Popular '90

Balls, How did I miss voting for obvious 10 Unchained Melody?

Hm, only six out of seventeen for me… A lot of fives this year, though.

1990’s ‘phantom’ #1s that topped the NME/ ILR chart, but not the BBC one;

Love Shack – The B52s (1 week)
Tom’s Diner – DNA & Susanne Vega (2)
Groove Is In The Heart – Deee-Lite (1)
Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton (2)
The Anniversary Waltz – Status Quo (1)

The MM Critics Poll for 1990;

1. Groove Is In The Heart – Deee-Lite
2. Nothing Compares To You – Sinead O’Connor
3. Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays
4. What Time Is Love? – The KLF
5. Glider EP – My Bloody Valentine
6. The Only One I Know – The Charlatans
7. Fall EP – Ride
8. Justify My Love – Madonna
9. Killer – Adamski
10. The Ship Song – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
11. Dub Be Good To Me – Beats International
12. Step On – Happy Mondays
13. Fascinating Rhythm – Bass-O-Matic
14. There She Goes – The La’s
15. Everything Flows – Teenage Fanclub
16. World In Motion – Englandneworder
17. This Is How It Feels – Inspiral Carpets
18. Only Love Can Break Your Heart – St Etienne
19. Mad Love EP – Lush
20. Espero EP – Cranes

Here’s the top 50 from The Face, courtesy of http://www.rocklist.net/

1. DEEE-LITE Groove Is In The Heart
2. HISTORY featuring Q-TEE Afrika
3. THE CHARIATANS The Only One I Know
4. ADAMSKI/SEAL Killer
5. =HAPPY MONDAYS Step On
5. = PRIMAL SCREAM Loaded
7. MASSIVE ATTACK Daydreaming
8. SINEAD O’CONNOR Nothing Compares 2 U
9. FAMILY STAND Ghetto Heaven
10. YOUNG DISCIPLES Get Yourself Together
11. SAINT ETIENNE Only Love
12. GANG STARR Jazz Thing
13. HAPPY MONDAYS Kinky Afro
14. EN VOGUE Hold On
15. INNOCENCE Natural Thing
16. LOOSE ENDS Don’t Be A Fool
17. MONIE LOVE It’s A Shame
18. KID FROST La Raza
19. THE SHAMEN Progen
20. PRESSURE DROP Back To Back
21. SNAP The Power
22. GARY CLAIL Beef
23. SOUL ll SOUL A Dream’s A Dream
24. SHABBA RANKS AND CRYSTAL Twice My Age
25. MADONNA Vogue
26. MARINA VAN ROOY Sly One
27. SOHO Hippychick
28. THE WEDDING PRESENT Brassneck
29. THE CHIMES Heaven
30. INXS Suicide Blonde
31. MC TUNES vs 808 STATE Tunes Splits The Atom
32. THE BELOVED Hello
33. THE FARM Groovy Train
34. STONE ROSES One Love
35. ULTRAVIOLET Kites (remix)
36. THE KLF What Time Is Love?
37. DREAM WARRIORS My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style
38. SYMBOLS AND INSTRUMENTS Mood
39. RHYTHIM IS RHYTHIM The Beginning
40. JIMMY SOMERVILLE To Love Somebody
41. BOYS WONDER Radio Wonder
42. X-CLAN Funkin’ Lesson
43. MANTRONIX Take Your Time
44. OLETA ADAMS Rhythm of Life
45. THE LA’S There She Goes
46. PET SHOP BOYS Being Boring
47. BARRIE K SHARPE/DIANA BROWN Masterplan
48. PRIMAL SCREAM Come Together
49. TEN CITY Whatever Makes You Happy
50. MY JEALOUS GOD Pray

I remember John Peel saying “That was Nick Cave with ‘The Ship Song’ there, sounding more like Neil Diamond than Nick Cave.”

Well, that was my worst year yet in this poll. Just three mustering the 6 or above, none of them above by much.

John Peel’s Festive 50

1. The Fall Bill Is Dead
2. My Bloody Valentine Soon
3. Ride Dreams Burn Down
4. Ride Like A Daydream
5. Sonic Youth Tunic (Song For Karen)
6. Paris Angels (All On You) Perfume
7. Wedding Present Make Me Smile (Come Up & See Me)
8. Happy Mondays Step On
9. Wedding Present Corduroy
10. The Orb Loving You (Session)
11. Teenage Fanclub Everything Flows
12. Would Be’s I’m Hardly Ever Wrong
13. The Lemonheads Different Drum
14. New Fast Automatic Daffodils Big
15. The Fall White Lightning
16. Morrissey November Spawned A Monster
17. Charlatans The Only One I Know
18. Wedding Present Don’t Talk, Just Kiss
19. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds The Ship Song
20. Wedding Present Heather (Session)
21. Boo Radleys Kaleidoscope
22. Wedding Present Crawl
23. Nirvana Sliver
24. Pixies The Happening
25. Ride Taste
26. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin Kill Your Television
27. Lush Sweetness & Light
28. Charlatans Polar Bear
29. Dinosaur Jr The Wagon
30. The Fall Blood Outta Stone
31. Pixies Velouria
32. Happy Mondays Kinky Afro
33. The Fatima Mansions Blues For Ceaucescu
34. The Shamen Pro-Gen
35. The Fall Telephone Thing
36. Sundays Here’s Where The Story Ends
37. Spiritualized Any Way That You Want Me
38. Babes In Toyland House
39. Wedding Present Dalliance
40. Sonic Youth Kool Thing
41. The Fall Chicago, Now!
42. The Orb Little Fluffy Clouds
43. Teenage Fanclub God Knows It’s True
44. Deee-Lite Groove Is In The Heart
45. Bastro Nothing Special
46. The Farm Stepping Stone
47. The Farm Groovy Train
48. Pixies Alison
49. Pixies Dig For Fire
50. The Inspiral Carpets Beast Inside

“Little Fluffy Clouds” was 1990? And Julee Cruise’s “Falling”? And Blur and the Charlatans and Spiritualized and the Sundays and… I have to seriously recalibrate my 1990-91 mental map. What a year!

never mind the MM/NME/FACE lists, what about the Beechwood compos?? http://www.bandplanet.co.uk/Oldsite/indietop20s.htm

I got this one (Vol 10) for xmas that year in tape form which I’m sure had extra tracks:

1. Groovy train (Terry Farley mix) – Farm
2. Make it mine – Shamen
3. All on you (perfume) – Paris Angels
4. What time is love (Echo & The Bunnymen mix) – KLF
5. Biting my nails – Renegade Soundwave
6. It’s on – Flowered Up
7. Triangle – Field Mice
8. Only love can break your heart – St. Etienne
9. Lay me down – Mock Turtles
10. Scratches – Spin
11. She comes in the fall – Inspiral Carpets
12. Only one I know – Charlatans
13. Waiting for the angels – Darkside
14. Place with a name – Family Cat
15. Velouria – Pixies
16. Everything flows – Teenage Fanclub
17. Rent – Carter USM

I like The Ship Song, too. There’s lots of terrific stuff on those end of year lists – Paris Angels, En Vogue, The Fall’s unexpected blissful ballad moment, even if the monstrously plodding Groovy Train seems to have snuck in everywhere…

1991 looks all-over-the-place stylistically, but in terms of quality there’s little in the way of classics or shockers. I predict quite a few 5s.
More excitingly 1991 also boasts four number one singles I bought, all in a row. And I’m only really ashamed about one of them.

lex @ 25:

You should be more disciplined about taking that medication! 6 and above isn’t ‘undisputed greatness’, it’s just ‘quite like it’. For the record my three doesn’t include the football record, nor does it include Beats International or Madonna. Too bad!

The Australian chart this year was like a blend of the UK and US:

The B-52’s, “Love Shack”, 8 weeks (starting 23 December 1989)
Aerosmith, “Janie’s Got a Gun”, 1 week
Sinéad O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, 8 weeks (highest seller of 1990)
Paula Abdul, “Opposites Attract”, 2 weeks
Madonna, “Vogue”/”Keep It Together”, 5 weeks
Heart, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You”, 4 weeks
Roxette, “It Must Have Been Love”, 2 weeks
MC Hammer, “U Can’t Touch This”, 5 weeks
Faith No More, “Epic”, 3 weeks
Jon Bon Jovi, “Blaze of Glory”, 6 weeks
Young MC, “Bust a Move”, 1 week
Skyhooks, “Jukebox in Siberia”, 2 weeks
Deee-Lite, “Groove Is in the Heart”, 1 week
The Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody”, 6 weeks (1 of them in 1990)

And Vanilla Ice topped our charts in January 1990 too. Skyhooks was the only local band on this list – a surprise comeback single from a much-loved early 1970s band.

I suspect it would have stayed on top longer than a week if the Sinead juggernaut hadn’t arrived; it felt like a substantial hit at the time.

I notice a typo in my list next to Unchained Melody – one of its 6 weeks was in 1991 (i.e. 5 in 1990).

I think most of the #1s listed are really bad. I voted for Madonna, New Order, Elton John, though not really so keen on any of them; New Order the best.

I don’t agree with NME / MM about ‘groove is in the heart’ either, or Happy Mondays or Primal Scream – they’re all bad.

But out of those lists there are some magnificent and still moving records by MBV, Ride and a few others.

I accept that New Order were an excellent group, but this is their WORST song without a doubt. Nothing more embarrassing than witnessing footballers trying to sing – or even worse – RAP! This can only result in C-rap!

I’m amazed that so many commentors on here rank “world in Motion” alongside Sinead O’Connor’s masterpiece! Is this a result of the “Gazza” effect, I wonder? Sinead also cries during a performance.

WIM – a 1 from me.

Young MC no.1 in Australia, gosh. His appearance as top ex-pop star at an office party in Up In The Air was a bit of a surprise to say the least. But his profile outside the UK was obviously higher than I thought. The Southern Comfort mix of I Come Off still sounds top hole.

Re “Suicide Blonde”, nice work! That only made #2 in Oz itself, where “Original Sin” was their only #1 single I think. I wonder if any notable NZ songs did the reverse… Split Enz’s “I Got You” and Dave Dobbyn’s “Slice of Heaven” topped both charts in the 1980s…

MM readers’ poll for 1990;

1. The Charlatans – The Only One I Know
2. Happy Mondays – Step On
3. The Cure – Never Enough
4. My Bloody Valentine – Soon
5. Happy Mondays – Kinky Afro
6. Ride – Dreams Burn Down
7. Fields Of The Nephilim – Sumerland
8. Lush – Mad Love
9. Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart
10. Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence

@Rory. I know of two cases: in 2005 Evermore’s Light Surrounding You got to #1 in Oz but only #15 at home, and in 1979 Misex’s Computer Games got to #1 in Oz but only #5 at home.

The Swingers’ amazing Counting the Beat (how did that not transfer to the rest of the world?) was #1 in both countries but, according to wiki, it was the biggest seller of the year (1981) in Oz.

I’ve started writing four of five comments on how I can’t stand Nothing Compares 2U and originally gave it two out of 10 (and thought two was generous), but each time abandoned it as I thought it would just look like I was trolling. But the reverence for it does bug the flip out of me.

This is the year of the only Festive Fifty I remembered to tape and probably the most Peel-unfriendly and ‘poppy’ (I love pop-indie and just wish Saint Etienne had done better). “Perfume”, “Big”, the 20-minute version of “A Huge Ever-Growing Brain”, “Everything Flows”. Come to think of it, possibly a better year than the holy 1989. And New Order got to number 1!

Oh right, and charts happened but I didn’t care because I was a devoted MM reader by then (I can still quote most of Chris Roberts’ review of “Technique”).

Didn’t vote for “Unchained Melody” because it’s a re-release and so doesn’t count. Also it’s a damn shame about ‘Groove is in the Heart’ losing to a re-release on a technicality. Wish I still had the album around.

the low votes for Ice Ice Baby suggest that Popular has been invaded by enemies of pop.