-20th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
If this is actually "New Jack Swing", as wikipedia claims, meaning a song combining hip hop beats and synthpop sound, then you can keep it. Bobby Brown was always a joke, even at the time, and this song is proof of what. It sounds like something New Kids on the Block would release, an attempt to sound tough when one is really, manifestly not.



Phil Collins - Two Hearts
Number 1 song from January 21st-February 3rd, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I don't much care for this song, to be honest, but it has enough energy and lasts short enough to just baaaaarely squeak away with a C from me. I like Phil Collins, but this song is just too rambly for my taste.

Oh, and supposedly there's an alternate music video out there somewhere for this song that features Phil Collins wrestling the Ultimate Warrior. Skronk.



Sheriff - When I'm With You
Number 1 song from February 4th-10th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
A power ballad where everyone forgot the power, this song is remarkably anemic given the genre it's supposedly from, but then by now, Hair Metal was rapidly collapsing into a singularity. Sherrif was an unknown band from Canada, whose interview regarding their only hit is illuminating: "The producer said, 'Is there anything else?' I said, 'There's this song we play, it's kind of a wimpy song.' So we played it for him and he said 'Yeah, that's kind of nice.'"

Sheriff: They're kind of nice. Maybe.



Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Number 1 song from February 11th-March 3rd, 1989 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm not a Paula Abdul fan by any stretch of the imagination, but this song just baaaaaaaaarely manages to make it into decent territory. It's generic as hell, yes, and very very late-80s, but the chorus tune isn't terrible. I'll take what I can get at this point.



Debbie Gibson - Lost in Your Eyes
Number 1 song from March 4th-24th, 1989 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
A completely generic piano ballad, but for once it's one that actually sounds semi-decent. I don't really like this song, but it's inoffensive enough that I'm prepared to give it a pass.



Mike & The Mechanics - The Living Years
Number 1 song from March 25th-31st, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
I was hoping very much that this song would not appear on these lists, but apparently it hit number 1, so here we are. Let me be absolutely clear. I hate this song. I hate it like I hate few things. Not because it's a bad song, for it's not. It's one of the best songs written that year, a haunting classic from an English rock band nobody ever heard of otherwise, lyrically dextrous and ethereally haunting. Nevertheless, I despise this song with a prejudice I reserve for special occasions. The reasons for it are intensely personal, but I should imagine that anyone listening to the song will have little trouble figuring them out. And that's all I wish to say on the subject.



The Bangles - Eternal Flame
Number 1 song from April 1st-7th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I wanted to like Eternal Flame, but the fact is that it's a boring song, one that tries to hold pretensions of meaning that it simply can't fulfill. The song just sounds too rinky-dink for me to take seriously. Sorry.



Roxette - The Look
Number 1 song from April 8th-14th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm actually a big fan of the Swedish duo Roxette, but this song is just okay. Sort of standard Euro-poppish late-80s rock, not bad certainly, but not great. Roxette was at their best when Marie Fredriksson was lead singing, something I'm sure will become more obvious as more songs of theirs make appearances.



Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy
Number 1 song from April 15th-21st, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
I assume there will be plenty of you that can't tell the difference between this song and the previous one, but I really like She Drives Me Crazy, a New Wave Europop Industrial Rock hybrid song from English group Fine Young Cannibals. The sound of this song is simply excellent, the falsetto over throbbing rock guitar is a combination you don't see terribly often, not even in the 80s. Nowhere near as popular as many of the songs that preceded it, this remains one of the last great 80s hits, though in fairness we'll continue to see those sporadically through 1992.



Madonna - Like a Prayer
Number 1 song from April 22nd-May 12th, 1989 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
I don't imagine it will shock everyone to learn that this song touched off a massive controversy when it was released, with the Vatican wading into the middle of it, condemning the song by name and threatening to excommunicate Madonna for making it. Honestly, even by the standards of the times, and considering Madonna's reputation, I don't get it at all. The song is about spiritual strength drawn from prayer, which as I understand it is kind of what the Vatican stands for. Regardless, I like this song, I like the rock-gospel sound of it, and the layered complexity of the track which shifts up and down through its length. I also quite like the music video, which concerns the KKK framing a black man for the murder of a white woman, and imagery such as stigmata and burning crosses. I might even call this my favorite Madonna song, to be honest, though I suppose I should wait and see.



Bon Jovi - I'll Be There For You
Number 1 song from May 13th-19th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I love Bon Jovi and I love Power Ballads, but this song is crap and there's no redeeming it. Jovi sounds almost off-key, and the entire exercise is a morose slog that drones on and on to no end. It's not atonal enough to receive the dreaded F, but I have strictly no use for this song, and I don't know why it became such a beloved staple of the power ballad genre. Maybe the hair?



Paula Abdul - Forever Your Girl
Number 1 song from May 20th-June 2nd, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I will never understand Paula Abdul's appeal, as she basically never got any better than this, a mediocre late-80s pop singer with inexplicable tap dancing added in. This song isn't even descriptive enough to properly hate, it just sort of is. Skip it.



Michael Damian - Rock On
Number 1 song from June 3rd-9th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
This rock cover of a 1973 David Essex acoustic piece is clearly desperate to sound like Falco, and equally clearly unable to do so. The song isn't terrible, but it's not made with any particular care, nor interesting enough to warrant listening to for any length of time. Which is why it's unfortunate that the thing goes on as long as it does.



Bette Midler - Wind Beneath my Wings
Number 1 song from June 10th-16th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
So, nothing to see here. Moving right along...

... *Sigh* Fine, okay. This cover of a 1983 country hit by Gary Morris is one of the most-covered songs of all time, being recorded by everyone from Sheena Easton to Kenny Rogers. It's a pretty typical Bette Midler ballad, not her best, but as I happen to like Bette Midler, I confess to being fond of this song, cheesy though it is.

Incidentally, this song was the one Idina Menzel sang at her audition for Frozen, the one that got her the part.



New Kids on the Block - I'll be Loving You (Forever)
Number 1 song from June 17th-23rd, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Goddammit.

Well we couldn't keep them off the list indefinitely, guys. The Boy Bands have at last arrived. And while there are occasional songs from them that I like, they are more or less going to bring nothing but badly-polished, ephemeral crap to the table. This is a wonderful example, with the added bonus that it's a song quite plainly stolen from the superior-if-still-not-amazing Billy Ocean song There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry). I'd say that I would hope New Kids on the Block and Boy Bands in general get better from here, but we all know they don't, by and large.



Richard Marx - Satisfied
Number 1 song from June 24th-30th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly forgettable song from an utterly forgettable artist.



Milli Vanilli - Baby Don't Forget my Number
Number 1 song from July 1st-7th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
Now you begin to understand just why the early 90s had to happen. This is an awful song, even leaving aside Milli Vanilli's well-known lip synching scandal. One of the most absurd videos I've ever seen combined with a terrible song that claims to be "New Jack Swing" crossed with hip hop. It's a miracle rap survived. NJS did not.



Fine Young Cannibals - Good Thing
Number 1 song from July 8th-14th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I don't know what I would have said if you'd ask me to describe a second hit from the Fine Young Cannibals, but it probably would not have been a retro-soul throwback song. That said, this isn't bad really, it grew on me as it played at least, and while it's nothing I'm gonna throw on randomly, it's certainly better than a lot of the other crap on offer around here.



Simply Red - If You Don't Know Me By Now
Number 1 song from July 15th-21st, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Simply Red was one of the most boring bands of the 80s, and this song is perfectly emblematic of it. A cover of the much superior 1972 track by Philly Soul band Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, this song is a languid, glacial-paced waste of time. As is basically everything Simply Red ever did.



Martika - Toy Soldiers
Number 1 song from July 22nd-August 4th, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I've never heard of either this song or the band that produced it. Apparently Martika was one of the stars of the infamous kids sitcom Kids Incorporated, a song-and-dance show from the Disney Channel that produced luminaries such as Fergie. I don't hate this song the way I do a number of Fergie's, but I'm not that enthralled by it, despite the minor keys and synth riffs. Still, one CAN do worse.



Prince - Batdance
Number 1 song from August 5th-11th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
What the hell was that? Prince... I... WHAT?!

Okay, so apparently Prince was asked to make a song for Tim Burton's Batman movie, and changed his mind on what song to make at the last moment, so with no time left, he created this weird rock medley of all the various ideas that were rolling around in his head. And given this is Prince we're talking about, that's quite a weird collection indeed. The problem is that this "song" really isn't a song, it's a series of undifferentiated bits of noise smashed together without a lot of care. In fact, I almost failed it, but the sheer absurdity of the project forced me to have a LITTLE mercy. Not much, mind you, but a little. Someone want to explain to me how this reached number 1? Can you imagine people grooving to this?

Incidentally, you all owe it to yourselves to watch this video. Trust me.



Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting
Number 1 song from August 12th-September 1st, 1989 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
All right, full disclosure, I absolutely adore the piano intro to this song, the one that runs from about 0:13 to 0:38 in the video above. It's a simple, gorgeous, quiet little bit of music, one that I enjoy absolutely unironically. Pity about the rest of the song. It's another bog-standard Richard Marx ballad, and Richard Marx was simply never that interesting as a balladeer, not even in comparison with his contemporaries. The song isn't awful, as it has these little bits and pieces of good ideas within it, such as the Spanish guitar solo two thirds of the way through, but overall there's just nothing interesting to be found here.



Paula Abdul - Cold Hearted
Number 1 song from September 2nd-8th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I cannot, for the life of me, tell the difference between Paula Abdul songs, by and large. This is the same late-80s pop song as all the others. And it's just as boring.



New Kids on the Block - Hangin' Tough
Number 1 song from September 9th-15th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Well they tried guys, they really did. Driving rock bass, synth accompaniments, industrial rock beats, they tried everything. But the very concept of New Kids on the Block singing about how rough and tough they are was simply never going to work, no matter what they did to it. The video, with the ludicrous "kewl" early-90s fashions did them no favors, but this song was simply dead on arrival.



Gloria Estefan - Don't Wanna Lose You
Number 1 song from September 16th-22nd, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I vaguely remember liking some of Gloria Estefan's work, back in the day, but based on the songs we've encountered so far, I can see no evidence that this actually was the case. This song, despite efforts in the direction of being interesting, never manages to elevate itself above a fairly generic female pop ballad. And this was not a period short on those.



Milli Vanilli - Girl I'm Gonna Miss You
Number 1 song from September 23rd-October 6th, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Oh goody, a slow, languid soul R&B/song by Milli Vanilli. Or at least the people who were actually singing for Milli Vanilli. With such a combination of concept and talent, what could possibly go wrong?



Janet Jackson - Miss You Much
Number 1 song from October 7th-November 3rd, 1989 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I can't tell Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul apart, and given that I have no use for the latter, what chance do you think there is for me to adore the former? This boring dance-pop song won a pair of Grammy awards, for what I have no idea, and while the music video is remembered decently well (or so the internet claims), I have nothing to say for this song at all except that you should skip it.



Roxette - Listen to Your Heart
Number 1 song from November 4th-10th, 1989 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: A
I mentioned before that I am a big fan of Roxette's, and this is one of the primary reasons why. Call it cheesy bullshit if you want, Listen to Your Heart is one of the greatest ballads of the 80s, a roaring anthem, originally recorded in a concert held at the ruins of the 12th century Borgholm Castle, on the island of Öland. Roxette called this song "The Big Bad Ballad", a conscious attempt to go over the top in American FM styles of music. Whatever they intended to do, the result was a crashing success. This song is amazing, and I will hear no objections.



Bad English - When I See You Smile
Number 1 song from November 11th-24th, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
And speaking of ballads, Bad English is one of those bands I really never cared about one way or the other, not even when they decided to try their hands at a late-80s power ballad. There's nothing wrong with the song in concept, but it simply never builds to any actual power, something not helped by vocals that are way too soft for the style of song they're going for. This should have been sung like Missing You, not like a commercial.



Milli Vanilli - Blame it on the Rain
Number 1 song from November 25th-December 8th, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I almost gave this one mercy, being as it's nowhere near as bad as the other Milli Vanilli songs, but ultimately I just could not bring myself to like it even a bit. Dance-Hip Hop is a genre that simply does not appeal to me and never will. Such is life.



Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire
Number 1 song from December 9th-22nd, 1989 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
You know for a song as reviled as We Didn't Start the Fire is, there are an AWFUL lot of parody versions sitting around out there. I've listened to half a dozen recently about everything from the rise of gaming to internet memes to Cornel University. As to the original, yeah, I kinda like it. I certainly don't understand where it got the reputation as one of the worst songs of all time. Billy Joel hates the thing, supposedly, claiming that he has never written a sequel because he's more or less done with this thing, but the historian in me couldn't really hate on this song, not really. I'm sure there are those who find it boring, or as Rolling Stone put it "like a term paper scribbled together the night before", but so be it. I enjoy worse than this.



Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
Number 1 song from December 23rd, 1989-January 19th, 1990 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Created by Collins and legendary bassist Leland Sklar, a man with the most epic beard in the history of pop music, this song got Collins damn near crucified by the media in the UK, who lambasted him as a hypocrite for being a multimillionaire and singing about homelessness. While I'm on record as having nothing but bilious contempt for slacktivism in all its forms, this criticism is and has always been bullshit, and I reject it and those who make it. Collins was not the first songwriter to create something that was not about himself and who sought to cast light on a social problem, and blasting him for doing so is hypocritical in the extreme, particularly as most of it had to do with the fact that Collins is a longstanding supporter of the Conservative party. If nothing else, this song serves to remind me that assumptions about the cardinal evils of fully half the population are nothing new.






Supplemental Songs

Is there anything worth hearing this year? Well...


38 Special - Second Chance
1989 Billboard Top 100 position: 63


Havoc's Grade: B
Cheesy it might be, but this rock ballad from Southern Rockers 38 Special I actually like a good deal, mostly thanks to the bass line which is shamelessly stolen from the Police. It's nothing tremendously special, no pun intended, but I do like it, and that's not something I'll say a lot this year.



When in Rome - The Promise
1989 Billboard Top 100 position: 83


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the last synthpop/New Wave hits out there, The Promise isn't the best, but is a pretty decent little dance-pop number with a properly ethereal sound to it. The age of really ethereal dance music lies ahead of us, but there's a middle ground here somewhere, and this song fills it, much though I'm sure nobody else can see a use to it.



Alice Cooper - Poison
1989 Billboard Top 100 position: 91


Havoc's Grade: A
Alice Cooper's best song by a country mile, Poison is Alice Cooper's best work, a purified, distilled rock song featuring all of Cooper's staples, the horror-style singing, the choral rock accompaniment, everything. The song is awesome, and one of the few shining points from this year.



Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
1989 Billboard Top 100 position: 93


Havoc's Grade: A
And speaking of the best songs of various artists, Smooth Criminal is, without question, the finest thing Michael Jackson ever did. How this song never hit number 1 where all the others did is probably due to the awful movie, Moonraker, that the song and the video for it came from, but to hell with the context, just listen to and watch this thing. Smooth Criminal is one of the coolest, slickest, most awesome songs ever created, a song that seems to have been grown out of some laboratory solely with Michael Jackson in mind. The video that comes with it (which I have thoughtfully linked you all to) is perhaps the greatest music video ever filmed, a riotous scene dripping with cool and with coordinated dancing of the highest quality. Michael was never, never as good as he was here, not before and not after. And it is entirely arguable that neither was anyone else.



Don Henley - The End of the Innocence
1989 Billboard Top 100 position: 99


Havoc's Grade: A
Written by Bruce Hornsby of the Range and sung by Don Henley of the Eagles, The End of the Innocence is one of the most evocative songs ever written, a lament for lost innocence amidst the nihilism and militarism with which the Baby Boomers found themselves confronted at the tail end of the Cold War. I adore this song, sad though it is, one of the finest soft rock pieces ever written, and probably the best thing ever to come out of the long, storied career of the legendary Eagles frontman.



Other noted songs from 1989:
Milli Vanilli - Girl you Know It's True
Warrant - Heaven
Tone Loc - Wild Thing
Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time
Young MC - Bust a Move
The B-52s - Love Shack
New Kids on the Block - You Got It (The Right Stuff)
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
REM - Stand
The Smithereens - A Girl Like You
Tina Turner - The Best
Cher & Peter Cetera - After All
Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville - Don't Know Much
Public Enemy - Fight the Power
Van Morrison - Have I Told You Lately
Simply Red - If You Don't Know Me
Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart
Gladys Knight - License to Kill
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
Aretha Franklin - Respect!

[White Haven]

I'm a little at a loss for words here -- I don't disagree with Havoc on any major points for once. This challenges my entire musical worldview. I need an adult!

...Wwait, wait, okay. I would have featured Welcome to the Jungle as more than just an honorable mention!

...Yeah, that's pretty weak.

[LadyTevar]

My College days return with a vengence. To be honest, the best songs did not make it to the top. The ones that rocked me and my friends were in the Supplemental and "Other" categories. ToneLoc, Young MC, B-52s, GnR, and yes, REM were all movin' and groovin'. However, I still can sing "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Don't Know Much", "End of Innocence", Warrant's "Heaven", and "Another Day in Paradise" without needing help for a Karaoke machine.

The rest of the songs, I mostly agree with your grades, except for "Smooth Criminal". I just never liked it. Yes, it was a good video, but chorus just drove me nuts. After all, who's "Annie"? Does the song ever explain that?

BTW: Alice Cooper says in his Greatest Hits album notes that "Poison" is the song most used by Strippers for the 'fast dance' part of their routine. He's got no idea why it's a song to strip to, but more power to them.
When I introduced "Poison" to Martin, it became one of his MUST PLAY songs. He even sang to it with me, so it was a lot of fun when the local Rock Station would play it. No, I've never stripped to it.

[White Haven]

Whoooa, totally disconnected from the quality of the music, the video for The End of the Innocence is a malware link, do NOT click it.

[General Havoc]

Whoooa, totally disconnected from the quality of the music, the video for The End of the Innocence is a malware link, do NOT click it.

I have replaced the link in question with a youtube version that has no malware. Don Henley's songs can be hard to find, but you can now listen to that one without difficulty.

[frigidmagi]

So I looked at the Batman video... Okay for those of you who were teens or older in the 80s? WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE ALL ON?!?

[LadyTevar]

So I looked at the Batman video... Okay for those of you who were teens or older in the 80s? WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE ALL ON?!?

I was asking myself that when I first heard that song. It was totally out of place ... until you remember this was a Tim Burton movie and weirdness is everywhere.

[General Havoc]

1990
Yearly GPA: 1.558




The 90s did not get started well, though there's a case to be made that they don't really start until 1993. The early 90s are remembered nowadays as one of the great wastelands of music, and for good reason, up there with the late 50s and the early-mid 00s as eras that it does not do to dwell on. Still, one must power through, and even here there's SOME songs worth listening to, occasionally in the last place you'd think to look...






Michael Bolton - How am I Supposed to live Without You
Number 1 song from January 19th-February 9th, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I don't hate Michael Bolton. I've never hated Michael Bolton, and to be honest I don't understand why everyone else hated Michael Bolton (prior, of course, to the moment when the internet collectively decided that he was suddenly retro-cool. I'm not about to go buy his greatest hits collection, but the man had a few pretty good songs, and while this isn't really one of them, there's nothing really wrong with it. Bolton's voice was always good, and the song's structure, while hardly inspired, at least doesn't make me want to die. There are far worse songs this year. Leave Bolton alone.



Paula Abdul & The Wild Pair - Opposites Attract
Number 1 song from February 10th-March 2nd, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
To my astonishment, I actually don't mind this kitchy little dance-pop number, one that's manifestly ridiculous but has a certain energy and fun to it. I've always rather admired hip hop that didn't take itself overly seriously, and the early 90s were the heyday of that particular facet. The music video became famous of course, with Paula Abdul dancing alongside MC Skat Kat (yes), but that's really irrelevant to the question at hand. I'm not about to buy the single here, but the song isn't as bad as I thought it would be.



Janet Jackson - Escapade
Number 1 song from March 3rd-23rd, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Janet Jackson based this song on 1965's "Nowhere to Run" by Martha and the Vandella's. That song was garbage and so is this one, a bubbly over-popped number that has no pretense of actual of melody to it. I'm sure someone out there likes this song. They can have it.



Taylor Dayne - Love Will Lead You Back
Number 1 song from April 7th-13th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Intended as a Whitney Houston song, this song was instead given back to its songwriter, one-hitter Taylor Dayne, about whom there is little to say. Maybe Whitney would have managed to do better by it, but frankly, the song just isn't that interesting no matter who's singing. Another by-the-numbers early-90s love ballad. No thank you.



Tommy Page - I'll Be Your Everything
Number 1 song from April 14th-20th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
Simpering garbage. This song is so bad I can barely imagine one person listening to it, let alone enough to make it number 1. This song was written in conjunction with members of New Kids on the Block, long-time collaborators with Page, and thus represents what has to be the only occasion in which the New Kids represented the talented half of a duo. This thing was remixed and re-released on the soundtrack of the Inspector Gadget movie, which itself was not exactly a masterpiece.



Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
Number 1 song from April 21st-May 18th, 1990 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Sporting of the more memorable videos of the early 90s, this song has quite a history to it. Originally written by Prince, and released by The Family in 1985, O'Connor covered the song without dealing with Prince directly, a decision he took... poorly. According to O'Connor she was summoned to his house in the dead of night and subjected to a verbal assault that escalated into a violent fistfight, which concluded with her fleeing his house because, in her words, "he packed a bigger punch than mine." Makes the SNL-Pope scandal seem almost quaint, doesn't it?

I go back and forth on this song, as I don't much care for this sort of over-slow pop, and yet it's undeniable that Sinead sings it well. I suppose this score is something of a cop out. O'Connor was always one of those artists that I assumed would have come to more, but then her streak of anti-authoritarianism probably precluded that. Still, no disrespect intended. Her one hit was at least a better song than most of its contemporaries.



Madonna - Vogue
Number 1 song from May 19th-June 8th, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Vogue's background is a rat's nest of pop culture trivia, relating as it does to the Gay nightclub scene in the early 90s, not a subject I'm the most knowledgeable on. Supposedly the dance that gave its name to this song was a sort of rap-battle/flyting in the form of an interpretive dance. I kind of want to see a movie about that.

As to the song itself, it's a pretty standard House/Disco hybrid, not a genre I'm overly thrilled with to begin with. Combine it with a boring structure and bad sound and I'm not a fan.



Wilson Phillips - Hold On
Number 1 song from June 9th-14th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Yeah, I don't mind this little piece of early 90s pop-rock either. Not enough to sing along with it perhaps, but I like the sound of the thing, even though I find the lyrics rather suspect. "You brought all your pain on yourself and had better learn to endure it, you loser," is a surprisingly harsh message for an uplifting-sounding song. Still, I can't hate overmuch. Hold on indeed.



Roxette - It Must Have Been Love
Number 1 song from June 16th-29th, 1990 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
This is Roxette's other big hit, and while it's not as good as the previous one, I do quite like this song. Maybe it's Marie Fredriksson's singing or Per Gessle's songwriting, but the song clicks in a way a lot of late-80s-style ballads don't for me. The question of why is somewhat ineffable. But I do like it, and I wish that Roxette had made more like it.



New Kids on the Block - Step by Step
Number 1 song from June 30th-July 20th, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
It's worth noting that when I played this song on youtube, the ad I got before it was for the New Kids on the Block reunion-tour reality TV show. I'm afraid that's the only thing worth noting about this piece of boring early-90s new jack swing piece.



Glenn Medeiros & Bobby Brown - She Ain't Worth it
Number 1 song from June 21st-August 3rd, 1990 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
What a power combination this is, a Hawaiian-Portuguese kid who always sounded to me like he was trying to imitate Richard Marx, and Bobby Freaking Brown. And yet if I'm being honest, this is hardly the worst thing either of them have ever done. Brown's rap breakdown is a waste of time, but the song at least has some energy to it. Borderline case, but I don't hate this one as much as some.



Mariah Carey - Vision of Love
Number 1 song from August 4th-31st, 1990 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
While I've never been a huge Mariah Carey fan, it's hard to dislike her given her evident vocal talent, one of the two or three best female vocalists ever to hit the pop charts. It's also worth noting that Carey and her vocal skill helped to shove acts like Paula Abdul and Debbie Gibson off the pop charts. Her style of melisma singing was so popular that it became all but mandatory for aspiring female pop stars, and basically every female pop singer younger that Carey has cited her in general and this song in particular as why they got into music.

I don't much like the song itself, a fairly boring Waltz-beat R&B soul pop, which served as Carey's debut single. But Carey does sing the song SO WELL that I kind of have to apply the Beetles defense here. It's not that the song is amazing enough to warrant the C-grade alone, but that it represents such a tonal shift, the first of the 90s, that you are required to understand it in context.



Sweet Sensation - If Wishes Came True
Number 1 song from September 1st-7th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Sweet Sensation were a female latin freestyle band who decided in the latter half of September to release a late-80s-style Power Ballad and see what happened. What happened is that it hit number 1. I don't... love this song, but as late-80s Power goes, it's not that bad. The buildup is appropriately done, but the payoff never quite shows up. Still, one can do far worse than this.



Jon Bon Jovi - Blaze of Glory
Number 1 song from September 8th-14th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I've never felt that Jon Bon Jovi was as good alone as he was with his band, but Blaze of Glory isn't a bad song, just a little too long and a little too rambly. Written for the soundtrack of Young Guns II (a film you should not race out to catch), it does a decent job for what it is, but I just never seem to remember it when the subject of Bon Jovi comes up.



Wilson Phillips - Release Me
Number 1 song from September 15th-28th, 1990 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I don't much care for this song to be honest, but the harmonies of Wilson Phillips are just so good that they can overcome a mediocre song, which is not surprising when you learn the provenience of the band, comprised of the daughters of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, two groups whose harmonizing was among the best in the business.



Nelson - (Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection
Number 1 song from September 29th-October 5th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
For years, I refused to believe that Nelson was a real band, and I had never heard a single song of theirs until just now because... well LOOK AT THEM. But having sat down and listened... actually... they're pretty good. I mean this isn't a song that's going to re-shape your vision of how music is, but there's not enough Rock on the charts in any event, and the guitar work on this one is actually very good. I'm not about to run out and buy all of Nelson's albums or anything, but good work, guys. Shame about that hair.



Maxi Priest - Close to You
Number 1 song from October 6th-12th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly generic New Jack Swing (that term will never not be hilarious)/R&B hybrid. Completely forgettable.



George Michael - Praying for Time
Number 1 song from October 13th-19th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I gave this one a few points just for the weirdness factor. George Michael, sick to death of being associated with love songs, here decided to make a dark, bitter song about the state of the world. Despite having the trademark George Michael breathless singing, this song is downright apocalyptic in its imagery, with dour chords and a strange melody. I don't love it, but I'll certainly admit to it being different.



James Ingram - I Don't Have the Heart
Number 1 song from October 20th-26th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Yeah yeah, it's a cheesy love ballad, but as these things go, it's a pretty well-sung one. James Ingram had an excellent crooner's voice, and while I'm certainly not enamored with this song, it's hardly the worst thing around at this point.



Janet Jackson - Black Cat
Number 1 song from October 27th-November 2nd, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Janet Jackson's foray into Hard Rock and Heavy Metal is actually one of her better songs, and not co-incidentally, it's also one of the ones where you can hear her relation to Michael Jackson the most strongly. Indeed for much of the verse structure, I could have heard Michael singing this song. The rock underlay of this song is actually pretty credible, and while it doesn't blow me out of my chair or anything, it's certainly not a bad piece, all things considered.



Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
Number 1 song from November 3rd-9th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Yeah, you all knew it was coming. But rather than just bash Vanilla Ice for the thousandth time, allow me to be the one who actually talks about this song's virtues for a change. Yes, Ice stole the bass line to this song from Queen and Bowie's Under Pressure, but leaving the copyright aside, let's not forget how good of an idea that was. Sampling was rife in Hip Hop at the time (and only slightly less rife now), so it's not like Ice was doing something particularly unheard of by reusing an old rock track. Ice's rapping sounds stale today of course, and his attempts to sound tough come across as laughable, but listen to his flow again, particularly in comparison to what else was around at the time. He's no Public Enemy, but neither is he making a complete fool of himself. The song is about how he is an awesome rapper and a gangster, nothing different from every other rap song in existence then and now. So why did this song become so infamous? Because Vanilla Ice was a joke? Maybe. But that's got nothing to do with this song as much as it does with Cool as Ice and Ninja Rap.

Look, I don't care for Ice Ice Baby, but top ten stupidest songs of all time? Worst song to come out of Texas ever? Come on guys. Last year we saw New Kids on the Block sing about how tough they were. At least Ice had the decency to sound generic.



Mariah Carey - Love Takes Time
Number 1 song from November 10th-30th, 1990 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Mariah Carey is and was a gorgeous singer, but that's not always enough. This song is simply painfully boring, and no amount of whistle-register vocal stylings can disguise that. A great singer must have something to sing in order to shine, and they didn't give Mariah much to work with here.



Whitney Houston - I'm Your Baby Tonight
Number 1 song from December 1st-7th, 1990 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Speaking of singers with gorgeous voices who could use better material, Whitney Houston's ripoff of Michael Jackson's 1987 "The Way You Make Me Feel" is all wrong. Whitney was not a Jack Swing singer, but a belter, a massive, orchestral singer whose voice was powerful to blow doors down. This song feels like its holding her back, turning her into yet another generic 90s funk/R&B singer. This wasn't an uncommon thing for Whitney to have happen to her, frankly, which is why I prefer to stick to her bigger songs when I'm in the mood for her sort of thing at all.



Stevie B - Because I Love You (The Postman Song)
Number 1 song from December 8th, 1990-January 4th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
I have never heard of this song in my life. Not ever. And for a song that hit number one for a month solid, that's a hell of a statement to make. It's also perhaps the most generic song ever written, so boring that it didn't even get a music video made for it, and my research has revealed that few people even venture a comment as to what genre it's in. No, this song isn't the worst thing that ever existed, it does not melt one's ears when one listens to it. But this seems to be the number 1 hit that time forgot, a song nobody remembers for any reason, a song that has no reason to exist, which occupied a month of people's lives and vanished forever. If Stevie B actually loved us, he would have given us real music. Instead he, and everyone else, took a vacation that month.








Supplemental Songs

As usual, when the charts fail us, we turn to the supplementals to see if we can find something to listen to. And while this year did not exactly overwhelm, there's a few items worth pointing out...



Aerosmith - Janie's Got a Gun
1990 Billboard Top 100 position: 61


Havoc's Grade: B
Janie's Got a Gun is probably Aerosmith's best work, a dark, driving rock song about a girl driven to murdering her abusive father. It has a solid, grinding build to it that most of Aerosmith's stuff lacks, balladeers as they often presented themselves as. David Fincher, whom you will know better from my film reviews, directed the music video to this song, and while the song just sort of ends, it's one of the better works from a band I never quite liked as much as I felt I should have.



Tom Petty - Free Fallin'
1990 Billboard Top 100 position: 64


Havoc's Grade: B
I've always kinda wanted to like Tom Petty more than I actually did, and this song is fairly good at illustrating why. Petty's biggest hit by far, the song has a wonderful relaxed, California-Nostalgic feel to it, similar in some ways to Hotel California I suppose, and yet it's only a borderline pick by me, more or less pushed over the hump by just how much I've listened to it. With or without the Heartbreakers, Petty was just the sort of guy that always floated at the margins of my musical tastes, and its worth recognizing his biggest song as a result.



AC/DC - Thunderstruck
1990 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I know there's people here who are gonna give me endless hell for giving Thunderstruck a B, but the song just doesn't live up to its potential in the second half that it established in the first. That said, Thunderstruck rocks, and that backing guitar line is so dextrous and so continuous that it makes your arm start to throb just imagining playing it. No front, I do really like Thunderstruck. I just wish it were even bigger.



Other noted songs from 1990:
Billy Idol - Cradle of Love
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville - Don't Know Much
Luther Vandross - Here and Now
MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This
Technotronic - Get up (Before the Night is Over)
The B-52s - Love Shack
Biz Markie - Just a Friend
The Blues Brothers - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
UB40 - Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
The Cure - Pictures of You
Jimmy Sommerville and the Communards - To Love Somebody

[LadyTevar]

I'll be honest. The "Top 10" list fuckin' sucked in the 90s. I spent more time listening to the suplimentals and the "other" than I did with the girl- and boy-bands in the top 40

[General Havoc]

1991
Yearly GPA: 1.481





As a technical matter, 1991 introduced Soundscan, the very first effort by Nielson to try and improve their tracking system for determining the most popular songs in the country. It had only intermittent success, and was bolstered in the years to come by a whole slew of tweaks, policy changes, and alterations as the music industry struggled to keep their reporting in line with the changing face of music. From now until 1998, the charts are highly suspect, as the tracking methodology being used was increasingly out of sync with the realities of the music-buying populace. So be it. These are the charts before us. But bear in mind that it won't be until nearly the end of the decade that we can undisputedly claim that the songs listed here actually were the most popular ones. They're simply the best guess we have.

As to the year itself, well the chart may not show much change from 1990, but the chart is skewed in this case by one big year-saver at the very end. The truth is that 1991 was a dismal year for music, filled with samey-sounding R&B noodles or "power" ballads from third-tier hacks who couldn't produce a good song to save their lives. As always, there's a bright spot or two, but this year taught me just what everyone was waiting for when Nirvana and Dr. Dre finally came to town. Dig in, guys. It's not gonna be fun.






Madonna - Justify My Love
Number 1 song from January 5th-18th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
We're beginning to re-enter the period I know nothing about. This weird, atmospheric Trip-hop song was written by, of all people, Lenny Kravitz, and Prince's protege Ingrid Chavez, but as I don't care for Trip Hop, there's only so much I can do with this song. Still, overall it's not bad enough to hate, just sort of ephemeral. Not the term I think they intended to apply to a song that generated a huge amount of controversy when released, in part because of the video.



Janet Jackson - Love Will Never Do (Without You)
Number 1 song from January 19th-25th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Actually this song's not so bad. I liken it to Michael's work, a driving dance-pop number with a strong beat and underlying theme. Herb Alpert accompanies this song on the trumpet, reappearing on the list more than twenty years after his first appearance in 1968. Otherwise there's not much to say, just a fairly decent song from an artist that doesn't usually even meet that standard.



Surface - The First Time
Number 1 song from January 26th-February 8th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Surface was an R&B trio from the early 90s who never really went anywhere except for this song, their only major hit. Lead singer Bernard Jackson is clearly trying to convince people that he's actually named Michael on this song, but it's not a terrible ballad overall, as these sorts of things go. If nothing else, this song introduced me to the term "Quiet Storm", which appears to refer to the soul side of the Adult Alternative genre, a post-racial attempt to prove that black artists can be just as boring as white ones when they put their minds to it.

I remember this song from when I was a kid, though it was one of those songs you don't hear for twenty years and start to wonder if you just made up. I don't hate it, but it's certainly not something I'm going to listen to over and over again.



C+C Music Factory - Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
Number 1 song from February 9th-22th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I don't trust anyone who tells me they don't like this song even a little bit. Sung by the incomparable belter Martha Walsh (of The Weather Girls), who sued C+C Music Factory when they refused to credit her, and featuring a rap interlude by some guy named Freedom Williams, this song goes on too long, but it's infectious enough to win a few points, a classic dance-pop number that reminds me of the classics of the genre from the early 80s and late 70s. We can do far worse this year.



Whitney Houston - All the Man that I Need
Number 1 song from February 23rd-March 8, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Well you can't say she doesn't try, as Whitney is a fantastic singer even in boring songs. But this song is boring, despite the saxophones and Spanish guitars, and there's just no getting around it. I don't hate the song, but it's just not for me at all.



Mariah Carey - Someday
Number 1 song from March 9th-22nd, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Someday is a song I don't remember in the slightest, and based on the sound, I don't regret the lack at all. This song is simply as generic as possible early-90s Mariah fare, without anything interesting to recommend it. I don't tend to care how well someone sings a bad song, as I prefer to listen to good ones. This is not one.



Timmy T - One More Try
Number 1 song from March 23rd-29th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Timmy T is the artist the internet forgot. I have no idea who the hell this guy is or where this song came from, but it's hilarious in its misplaced sincerity. The spoken-word ending coda needs to be heard to be believed. It's like what Flight of the Conchords would make if they decided to parody a Glenn Medeiros song. Objectively-speaking, this thing should be a flat F, but it's just so... earnest in its badness, like the Plan 9 From Outer Space of love songs. I actually secretly love this song for being so amazingly bad. Timmy T is my hero. :)



Gloria Estefan - Coming out of the Dark
Number 1 song from March 30th-April 12th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
In early 1990, Gloria Estefan's touring bus was struck by a speeding semi-truck in the middle of a Pennsylvania snowstorm, and the singer barely survived. After a horrific 10-month rehab program, she returned to singing and wrote this song about getting over the experience, a dark, atmospheric soul-ballad featuring a gospel choir, one that I find, somewhat to my surprise, that I kind of like. Mood-and-feel takes you a long way with me after all. Weirdly, this song also generated a lot of controversy as Estefan's foreign fans all criticized the song for being "too American", leading to a running, public fight with several Latin and European artists that escalated to public accusations of racism. I will be damned if I can figure out why. I guess they thought she was aping Cyndi Lauper?



Londonbeat - I've Been Thinking About You
Number 1 song from April 13th-19th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Awful lot of forgettable dance music on the charts this year. This is a perfect example, a consequence-less song from a group I've never heard of with an even more generic name. I have nothing to say about this song, and no interest in finding out any more.



Wilson Phillips - You're In Love
Number 1 song from April 20th-26th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I can tolerate a lot of Wilson Phillips, but I have my limits, and this song exceeds them with gusto. The harmonies aren't as good as they were in previous songs, and the song just isn't interesting enough to keep around. I've got no use for this song, and I doubt anyone else did after its week in the spotlight was over.



Amy Grant - Baby Baby
Number 1 song from April 27th-May 10th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Yeah... we're in the 90s now, aren't we?

You all know this song, even if, like me, you don't recognize the title from anywhere. Amy Grant, last seen in 1986 dueting with Peter Cetera, here makes one of the more recognizable hits from the early 90s, though not one of the better ones. This thing sounds like a bad Mariah Carey ripoff, and there's not much more worth saying about it, except that apparently Grant had a fairly major career off the back of this song. Goody.



Roxette - Joyride
Number 1 song from May 11th-17th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I've never heard of this song before, a surprising thing when we're dealing with Roxette, a band I've always been a big fan of. And to be honest, I actually kind of like this one as well. Pop-rock is always a good place to start as far as I'm concerned, and this thing gets the idea together quite well, a nice little song with a good sound to it, if a bit basic. If more of the early 90s had been like this, Nirvana might not have hit as hard as they did.



Hi-Five - I Like the Way (The Kissing Game)
Number 1 song from May 18th-24th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
A completely generic early-90s-style R&B/pop number from a boy band I have never heard of, I might have had mercy here if the song weren't as long as it was. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't hate every boy band ever, which I'm sure will result in all of you laughing your heads off at me as we get deeper into their era, but these guys are useless and I do not wish to listen to them anymore.



Mariah Carey - I Don't Wanna Cry
Number 1 song from May 25th-June 7th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
In fairness to Mariah, she has stated many times that she doesn't like this song, calling it an example of a song that just didn't wind up gelling properly, and decrying the fact that it is meandering and has no message. I could not have put it better myself. Only Mariah's customarily flawless singing keeps this song from even lower depths, and while I'm not about to heap further hatred on a song the singer has already repudiated, I do have to judge it by what I'm hearing. Mistakes happen. Give credit to Mariah for admitting hers. And it's telling as to just how hot she was back then that even her screw-ups hit number 1.



Extreme - More Than Words
Number 1 song from June 8th-14th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
In the dying days of 80s music, a number of otherwise identical hair-metal/rock bands made a series of acoustic ballads, most of which were predictably awful. A handful however were decent enough to warrant a listen, and while I'm not entirely sure this is one of them, I do kind of like it, a simple, quiet little song, simple and reasonably effective. I don't expect anyone else likes this song, but I don't mind it. Compare it to the rest of this year if you dare.



Paula Abdul - Rush Rush
Number 1 song from June 15th-July 19th, 1991 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
And speaking of simple ballads, here's Paula Abdul's first ever attempt at one. It sucks. It's boring and cloying and not at all memorable, and Abdul does not have the voice to compete with Mariah or Whitney when it comes to balladeering. Obviously nobody agreed at the time, as this thing held reign for more than a month, but that's a matter of weak field more than it is anything else.

The video by the way, is something else. It involves a bridge wherein Abdul reshoots a scene from Rebel Without a Cause, recasting James Dean with, get this, Keanu Reeves, then in the midst of shooting Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Good times.



EMF - Unbelievable
Number 1 song from July 20th-26th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Ecstasy, MotherFuckers, or EMF as they were more commonly called, had their only hit in the form of this tightly-crafted Brit-dance piece. Sampling Andrew Dice Clay of all people, this thing is actually pretty great, high energy, incomprehensible of lyric, and full of energy, this thing stands out from the rest of 1991 by sheer fun factor. Most other "fun" bands produced garbage this year (as they do in most). And while I won't claim this is my favorite thing ever or something, I do like the song a hell of a lot. Thanks for this much EMF, you made this year not completely suck.



Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
Number 1 song from July 27th-September 13th, 1991 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Meet the song of the year, a massive fifteen-times platinum international super-megahit, the 18th most popular song in the history of the Billboard Charts. It's... all right. Yes, I tend to like guitar ballads quite a bit, but this one just doesn't have the necessary punch to elevate it. Adams sings in his customary overwrought manner, but it doesn't really do a lot for me this time round, though I can't say I hate it the way a whole lot of other critics did. Sort of a borderline case, as I'm normally a sucker for piano entrances for ballads like this, but it's just not that good, and I'm mostly giving it this score because it's better than the rest of this damn year.



Paula Abdul - The Promise of a New Day
Number 1 song from September 14th-20th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I simply cannot tell most Paula Abdul songs apart, as they all sound like the same mealy-mouthed early-90s crap that B-grade vocalists like her were putting out in droves about then. This song is complete vapor to me, unremarkable even to the extent of anecdotes.



Color Me Badd - I Adore Mi Amor
Number 1 song from September 21st-October 4th, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Look at these douchebags. LOOK AT THEM! This is the early 90s in a nutshell, crooning dipshits making meandering, melody-free music over lazy hip hop beats, calling it R&B, and making music videos that would be hilarious in several years. This song sucks, as all songs like it suck, a consequence-free blast of early-90s crap, never to be seen again.



Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch - Good Vibrations
Number 1 song from October 5th-11th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Jesus Christ...

So, er... noted shithead and perpetrator of hate crimes Mark Wahlberg got his biggest hit out of this song and it's... boring. It's basically the same New Jack Swing song we've been hearing for a while now, with the addition of disco singer Loleatta Holloway to try and liven things up. It's no Everybody Dance Now. And in fact, for all the archetypical early-90sness of this song, I can't even really be bothered to hate it.



Mariah Carey - Emotions
Number 1 song from October 12th-November 1st, 1991 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Oh goody, neo-Disco! Well regardless of the style, this song is notable only for Mariah's use of the whistle register. Impressive I suppose, but not enough to make an actual song out of this thing. Like so much music from this year, it just rambles on until it stops.



Karyn White - Romantic
Number 1 song from November 2nd-8th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
God, the generic R&B just does not stop this year, does it? Yet another interchangeable early-90s "pop" song with no real hook that simply does its thing for a little while and disappears. At times the singer manages to sound like a bad Michael Jackson impersonator, but nothing better. I've not seen a year this redundantly consistent since the late 50s (the late 70s may have been awash in Disco, but at least there was variety to it). Can Nirvana hurry up and arrive already?

Oh, incidentally, about a minute through this song, my brain, overwhelmed by boredom, started hearing the main chorus refrain as "Time to get bromantic". I think it's an improvement.



Prince & The New Power Generation - Cream
Number 1 song from November 9th-22nd, 1991 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Edge-case here, but I gave this song a little mercy for simply not being everything else in 1991. Prince is and remains not my thing, but the song is very tightly-crafted and Prince sings it better than he usually does. One takes what one can get in a year like this.

This is, incidentally, Prince's last number 1 single. Godspeed you guitar warrior.



Michael Bolton - When a Man Loves a Woman
Number 1 song from November 23rd-29th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
When I said that this year was unfathomably samey, that didn't mean I wanted to get an easy listening version of a Percy Sledge classic by Michael Bolton. This languid, boring affair sounds like it was banged out on a Cassio five minutes before recording. Bolton's overwrought singing does him no favors here, as this song simply can't support such things. It's not the worst re-interpretation of an old soul classic that Bolton would ever do (that goes to Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay), but it's pretty dismal.

This song, incidentally, was the last number one hit announced prior to Neilson instituting the Soundscan system for tracking singles sales, one of a whole series of efforts made to try and improve the faltering system for tracking the most popular songs. The 90s as a decade were a period of musical transition, and Neilson had trouble keeping up, something they wouldn't succeed in finally rectifying until 1998.



PM Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
Number 1 song from November 30th-December 5th, 1991 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Built around a sample from Spandau Ballet's "True", from 1983, Set Adrift on Memory Bliss is certainly weird enough. A pretty typical pre-gangsta rap song, I can't say I've got a lot of use for this song, but then hip hop in general isn't really my thing. I know how much trouble that will get me into in the future, but so be it. The song just sounds almost sopoforic, as of course does the sample it uses, so go figure. Can't hate on it, as at least it's different, but this thing's not for me.



Michael Jackson - Black and White
Number 1 song from December 6th, 1991-January 24th, 1992 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
It is hard to overstate how huge this song was. The Soundscan changes made just weeks before meant that this was the first single to debut at number 1 in the US (and several other countries) in thirty-one years. With a music video still cited today (and involving a young Macaulay Culkin), this thing debuted on TV in 27 nations simultaneously and was seen in one hour by half a billion people. It was estimated at one point in 1992 that nearly a quarter of the planet knew how to sing at least part of this song.

So how does it hold up today? Well actually, I do kinda like it. It's not Michael's best or anything, but I regard it as his last great hit. The message may seem preachy, but it's actually not so overdone as that, and the guitar riff is infectious and memorable. The video relies a bit too much on Macaulay, but has dance routines from all across the globe, and the face-shifting technology used at the end still holds up today. I know a lot of people find this song insufferable, but I've always admired it, and it has a place for me along all of Michael's best work from the 80s.







Supplemental Songs

So what else did 1991 have that was worth listening to?



REM - Losing My Religion
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: 33


Havoc's Grade: B
The Cell and Immortals director Tarsem Singh produced this weird music video inspired by Caravaggio paintings, an appropriate selection to go along with a song that makes no sense at all. Of course this is normal for REM, one of the weirdest mainstream pop bands to ever exist. I don't love Losing My Religion, but it's a decent enough song to be worthy of respect, even if REM supposedly wrote it as a means of teaching lead guitarist Peter Buck how to play the Mandolin.



Celine Dion - Where Does My Heart Beat Now
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: 37


Havoc's Grade: B
Ah hell...

Yes. Yes, I admit it. I like some of Celine Dion's work. I like her for the same reason I like Roxette, because I'm a sucker for 80s-style power ballads of whatever tempo. If Roxette didn't get me hanged, then I don't know why this should, as even Dion's detractors have to admit that she has an amazing voice. And yet I know, I know that this admission is going to get me mocked remorselessly by everyone. It's not like I'm about to praise the Titanic song here, people. I have SOME standards.

But yeah, I do like this song, a fairly standard but well executed electric guitar ballad done in the style of the late 80s (which makes sense, as this thing was written for Eurovision in 1989). It's not the best thing ever, nor even really the best thing Dion would ever do (yeah, we'll get there), but I like it. Go fuck yourselves.



Rod Stewart - Rhythm of my Heart
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: 50


Havoc's Grade: B
Adapted from the Scottish folk song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond", and featuring a Grand Highland Bagpiper, this might be Rod Stewart's best work, a fond, celtic lament for the old country and for voyages into the unknown. This song's a nice, relaxing piece without being too soft, a fond memory of mine from back in the day, and one that I still listen to. Nothing chart-shattering perhaps, but I'll take anything in this dismal year.



Aaron Neville - Everybody Plays the Fool
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: 87


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah it's really relaxed, but this cover of the 1972 JR Bailey soul piece actually has a really nice vibe to it, to the point where I think it's my favorite version, infused as it is with a little bit of Reggae just to give it some flavor. I don't think this is some seminal masterpiece or anything, but it's a nice song. Leave it be.



Dee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: 91


Havoc's Grade: B
Borderline case, but Groove is in the Heart is a weird enough and tightly-crafted-enough song that I have to give it respect. The combination of song and video have been described to me in the past as being a vision of what the music world might look like if the 60s had continued through to 1991, and I think that fits it pretty well. This song is fun and catchy and interesting enough to cover for any lack of substance. I'll take it.



Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: B
Need I say more?



Metallica - Enter Sandman
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: B
Hotfoot's far better qualified to speak to Metal in general, but even I know and appreciate Enter Sandman, one of Metallica's most famous works. I watched Metallica play this song live with the accompaniment of the San Franicsco Symphony Orchestra, and the experience was one to remember. I don't pretend this is some kind of definitive metal song or that it's my favorite, for it's neither of those things, but it's one of the few I recognize and appreciate. The others I leave to those more suited.



Marc Cohn - Walking in Memphis
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: B
I could not get this song out of my head when I was in Memphis, and for good reason. This gospel-infused piano ballad is one of the last big Singer-Songerwriter hits. The song never really cuts loose the way I'd like it to, but I do like it a great deal. There's a timeless sense to this song, as though it came straight from a club somewhere on Beale Street one humid summer night...



Queen - The Show Must Go On
1991 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: A
By 1991, Freddie Mercury was dying. His long-time bandmate Brian May conceived of this song as a final tribute, and wrote it as quickly as he could, uncertain of whether Mercury would be able to sing it or even survive to see it finished. Ravaged by AIDS and barely able to stand, in a supreme act of will and vocal grit (and with the help of a dram of Vodka), he recorded this song in one take. As Mercury could no longer perform live, the video was compiled together from bits and pieces of Queen's work over the previous decade, thus becoming the tribute song it would inevitably become upon Mercury's death the next year. The song isn't my favorite ever as a song, but Mercury absolutely slaughtered it in his one take, as far as anyone knows, the only time he ever sang it, and it is a powerful, stirring piece, atonal and strange and anthemic all at once. One of the finest works of symphonic rock to be found, from the last great practitioner of the art.






Other noted songs from 1991:
Bette Midler - From a Distance
Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now
Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over Till It's Over
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime
C+C Music Factory - Things that Make You Go Hmm...
Divinyls - I Touch Myself
Bonnie Rayt - Something to Talk About
Vanilla Ice - Play That Funky Music
UB40 - Here I am (Come and Take Me)
Gerardo - Rico Suave
Chesney Hawks - The One and Only
Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson - Beauty and the Beast
The Simpsons - Do the Bartman
Alice Cooper - Feed my Frankenstein
The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give it Away
Ozzie Osbourne - Hellraiser
Pearl Jam - Jeremy
Salt-n-Peppa - Let's Talk About Sex
LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out
Echo and the Bunnymen - People are Strange
Cher - The Shoop Shoop Song
MC Hammer - Too Legit to Quit
Unforgettable - Natalie Cole & Nat King Cole

[LadyTevar]

Once again, the "Top of Pops" was BS. My radio was playing the "Suplemental" and "Other" music.

I still know all the words to "Walking In Memphis". It's a song I love to go back to, just something about the piano and Marc's vocals touch me. Bonnie Rayt had me dancing in the living room every time. Vanilla Ice's "Funky Music" doesn't touch the original.
Cher was making her comeback, The Chili Peppers were burning up the charts, and a little movie called "The Lost Boys" made The Doors popular again.

[General Havoc]

1992
Yearly GPA: 1.846





A step up from the year before, 1992 showcases a similar trend to what happened in 1980 or 1963, where music began casting around for the "next big thing". They would find it in the year to come, but as a result of this a number of bands and songs got onto the charts who normally would not have showed up. Another trend this year kicked off however was longer runs at number 1. Unlike 1973 when there were thirty-five songs on the charts, from here on out there would increasingly fewer songs on the charts for longer periods of time, as with this year when two songs combined for a full half of the calendar. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, generally, though it does mean that increasingly we will be finding fewer songs here, and more in supplemental.






Color Me Badd - All 4 Love
Number 1 song from January 25th-31st, 1992 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Oy.

I'm getting cordially sick of New Jack Swing at this point. This song, Color Me Badd's second (and thank god, last single), is a repetitive bore-fest that could have come from any band in the entire period. Please let this period end.



George Michael & Elton John - Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me
Number 1 song from February 1st-7th, 1992 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Well this was a nice surprise. George Michael was probably never better than this cover which he shared with the author of the 1973 original, Sir Elton John. I actually quite like this song, but then I've always liked Elton John, and his anthemic piano work. This song found a new life once American Idol and its imitators appeared, but the original is worth remembering, if only because so little from this period is.



Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy
Number 1 song from February 8th-28th, 1992 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
One of the few compensatory benefits from a fallow period of music is that, as its coming to an end, strange novelty songs start to leak onto the charts, be they 1963's Telstar or this thing by British One-hitters Right Said Fred. I don't know that I'd claim I really enjoyed this song much, but it's so uniquely weird that you can't really hate it. It doesn't overstay its welcome if nothing else, and I like anything that keeps meandering New Jack Swing off the charts another week.



Mr. Big - To Be With You
Number 1 song from February 29th-March 20th, 1992 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I suppose this passed for romantic in 1992 or something. Mr. Big was another one hit wonder whose claim to fame was this acoustic ballad which, if I'm being honest, isn't half-bad. It's at least got significantly better musicianship than one customarily encountered in these sorts of things. Nothing I'm going to put on a playlist, but I didn't have the urge to turn it off.



Vanessa Williams - Save the Best for Last
Number 1 song from March 21st-April 24th, 1992 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Yeah yeah yeah. Call this a mercy grade. I know the song is as Adult Contemporary as it comes, but I have reasonably fond memories of this thing, and it's not badly put together overall. I am trying desperately throughout this thing not to condemn a song simply because it's not a genre I dislike, or we're going to be in trouble once hip hop really takes over. Altogether there's far worse than this out around this point. Leave it alone.



Kris Kross - Jump
Number 1 song from April 25th-June 19th, 1992 (8 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
That's not to say I dislike all hip hop though. Jump, a massive hit that elevated hip hop to a level it had never before reached, is nowhere near as bad a song as people seem to think in retrospect. Yes, I know it's two kids rapping here (the kids were 11 and 12 when this was recorded), but the flow is excellent, and the chorus is infectious. Little though I love the genre, this was literally the first hip hop song I remember hearing, and while I can't pretend I loved it at the time, it grew on me over the course of time, enough to squeak by with this rating. Hip Hop still has a long way to go, but we'll see it get there soon enough. And the little children shall lead them it appears.



Mariah Carey - I'll Be There
Number 1 song from June 20th-July 3rd, 1992 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I don't hate Mariah Carey, I swear, but the songs she sang that hit #1 just weren't her best, as with this cover of the 1970 Jackson 5 hit. I just don't like this song, whoever's singing it, and it doesn't improve by making it even slower.



Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby Got Back
Number 1 song from July 4th-August 7th, 1992 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Hell yes. Screw hipster irony, I really like Baby Got Back, and so does everybody I know who isn't trying to stand on some kind of principle. Famously written after Mix-a-Lot saw Jennifer Lopez on In Living Color, anyone who thinks this song is sexist is an asshole as far as I'm concerned, as the song is not about abusing women or belittling them or whatever people thing it's about when they don't bother to listen to it. Indeed it all but calls out Cosmo for not presenting big, black women, the sort of which Mix-a-Lot is attracted to. But forget the social commentary, this song is simply awesome, with a great flow and memorable lines. Not for nothing is this remembered as a classic of the early 90s, campy or not.



Madonna - This Used to Be My Playground
Number 1 song from August 8th-14th, 1992 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I had no idea this was the theme song to A League of Their Own, a great movie that did not need to be saddled with a song this morose, Madonna or otherwise. Honestly, for all the atmosphere of this song, I just hate it. It meanders endlessly, moping from verse to verse, like a Christopher Cross single about divorce with lyrics. Not at all my thing.



Boyz II Men - End of the Road
Number 1 song from August 15th-November 13th, 1992 (13 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
The longest-running number 1 hit ever when it was released (a record that would not stand for long), End of the Road was a seismic song, one that blew everything else off the charts for a good long while. I... don't really get it. It's not that I hate Boyz II Men, as so many do, as I've always been a sucker for a good Acapella or R&B harmony. But the thing just meanders wayyyy too much for my tastes. Borderline, but I think I'll pass, though I don't hate it enough to drop it entirely.



The Heights - How Do You Talk to an Angel
Number 1 song from November 14th-November 27th, 1992 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I really mis-remembered this song, as I thought it was some soaring power ballad when in reality it sounds like a blending of the Goo Goo Dolls and John Cougar Melankamp. This is not a combination that the world needed to hear. A boring gravel-rock ballad that served as the theme song to a TV show I've never heard of, this song is justly forgotten.



Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
November 28th, 1992-March 5th, 1993 (14 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Theme to the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie The Bodyguard, this song is one of the biggest hits of all time, setting the record for the longest run at the top and becoming the top hit for both 1992 AND 1993. It sucks.

Yes, Whitney's voice was absolutely perfect, and she sings the thing well, but this song is a cover of a 1976 Dolly Parton song, and it should have stayed with her. Simpering and saccharine and cloying, it simply does not work at all, and only Whitney's strong singing elevates this thing above the level of a Diana Ross song.







Supplemental Songs

With the charts crowded by Boyz II Men and Whitney, perhaps we should see what was kept off of the charts.



Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: 6


Havoc's Grade: B
Yes, it's soft as a pillow, but this time I'll make an exception, as Tears in Heaven is one of the most heartfelt songs ever written. For the six of you that don't know, Clapton wrote this song, nominally the theme to a movie about drug abuse, as a means of dealing with the death of his son Conor, who died at the age of 4 after plummeting out of a window from a New York City apartment building. Talk all the crap you want about unplugged acoustic guitar music, I tend normally to agree, but Tears in heaven is different. And I respect the hell out of it too much to leave it off.



House of Pain - Jump Around
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: 24


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, it's a silly little hip hop piece, but I've always kind of liked it, and so onto the list it goes. Early Hip Hop was a heck of a lot goofier than it would become just a few years later, and Jump Around probably could not have existed at any other time than 1992. So be it.



Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: 32


Havoc's Grade: A
This was the song that finally killed the 80s, along with everything else that had hung around music since 1987 in an ever-decreasing qualitative spiral. As I Wanna Hold Your Hand was to the 60s, Smells Like Teen Spirit was to the 90s. Arguably one of the first Alternative Rock songs to really hit the mainstream, this song flattened everything in its wake on every chart, alternative, indie, college, mainstream, hard, everything. Its impact would take a year or so to finally wind its way through the pop charts, but it was one of the few songs about which it can actually be said that nothing was the same again in its aftermath. The entire 90s music scene, especially the 90s rock scene, was created in the wake of this song and the Nevermind album. And we shall be witnessing its aftershocks for years to come.

And on top of that, Smells Like Teen Spirit is simply a really damn good song, especially when listened to in the company of everything around it. A dextrous, guitar-laden rock song that bore more than a little resemblance to Boston's More than a Feeling (another Supplemental A), this song is hard to seperate from its reputation, but taking everything out of it, I simply like it a hell of a lot. I was never a big fan of the rest of Nirvana's output, not even Come as You Are, but this alone makes them worth their place in music history.



U2 - One
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: 60


Havoc's Grade: A
U2's last, great song, One is a tremendous piece, based around, of all things, Bono's anti-hippie cynicism, a rejection of the concept of "oneness" offered up by various neo-hippie groups at the time. Produced, like all of U2's best work, at a moment of panic when the band thought they had run out of ideas, One has always sounded to me like a Led Zepplin song re-imagined by U2, a breakup song that's also aspirational, all without giving in to cloying sentimentality. I adore One, regardless of modern viewpoints on it, and agree wholeheartedly with the retrospectives that call it one of the great songs of the entire decade.



The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: 71


Havoc's Grade: B
Supposedly lead singer Robert Smith was absolutely certain he had inadvertently plagiarized this song from somewhere, and began calling all of his friends in music, playing the chord progression for them and asking them if they had ever heard it before. Only after a solid week of this did he finally convince himself that the song was his. As for me, I seriously thought this song was from the 80s. But whatever year it came out in, were it not for a pretty uninspired set of bridges, I would easily rate this song one of the best alternative rock songs of the period. As it stands, it's a fun, happy little song, one I've always liked.



Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Not exactly Metallica's hardest song ever, but I'm a sucker for a good arpeggio. The rumor has it that James Hetfield wrote this song as a slap at Kip Winger (whom the video shows him throwing a dart at), who had indicated somehow that Metallica couldn't actually write "real" music, whatever that is. I'm not the biggest Metallica fan (or Metal fan), but I do like this song, with its dour chords and funereal tone.



Annie Lennox - Walking on Broken Glass
1992 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I do really like this song, as I do most things Annie Lennox related, but it's the video that sets this one apart, a full on Blackadder spinoff starring Hugh Laurie and John Malkovich in some kind of absurd period piece. I don't know where this insane thing came from, but it's one of the weirder videos of the year, and that's certainly worth something.







Other noted songs from 1992:
En Vogue - My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)
Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart
Guns N' Roses - November Rain
Michael Jackson - Remember the Time
Tom Cochrane - Life is a Highway
Patty Smyth & Don Henley - Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough
Celine Dion - If You Asked Me To
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (Wayne's World brought it back)
Hammer - 2 Legit 2 Quit
Michael Bolton - When a Man Loves a Woman
U2 - Mysterious Ways
Bonnie Rait - I Can't Make You Love Me
Snap! - Rhythm Is a Dancer
Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle - A Whole New World
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Michael Jackson - Heal the World
Pearl Jam - Jeremy
Eric Clapton - Layla (Accoustic version)
REM - Man on the Moon

[frigidmagi]

Fun story, I didn't know Friday I'm in Love was by the Cure.

[LadyTevar]

I saw Billy Ray Cyrus in a small country bar in Huntington WV, just a few miles from his home, not a year before "Achy-Breaky Heart" came out. I was shocked to realize it was the same guy.

En Vogue had great harmonies, good songs with strong messages in their lyrics, and I loved hearing them. However, I liked their second song out that year better than "My Lovin' /never gonna get it". Here's "Free Your Mind"
[youtube][/youtube]

[General Havoc]

1993
Yearly GPA: 1.731




It takes time for revolutions to happen, and 1993 is emblematic of that, as the charts did not really reflect much of a change, despite the mutating face of music in the aftermath of Nevermind and Public Enemy. Not to say that there's nothing to see here of course, indeed there's actually quite a bit. But the seething changes in music are bubbling beneath the surface this time round, and we can only catch glimpses of them here and there.







Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle - A Whole New World
Number 1 song from March 6th-12th, 1993 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Easy Listening versions of Disney songs have a long history to them, but it's worth remembering just how big this song actually was when it came out. I remember it being EVERYWHERE, and I'm not consequently surprised that it finally, after about a million years, knocked Whitney off the top. I don't like this adaptation, but the underlying song is a strong one, and I can't claim to hate it, now that the overplay has faded somewhat.



Snow - Informer
Number 1 song from March 13th-April 30th, 1993 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I still have no explanation for this song, a reggae song from one of the whitest artists in Canada who was nonetheless completely serious about his chops in the artform. Nor do I have the first idea what Snow is actually saying in the course of this song, except that Snitches Get Shot or some Canadian variation thereof (Snitches Get Scolded?). And yet I don't hate this song, as the underlying track is solid, and the linguistic dexterity is impressive enough. Honestly, in this case, I think I need to take an audible.



Silk - Freak Me
Number 1 song from May 1st-14th, 1993 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
One of the more boring R&B songs I've ever heard, this song sounds like something Biz Marquis would have done on a comedy album five years earlier, save that these guys are quite unfortunately playing it straight. It doesn't work at all, and winds up sounding like whining cats.



Janet Jackson - That's the Way Love Goes
Number 1 song from May 15th-July 9th, 1993 (8 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Useless. Totally useless. I cannot tell this song from any other. I can't even hate it properly.



SMV - Weak
Number 1 song from July 10th-23rd, 1993 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
SMV's Weak is the shortest character combination of any number 1 hit on the charts. This is the sum total of the interesting information I could find about Weak, a song so terribly boring as to render it almost impossible to get through. A rambling, melody-free exercise in bad lyricism and soporific singing, this song merits its name, and is one of the worst R&B songs I've ever heard.



UB40 - Can't Help Falling in Love With You
Number 1 song from July 24th-September 10th, 1993 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
UB40's greatest hit ever was, as everyone knows, a cover of Elvis Presley's 1961 hit song, one of the King's finest songs ever. What you probably didn't know though was that Elvis in turn was covering a French love song by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, written in 1784, before the French Revolution. And yet of all the stops on this lengthy lineage, this is one of the better ones. I know it's fashionable to denigrate UB40 as Cod-Reggae, and with reason, but a reggae version of this song, whoever sang it, just makes sense, and UB40's sound was just right for this sort of thing. A personal call perhaps, but I do really like this song, and there's not much else this year I can say that for.



Mariah Carey - Dreamlover
Number 1 song from September 11th-November 5th, 1993 (8 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Bobby Darren's song of the same name from 1959 is far better.

I haaaaated this song in 1993 and the years that followed, as it was utterly inescapable, but time has softened my view on it, and while I still don't really like Dreamlover, it's nowhere near as bad a song as I thought it was. The beat is catchy enough, Mariah's vocals are, of course, perfect, and the thing has a nice, if lightweight, gospel-soul-R&B sound to it. The music video accompaniment is incoherent and filled with MTV-editing, but the song's not that bad, ultimately. Not that I'm about to add it to my collection or anything, but it earns a pass.



Meat Loaf - I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)
Number 1 song from November 6th-December 10th, 1993 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
Holy goddamn, I had no idea this was a number 1 hit.

There is a very good case to be made that I Would Do Anything for Love is Meat Loaf's best song, an, orchestral, operatic overture twelve full minutes in length, punctuated by rolling piano-and-rock guitar symphonies, an entire chorus of backup singers, a four minute coda-duet that could well have stood as its own song were this any sane artist, multiple instrumental rock solo-crescendos, and a crazed, Beauty-and-the-Beast-meets-Phantom-of-the-Opera-meets-The-Fugitive music video (abridged to a much more tepid eight minutes). I'm an unabashed fan of the Loaf, particularly the work he did with Jim Steinman, and I love love LOVE this song, this hedonistic, ludicrous, wonderful song, one of Meat Loaf's finest works, and an apogee of sorts for symphonic rock in general. I don't care who doesn't like this song, it is glorious.



Janet Jackson - Again
Number 1 song from December 11th-24th, 1993 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Again is a pure ballad, nothing more and nothing less, and as such, it's actually considerably better than Janet's usual fare, uncluttered as it is with unnecessary asides and sultry sidetracks. The song, off the soundtrack to Jackson's debut film Poetic Justice (co-starring Tupac Shakur) really sounds like it's trying to build towards something that it never actually gets to, but I've heard far worse from Janet Jackson, God knows.



Mariah Carey - Hero
Number 1 song from December 25th, 1993-January 21st, 1994 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I really forgot how big Mariah Carey was in the first half of the 90s, and here we are again with another of her ballads. Yes, this song is cheesy, faux-inspirational crap in the vein of "everyone is their own hero", but the song is paced and sung reasonably well, and I've heard far worse versions of this concept pass without comment. Besides, what's wrong with a sentimental message every now and again? Music is an emotional art form.








Supplemental Songs

So, you know how I said the change in music was bubbling beneath the surface? Well let's a take a look beneath said surface to see what was cooking in 1993.



Billy Joel - The River of Dreams
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 26


Havoc's Grade: B
Billy Joel's last great hit, The River of Dreams is a rich and melodious gospel-pop piece complete with callback singers, full of pseudo-baptist imagery and evocative sounds and solos. I don't really spend a lot of time thinking through the message of the song, but I do like it unique flavor, and regard it as one of the last great pop-gospel hits.

Incidentally, this song got Joel banned from the Grammies, after he stopped midway through his live performance of it in 1994 to protest Frank Sinatra having his livetime achievement award acceptance speech cut off, and started mocking the show organizers for all the valuable advertising time they were losing. Rock on.



The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 27


Havoc's Grade: A
One of the weirdest songs to hit the early 90s, this one-hitter from identical twins Charlie and Craig Reed was written in 45 minutes while traveling to Aberdeen. Neither they, nor anybody else had any explanation for how huge the song became. I really don't either, save to report that I absolutely love this song, as do many people without any explanation. In my case, it reminds me the most of Men At Work's Land Down Under, another regionally-flavored one-hit song that inexplicably got huge. It's bubbly and driving and pop and folk all at the same time, with enough celtic edge to it to give it a bit of credibility. And the accents certainly don't hurt. One way or another though, this was one of the great one hit wonders of the 90s, and justly remembered as a classic of the period.



Spin Doctors - Two Princes
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 28


Havoc's Grade: B
When I think of the 90s, I don't think of Nu-metal or Gangsta Rap or even the bubblegum pop that dominated the charts without end. I think instead of Alternative Rock, and the heyday thereof that it represented. This song, one of the bigger examples thereof, split critical opinion at the time, and it finds its way even today into lists of the best and worst songs of the decade. I really like it, its energy, its sound, its scat singing interludes, everything about it. Spin Doctors never went on to much beyond this song, but there's no shame in having one really good song.



Duran Duran - Come Undone
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 41


Havoc's Grade: B
And speaking of Alternative Rock, I had no idea that Come Undone was a Duran Duran song, having mentally assumed it was either Depeche Mode or one of Depeche Mode's many imitators. The revelation that Duran Duran, a useless band comprised of nothing but talentless pretty-boys, had managed to put this alt-rock thing together was like discovering that Nickleback had somehow ghost-written Living on a Prayer. Still, all credit where credit is due, I really like Come Undone, a lovely, atmospheric crossover piece that seems (for reasons obvious in retrospect) the 80s and 90s. It's not the finest song ever written or sung, but it's far and away the best thing that Duran Duran ever did, and for that I'm grateful.



Tina Turner - I Don't Wanna Fight
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 42


Havoc's Grade: B
For someone who describes himself as a fan, I've had a distressing lack of Tina Turner on these lists, which is why I'm glad to be able to praise this little song. Admittedly, this is not Turner's best work, but it's relaxing and light, just the right wistful sound to convey the sentiment of the song, which was written for the biographical film about Turner, What's Love Got to Do With It (still Angela Basset's best movie). It's a borderline selection, I know, but I do like Turner, and if that pushes it over the boundary into my lists, then so be it. These are personal selections after all.



Haddaway - What is Love
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 82


Havoc's Grade: B
Immortalized by SNL, this is probably the biggest Trinidadian-German fusion Eurodance hit in history. All joking aside though, I actually do kinda like this thing, infectious as it is. There's really nothing else to say here beyond terrible puns and jokes that I shall leave to Hotfoot.



Michael Bolton - You Don't Know What It's Like
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 83


Havoc's Grade: B
Sonofabitch...

Yes, there are a few Michael Bolton songs I like. This isn't even the only one. I like Bolton when he stops trying to be Bryan Adams, and starts trying to be Joe Cocker. Not that he is Joe Cocker, but he's not half-bad when he tries, and this is one of the better examples. This song was actually written by the BeeGees back in 1967 and covered by everyone from Barry Gibb to Janis Joplin, but none of those singles even made it onto my lists. This one did. So be it.



Sting - Fields of Gold
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: 87


Havoc's Grade: B
Sting actually isn't very good on this song (not that he would get better later on), but it scarcely matters. So effortlessly evocative is this song that it might as well be instrumental. Beautifully mixed with harmonica and Spanish guitar, this is one of the best pure mood-songs ever composed. I know it's slow and Adult Contemporary, but a song that sounds this good is worth listening to regardless.

Full disclosure, when I was young, I thought this song's title was "Fields of the Moon". I kinda still wish it was.



Radiohead - Creep
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm gonna guess that the term "Arpeggiated ostinato" is not one that you expected to be used in relation to a Radiohead song, but Radiohead were always way more musically skillful and complex than anyone ever realized. That said, I never liked Radiohead as much as I think I was supposed to, but Creep, their single biggest song, is decent enough to include on a list. It meanders endlessly, as most of Radiohead's work does, to ends that are apparent to about nine music snobs in the world, but the underlying structure is very strong, and it's worth a listen again, even if you're sick of the hipsterism surrounding it.



Pet Shop Boys - Go West
1993 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
Back in 1979, when I mentioned I had no idea that Go West was a Village People song, the reason was because this is the version I know, one of the strangest songs that the admittedly strange Pet Shop Boys ever came up with. A synthpop rendition of what sounds like the alt-history celebration that would have attended the victory of the Soviet Union in the cold war, this song, dripping with Communist imagery in both sound and video, is just too damn weird for me not to love immodestly. When creating the remix, Chris Lowe claimed he basically blended Pachelbel's Canon with the Soviet National Anthem. As both of those tunes are incarnated awesome, I'm not surprised that I quite like the result. I expect Comrade Tortoise will find this song to his liking as well for the same reasons.








Other noted songs from 1993:
Tag Team - Whoomp! (There it is!)
95 South - Whoot! (There it is!) <--- Don't ask me how this happened.
Dr. Dre - Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang
Boyz II Men - In The Still of the Nite
Rod Stewart - Have I Told You Lately
Ace of Base - All That She Wants
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain
Whitney Houston - I'm Every Woman
Faithful - O-o-h Child
Rod Stewart - Reason to Believe
Aerosmith - Livin' On the Edge
Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy
Sting - If I Ever Lose My Faith in You
Kenny G - By The Time This Night is Over
Guns N' Roses - Civil War
REM - Everybody Hurts
REM - Man on the Moon
Frets on Fire - Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Theme <---- Yeah, really. Released as a single in 27 countries.
Counting Crows - Mr. Jones
Whitney Houston - Run to You
Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction
The Smashing Pumpkins - Today

[LadyTevar]

"Two Princes" was just a upbeat fun little ditty about something everyone could understand -- trying for the girl out of reach. I loved the beat, the fun lyrics, and that it had a 'story' to it.
"5000 Miles" got a boost from the movie "Bennie & June", starring Johnny Depp

[White Haven]

Amusingly, I know at least one Scot who really, REALLY hates 500 Miles. Needless to say, I try to work in references to it when he least expects it.