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[BillyH]

It's September 1994 and a terrifyingly high quantity of this forum weren't even born. The internet consisted of a couple of thousand websites mostly consisting of plain text, with the occasional low-quality GIF if you were lucky - and it was the sort of thing discussed on 'Tomorrow's World' rather than anyone actually having it. The Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive battled it out for console supremacy, shows such as 'Noel's House Party' and 'Gladiators' owned the Saturday night TV schedules, oh and a bloke called Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party.

Me? I was turning six years old, gaining, to my delight, the computer game 'Outrun' on our Commodore Amiga computer that was as old as me. Ask me to name anyone in the charts back then and I'd probably confidently give you the likes of D:Ream, Aswad, the Pet Shop Boys and (erm) Jimmy Nail - basically anyone who'd been on 'Live & Kicking' in the last few weeks and indulged in some comedy banter with Trevor & Simon. I'm probably already confusing anyone under the age of about 20 so I'll stop there and, as with my 2009 lookback a few days ago, give you my thoughts on every track in the top 40 as I turn the age of 26. Unlike 2009 I won't know many of these so a few I'll be listening to for the first time. Including this one, starting things off at number 40:

40: Naomi Campbell - Love & Tears

In the early 1990s the charts were in crisis. So called 'house' and 'rave' music was pushing old-fashioned singers and bands out of the charts and opening the floodgates up to random DJs with computers, samples and sped-up James Brown drumloops, turning the once-mighty Top of the Pops into something of a joke as it became a string of boring looking blokes stood behind a couple of turntables and computer monitors hitting the occasional button every now and again. When they changed the rules of the show so that everyone had to "sing" live, it became even more ridiculous as said DJs would recruit some randomers to shout "Woo! Yeah!" a few times and sing/bellow out all the samples live, leading to amusing if baffling performances that sounded nothing like the song that was actually in the charts. Adding to a growing games console market and the very rich splashing out on satellite television, it genuinely did seem like the singles chart was becoming something of an irrelevance, particularly with the vinyl record selling in less and less numbers.

By 1994, the compact disc - and the cassette single - were gaining in popularity over the still disappearing vinyl. Bands and faces were reappearing thanks to the emerging Britpop scene. Sales were slowly rising back to a level not seen since the 1980s, but you still had a chart mostly filled with so-called "faceless" dance music. Hence the presence of novelty singles like this - acts you wouldn't normally consider would ever release a song all suddenly being hunted down by managers in order to try and tempt some casual buyers to stick a few singles in their shopping basket. Footballers. WWF wrestlers. The Thunderbirds. Super Mario. Mr Blobby. And, here, the biggest supermodel on the planet has a go.

To be honest, this could have been a lot worse. But I'm slightly taken aback by how well this is done, a sort of new-agey midtempo track in an Enigma/Deep Forest way that was briefly all the rage earlier in the year. And Naomi, while not given much, doesn't sound that bad either given they've made the sensible descision to keep everything in a tight vocal range with no abnormally high or low notes. It's average but pleasantly so, though #40 was as high as this got and the album this came from (featuring tracks such as T Rex's 'Ride A White Swan' and Zoe's 'Sunshine on a Rainy Day') only #75, after which Naomi stuck with her supermodelling.

39: Robert Palmer - Know By Now

And if you don't know the name, you'll know his really huge 80s hit 'Addicted to Love', especially if you watched TV adverts a lot from around 1994 to 2000 as a Halls Throat Soothers advert set in a lift used the track for years. Know By Now was the biggest hit from the album 'Honey', the last to be a success. It's a nice listen but god this is outdated for 1994, it's massively rooted in the late 80s and not the best move if you want to prove yourself as a credible popstar for the 90s. Forgetting that and imagining it's still 1987, it's a pleasant bit of midtempo easy listening.

Sadly Robert died in 2003, aged a far too young 54.

38: Aswad - Warriors

As mentioned earlier, Aswad seemed to stick in the mind of younger me and it was almost certainly because of their comeback Summer '94 hit 'Shine' which fitted in perfectly with the pop-reggae scene that was huge around this time. Unfortunately for them the novelty wore off quickly and this follow-up only got as high as #33. Shame as it's another bit of fun, summer pop-reggae but maybe September was a bit too late to release it as by now everyone was returning to work. The CD single's worth a listen for the brilliant 'Jungle Warrior' mix, transforming the song into a breakbeat-heavy genre of dance we'll see a bit more of later.

37: Jam & Spoon feat. Plavka - Find Me (Odyssey To Anyoona)

A fantastic bit of early chillout trance which was a major #1 hit in Finland of all places, along with a #6 peak in Italy. It did well to get as high as #22 here, sounds very ahead of its time and could have easily come out as late as the early noughties if you stuck a stronger beat over it. Sadly no longer around as 'Spoon', aka Mark Spoon, died in 2006.

36: Blondie - Atomic (Diddy Remix)

The 1980 classic with a bom-diddi-bom Eurodance beat plonked over the top and all sorts of other unnecessary nonsense over it, drowning out Debbie's finest vocal hour in drumbeats and whizzy synths and coming across as somewhat insulting. A good remix could have been made of it but my god this isn't it, please just stick to the original.

35: D:Ream - Blame It On Me

Now seemingly just remembered as both a New Labour reminder and That Band Brian Cox Used To Be In, D:Ream really were given a lot of attention at the time as being - gasp! - dance music with faces instead of samples and DJs, Peter Cunnah and co adorning the pages of Smash Hits magazine in absence of much else. Everyone remembers Things Can Only Get Better, follow-up 'U R The Best Thing' is perhaps even better, this is one of the more obscure ones and goes for a midtempo ballad theme.

It's nothing special, maybe good for the occasional chilled listen.

34: Stiltskin - Footsteps

Ask anyone to name #1 acts of the 90s and these guys might be lumped in with Partners in Kryme, Olive and The Tamperer feat. Maya as the most obscure - 'Inside' was on a Levi's advert in the days when anything they used would be an instant huge worldwide hit, that one gaining extra hype as it was the first time they'd used a new song instead of digging up an old one. This is their second single, as with Inside it's another bit of average grunge-rock, a genre that never quite hit the heights here as it did in the UK. Unfortunately for them this was a case of being too late for a scene, Britpop was already starting up and #34 was as high as this got, casting them into one-hit wonder territory. It's not a genre I've ever enjoyed (except for the obvious 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' love) and while there's some good bits here it mostly bores me.

33: Orbital - Are We Here?

The original for this is over fifteen minutes long, but lucky a video edit exists. Like Jam & Spoon earlier it's rather ahead of its time as this is a very early bit of top 40 drum & bass, although they'd have probably called it rave or jungle at the time. Echoing, wispy vocals (from a young Alison Goldfrapp who'd go onto have much bigger success) and a strong synth lead throughout means this ends up being a rather captivating listen, although sneaking a quick peek at the full fifteen-minute mix it's simply a teaser for a much more multi-layered, complex piece.

32: Livin' Joy - Dreamer

Yep, already! A minor hit in late 1994 ended up being one of the biggest dance hits of 1995. While adored by many - and I'm normally a sucker for this sort of upbeat dance music - I wouldn't quite give this one the acclaim it usually gets, nicely above average but there was a hell of a lot of better dance music released around this time that I think deserved #1 more.

I've always also been a bit confused by two very similar mixes of this, one apparently the original '94 mix and the other remixed in '95 - the difference is in the middle, where one slows down for the second verse and the other carries the beat going. Search 'dreamer livin joy' on Youtube and the first two results of this (one a video, the other audio) are the two different mixes and I think I prefer the one that slows down in the middle.

31: Roxette - Fireworks

I keep forgetting just how big Roxette were for a few years in the early 90s as all they seem to play today is (the admittedly brilliant) It Must Have Been Love. Unfortunately 1994 was when they suffered an alarming dip in popularity, perhaps because as with Robert Palmer this sort of late 80s pop-rock just wasn't the cool sound anymore - despite getting top 10 hits the year before and not doing too badly with 'Sleeping In My Car' at the start of '94. This is ok, and Per Gessle's weird rap voice is always amusing to listen to, but low top 40 is probably about right.

30 to 21 coming soon!

This post has been edited by BillyH: 21st September 2014, 06:24 PM