Printable version of thread

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd June 2015, 09:43 PM

Hello Pop-pickers.

Welcome to the Dance Chart Number Ones of the 1990s.

Doctor Blind and myself will be hosting a chronological run-down of all the singles that would have reached number 1 if only dance singles had been available to purchase in the 1990s. There are around 170 of these.
Of course, many dance singles did reach number 1 in that decade and we will see if their run at the top could have been extended if there were no competition from other genres.

There will be disputes about what constitutes dance, as ever, and our parameters are not exactly the same as those that the very estimable Gezza used in his Top 100 Best Selling Dance Singles of The 90s thread from last year. In fact, some of our decisions were based on the discussion in that thread.

It is a sort of revisionist look at a golden decade for dance music and we hope that you will enjoy reliving some triumphs, righting some unfortunate wrongs and resurrecting some forgotten gems. Perhaps you will find songs you like that you've never even heard of.
Like any chart there will be some "non-number" ones that merely managed a week as the best selling dance song because there was bugger all else selling at the time. We can all grumble at these together .

So, which acts will get their well deserved spell on the top of the pile, when in reality they were thwarted by some humongous selling OST rock ballad? Who peaked at number 2 repeatedly and here get their chance to shine? (No spoilers please - even if this is obvious to many). The moral victories are all imagined here in this thread.

Will rave or euro-dance prevail? How many trance songs will make the grade? What about big-beat's major players? Discuss and predict at your leisure.

_____________________________________________________

Countdown commencing tomorrow evening, Tuesday 23th June, with the first batch of newly minted number ones from 1990.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 22nd June 2015, 09:44 PM

This will be fun.

Posted by: Rush 22nd June 2015, 09:49 PM

Will be following closely

Posted by: Dobbo 22nd June 2015, 09:49 PM

Ooh unsurprisingly I'm looking forward to this & following its run through

There;s one particular track right at the end of the decade which is undoubtedly deserving of its place here.

Posted by: Chez Wombat 22nd June 2015, 09:50 PM

Well, this sounds wonderful *.*

Posted by: dandystar 22nd June 2015, 09:52 PM

Fabulous. Although you know I approve anyway... looking forward to reliving some memories here.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd June 2015, 10:01 PM

I hope we can meet all your expectations.

Posted by: 'Dan 22nd June 2015, 10:05 PM

OH MY *GOD*

I imagine this list will look seriously amazing and make me wish dance was in fact the only genre to exist. So many big tunes back then, looking forward to this!

I'd love a 00s version of this too, maybe I could do one

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd June 2015, 10:18 PM

I have already started thinking about a 00s one. Certainly 2000/2001 would be quality stuff.

Posted by: AcerBen 22nd June 2015, 10:23 PM

Sounds good

Posted by: Gezza 22nd June 2015, 10:24 PM

Hurrah- my mantle can be passed on finally!

No decade did dance quite like the 90s IMHO though I'm sure this will generate many a debate. Still, a massive undertaking so I commend you sirs!

Posted by: Ethan 22nd June 2015, 10:27 PM

*____*

omg much excite

this run down kills~

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 06:58 AM

Disclaimer - Neither Doctor Blind not myself can be held responsible for the deaths of any Buzzjack members.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 05:48 PM

Rob 'n' Raz featuring Leila K - Got To Get



Date 6th Jan 1990
1 Week
Official Chart Run 57-32-14-13-14-11-11-8-8-10-18-28-47-68*
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Rob n Raz were a Swedish production duo that had been dj-ing and performing primarily turntablism and scratching for most of the 80s. In the late 80s they started making their own music, hiring vocalists to help out. They discovered Leila K in a music competition and they offered to work with her.

Got To Get Was their first release together and was a hit all over Europe in 1989 going Top 5 in several countries but strangely doing better in other countries than in their homeland, Sweden. As was common, it didn't become a hit in the UK until later where it peaked at the turn of the decade becoming the biggest selling dance single in the Christmas chart and in the New Year's chart.

Rob n Raz would never trouble the Top 40 again, only reaching number 41 with the follow up single Rok The Nation (also with Leila K). She would have one further hit in 1992 with Carousel.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 06:12 PM

49ers - Touch Me



Date 13th Jan 1990
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 42-36-27-23-6-3-4-5-6-12-18-30-51*
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

In 1989 the short-lived Italian house scene went mainstream peaking with the hugely successful and influential Ride on Time from Black Box. There weren't many other huge chart singles from the genre but there were plenty of club hits.

The 49ers who were four DJ-s and a vocalist, had technically the second biggest hit of the genre with Touch Me. Touche Me was released as their third single in late 1989 and features the distinctive vocal talents of one Aretha Franklin and also a sample of Alisha Warren's Touch Me for the chorus hook.

They had one further Top 20 hit with Don't You Love me and a few more minor Top 40 hits through out the first half of the 90s but early success was never repeated.

Posted by: Jester 23rd June 2015, 06:13 PM

Ooh great!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 23rd June 2015, 06:17 PM

Gianfranco Bortolotti is probably the most famous of the 49ers. He went on to form Cappella (more on them later! )

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 06:18 PM

Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K - Get Up (Before the Night is Over)



Date 3rd Feb 1990
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 3-2-2-3-4-9-15-26-45-69*
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Technotronic, of course, hit big in 1989 with Pump Up the Jam ending the year as the second biggest selling dance hit behind, you guessed it, Black Box's ride On Time, the song which kept Pump Up the Jam at #2 for two weeks.

The band were a Belgian DJ Jo Bogaert and vocalist Ya Kid K who would feature on not all but many of the track released under the Technotronic name. The formula wasn't broken so they didn't fix it and Get Up (Before the Night is Over) is more of same, except just less iconic. It would replicate it's predecessor's feat of spending two weeks at #2 behind one of the years biggest singles – Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U. It would not, however, repeat Pump Up the Jam's substantial sales.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 06:19 PM

Cappella actually existed before the 49ers. They had a hit with Helyom Halib in 1989.


I thought I had read that somewhere but when I was writing up that entry I couldn't seem to find a reference too easily (perhaps I'm too lazy )

Posted by: Doctor Blind 23rd June 2015, 06:28 PM

Oh I didn't realise that, I only know them for their brief 1993/1994 success in the UK!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 06:46 PM

More later

Posted by: 'Dan 23rd June 2015, 06:52 PM

'Get Up' is quite good but does sound like an inferior 'Pump Up The Jam'. Now that was a tune, definitely sounds very early 90s so they were clearly ahead of the times releasing that in 1989.

Unfamiliar with 'Got To Get' / 'Touch Me', they're not bad I guess but I imagine they'll be amongst the lower end of my rankings of this list.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 07:27 PM

Got to Get is strikingly similar to Neneh Cherry's early style, something that has only occured to me 25 years later

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 08:19 PM

Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me



Date 24th Feb 1990
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 15-3-2-1-1-1-1-5-10-20-24-32-60
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Here we come to the first song that was a number one in the parallel world we call reality. When the Housemartins split in the late 80s, no one guessed that any of the former members would go on to be an ever changing figure in 90s dance music. But that is what happened and a certain Norman Cook made his first waves on the dance scene by forming Beats International with rapper MC Wildski.
They were joined by Lindy Layton on vocals, Lester Noel, DJ Baptiste and keyboardist Andy Boucher on the bands first proper single - a cover of SOS Band's Just Be Good To Me - reportedly Layton's idea. They matched it with the bassline from The Clash's Guns of Brixton and a haunting piece of harmonica from a film score and voila - a number 1 single.

It was reported afterwards that they hadn't cleared the Clash sample and ended up paying three times the royalties that they earned from the track. You'd think they would have learned from Black Box's much publicised controversy with Loletta Holloway 6 months earlier.

Dub Be Good To Me was an official number 1 for four weeks in March 1990 but gains an extra weeks at the top in this rundown.

They had a Top 10 hit with the follow up Won't Talk About It and a few minor hits in the following years. Layton
had some minor solo success when the bands split and, of course, Norman Cook went on to bigger and (arguably) better things with Freak
Power, The Mighty Dub Katz, Pizzaman and most famously Fatboy Slim.

Posted by: Dobbo 23rd June 2015, 08:25 PM

Love that version

Posted by: Jester 23rd June 2015, 08:29 PM

Tank Fly Boss Walk Jam Nitty Gritty!

Posted by: SITCHUAISHAAAN 23rd June 2015, 08:33 PM

Fatboy Slim (kinda) has connections to this all-time classic? Wow. Music industry is like a village sometimes.

Posted by: Jester 23rd June 2015, 08:34 PM

Not just 'kinda' as he was a part of the band.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 08:35 PM

Snap! - The Power



Date 31st March 1990
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 12-1-1-2-3-4-7-10-13-17-30-37-47-71-62
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Here we have the most consistently successful dance band in the first half of 1990s. No other dance act registered more weeks in the Top 10 (42) during the whole decade than Snap! and they achieved this all before 1994 had finished - their final time to grace the Top 10 was in mid November of that year.

One other band were close behind (with 41 weeks) - more of that later.

They started all this by releasing The Power in early 1990 which, at the time, registered one of the highest jumps to number 1 in chart history (excluding singles that charted on import). It climbed from its entry position of 12 the week before.

It boasted immediate hooks, not least of which were the hard edged synth riff, the title vocal and a soulful almost hypnotic vocal phrasing. Like much dance music at the time it was mostly sampled from other lesser known songs - in this case from Jocelyn Brown, Chill Rob G and Chaka Khan.

It stay at the top for two weeks in the official chart but gains 3 weeks in this rundown.

We'll be hearing much more from the band later.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 08:38 PM

He formed the band and produced the track too.

Posted by: 'Dan 23rd June 2015, 08:43 PM

'The Power' is a bomb

I imagine 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' will spend a very long time at #1 here considering it was officially #1 for 6 weeks and spent 13 weeks in the top 10.

Posted by: Dobbo 23rd June 2015, 08:44 PM

The Power is of course great but Rhythm Is A Dancer is one of the all time greats of Dance

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd June 2015, 08:50 PM

We'll see

Posted by: Jester 23rd June 2015, 08:50 PM

My fave Snap songs are Welcome To Tomorrow and The First The Last Eternity. Not that Rhythm Is A Dancer isn't a classic, but I love the tracks with Summer.

Posted by: Ethan 23rd June 2015, 10:48 PM

'dub be good to me' and 'the power' are IKONIK early 90's anthems~

not so familiar with the others ~ but sounding good on spinning

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th June 2015, 05:09 PM

We continue then, with a bit of a 1990s classic:

Adamski - Killer



Date 5th May 1990
6 Weeks
Official Chart Run 45-39-20-7-4-1-1-1-1-2-4-11-16-20-18-26-36-60 (18 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

“Killer” does not take its title from any of the lyrics here, but was included in Seal’s version (#8 in November 1991) which includes the opener: “It's the loneliness that's the killer”. The title equally well describes the thumping bassline provided by Tinley (Adamski) which announces the track and provides its centrepiece. At the time, the DJ was just a face hidden behind harsh electronic synths and the star was invariably the singer on the record - in this case the very distinctive vocals/lyrics of an unknown 27 year-old Seal - who however was left uncredited by Adam Tinley, and of course much was made of this when the record became massive. The single has quite rightly become a 1990s dance classic, and remains relatively un-dated save for the piano break, a testament to the excellent production and play between the tense electronic beats and Seal’s stunning vocals. It struck a chord with the British public and went on to spend an entire month at the top of the singles chart.

Neither artist really managed to scale these heights again with Tinley managing 1 further Top 10 hit (the woeful “The Space Jungle” - #7 in September 1990) before disappearing into obscurity and ambient techno. Seal however fared better with some success into the mid-1990s including two big Top 5 hits in 1991 and 1995 (“Crazy”, a #2 and “Kiss From A Rose”) and then returning to the Top 10 with the help of another dance music producer a further one time in the 21st Century (with Jakatta to #6 in 2002: “My Vision”).

Fun fact: The dog on the artwork ('Dis') is Adam's.

Posted by: Gezza 24th June 2015, 05:23 PM

Sorry now I'm the one picking something apart so apologies in advance- Seal and Tinley wrote it together with Seal adding the line the quote the following year for his solo version.

They met, so the story went, when Adamski saw Seal working in a McDonalds at the time (though I'm not sure if that was made up as a publicity thing).

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th June 2015, 05:31 PM

No problem at all, thanks Gezza. I blame AntoineTTe, he was supposed to be fact checking.

*Corrected*

Posted by: Griff 24th June 2015, 05:34 PM

Who can listen to The Power now unless they actually like those B&Q adverts.

Posted by: Gezza 24th June 2015, 05:38 PM

No problem- I've made enough mistakes myself over the years!

Looking through my reference books I think the reason that Seal went uncredited is that Adamski had had a previous hit "N-R-G" (No 12) and so was thought to be the selling point.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th June 2015, 05:38 PM

I have a very selective relationship with facts.

Posted by: Griff 24th June 2015, 05:39 PM

I don't know how Cher's Believe would be defined here. I see it very much as a dance song, but I might be opening a can of worms by saying that.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th June 2015, 05:41 PM

To quote Chanandler Bong - "can open. worms everywhere"

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th June 2015, 05:43 PM

An obvious classic and highlight of 1990. I liked it at the time but grew to love it in the later years. I purchased the 12" in Oxfam a few years ago.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th June 2015, 06:03 PM

Chad Jackson - Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)



Date 16th June 1990
1 Week
Official Chart Run 12-3-3-7-10-14-24-35-52-73 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Sampling was popularised in the 1980s and grew out of the emerging hip-hop scene. The most used sample being the so-called ‘Amen break’ (a 6-second drum solo performed in 1969 by Gregory Cylvester "G. C." Coleman in the song "Amen, Brother”), which was used extensively within the scene but later became used by DJs and sped-up to form the basis of early Jungle music, and what we now know as Drum and Bass. Public Enemy were one of the groups that epitomised hip-hop in the late 1980s, and it is their #18 hit from January 1990 “Welcome To The Terrordrome”, from which the title sample is taken. Other recognisable samples here include “The 900 Number” (the distinctive sax) by The 45 King and The O'Jays classic “For the Love of Money”.

This single does sound very much of its time, and perhaps came a little late to capitalise on an already heavily saturated sampling market, which ‘peaked’ in 1989 with the awful Jive Bunny trilogy of number 1 singles. Needless to say it had been done much better 3 years earlier with M/A/R/R/S’s excellent hip-hop/house sampling classic “Pump Up The Volume” and thus Chad Jackson was never to be seen again on the UK singles chart.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th June 2015, 06:43 PM

Snap! - Ooops Up



Date 23rd June 1990
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 13-6-5-5-10-9-11-15-22-31-49-71 (12 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Snap! were the creation of German producers Michael Muenzing and Luca Anzilotti, and they were incredibly prolific during the early 1990s, racking up an impressive tally of 4 Top 10 hits in 1990 alone - however this instant success came at a price and the group were to undergo some big changes before burning out just 5 years later. “Ooops Up” followed soon after their debut, and once again featured Penny Ford on lead vocals and Turbo B rapping over a classic old-skool house beat. The single was based on the lyrics and melody of the Gap Band’s 1980 UK hit “Oops Upside Your Head” (#6), a band which Penny provided backing vocals to, though it has none of the uniqueness that made “The Power” such an instant hit and thus it couldn’t quite match its success… however “Ooops..” did climb to #1 on the 12” vinyl chart and secured a couple of weeks inside the Top 5 on the overall singles chart.

Tensions at this time were already growing between Turbo B and Penny (Penny was extremely angered by his actions - choking the manager of a gay club during an AIDS benefit gig at for not telling him that he was in a gay club - and it was soon to cause a split in the group).

Lyrically Turbo B is rapping about his experience of Murphy's Law, with the classic couplet “She's as soft as a bubble bath, I'm as hard as Chinese math” and Penny ends the track by singing an ad-libbed version of the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme, adding “What’s in the bowl, bitch?”. I kid you not.

Fun fact: The reason for the lyric “Somebody say Opala” is because Opala is Oops in German.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th June 2015, 06:56 PM

I think I'm more of a fan of Oops Up than The Power. Its sales weren't too shabby if remember correctly. It just had the misfortune of being stuck behind four of the biggest sellers of the year - Elton's Sacrifice, Pavaroti's Nessun Dorma, New Order's World in Motion and Roxette's It Must Have Been Love.

It was the highest selling number 5 of the year, outsold all but one of the number 4s and even outsold two of the chart toppers - Kylie's Tears on my Pillow and something forgettable from NKOTB.

Posted by: Broken Heart 25th June 2015, 08:59 AM

-

Posted by: richie 25th June 2015, 09:27 AM

Just spotted this thread - so rare to find one where I like every single song posted so far. That will change around 1993 I should think but some great tunes so far.

Gianfranco Bortolotti really was a man of many monikers. My favourite is 1992's Mig29 by Mig29 which failed to reach the top 40 but was a giant club hit.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th June 2015, 03:28 PM

I must check that out. I liked Capella - Take Me Away and Move On Baby were my favourites.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th June 2015, 08:11 PM

It may change right about now!

Calling International Rescue! Standby for action! Anything could happen in the next 30 minutes.. like some novelty remix of a TV show making the UK Top 10!

FAB ft. MC Parker - Thunderbirds Are Go



Date 14th July 1990
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 12-7-5-6-12-25-42-63 (8 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Summer 1990: novelty records are taking over the upper reaches of the UK singles chart. The week that this house remix of the theme tune to 1960s cult classic Thunderbirds climbed to 5, the highest new entry just 1 place above at #4 was “Turtle Power” by Partners In Kryme (taken from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film). The track is a cleverly edited remix of clips from the original series interspersed with a thumping house beat, and some other Anderson theme tunes such as Stingray and Captain Scarlet thrown in for good measure. They even use the infamous “Yeah! Woo!” James Brown drum break sample, taken originally from Lyn Collins 1972 recording of “Think (About It)” which he co-produced, and has since been used in numerous hip-hop and dance/pop tracks in the 80s, 90s and beyond. It's a bit repetitive and suffers massively from the production and piano-loop which dates the record badly but at least it's not Busted.

“Thunderbirds Are Go” is famously the first track to ever be played on BBC Radio 5 by Bruno Brookes (later re-titled 5 Live), as the station launched in August 1990 with a radio adaptation of the original Gerry Anderson series, and it seemed to stem a resurgence in interest in the puppet acted Sci-Fi series that eventually led to the entire series being re-broadcast on BBC 2 in 1991. F.A.B. are a bit of a mystery (the pseudonym taken from the famous phrase used in Thunderbirds to mean ‘message understood’) but are listed as a production trio led by Gary Schofield. Subsequent success and interest from the public remained a mystery to them however with subsequent remixes of “The Prisoner” and “Stingray” peaking at only #56 and #66 respectively later in 1990.

MC Parker had no further chart success, but is rumoured to still be playing some pretty tasty sets in Ibiza.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th June 2015, 08:43 PM

Much better than Busted! I've just listened to this on a really rubbish music system and it sounds good!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th June 2015, 09:22 PM

DNA ft. Suzanne Vega - Tom’s Diner



Date 4th August 1990
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 13-3-2-2-2-5-15-25-39-57 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Perhaps one of the very earliest example of the Bristol/Somerset trip-hop (downbeat) sound that was to dominate the early-to-mid-1990s, Bath’s Nick Batt and Neal Slateford made a name for themselves as DNA in August 1990 when they remixed “Tom’s Diner”, an a cappella track on Suzanne Vega’s 1984 album Fast Folk Musical Magazine (and subsequently a #57 hit single in 1987). Though they did this without Vega’s permission, she enjoyed the remix so much that she decided not to file legal proceedings. The track has a very simple premise and recounts in the first person someone stopping at a diner for a cup of coffee - the diner in question is in fact Tom’s Restaurant (on the corner of Broadway and 112th Street) in New York City. The production from Nick and Neal recalls a little of Soul II Soul’s 1989 #1 hit “Back To Life” and provides a catchy dance beat which contrasts really well with Suzanne’s softly spoken and laid-back vocals.

After the huge success of “Tom’s Diner”, DNA had very limited success with their only return to the Top 20 being 18 months later in February 1992 when their re-working of Sharon Redd’s 1981 hit “Can You Handle It” briefly made it to #17, although they continued as a duo until the late 1990s. Soon after DNA disbanded, Nick Batt went on in the 2000s to work extensively with Goldfrapp on Felt Mountain, Black Cherry, and Supernature and also received an Ivor Novello Award for co-writing "Strict Machine" from Black Cherry. Suzanne Vega returned to the Top 40 only once more, at the basement position of 40 7 years later in 1997 with “No Cheap Thrill”.

Fun fact: This was the world's first tune ever to be coded into MP3 format.

Concurrent with “Tom’s Diner” peaking at No. 2, the absolutely amazing “LFO” by LFO was peaking at No. 12 in the UK singles chart - unfortunately not eligible for this countdown but well worth checking out if you like 1990s dance.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th June 2015, 09:31 PM

I was utterly obsessed with Tom's Diner and was delighted that it featured on Now 18, which is one of the best Now's there has been, in my opinion. Especially side 1, cassette 1.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 25th June 2015, 09:31 PM

Never knew about the Goldfrapp and mp3 tidbits. Can't wait to see this classic tune return to the top 40 once the Giorgio Moroder/Britney version is released.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th June 2015, 09:34 PM

I didn't know she's did it.


Eugh, I'm listening to it now - more Robo-Britney?

Posted by: richie 26th June 2015, 07:55 AM

Ha ha, nope I'm still loving everything - I bought the FAB record and the follow up too which was a version of The Prisoner featuring "MC Number 6". Pretty sure that didn't reach number one and won't feature on this thread so here it is for anyone curious...

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th June 2015, 05:57 PM

One entry this evening. Classic track, critically acclaimed. Predictions welcome.

Posted by: Ethan 26th June 2015, 06:13 PM

Deee-Lite

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th June 2015, 07:15 PM

“What Time Is Love” by the KLF? *Wishful thinking*

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th June 2015, 07:41 PM

Deee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart



Date 2nd Sept 1990
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 60-32-13-4-2-2-3-8-11-17-28-46-67 (13 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.



It is indeed, Dee-lite. And the ascendency to (unofficial) number 1 is warranted here more than most because, as I'm sure most of you already know, the chart compilers at the time had the rule that if two or more songs tied at number 1, the single that had climbed the most places was the official number 1 and so it was to be that Groove is in the Heart had to settle for second place to the privilege of a 17 year old track (which shall remain nameless) released to cash in on Levi's ad exposure, as it had climbed fewer places.

Less about that and more about this. Groove is in the Heart was at the time and still is now, a peculiar confection. Unutterably kitch, and hence unutterably cool. As the esteemed Dr Blind has already said, in 1990 dance music was still in the throws of sample-overload and even this most exotic piece was no different.

In this case, opening the whole thing with the impossibly funky bassline from Herbie Hancock's Bring Down the Birds. There were also some hipper-thou-names involved. One Bootsy Collins from Parliment-Funkadelic and A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip.

The single topped a few end of year singles polls - NME deemed it better than Primal Scream's Loaded, Happy Monday's Step On, Charlatans' The Only One I Know, The La's There She Goes and (gasp) Pet Shop Boys Behaviour.
Looking at the video now, one can't help thinking of Austin Powers. The influence on Scissor Sisters could also be argued for.

Alas another of the year's and indeed the decade's most original creations was deprived a spell at the top, even in this chart and that was What Time Is Love? by the KLF which was the number 2 dance single around this time.

Their time would come, though.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th June 2015, 08:08 PM

Love “Groove Is In The Heart” - it just never seems to age (well, apart form the 1970s video!) but I particularly love Bootsy Collins' baseline. ICONIC.

Posted by: SITCHUAISHAAAN 26th June 2015, 09:44 PM

OMG I always kept thinking 'Groove is in the Heart' is a minor yet classic hit from late 90s. Definitely was above its age.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th June 2015, 09:48 PM

Major hit!

Posted by: 'Dan 26th June 2015, 09:53 PM

Groove Is In The Heart is a tune! such an injustice that 'The Joker' had to block it from #1 and with so few sales between them (isn't the 'they tied' story a chart myth? or did that actually happen? )

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th June 2015, 10:09 PM

Not a myth. Gezza will confirm, I suspect.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th June 2015, 10:15 PM

The week of the 'tie' “The Joker” was judged to have sold 44,118 and “Groove is In The Heart” 44,110.

Of course these were only approximate figures as back in 1990 the chart compilers could only monitor several hundred or so shops.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th June 2015, 10:27 PM

So there was a margin within which they would apply the rule?

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th June 2015, 10:42 PM

Nope - there was never a tie. I think the tie was deliberately blown out of proportion in the media by WEA (label) to give a sense of injustice (they referred to the published panel sales: which were 2,595 for both (rounded)).

Indeed this helped for a time because “Groove is In The Heart” was #1 in the midweeks the following week, but again lost out to “The Joker” by the end of the week as it was genuinely increasing in sales faster.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 27th June 2015, 02:09 AM

There was never a tie? My whole life is a lie!!

I don't know what to believe any more

Posted by: Borza 28th June 2015, 01:52 PM

Just a correction Leila K had two further solo top 75 hits, one of which "Open sesame" got to UK no23 and was a huge hit around Europe. Her other was a over of "Ca plane pour moi" both charted in 1993.

This is a great list, but I am disappointed Adventures of Stevie V "Dirty cash" is not on it.

Posted by: Gezza 28th June 2015, 01:59 PM

here's the "Full" story for the Dee-lite Vs Steve Miller Band debate!

http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=126884&view=findpost&p=3538555

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th June 2015, 05:33 PM

You're correct. I don't even know how I mixed that up. Carousel was her album.

Dirty Cash will get a mention at some point in the thread.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th June 2015, 05:39 PM

Thanks for that, Gezza.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th June 2015, 07:59 PM

Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood Project - I Can't Stand It



Date 30th Sept 1990
1 Week
Official Chart Run 28-11-7-7-7-11-17-27-39-69->10(13 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Twenty 4 Seven were created by producer Ruud van Rijen in 1989 and were part of emerging eurodance scene using the template of female singer/male rapper. I Can't Stand It started out a lot slower as a hip-hop track with raps by MC Fixx It and Captain Hollywood, becoming a minor hit in the Netherlands with the chorus vocals done by Ruud himself, on vocoder.

A second version was recoded which was more up-beat, littered with over-used samples - this was a bigger hit in the Netherlands.

After interest being shown by German record companies it was re-recorded once more in 1990. A totally reworked version was created bringing in singer Nancy Colen on vocals. This was a slightly more serene version and this is the version that became a hit all over Europe.

It featured house piano much more heavily and a prominent use of a sample of Kraftwerk's The Robots which went uncredited.

It sneaks a week in as the best selling dance single during a bit of downtime for dance music in late 1990.

They would have one follow up hit in the UK with Are You Dreaming? at Christmas that year. Further hits were had on the continent while Captain Hollywood left in 1992 to pursue his own band's success with the Captain Hollywood Project which also proved more popular in mainland Europe compared to he UK where he had a huge hit with the Rhythm is a Dancer-sound-alike More and More - his sole hit in the UK.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 29th June 2015, 08:27 PM

I Can't Stand It has a nice little groove to it.

We shouldn't be too far from the ravey #1's by this point.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th June 2015, 08:38 PM

We're still a few months away from them.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th June 2015, 10:46 AM

This week will be rather sparse due to commitments. Next post tomorrow.

Posted by: richie 30th June 2015, 11:17 AM

I think the bassline was sampled from Herbie Hancock's Bring Down the Birds, but it might have been recreated. Bootsy just does vocals on the meeting of the minds mix I think. Iconic either way.

Posted by: richie 30th June 2015, 11:21 AM

The mix of Twenty Four Seven's "I Can't Stand It" that was released in the UK was the Bruce Forrest mix (the one in the embedded video). The original version which had been a hit in Europe previously was considered too weak for the harder, UK dance market...and they were right - the original is really, really twee.

I had a bit of a thing for Nancy Coolen back then if I remember...

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th June 2015, 12:21 PM

The actual original is hard to find. The twee one was called the hip-house mix. The original was even more hip-hop, according to Eurodance Encyclopedia. http://www.eurokdj.com/

Posted by: fiesta 30th June 2015, 02:04 PM

More & More by Captain Hollywood Project was always much better than I Cant Stand it

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th June 2015, 03:20 PM

Much better but I think it was released too late. Eurodance was starting to wane by the end of 1993. I still think it should have been bigger than it was.

Posted by: AcerBen 30th June 2015, 06:51 PM

Don't know about that.. there were plenty of big Eurodance hits in 1994 as well. It just kinda slipped through the net I think. La Bouche's Be My Lover is a good example of one that was released too late for the UK I think, in July 1995.

It's funny actually how generally speaking, Eurodance hits were either top 10 or bombed altogether or weren't released at all. Not many just went top 30 like those two.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th June 2015, 06:52 PM

Yeah - that is the big one that was left too late. I suppose you are correct about 1994. Maybe More and More didn't get the exposure or perhaps people just didn't like it.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th June 2015, 06:55 PM

That is true.

Posted by: richie 1st July 2015, 08:02 AM

No way!!!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st July 2015, 05:09 PM

why on earth not? I

Posted by: dandystar 1st July 2015, 07:21 PM

I always liked 'Only With You' by Captain Hollywood Project, it was easily my favourite single of theirs.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st July 2015, 07:59 PM

Technotronic - Megamix



Date 7th Oct 1990
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 12-6-6-9-12-21-37-63(8 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Money for old rope? It wouldn't be dance music, otherwise.

There were megamixes before this but in 1990 with dance music now ultra-mainstream and dance bands hanging around long enough to have more than 3 hits to their name the megamix matured.
The three biggest dance bands of the era (Snap! and Black Box being the other two) all brought out summaries of their slim back catalogue after having merely 4 hits to pick from within 6 months of each other.

Technotronic were first out of the traps in Oct 1990 with a mix of their hits. The similarity in their songs lend them to being mixed - in fact This Beat is Technotronic re-uses the synth riff of Pump Up the Jam. The other tracks involved are Get Up (Before the Night is Over) and their previous entry Rockin' Over the Beat.

They scattered a few new samples over the four tracks but it's barely done at a perfunctory level.

This would be the final time they graced the Top 10 - although they would come close with Move That Body reaching #12 in 1991.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 1st July 2015, 08:21 PM

Megamixes were certainly the rage in the '90s [after the SAW/dance mixes of '60s songs trend in the late '80s], as also evident by the Boney M and Grease Megamixes in the early '90s too.

Good Technotronic mix.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 1st July 2015, 08:25 PM

Ugh. I hate megamixes. So uninspired (see: Jive Bunny)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st July 2015, 08:29 PM

I've made a full length mix of all the Prodigy singles - it lasts over 45 mins.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 1st July 2015, 08:32 PM

That sounds quite interesting actually. Most aren't and like Technotronic are a shameless cash-in in the absense of any original thoughts/ideas.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st July 2015, 08:44 PM

It's not that interesting. I just overlapped the songs where they fitted.

Posted by: richie 2nd July 2015, 07:47 AM

Didn't Bass-o-matic get to number one with Fascinating Rhythm then? There's a bit of a surprise.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 08:37 AM

It peaked below Groove is in the Heart. So it's not number 1 in this chart nor officially.

Posted by: richie 2nd July 2015, 10:42 AM

Aha, I've just re-read the rules. Gotcha! At least I know 3am Eternal will definitely be featured now

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 12:33 PM

What did you think the rules were?

Posted by: richie 2nd July 2015, 01:20 PM

I didn't read the intro (lazy) and thought these were archived charts from another source.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 02:36 PM

Like the official dance chart number 1s?

Posted by: richie 2nd July 2015, 03:10 PM

Yes, or some kind of DJ-influenced chart. Anyway, no worries

(You may have noticed I've hi-jacked the idea for indie singles - hope that's ok!)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 03:14 PM

No, I didn't notice but I was thinking of doing the same

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 09:12 PM

Black Box - Fantasy



Date 4th Nov 1990
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 21-9-5-6-6-10-20-33-35-39-56 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


And here they are - the band that has been mentioned three times already in this rundown without actually featuring.

Most of us know the story of how this all started. Dance music was far from authentic or ethical but Black Box took the biscuit a bit more than most - expecting the public to believe that those vocals came out of the slight frame of model Katrin Quinol. That pretence on top of uncleared sample wrangles with Loleatta Holloway made them seem like tricksters of Milli Vanilli proportions. But who cared when the could produce magic like Ride On Time?

They were cheeky enough to use all the bits of Holloway's Love Sensation that they didn't use in Ride On Time for their follow up single I Don't Know Anybody Else.
The formula was wheeled out for a third single Everybody Everybody but chart positions started to disappoint.

Neither of those managed to top our countdown but that all changes now with Fantasy. A slight change in direction and drop in tempo, Fantasy catapults them back to the upper reaches of the chart to become the best selling dance single for 5 weeks.

This was a direct cover of an Earth, Wind and Fire song which was a hit in 1978 - but Black Box being Black Box it wouldn't be as simple as that. The vocals were again not done by Katrina, though she still fronted the band. An uncredited Martha Wash was drafted in to sing this after she had done so for the previous two singles.

Side note - Martha seriously needs some sort of award for all these hits!

They were savvy enough to try something different and the song came across less hysterically than their out-put to this point. After their all-time classic debut this is their second best seller.

They wouldn't trouble the Top 10 after this final hit. The Top 20 would meet them twice more with The Total Mix - a megamix of their first three italo-house numbers, and Strike It Up which was a return to their uptemo sound.

They were one of the few Euro-dance bands to make any headway in the USA - Martha's voice working its magic.

Posted by: Griff 2nd July 2015, 10:05 PM

Did Dirty Cash get stuck behind Killer?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd July 2015, 10:06 PM

That would be telling. There will be a re-cap of each year when each one finishes. Dirty Cash will feature.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 2nd July 2015, 10:39 PM

Fantasy is surprisingly very pop - very akin to Lambada or La Isla Bonita. The other Black Box singles from that album were better.

Posted by: richie 3rd July 2015, 08:07 AM

Oops, sorry...feel free to add commentary to the thread!

Posted by: richie 3rd July 2015, 08:08 AM

I really loved the Black Box version of 'Fantasy'. It seemed a strange release at the time and I didn't know it was a cover.

Posted by: BillyH 3rd July 2015, 10:51 AM

More and More got held back way too long over here, it would have been huge had it came out late 1992/early 1993 (like it did around Europe) but didn't get released in the UK until the following November by which time it already sounded a bit old in terms of what was being released by then. #23 isn't too bad though.

Eurodance was definitely a major chart force well into the mid-90s.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd July 2015, 11:45 AM

I think by 1994 all the ideas were getting old.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd July 2015, 04:38 PM

one last number 1 for 1990, later.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd July 2015, 07:20 PM

Snap! - Mary had a Little Boy



Date 9th Dec 1990
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 24-12-8-8-9-9-17-30-43-71(8 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


And back again. The fourth single from their album World Power and their third number 1 in this rundown, Mary had a Little Boy was somewhat of a Christmas single in title only. Subject matter: romantic pursuit, not miracle birth in a shed. December wasn't exactly a fruitful time for dance music sales and so we have to dip our toe outside the top 10 again to find our best seller, for a week at last.

Minimum sampling this time, merely the well used Hotpants drums. Formula of female singer/male rapper still very much to the fore but the formula, or at least the production needed changing if they were to make a longer term prospect of this and do what their peers - Black Box and Technotronic - could not. Much more of that later.

And as we finish of 1990 with the three biggest dance bands of the era we look forward to seeing what 1991 would say about that. Quite a lot, actually.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd July 2015, 07:47 PM

1990 at a glance......

06-01-1990 Rob 'n' Raz featuring Leila K - Got To Get (1 Week)
13-01-1990 49ers - Touch Me (3 Weeks)
03-02-1990 Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K - Get Up (Before the Night is Over) (3 Weeks)
24-02-1990 Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me (5 Weeks)
31-03-1990 Snap! - The Power (5 weeks)
05-05-1990 Adamski - Killer (6 Weeks)
16-06-1990 Chad Jackson - Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked) (1 Week)
23-06-1990 Snap! - Ooops Up (3 Weeks)
14-07-1990 FAB ft. MC Parker - Thunderbirds Are Go (3 Weeks)
04-08-1990 DNA ft. Suzanne Vega - Tom’s Diner (5 Weeks)
02-09-1990 Deee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart/What is Love? (4 Weeks)
30-09-1990 Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood Project - I Can't Stand It (1 Week)
07-10-1990 Technotronic - Megamix (4 Weeks)
04-11-1990 Black Box - Fantasy (5 Weeks)
09-12-1990 Snap! - Mary had a Little Boy (5 Weeks)

Top 10 Sellers

01 Adamski - Killer (1)
02 Beats International - Dub Be Good to Me (1)
03 Snap! - The Power (1)
04 Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K - Get Up! (Before the Night Is Over) (1)
05 The Adventures of Stevie - Dirty Cash (Money Talks) (2 - held back by Adamski)
06 Deee-Lite - Groove Is in the Heart/What Is Love? (1)
07 Blue Pearl - Naked in the Rain (2 - held back by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega)
08 DNA featuring Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (1)
09 Snap! - Ooops Up (1)
10 Chad Jackson - Hear the Drummer (Get Wicked) (1)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 4th July 2015, 09:35 PM

Starting 1991 soon. The year that rave hit the charts. Dance gets a little harder.

Posted by: brokenrecords 5th July 2015, 03:02 AM

Dub Be Good To Me, Tom's Diner & Groove Is In The Heart <3 real pity the latter two never got to #1 however.

Strange seeing acts like Technotronic and Black Box score so many follow-up hits (for lack of better wording, as in post-Ride On Time or Pump Up The Jam)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 06:58 AM

How do you mean strange?

Posted by: Doctor Blind 5th July 2015, 03:54 PM

C+C Music Factory ft. Freedom Williams - Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)



Date 19th January 1991
1 Week
Official Chart Run 40-31-29-25-10-3-5-10-14-19-29-49 (12 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Image became increasingly important in the preceding decade with the advent of music television in 1981, and so it was a surprise that the first major controversy took until late 1990 to unravel. That was of course the Milli Vanilli debacle in late 1990 which blew-up after an MTV performance, where whilst miming to “Girl You Know It's True” the backing track preceded to skip several times - cue outrage and Milli Vanilli being stripped of their Grammy. The flurry of lawsuits that followed included that of Martha Wash who sings on “Gonna Make You Sweat” but was not credited and was even replaced in the video by the more photogenic 19-year-old singer/model Zelma Davis (a then member of the band), who lip-synched her iconic lead vocals.

Martha Wash was already an established singer with a eclectic and successful past which included vocal contributions for Sylvester (1978’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, the 1980’s disco-duo Two Tons O' Fun and 1983 1-hit-wonder’s The Weather Girls. David Cole and Robert Clivillés were the American production duo known popularly in the early 1990s as the C+C Music Factory, and managed two very big hits in 1991. Following quickly from the European house trend, the American movement was also exploding at the time and “Gonna Make You Sweat…” was the first commercial push from the scene in the US. “Sweat…” incorporated dance, house, and hip-hop beats and utilised the rapping talent of 24-year-old Freedom Williams from Brookyln, New York to punctuate Wash’s insanely catchy vocal hook. It was a massive hit, went to #1 in America and jumped to 3 in the UK following the post-Christmas lull.

After suing the duo for $500,000 in 1990, Wash made her peace with C+C Music Factory and went on to record with them for 1994’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky” and eventually went on to have a huge club hit in 1996’s “Keep On Jumpin’” with Jocelyn Brown and Todd Terry which reached #8 on the UK singles chart. We’ll be hearing more from C+C Music Factory later…

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 05:33 PM

I didn't really like it at the time but I grew to like it years later. I always thought it would really work mashed up with Sexyback. The riffs are similar.

Posted by: dandystar 5th July 2015, 05:46 PM

I used to love Clivilles and Cole, both with and without their music factory.

'A Deeper Love', 'Just a Touch Of Love' (as used in Sister Act ), 'Because Of Love' and 'Gonna Make You Sweat' were probably their highlights.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 05:53 PM

I did like A Deeper Love a lot.

Posted by: paulgilb 5th July 2015, 08:22 PM

Had no idea Martha Wash sang on Gonna Make You Sweat.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 5th July 2015, 08:56 PM

The KLF ft. The Children Of The Revolution - 3A.M. Eternal (Live At The S.S.L.)



Date 26th January 1991
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 5-2-1-1-2-3-7-11-27-40-72 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

1991 starts with a bang with something completely different. Here is the first appearance for a group that need little or no introduction, the legendary collaboration between Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty aka The KLF, also known as the JAMs (The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu), and many, many more... I won't hide the fact that I am a massive fan and even have a couple of their (relatively rare) singles from 1990-1992 including the absolutely brilliant “It’s Grim Up North”. There is far too much history to go through in this commentary, but given the huge success the group achieved in the early 1990s (a 100% consecutive run of six Top 10 singles in under 2 years) there will be several other appearances in this list to enable more detail to be covered.

In 1990, the KLF launched a series of singles later dubbed the ‘Stadium House Quintet’, which essentially took their original pure trance recordings for The White Room and simply added clever elements that they had diagnosed were the ingredients needed to make hit singles. They knew exactly what to do, after all they wrote a book ‘The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)’ after smashing to #1 in 1988 as the Timelords (“Doctorin’ The Tardis”).

This enhancement included a beefed up pop production, samples of crowd noise to give a stadium live recording feel, a contemporary rap (in this instance a slightly absurd one from British rapper Ricardo Da Force), a vocal hook (provided on “3 A.M.” by Wanda Dee) and sing-a-long chant of ‘Ancients of Mu Mu’. The track starts with a sample taken from Radio Freedom - the radio propaganda arm of the African National Congress during the anti-Apartheid struggle - the gunshots of which were removed at the time due to the start of the Gulf War. The title “3 A.M.” seems to answer the question posed by their first single, 1990’s “What Time Is Love?” and refers to the early morning post-clubbing disorientation, this symbolised in the tracks artwork of the blurred car circling Parliament Square in the dead of night. Whilst “3 A.M.” is not the best of the groups work, it represented a massive shift change in the chart toppers of 1991 (previously Enigma and Queen) and sounded very futuristic - heralding what was to by the end of the year turn into a commercial takeover by rave and other underground dance music on the UK singles chart.

A lot more to say on the KLF later, including how this song ENDED their career.

Fun fact: When Anthea Turner introduced this single on 31st January as the #1 she called the group ‘ The KLM’.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 09:33 PM

You have It's Grim Up North!


I need that and I know it's available online but I refuse to purchase online because the buzz is not the same as finding it in a shop.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 09:36 PM

I can never decide when my favourite time is for dance. I did enjoy 1988 a lot but 1991/1992 is so amazing too. Then there's the trance explosion of 1999.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 5th July 2015, 09:39 PM

Yes, but on CD single not on vinyl sadly. It has the 10-minute version that mentions the M62 on it !!




1991/1992 must've been amazing, yeah. I also really enjoyed 1995 for dance music.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 09:43 PM

Must have been?

I was a teenager in 1991/1992 and followed the charts religiously

Posted by: dandystar 5th July 2015, 09:47 PM

91/92 was a great time for the charts I think, there was just so much variety around.

The Enigma/Queen/KLF run of #1s you mention is a good example... especially when followed by The Simpsons and The Clash whilst being preceded by Iron Maiden, Cliff Richard and Vanilla Ice!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th July 2015, 09:55 PM

That's one of my favourite triplets of number 1s.

Posted by: richie 6th July 2015, 11:09 AM

I think I've got the full house of KLF singles - the top 10 hits anyway. Are they rare now?

This rundown is beginning to look a lot like my record collection from back then.

Really informative run-downs too, well done.

(I think I might ditch my indie run down due to a lack of response - could just post up the full list )

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 11:37 AM

I think you'll get more responses by the time you get to 1994

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 11:38 AM

Dr B's info is more extensive than mine.

Posted by: richie 6th July 2015, 12:02 PM

Not sure I'll get there! Besides, the ones that interest me are all from before then.

Posted by: dandystar 6th July 2015, 12:10 PM

Feel free to just post the full list if you're not in the mood for a long slog through the decade Richie but don't get too downhearted yet - there's only been 3 songs announced so far, not that much for people to comment on yet!

- or maybe try the alt forum for it instead?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 12:18 PM

It's a long slog on your own and to get little feed back takes the fun out of it.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 6th July 2015, 12:30 PM

Love 3AM Eternal and Gonna Make You Sweat, despite how overplayed it is in America.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 12:45 PM

I always feel I should like 3AM Eternal more that I actually do. It's not even one of those songs that when you listen to it it's better than you remember. I'd just enjoy What Time is Love? and Last Train a lot more.

Posted by: richie 6th July 2015, 12:47 PM

I think I will post up the full list - it was an interesting exercise. If anyone then wanted to take the list and do a full countdown I'd happily delete mine and be a serial commenter on the new thread!

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 6th July 2015, 12:55 PM

The first version of What Time Is Love is definitely better than the America mix! Last Train is great too.

Hope we see a few Shamen singles in this rundown too.

Posted by: richie 6th July 2015, 01:23 PM

Guaranteed to see one about a certain Mr Goode!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 02:22 PM

There may be others too

Posted by: Doctor Blind 6th July 2015, 07:29 PM

Nomad ft. MC Mikee Freedom - (I Wanna Give You) Devotion



Date 23rd February 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 14-4-3-2-3-5-10-18-27-43 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

The first single to bring the spirit and vibe of rave warehouse culture to the mainstream was arguably Nomad’s “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion”, the debut (and most successful) single by British house production duo Nomad. Damon (Nomad backwards) Rocheford and legendary record producer Steve Mac used the lyrics and vocal hook from Ten City's 1987 club hit “Devotion” and incorporated cheering crowd noise to replicate the 'rave scene feel' and ultimately create an uplifting commercial house track which has since become a bit of a 90’s dance anthem.

“..Devotion” acts as a good historical place-marker, with its vocal hook taken straight out of the Chicago house sound - Ten City were a big part of the nascent scene there in the mid to late 80s - but with its additional influences of stadium house and hip-hop/rap (in this instance provided by Bristol DJ and MC, Mikee Freedom) firmly suggesting this was a product of the now thriving underground British dance music scene in ’91. The artwork shares the ethos of rave culture with its warm open embrace and love hearts, and MC Mikee’s incredibly fast paced rap even throwing in a line about Thatcher being slaughtered, a not-so-subtle retaliation to her government’s callous ‘war on acid house’ in the early 1990s.

The track stalled at 2 behind Bart Simpson (“Do The Bartman”), part of another growing phenomenon at the time, The Simpsons, although this limited by its restricted broadcast on Sky satellite TV until the late 1990s) and after returning to the Top 20 briefly (#16) 3 months later with “Just A Groove”, Nomad never troubled the Top 40 again. Steve went on to become a massive record producer for Westlife, Il Divo, One Direction, The Saturdays to name but four. Both Damon and Sharon left the music business with Damon becoming an accomplished writer, working on Birds Of A Feather in the 1990s and since writing for Coronation Street and Sharon an actor, most famously in Holby City.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th July 2015, 07:40 PM

I didn't like it at the time. Love it now. I have it on 12".

Posted by: Ethan 6th July 2015, 08:08 PM

takin' it down M I K EE ~~

Posted by: brokenrecords 7th July 2015, 04:27 AM

Well, I wasn't there at the time, but considering that Black Box is so widely reknowned for "Ride On Time", it's weird to see so many consecutive hits under their name. I'm guessing that there was large demand in their sound at the time or they just had quite a large fanbase?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 7th July 2015, 06:07 AM

It happens with a lot of bands and acts that that they are remembered for just one huge song. It's the same for Yazz, 2 Unlimited, Culture Beat, Haddaway, The Shamen, D:Ream. They all had several hits after their big one.

To answer your question - it was demand for their sound rather than a large fan base,

Posted by: richie 7th July 2015, 07:40 AM

Was about to test that theory and ask if anyone could tell me the name of Nomad's follow up to "Devotion" but I see it's mentioned in the commentary! I think I'm one of the only people who actually bought "Just a Groove" - it was a very different record and Mikee wasn't on it, he'd been slaughtered.

'Devotion' still sounds really good today though. I tried to mash it up with The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" once and it really worked in parts but just couldn't get a structure together.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 7th July 2015, 01:39 PM

Love Devotion.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 7th July 2015, 06:10 PM

The Source ft. Candi Staton - You Got The Love



Date 9th March 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 32-22-12-8-4-4-5-9-12-23-46 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Candi Staton is a soul and gospel singer, best known at the time for her disco anthem “Young Hearts Run Free” which reached #2 on the UK singles chart in balmy summer of 1976. Little was known about 1986 devotional Christian single “You Got The Love” which sounded rather outdated in production and actually failed to chart in the UK and stumbled to a measly #88 on the US R&B chart. The song has a clear Christian message where Staton talks of sometimes feeling like throwing up her hands up in the air (meaning both in exasperation and in prayer) and giving up on God, only to discover that he’s ‘got the love’ that she needs to see her through any situation - however even if you aren’t a devout Christian the message of hope is a relatable one.

In 1989, popular London club DJ Eren took the a capella vocals from the 1986 original of “You Got The Love” and remixed them with the melody and bassline from the late great Frankie Knuckles’ “Your Love” - the track was a re-dubbed slightly less raw version of American House producer Jamie Principle’s original ’84 hit “Your Love” which was written for his girlfriend. Knuckles worked extensively with Principle and loved the track so much that it ended up being put out on vinyl by Knuckles in this re-dubbed version in 1989 - however it only became a Top 40 hit 25 years later in April 2014 (#29) after the sad passing of Frankie Knuckles. This version was a big white label and club hit played out most weekends during the turn of the decade, until in 1991 sense was seen and permission given to release the track in the UK where it became an instant hit and climbed to as high as #4 in March.

The end result is a fantastic chilled out classic that builds and builds from the opening sparse synths, to the incoming deep bassline and heavenly vocals.. chopping and changing and building further over the track, until the epic breakdown and vocal manipulation at the end really makes the track a masterpiece. No version since has come close, and Florence’s version (with the awful re-title “You’ve Got The Love”) just leaves me cold in comparison. It has reached the Top 10 a total of five times however over its various versions - this still remains by far the best.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 7th July 2015, 07:14 PM

Isn't it the only song that has appeared on the main series of Now albums three times?

Again, another song that I grew love in the passing years. On my list to get on vinyl.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 7th July 2015, 07:49 PM

It's probably one of the few dance songs to go top 10 at least twice ala Set You Free, I Feel Love, You Spin Me Right Round, etc...

Still love it under any release. Florence's version is good, but not nearly as good. And let's forget about that Dizzee Rascal mashup.

Posted by: richie 8th July 2015, 08:58 AM

Amen, it's the only version (save for the Candi original) that should exist. The "Clubbed to Death" version that came out in the late 90s just had the wrong feel altogether and the less said about that abysmal Florence version the better.

What a great run of number ones though!

Posted by: brokenrecords 8th July 2015, 10:49 AM

Ah, thanks for the reply! Really enjoying the thread also

Posted by: fiesta 8th July 2015, 12:17 PM

You Got The love one of the few singles to make the top 10 on three separate occasions in the same version. Off hand I can only think of You Sexy Thing to have also have done it too.

Posted by: richie 8th July 2015, 12:39 PM

Nah, the 1997 version is totally different to the 1991 one. They should be listed separately. Not sure which version re-entered the top 10 in 2006, probably the rubbish one.

Posted by: 'Dan 8th July 2015, 01:08 PM

All of them are different

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5a22_75rWE [The Source original]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgojwuPjypU [Now Voyager edit]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duUk5ui6-wo [New Voyager edit]

Posted by: AntoineTTe 8th July 2015, 04:47 PM

I dont think the standard drops until a certain track in 1992 arrives.

Posted by: richie 9th July 2015, 07:40 AM

Dunno, Oceanic's "Insanity" can't be too far away!

Posted by: BillyH 9th July 2015, 10:30 AM

I'm rare in preferring the 1997 mix! I think simply because it's the version I first heard and fell in love with it, it's the one that supports the vocal the best I think. The originial to me lacks something, the 2006 mix was a weird pointless watered-down version of the '97 one and Florence's annoys me.

Posted by: richie 9th July 2015, 10:59 AM

It's like the question "Who is your favourite Doctor Who?"

It's always the one you grew up with.

Funnily enough that question is just a statement for many people...Who is your favourite Doctor. Who.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 9th July 2015, 12:30 PM

Care to guess how many weeks Insanity spends at number 1?

Posted by: fiesta 9th July 2015, 12:33 PM

I was meaning the song rather than the mix.

Posted by: Campbell 9th July 2015, 01:01 PM

I think You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by the Righteous Brothers also did it. Robin S came close with different versions of Show Me Love peaking at 6, 9 and 11. Can't think of any others though.

Posted by: richie 10th July 2015, 07:57 AM

Just cheated and looked - eek! Not particularly keen on what knocked it off either!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 10th July 2015, 12:15 PM

Quartz introducing Dina Carroll - It’s Too Late



Date 23rd March 1991
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 73-57-44-42-40-21-9-8-8-8-16-17-38-55 (14 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Quartz (who took their name from the Technics Quartz turntable) were a production duo consisting of Ronnie Herel and Dave Rawlings. The group had some minor chart success at end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s, but in '91 effectively launched the solo career of Dina Carroll with this downtempo dance cover of Carole King's 1971 hit “It’s Too Late”. I say launched because the artwork credited the track as 'introducing.. Dina Carroll' and Dina, a talented soul singer born in Suffolk but with African-American roots, had been signed up to a number of dance record labels and was certainly no stranger to the scene providing vocals for hip-hop tracks like Masquerade's 1985 hit “One Nation” to downtempo house on 1989 single “Walk On By” which peaked at a lowly #95.

After a slow start the track, which uses a memorable bell chime sample that was created by Mark Summers (of “Melt Your Body” fame), leapt to 21 on the singles chart. An appearance by the 23 year-old Dina on Top of the Pops that week then propelled the single into the Top 10 where it remained for a month despite not peaking any higher than 8. Dina's vocals are the real winner here and lift what could have been a pretty standard dance cover to something a lot more memorable. The group invited Dina back on next single “Naked Love (Just Say You Want Me)” however than went no further than #39 in July.

Dina Carroll went on to have a successful solo career with 3 Top 10 hits including the inescapable “Don't Be A Stranger”, Quartz disbanded in '92 and Herel was up until a few years ago working as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 Xtra.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 10th July 2015, 06:28 PM

Love that cover. When I heard it first I didn't know it was a cover. It made number 1 in my personal chart for 2 weeks. I found Dina to be a bit hit and miss. I liked her voice but her material wasn't that amazing. I did love Don't Be a Stranger but I killed it off from overplaying.

A great run of number 1s in 1991 - the best set of 5 so far.

Posted by: fiesta 12th July 2015, 10:40 AM

Express used to be my fave from Dina Carroll, but Its Too Late is a good one too

Posted by: AntoineTTe 12th July 2015, 09:45 PM

N-Joi - Anthem



Date 7th Apr 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 19-8-9-12-17-31-43-66 (8 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


N-Joi were from the somewhat fertile dance hotbed of Essex. The were basically Nigel Champion and Mark Franklin who started making music in early 1990. One of their early creations was Anthem which consists of a hypnotic electronic arpeggio, some well matched samples and a huge piano chord presence. To front this creation and to provide live vocals when they performed the song they hired one Samantha Marie Sprackling who some of you will know better as Saffron from Republica.
The vocals she provided were thankfully a lot more soulful in Anthem than Republica's more petulant sounding material.

Anthem has since become an acknowledged classic house track. But like some classics it had to re-released before it became a hit. First released in 1990 it made number 45 in the UK but after the follow up EP Adrenalin hit number 23 in March 1991 it was time to re-promote Anthem again.
Second time around the market was ready for it's charms and the record wasted little time vaulting into the Top 10 where it spent 2 weeks as the best selling dance single.

It has to be said that Anthem is N-Joi's most human and accessible track. Much of their other work - including the Adrenalin EP and follow up to Anthem - Live in Manchester Parts 1 and 2 was more aggressively pioneering. This live set would bring them to the Top 20 in 1992 when The Prodigy and Altern-8 had made this sound more chartable.

They had some minor hits after this and continued to reach the US Dance chart Top 10 as late as 1996.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2015, 10:01 PM

I think Saffron was used to lip-synch in the video but the vocals are all sampled as follows:

I'm In Love With You, Want You To Love Me Too is taken from Gwen Guthrie's “Peanut Butter”
Feel The Melody That's In The Air, Oh Yeah from Soul II Soul's excellent “Back To Life (Acapella)”
and True Love Can Be Hard To Find from Darlene Davis “I Found Love”.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 12th July 2015, 10:07 PM

Does that cover all the vocals? I listened to those three on Whosampled.com, briefly and figured she must have done some vocals too. Plus she's credited on the Anthem page and her own page on Wikipedia for vocal contributions.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 12th July 2015, 10:10 PM

Sounds like she could have done them

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2015, 10:16 PM

Yes, she sang it live - but all the vocals on the single are sampled- hence the lack of credit.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 12th July 2015, 10:19 PM

Cool

I made a slight edit to the entry to reflect this - in case anyone is wondering why the discussion doesn't match the text above.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2015, 10:26 PM

I'm not a massive fan of “Anthem” (or piano house in general, except for Bizarre Inc.) - but I think that's just my bias about boastful titles speaking mainly.

Saffron also appears in the video for Chesney Hawkes' “The One And Only” which spent 5 weeks at No. 1 whilst this was charting.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 12th July 2015, 10:30 PM

I am not a huge fan of Anthem either.

Posted by: richie 13th July 2015, 09:07 AM

Oh well, I'll show my support for Anthem - I still think it's brilliant. Also a huge fan of Adrenalin and Live in Manchester which are indeed very different.

Saffron was becoming pretty well known around this time, she was simultaneously appearing as Cheesy Hawkes' love interest in the video for "The One and Only" where she got pulled A-Ha style into the cinema screen while watching Buddy's Song (which is actually a pretty decent flick). It's pretty obvious she didn't sing the sampled vocals on Anthem though.

Was never bothered about Quartz, but I'd wouldn't have fast-forwarded it on a Deep Heat or "Hardcore" compilation though.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th July 2015, 08:32 PM

Gary Clail On-U Sound System - Human Nature



Date 21st Apr 1991
1 Week
Official Chart Run 25-14-12-11-10-15-21-38-54
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Gary Clail had been opening for several of the various dub and reggae bands on the On U Sound record label during the mid-80s in Bristol before he branched out and started making his own music. Having made a lot of contacts while supporting these touring bands he would work with one of them in particular, Tackhead, which consisted of four musicians Doug Wimbish, Keith Leblanc , Skip McDonald and Adrian Sherwood (who owned On U Sound and was a creative linchpin in many of it's signings) eventually forming Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System. Apparently, unwieldy names didn't seem to be a deterrent to these people.
Together they released a split album Tackhead Tape Time in 1987 to critical if not commercial success.

Taking steps away from the industrial hop-hop sound of Tackhead (thought they would be involved in its recording) Gary released his first solo LP End Of The Century Party influenced by the fertile Bristol electronic music scene which surrounded him.

Much of all this was far from commercial but that changed somewhat in 1991 with The Emotional Hooligan album, which had a cleaner more accomplished sound and featured slightly more dance oriented material. Human Nature was the lead single and the most dance sounding of all the tracks on the album which managed to bring the sound that The Shamen were emerging with to the Top 10 two months before they did.

As with most of his work it was a political song about man's deeds against his fellow man and inequality. A few other singles would be taken off the album but none of them would trouble the Top 40. A few other minor hits emerged in 1992 but nothing as accessible as the judgemental Human Nature which snatched a week as the best selling dance single in late April 1991.

Posted by: BillyH 14th July 2015, 08:51 PM

Underrated as hell!! Always loved that bizarre "WHY DO PEOPLE GET OFF ON BIGOTRY, INTOLERANCE AND RACIAL INTOLERANCE" line.

The usually reliable Everyhit.com has always made a mistake with this track by listing it as a 1994 release, which I believed for years despite how clearly earlier the track sounded.

Posted by: Zárate 14th July 2015, 08:55 PM

Never knew this track but it's amazing.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th July 2015, 09:01 PM

This is why we do these countdowns - so that people can find tracks that they haven't heard before that they like.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 14th July 2015, 09:25 PM

Anthem and Human Nature are great

Human Nature reminds me of this hit which would have been a dance #1 in a weaker week:

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th July 2015, 09:41 PM

Outsold by Oops Up! in July 1990.

Posted by: Ethan 14th July 2015, 09:57 PM

'You've Got The Love' and 'Anthem' ~ two fabulous dance anthems

Posted by: richie 15th July 2015, 07:45 AM

Human Nature was such a breath of fresh air. I think it had been a club hit for quite some time before it was a major release on Perfecto, certainly I knew the main riff as the theme music for Snub TV. I remember thinking "Wow, someone's made a dance record of the Snub riff" not realising it was pretty much the other way around.

Guest vocals were performed on the record by Alan 'Lana' Pillay.

1991 was a great year for great dance music. But, eeh, only a matter of time before Oceanic...

Posted by: AntoineTTe 15th July 2015, 07:56 AM

Thanks. I couldn't find a reference for the guest vocalist.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 15th July 2015, 08:58 PM

The KLF Featuring The Children Of The Revolution - Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)



Date 28th Apr 1991
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 3-2-2-4-7-9-18-38-56->9
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


The insane genius of the KLF roles on. Their domination of 1991 was furthered by the release of this track. They were the first British act to have two Top 10 tracks and the only act of any nationality in the whole year to have more than 2 Top 3 hits, or indeed more than 3 Top 10 hits when It's Grim Up North is included. This was the only time the debued in the Top 3.

Back to the song. Like the preceding singles, Last Train to Trancentral began life as one of their pure trance tracks (check it out at your nearest Youtube outlet). The pure trance version being a more serene take on their earlier track Go to Sleep.

Unlike the previous two singles, there were less prominent Ricardo Da Force rap verses. He was present but his role was much reduced. The ebullient originality was entirely obvious and if anything the band's vision was even more purely rendered than with either 3AM or What Time is Love?

Again they plundered Wanda Dee's To The Bone for samples. This time it was "Come on boy, do you wanna ride?" Which I thought, until today was "Come on aboard, do you wanna ride?".

The train references were piled up and vividly presented with sounds of horses and of steal wheels on the track. After a career highlight string-drenched middle eight, the track is brought to a climactic close with a terrifically exciting mix of chanting, synth riffing and regulation KLF samples.
They were getting very, very good at this stage and the music press were now falling over themselves to heap praise on them.

The video also showed their limitless creativity with an inexpensive aesthetic which created a world which was totally of itself. The Chart Show named it their video of 1991 at the end of the year.

The madness was not over by a long shot and we shall see more of them later.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 15th July 2015, 09:08 PM

Love Last Train...

it is played every home game at Exeter City FC when the players come out the tunnel!

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 15th July 2015, 09:14 PM

Last Train is perfect. Their music always went hand in hand with their videos.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 15th July 2015, 09:16 PM

It's my favourite KLF single. They got even better with It's Grim Up North. It's such an awful same The Black Room wasn't finished. They could have given the mid-90s dance giants a run for their money.

Posted by: richie 16th July 2015, 08:08 AM

Wasn't The Black Room going to be just thrash metal?

Anyway, while Last Train is the weakest of the stadium house trilogy, it's still pretty damn good. That middle eight riff certainly got used enough - I think it first cropped up in Chill Out and, because I had a tape copy of The White Room, I could never tell if it was being used as part of "Church of the KLF" or "Last Train" - since it sounded like a church organ, I always thought it was the former.

As for the Wanda Dee sample, I always thought she was saying "Come on King Boy D, wanna ride?" - King Boy D being Bill Drummond's JAMs alter ego - but it's one of those samples that always sounds like whatever phrase you're listening out for.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 16th July 2015, 11:05 AM

I didn't know about the thrash metal sound of The Black Room. That makes sense though. They were font of confounding and subverting expectations.

Posted by: richie 17th July 2015, 10:50 AM

There are some demos out there of their work with Extreme Noise Terror but it all came to nothing The White Room LP is a rare example of Drummond and Cauty actually completing something!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 17th July 2015, 11:52 AM

Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)



Date 19th May 1991
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 3-2-3-5-8-17-29-42-54-66 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


In a not uncommon way, Crystal Waters began her career in music writing for others. Or at least that was the plan.

She came from a musical family of high pedigree - her dad was a jazz musician and her great aunt a successful singer in Hollywood. She showed early promise in poetry and was accepted in to the American Poetry Society at 14 years old - the youngest ever inductee at that point.

She started writing with Basement Boys (future remixers of Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Erykah Badu among others) in Baltimore in 1987. In 1991 she was tasked with writing a song for emerging talent Ultra Naté. The song would be called Gypsy Woman.

Crystal recorded a demo for the song to present to the Basement Boys but they were so impressed by her own vocals that they suggested she release it and she signed a one single deal with them.

The song became a hit in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, hitting the top spot in 5 countries and opening up a whole career as a performer for Crystal.
She would primarily work in the dance market but continued to have minor hits throughout the 90s in the UK.

The song has a considerable legacy, musically, and has been sampled over 20 times - the introductory riff being sampled 9 of those times, most famously 2 Eivissa's Oh La La La in 1997.

The next time Crystal would have significant impact on the UK top 10 would be 2007 when her guest vocals on Alex Gaudino's 2003 track Destination Unknown were mashed up with Rune's brassy instrumental Calabria on the single Destination Calabria.

Posted by: richie 17th July 2015, 12:09 PM

La da dee...not bad, but I never liked it enough to buy it.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 17th July 2015, 12:17 PM

I didn't like it at all. I didn't like her voice and it sounded out of tune all the time and the chorus was irritating.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 17th July 2015, 01:46 PM

I still adore it. Prefer 100% Pure Love though, which should have been a bigger hit.

Posted by: paulgilb 18th July 2015, 11:04 AM

Crystal Waters' entry at #3 (with her first hit) equalled Vanilla Ice's record from the previous year for the highest debut for an artist's first hit (excluding the first chart, featured artists such as Billy Preston, and conglomerations such as Band Aid) until beaten by Gabrielle in 1993 and then by Whigfield in 1994.

Posted by: AcerBen 18th July 2015, 05:16 PM

KLF forever. I wish they'd release a remastered best of! It's been 23 years now...

Posted by: AntoineTTe 18th July 2015, 05:59 PM

That would be amazing. An ABBA Gold for dance music.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 18th July 2015, 07:21 PM

LaTour - People Are Still Having Sex



Date 16th June 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 45-24-15-15-20-34-51(7 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Summer 1991 was quite a sexy time. We'd had Color Me Badd hit number 1 with I Wanna Sex You Up. In August we had Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy and in September Salt N' Pepa's Let's Talk about Sex both hit number 2. Even Billy Bragg wanted to get in on the act with his song Sexuality.

LaTour joined this list with People are Still Having Sex. Although LaTour sounds like a typical female fronted Euro-dance band, he was actually American multi-genre artist Willam LaTour. His genres of choice are so varied that he almost sounds like an opportunistic, prank artist arriving in the slip-stream of the KLF - electronic, house, glam, rock, dance, punk, and parody.
His full time job was equally unexpected - keyboardist and "composer" for comedy punk band The Squids.

People are Still Having Sex took a faux-outraged outlook on the fact that humans are still getting it on despite the risks and warnings being issued regularly in the doom laden sexual landscape of the 1980s. In a dance music tradition stretching to Paul Hardcastle's 19 and back to New Order's Blue Monday the song is merely a detached monologue backed by a minimal, ominous dance track. The effect is not unlike what a Pet Shop Boys b-side on the subject might sound - complete with classical references to Bach's Toccata and Fugue.

After this, his only UK hit, he continued to work as a dance music producer, releasing a notable deep house track, Blue, in 1992 and had several hits on the US dance chart later in the decade. In parallel LaTour would remain in The Squids until 2005 when the band disintegrated.

It should be noted that this is the first of just four songs in this whole run-down which failed to manage any weeks in the official Top 10. Which, out of 170 songs, is quite an achievement.

Posted by: richie 20th July 2015, 11:01 AM

Ha, another one I bought on 7" - I always thought the original lyrics were a bit controversial

People are still having sex
Lust keeps on lurking
Nothing makes them stop
This AIDS thing's not working

Changed to "this safe thing's not working" for the release.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 20th July 2015, 11:14 AM

As if they invented AIDS to stop being from having sex? yeah - a bit sinister.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 20th July 2015, 05:51 PM

Incognito ft. Jocelyn Brown - Always There



Date 6th July 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 26-9-{6}-9-15-20-29-45-70 (9 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Chart history is somewhat littered with acts that seemingly have got nowhere for decades, and then suddenly out-of-nowhere are able to find the right song or moment and spring into life with a chance mainstream hit. Step forward Incognito, a British acid jazz collective formed in 1980 by Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick. Originally from Mauritius, 'Bluey' moved to London aged 10 and counts amongst his influences Santana, Earth Wind & Fire, Kool & The Gang and UK bands such as Gonzalez and FBI. Debut album Jazz Funk released in 1981 was an entirely instrumental record and featured the single “Parisienne Girl” (a minor No.73 UK hit in late 1980) but failed to chart, with consequently many of the band soon after departing. 'Bluey' continued writing and producing however, eventually teaming up with prolific dance music singer Jocelyn Brown in 1989 for their follow-up LP Inside Life which was eventually released in 1991.

“Always There” in its original form is a slow-funk jam that wouldn't sound out of place on Mark Ronson's latest album, with plenty of brass accompaniment and jazz and funk breaks. However, this was not the version that gave the group their first and only Top 10 hit; that came courtesy of David Morales, who had been on the ascendency for much of the previous decade and was much in demand for his legendary house remixes, working with huge artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, U2 to name but a few. The single version gives the track a much needed up-to-date House sound, and some life to accompany Brown's incredibly powerful vocals.

The track is a cover of Side Effect's 1976 US jazz-funk single “Always There”, and the song appeared once again in the Top 20 later in '91 as a sample of CharVoni's 1989 version of the song as remixed by Brothers In Rhythm.

Incognito have been extremely prolific since, regularly tour worldwide with a solid following, and their 16th album Amplified Soul recently hit No.96 on the UK album chart in 2014.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 20th July 2015, 07:01 PM

That song passed me by at the time. I like it a lot now.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 20th July 2015, 07:47 PM

Ha-ha, LaTour. Wonder if that got much daytime airplay.

Always There is still a very good track.

Posted by: Zárate 20th July 2015, 08:06 PM

I wonder what is the lowest peak for a dance number one?

Not a fan of any newer revealed songs I fear.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 20th July 2015, 08:08 PM

I know


What is your favourite era/style Zárate?

Posted by: richie 21st July 2015, 07:50 AM

I picked up Always There on 12" for about 25p in the bargain bin after it had been and gone from the charts. Great wee tune.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st July 2015, 08:47 AM

Jeeze, Richie. You must have most of these on record

Posted by: fiesta 21st July 2015, 10:34 AM

There's the Divinyl's I touch myself to add the list of 'sex'' related song in the charts in the summer of 1991.

Always there is a good track. Incognito also did a decent version of stevie wonders Don't you worry about a thing

Posted by: richie 21st July 2015, 02:03 PM

High selling dance music was my bag when I was in my early teens!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st July 2015, 03:48 PM

I was into all this stuff but I think 1992 was my year for dance but 1991 wasn't far behind.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 21st July 2015, 09:40 PM

C + C Music Factory ft. Freedom Williams - Things That Make You Go Hmmm…



Date 20th July 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 33-18-7-{4}-5-8-12-16-27-36-60 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

As Bryan Adams bedded in at the top of the singles chart with what would become the longest consecutive run at #1 ever (16 weeks), the Top 10 beneath remained as turbulent and as exciting as it had been all year. Inspired by the catchphrase used by Arsenio in popular 1990s late-night talk show The Arsenio Hall Show “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” gave the duo’s album Gonna Make You Sweat a much needed boost to #8 on the UK albums chart, though it was to be the duo's final visit to the UK Top 10.

Returning with their second big hit of ’91, Clivillés and Cole once again enlisted the feel-good rapping of Freedom Williams to front the record, however having thoroughly upset Martha Wash (see: 19th January 1991) frequent C + C vocalist Deborah Cooper stood in to provide vocals on the track. Whilst “Sweat..” worked really well in the clubs, was made for the dance-floor and had a similar sound to the European house of Black Box and Snap!, “Hmmm…” was just a little bit too poppy and ridiculous and therefore more suited to radio play (albeit it was still played in clubs). It's the funky bassline and killer hook that both starts and repeats throughout the song that immediately catches you, the verses incorporate a number of romantic situations where amongst others - the protagonist finds his newborn baby looking suspiciously like his best friend - situations that.. well, make you go hmmm... The factory would continue to have hits in the UK (with 2 under the name Clivillés and Cole - “A Deeper Love” with vocals from Deborah Cooper and a U2 cover of “Pride (In The Name Of Love) - both peaking at #15), though never would achieve the same level of success, and Cole would sadly pass on in January 1995 aged just 32.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st July 2015, 09:50 PM

I forgot about David Cole passing on in 1995.

Things that Make You Go Hmmm...was always my favourite of theirs.

Posted by: richie 22nd July 2015, 07:26 AM

I didn't realise Cole was no longer with us.

Amazingly, I didn't have "Hmm" on record - just a dodgy recording off the Top 40. I think by the summer of 1991 I was turning away fro pop and more towards indie and harder rave...certainly that's where I was by the end of the year.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd July 2015, 07:40 AM

I don't think I ever went off a genre.

Posted by: Zárate 22nd July 2015, 08:42 AM

From this topic? I'm pretty much enjoying the house vibes of early 90s, so currently this is my favourite period!

Posted by: Zárate 22nd July 2015, 08:50 AM

Oh, and I didn't think ANYONE in UK was called Arsenio!

Posted by: Gambo 22nd July 2015, 11:03 AM

Yes indeed, and like so many dance songs of this period and beyond that people no doubt thought were entirely creditable to the artist billed as having the hit, the most accomplished and recognisable element of the track was in fact a total rip-off - and, as it was the early '90s, a James Brown rip-off: check out 'I'm Shook' from his 1969 LP 'It's A Mother'. Carries the whole thing, and it's a shame more people weren't aware of the lack of originality of some dance acts at that time, whether or not they liked the end result or thought that the re-inventions of other people's work was an artform in itself. This track also contains numerous other samples, from obscure sources, interwoven so that it's pretty tough to establish which parts of it were created from scratch by C&C. But I guess to most clubbers musical pedigree or origin counts for very little.

This is a nostalgic thread though, and for all my critique about the recycling and repetition in dance by this time, I can't deny that I have a considerable number of these hits in my Top 40 singles selections somewhere... Keep up the no-doubt time and labour-intensive work on it. Only eight years or so to go..

Posted by: richie 22nd July 2015, 11:20 AM

Yeah, this style was rife throughout the early 90s. Check "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" by Definition of Sound too - it's practically all "Let it Out" by the Hombres...including the weird introduction!

I think it was in response to the success De La Soul had with "Three Feet High and Rising" which was a huge patchwork of old soul, rock and pop records mixed with light and breezy hip hop.

I suspect we'll hear more examples of this in the near future on this thread - PM Dawn up soon?

Posted by: Doctor Blind 22nd July 2015, 05:28 PM

Good spot - I have tried to reference the samples where they have been taken but completely overlooked that James Brown one! Sorry, hope you are enjoying the dance rundown though!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 22nd July 2015, 07:19 PM

The Shamen - Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)



Date 3rd August 1991
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 9-4-4-4-6-16-20-24-42-62 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

August 1991 is the month when dance music starts to properly explode on the UK singles chart, leading the first of three separate dance surges in the 1990s. The first begins then with Scottish group The Shamen achieving an instant Top 10 with “Move Any Mountain” (originally titled “Pro>Gen”), the Beatmasters 7” mix of their debut chart hit which reached #55 in April 1990. “Move Any Mountain” immediately climbed to #4 where it remained for 3 consecutive weeks and gave eclectic indie label One Little Indian their biggest hit to-date, though the success was bittersweet as only 3 months earlier when recording the video in the Canary Islands, bassist and keyboardist Will Sinnott tragically drowned whilst swimming off the coast of La Gomera. By the end of the month another iconic British chart rave act would score their debut Top 10 hit (more on that very soon) and there would be further chart debuts for unknown dance acts like Utah Saints - the momentum (like the tempo of the music) only picking up as we head towards the autumn of ’91.

There is a lot to talk about when reviewing The Shamen's career (and this will be covered as we move into 1992). They were, perhaps unfairly, discarded by their original fan base and seen as relics of a dying genre as their music lost its original depth and they pursued success at any cost in the UK whilst at the same time a general backlash, that had started to gain momentum in the middle of ’92, ensued as the chart became invaded by countless novelty acid house records that quickly wore thin. However, they were possibly one of the most diverse electronic bands around in the late 80s/early 90s providing an accessible pop edge to underground dance sounds like rave, trance and techno. The original guitar band line-up evolves in 1988 with politico bassist/keyboardist Will Sinnott arriving and the band moving to immerse themselves in the nascent London acid-house scene, with 1989s In Gorbachev We Trust marking the transition point... later in 1990 infamous cheeky frontman Richard West (‘Mr C’ - so named because he supports Chelsea) joins and gradually the group experimented with synthesizers and computerised rhythms, creating memorable and consistently great pop records that had mainstream appeal (thanks partly to the Beatmasters). This scored them 5 consecutive Top 10s, a 100% singles chart Top 10 success rate in 1992 that was matched by few other bands, let alone dance acts! We are far from done with The Shamen yet!

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 22nd July 2015, 07:44 PM

Move Any Mountain, a total 11 out of 10.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd July 2015, 10:51 PM

I have a strange relationship with the Shamen. My favourite Shamen song is the William Orbit mix of Hypereal. While I like Bossdrum and Phorever People Mr C's rapping always had a slight tinge of novelty about it and while I am not against my dance music having an element of fun, I felt that they never achieved the creativity of other dance bands.

Posted by: richie 23rd July 2015, 09:26 AM

Pro>Gen is blimmin' brilliant. Guess what? I had it on 7" too.

They were right to rename it Move Any Mountain on re-release. The name Pro>Gen is all very in keeping with their shamanic noodling I'm sure, but it's not easy to remember when you're looking in the record shop.

They never bettered it before or after but they really improved the top 10 in general over the next couple of years.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd July 2015, 11:08 AM

As I say, I prefer Hyperreal

Posted by: Doctor Blind 23rd July 2015, 06:45 PM

The Prodigy - Charly



Date 31st August 1991
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 9-4-3-3-6-9-18-31-53-70 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

“Charly” is one of, if not THE definitive rave anthems of early 1990s, becoming synonymous with the drug fueled British rave scene and firmly launched the Braintree lads into the mainstream when Mark Goodier announced it as a new entry straight in at #9 on 18th August 1991. It served as the introduction to a group that would dominate the British dance scene over the next 8 years, a group who adapted with ease to the fast moving dance music landscape throughout the entire 1990s, always remaining both relevant and exciting - they managed to navigate the fine line between artistic merit and mainstream visibility, with far more flair than most, if not all other dance groups.

The group, the brainchild of then 18 year-old Liam Howitt, was formed in 1990 when Liam met nominal frontman Keith Flint at a rave in the nearby club in Braintree called ‘The Barn’, and it was the rave scene from which the band, in its first forms, emerged into the UK singles chart later during the following year. The group were quickly snapped up by indie label XL at Christmas and although “Charly” was their first hit single, “What Evil Lurks” was the first actual release and went on to sell over 7,000 copies and made #31 on the UK dance chart - impressive for a virtually unknown band.

“Charly” was the first single from the band’s 1992 debut Experience, a unique and original blend of old-skool jungle, breakbeat and hardcore techno. The track itself was famously built around the sample taken from the 'Charley Says - Stranger Danger' public information films for children, broadcast in the 1970s and 1980s, however this novelty factor merely detracts from the excellent production on the track. Liam's hip-hop roots are clear with the use of the bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto’s white label “Radio Babylon” (also later used by Future Sound of London on 1992’s “Papua New Guinea”) the breakbeat from Bobby Byrd’s “Hot Pants” and opening vocal from James Brown’s “Godfather Runnin' the Joint”. In August 1992, the group were essentially blamed for ‘killing rave’ by Mixmag, in retaliation the band burned stacks of the magazine in the music video for “Fire”. Mixmag eventually apologised 10 years later…

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 23rd July 2015, 07:43 PM

Charly is still a fantastic track - and we're bound to see them multiple times in this thread.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd July 2015, 08:36 PM

Charlie only got better with time. The music in it is just fantastic. The beats are phenomenal. It's a 10/10 for me and it's only my 5th favourite Prodigy single.

Posted by: Ethan 23rd July 2015, 08:48 PM

'charly' ~ got to those alley cat vibez

Posted by: Gezza 23rd July 2015, 09:01 PM

If I recall correctly "Charly" was popularly thought to be "novelty- esque" when it was released and they were blamed for opening the floodgates to the plethora of kids tunes turned into rave anthems in the next few years (Urban Hype, Smart E's, Ambassadors Of Funk, Dr Spin etc). Their subsequent output of course proved they were more than that.

Posted by: dandystar 23rd July 2015, 09:15 PM

I still think Charly is kinda novelty, although I agree that the music is great so I kinda wish it didn't have the sample.

By the way guys, this thread is absolutely top notch - really enjoying the idea and write ups from both of you.

Posted by: Zárate 23rd July 2015, 09:40 PM

Not a fan of 'Charlie' but I imagine how phresh it sounded back in 1991!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd July 2015, 09:56 PM

I would also stand up for the quality of Smart Es and Urban Hype. Just because something is novelty doesn't mean there isn't technical ability put into it.

Posted by: BillyH 23rd July 2015, 11:52 PM

There's a great quote from a 1991 newsgroup, shortly after Charly was released, calling "The Prodigy" just another in a long line of faceless rave acts that'll be gone after one hit and never heard from again. If only they knew

This is the start of an astonishing few months for dance music, up there with mid-1996 and 1999-2000 as a golden age. The rave explosion lasting the rest of 1991 into early 1992 features some of the best, weirdest tracks of the decade, ones that seem absolutely astonishing how high they were able to chart - dunno if we'll see 'The Bouncer' by Kicks Like A Mule here, but it's easily one of the oddest and most leftfield songs to ever make the top 10!

For so many years I only knew The Prodigy as those dudes who sung Firestarter, I was amazed when I first heard their earlier stuff about a decade ago. Charly's awesome, their whole first two albums are - this must have sounded mindblowing in 1991 to anyone unfamiliar with rave listening to the chart! I think I'm right in saying that the Alley Cat 7" mix isn't actually available on CD, the only radio edit that isn't? Only the full-length mix is.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th July 2015, 06:44 AM

Yes - you're correct - it was only available on the 7” vinyl. http://cdn.discogs.com/09eHnIf5DJ87dGGgqY5m7kEj-3w=/fit-in/600x541/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-23896-1303652187.jpeg.jpg was the CD single track listing with only the full length mix, and the album had the Trip Into Drum and Bass Version. The Original mix was the one that BBC Radio 1 played, I have the chart on tape from when “Charly” was at No. 3 with Tommy Vance - and it sounded not only mind-blowing but totally different to the rest of the Top 10.

Posted by: richie 24th July 2015, 09:52 AM

Indeed - and guess who bought it on 7"?

Interesting fact about Charly is that it was the first record to feature vocals by Kenny Everett since 'Snot Rap' in 1983 (Kenny famously provided the voice of Charly the killjoy cat in the adverts)

I'd also agree that, stupid though they are, the Smart E's and Urban Hype hits had some aaardcore merit. Tetris (an Andrew Lloyd Webbr project!) and Super Marioland did not. It's wrong to blame The Prodigy for the death of rave - as it became more accessible, younger and sillier fans (like me) loved the stupid samples while the original ravers had already moved on to jungle and drum 'n' bass. Hardcore was always a little bit silly - so it didn't matter if it was a cartoon cat, the magic roundabout, a piss-take of MOR records like Marc Cohn or giant, blaring "hoover" synths (cf. Dominator by Human Resource) - you couldn't take it too seriously.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th July 2015, 10:48 AM

As usual, richie, you're talking sense. I especially agree that Tetris and Super Marioland were far from rave.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th July 2015, 04:45 PM

Oceanic - Insanity



Date 21st September 1991
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 21-11-8-5-4-3-3-3-5-7-8-14-21-41-58 (15 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

One of the few examples of a regional break-out hit, “Insanity” with David Harry on production duties, and its memorable chorus belted out by Jorinde Williams, was somewhat of a slow-burner. Initially breaking the clubs of Warrington and Oceanic's native Liverpool (at 123 BPM, forming an early predecessor of the 'Scouse House' movement popular in NW England and Glasgow in the early 90s), it began to be played in Manchester and was put out on Cheshire indie label Dead Dead Good records. The week that it debuted at joint-number 21 around 60% of its sales were from Lancashire alone - but the track soon spread to the south to become a national hit and slowly but surely climbed as high as #3 and spent over 2 months in the Top 10 - no mean feat in the fast chart turnover of ’91.

With its cheesy key change, stadium crowd sounds and thin tinny synths, the track was not to everyone's taste, however it did become a mainstream floor filler. What really started to scare the established record labels was how a group of unknowns with cheap equipment on a tight budget could in their bedroom knock-up a Top 3 hit with ease. “Insanity” finished as the 9th biggest single of 1991 in the UK, outselling #1s by Color Me Badd, the KLF ( ), and Michael Jackson.

Debut album inventively titled That Album By Oceanic was a year in the making and flopped to #49 - meanwhile “Insanity” threatened to overshadow their entire body of work and render them as one-hit-wonders, they had just two more Top 40 follow-up hits. These were “Wicked Love” (#25 in October ’91) and “Controlling Me” (#14 in June ’92)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th July 2015, 05:14 PM

I swear I remember a version of Insanity that I actually enjoyed back in 1991 but every one I find online seems poor. Perhaps I just did like the poor version back in 1991.

Sept 1991 was a pretty high selling period in that 8 of the Top 10 singles in the 22nd Sept made the End of Year Top 40. They were

Everything I Do
Let's Talk About Sex
Insanity
Love To Hate You
I'm too Sexy
Sunshine on a Rainy Day
Everybody's Free to Feel Good
Charlie

And the other two - Peace and What Can You For Me weren't far outside it. In fact What Can You Do for Me outsold Queen's Innuendo and probably other number 1s too.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 24th July 2015, 05:15 PM

Insanity is still a tune, especially that chorus. Apparently the single mix is never found on any compilations, just a remix.

Posted by: BillyH 25th July 2015, 01:09 PM

Out of all the top 10 biggest sellers of every year of the 1990s, Insanity has to be the least well known and played today, surely? I didn't remember hearing it at all until 2006.

And another one as mentioned which exists in a confusing set of different versions, both from the time and ones that seem to have been re-recorded later - recent compilations seem to use what's called the 'Old Skool Radio Edit' which sounds similar to the original but dates from 2007 with a new/soundalike vocal.

Posted by: dandystar 25th July 2015, 01:20 PM

Insanity does sound very weak in retrospect. I think I liked it at the time, although not enough to buy it, but it just sounds so tinny and basic when listening now.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th July 2015, 04:22 PM

2 Unlimited - Get Ready For This



Date 20th Oct 1991
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 36-19-6-2-3-3-2-3-5-12-21-34-31-27-51 (15 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


In late 1991 some new kids arrived in town. They would be the only band to rival Snap! in the Top 10 weeks stakes in the 90s - they managed 45 throughout the decade, and like Snap! they did it all before the end of 1994.

Despite appearances, 2 Unlimited were not Ray Slijngaard and Anita Doth - they just fronted the band. The music was masterminded by Jean-Paul DeCoster - of Bizz Nizz one-hot wonder fame - and Filip De Wilde (Philp Wilde) who was in rave outfit T99.

The two met when Wilde was remixing Bizz Nizz's Don't Miss the Party Line in 1990. In 1991 they created Get Ready For This as an instrumental which was a club hit. To put it on general release they decided that vocals were needed. They had worked with Ray in the days of Bizz Nizz and asked him to add vocals. When he had submitted his vocalised version it turned out that Ray had asked Anita to add some of her own.

DeCoster and Wilde were so impressed with results that when Ray asked about forming a duo with Anita to front the group they agreed.

Get Ready For This became a Europe-wide hit in late 1991. Its highest chart positions were attained in Australia, Spain and the UK where it reached number 2. It even went Top 40 in America which was notoriously disinterested in European dance music at the time. The version released in the UK was an edit, done by Pete Waterman, of the original instrumental with the line "Y'all ready for this?" added at the start. Waterman's PWL label distributed the record in the UK.

This was only the start - 2 Unlimited would go onto be one of the most successful dance acts of the following three years but credibility would remain beyond them.

We'll be hearing from them again later.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 25th July 2015, 08:33 PM

Because Pete Waterman hated Ray's verses. The hit version in the US took out most of the rap if I recall correctly and the bulk of its popularity came from always being featured in sporting events.

Love the track, but they have better singles I prefer. Ray & Anita attempted a comeback a couple of years ago using their own name instead of 2 Unlimited.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th July 2015, 08:39 PM

Yep - there was no rap at all, as far as I can remember.

Posted by: BillyH 25th July 2015, 11:32 PM

All the UK releases of 2 Unlimited's singles right up to Faces differ significantly from the originals, and finding the UK edits used to be quite tricky but I think they're all on youtube now (search for the 'No Rap' versions). Even the albums were edited to be almost instrumental, it must have been really bizarre for them when appearing on the likes of Top of the Pops, especially Ray, to be miming along to an edit of a track that barely features them.

Anita's first heard in the UK edit of Twilight Zone, but it's not until two years later with the release of Maximum Overdrive where Ray's verses are finally heard in full, and even that was still given a special instrumental edit on the No Limits album. The most infamous Ray edit - shortening two entire rap verses to the repeated shout of "Techno! Techno! Techno! Techno!" - is still to come!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th July 2015, 07:15 PM

Ok so the charts of October '91 are probably when I first started getting in to music (at age 5!) and regularly getting my dad to tape the records I liked from the Top 40 - some of these tapes still survive to this day and loads of records around at this time are familiar to me because I got NOW 20 for Christmas. Plenty of rave on there, and obviously stuff like “Get Ready For This” which I had no idea was on Pete Waterman's label and had a rap on it originally. I always had just thought it was (mostly) an instrumental, and one of the first examples of the Eurodance movement that went on to massive popularity in the 93-95 period.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th July 2015, 07:56 PM

Now 20 was better than most which I lay down to the fact that it had more than 6 months of chart action between it and Now 19 to pull from. It is the only Now album with 2 of my Top 20 of all time on it.

U2 - The Fly
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - It's Grim Up North (Part 1)

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th July 2015, 08:34 PM

Yes, and it's also got Moby's “Go”, Enya's “Caribbean Blue” and James' “Sit Down” but the KLF and U2 inclusions are especially amazing (I think NOW 20 is what got me into both of those tracks!)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th July 2015, 08:41 PM

Next entry tomorrow night. I'm particularly pleased that it features (even though I prefer one of their other songs). I dont think it will be well known to anyone who wasn't around at the time despite the fact that it is a classic and the bands most acclaimed song.

Predictions in spoiler tags please

Posted by: gooddelta 26th July 2015, 08:51 PM

Love Insanity, always surprised that it did so well and finished in the top ten biggest sellers of the year.

Great thread, really looking forward to the rest of it, thanks both Tony and Doctor Blind for compiling this!

Posted by: richie 27th July 2015, 09:36 AM

Two very weak records in a row there - tinny production and (especially in the case of 2 Unlimited) barely any bass to speak of. In the case of Oceanic, there has always been a tradition for very weak dance music from the north of England and Scotland - think of the likes of Ultrabeat, The Time Frequency and QFX. Not sure why so many people like such cheesy, weedy dance music but there you go.

At least the next number one will make up for them both

(And, no, I didn't buy either of those records on 7"!)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 27th July 2015, 11:16 AM

Lordy lord. Are you including Manchester in that?

Posted by: richie 27th July 2015, 01:06 PM

Ha ha, maybe not...nor Glasgow (Slam etc.) but in the smaller places it's huge and always has been.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th July 2015, 10:59 PM

Altern-8 - Activ-8 (Come with me)



Date 24th Nov 1991
1 Week
Official Chart Run 11-4-3-6-11-23-26-24-50 (9 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


The two members of Altern-8, Mark Archer and Chris Peat, met in Stafford in 1989 where they formed C&M Connection and released a one off single Another Night, in 1990. A quick name change to Nexus 21 but no change in personnel led to the release of early techno classics (Still) Life Keeps Moving and Self Hypnosis, which fans of Altern-8 will recognise as forming the sweet synth break in later single Hypnotic St-8.

Before fully abandoning the Nexus 21 name the band released the 8 track Overload EP in 1990 under the name Altern-8. This had a more recognisable Altern-8 sound, using mostly sounds reminiscent of house and acid house but with an emerging rave synth backing. They used an eclectic mix of samples, sounds and synths, with tempo changes commonplace but beats would remain unhardcore for the time being. Overload EP was a massive number 99 hit in Nov that year.

After releasing a final Nexus 21 single "I Know We Can Make It" (with the b-side "Sychologic PSP" a bridging of the sounds from Nexus 21 to Altern 8) in 1991, they would be known as Altern-8 from then on.
In July 1991 they would release Infiltrate 202 which broke them into the UK top 75 for the first time under any guise. While their sound was comparatively new, they upped the the mystery and suggested danger levels surrounding them by wearing their now characteristic chemical warfare outfits on stage.

In November 1991 it was time for their 15 minutes of actual mainstream fame with two genuinely exciting performances of Active-8 on Top of the Pops - masks and Vic's vapour rub in place. Like most of their tracks the sampling was shameless and genius - most prominently the string synth break from Kid 'N Play's 2 Hype and The Step's Yeah You!

They would have pretty consistent single success throughout the following year gaining easy critical acclaim for their original brand of rave, hitting the Top 10 once again with Evapor-8.

While The KLF had brought insanity (no, not that Insanity) to the Top 3 and The Prodigy had brought rave there too this was a moment of almost palpable revolution. The riff of Activ-8 remains an early high water mark of the genre and not bettered for many fans.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 28th July 2015, 11:21 PM

The strings sample is brilliant. The little girl on the record is Neil Rushton's (at the time) 3 year-old daughter! She's 27 now!

Worth mentioning that this made it back into the Top 40 at #33 at Christmas in 2013 due to a Christmas #1 campaign.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 29th July 2015, 01:58 AM

Great slice of early '90s rave in a bottle. Do prefer Evapor-8 though.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th July 2015, 06:48 AM

I prefer Hynonitic St-8

Posted by: richie 29th July 2015, 08:10 AM

I pushed the boat out and bought Activ 8 on CD single. Worth mentioning that all was not rosy in the various chart rave camps though. Peat and Archer were always conscious that Altern 8 records were the unserious side of their partnership, but had a bit of a run in with the Prodigy who I think they felt were taking things a bit far. Altern 8 produced a few t-shirts with the word "dodgy" done up as the Prodigy logo while The Prodigy mocked the Altern 8 masks, suits and frantic rave dancing in their video for Out of Space...not that A8 would have been bothered by that, they were essentially taking the piss anyway.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th July 2015, 09:59 AM

Taking things a bit too far? I wonder in what way they meant.

Posted by: richie 29th July 2015, 10:53 AM

I'm not sure what I meant. Probably that the Prodigy were unashamedly making very accessible hardcore dance records full of samples and Altern 8 only had plans to do it in the short term before going back to more serious stuff. Anyway, Altern 8 wore "The Dodgy Experience" t-shirts in the Brutal-8-E video and the Prodigy seemed to follow up with an Altern 8 character! All the fun of the rave world

There's an interview with Mark Archer where he pretty much denies anything really went on though:
http://www.thecommunic8r.com/2009/09/communic8-with-altern-8

Then, of course, there was the time Chris Peat stood for Parliament in Stafford for the "Hardcore - U Know The Score" party and beat the Natural Law Party candiadate!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd August 2015, 05:23 PM

KLF featuring Tammy Wynette - Justified and Ancient (Stand By The JAMs)



Date 1st Dec 1991
6 Weeks
Official Chart Run 5-3-3-4-2-2-4-10-14-26-52-71 (12 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.



While the JAMM's track It's Grim Up North could only manage to reach 4th best selling dance single in November (behind Get Ready For This, K-Klass' Rhythm is a Mystery and Bassheads' Is There Anybody Out There?) nothing stood in the way of the band when they reverted to using the KLF name.

In fact, several factors conspired to mean that Justified and Ancient would become their biggest selling hit. For a start, it was a wildly different version than the one on its parent album The White Room and so only available in single formats. Secondly, the camp catchiness of the chorus lent it a decidedly celebratory and some would say novelty sound to aid in selling bucket loads in December and of course, the marketing coup of resurrecting Tammy Wynette for vocal duties; the subtitle referencing her hit Stand By Your Man.

Like most of their hits, the song dates back to an earlier time and an earlier incarnation. The vocal melody and lyrics had existed in song form on the 1987 track Hey Hey We Are Not The Monkees taken from their album What the Fuck is Going On? It re-appeared on Chill-Out in 1990 as part of a track called Justified & Ancient Seems a Long Time Ago. And as mentioned above it featured on The White Room album released in March in 1991, but with vocals done by Black Steel.

The style was a departure from their previous one - no crowd noise, no opening samples, a lighter tone and a more conventional song structure. Critics noted that this was at the expense of the darker, comparatively dangerous atmosphere of their earlier material but most agreed that the fun of the whole thing was irresistible.

Only a re-release of Bohemian Rhapsody could keep it from reaching the official summit at the turn of 1992 but success of the song and the now inescapable popularity of their music took its toll on the mood of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty who felt uncomfortable with acceptance by the music industry and by the subsequent requests to resurrect the careers of other almost forgotten start by duetting with them.

This would be a pivotal moment in the bands intentional demise. They were starting to feel like they had achieved everything that they could achieve, subverted everything that could be subverted and made the most exciting music that they could make.


This ending would be played out over the following months - in very public fashion.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 3rd August 2015, 05:32 PM

1991 at a glance......


13-01-1991 C+C Music Factory ft. Freedom Williams - Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) (1 week)
20-01-1991 The KLF ft. The Children Of The Revolution - 3A.M. Eternal (Live At The S.S.L.) (4 weeks)
17-02-1991 Nomad ft. MC Mikee Freedom - (I Wanna Give You) Devotion (2 weeks)
03-03-1991 The Source ft. Candi Staton - You Got The Love (2 weeks)
17-03-1991 Quartz introducing Dina Carroll - It’s Too Late (3 weeks)
07-04-1991 N-Joi - Anthem (2 weeks)
21-04-1991 Gary Clail On-U Sound System - Human Nature (1 week)
28-04-1991 The KLF ft. The Children Of The Revolution - Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent) (3 weeks)
19-05-1991 Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) (4 weeks)
16-06-1991 LaTour - People Are Still Having Sex (2 weeks)
30-06-1991 Incognito ft. Jocelyn Brown - Always There (2 weeks)
14-07-1991 C + C Music Factory ft. Freedom Williams - Things That Make You Go Hmmm… (2 weeks)
28-07-1991 The Shamen - Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91) (4 weeks)
25-08-1991 The Prodigy - Charly (3 weeks)
15-09-1991 Oceanic - Insanity (5 weeks)
20-10-1991 2 Unlimited – Get Ready for This (5 weeks)
24-11-1991 Altern-8 - Activ-8 (Come with Me) (1 week)
01-12-1991 The KLF ft. Tammy Wynette – Justified and Ancient (6 weeks)



Top 10 Sellers

01 Oceanic - Insanity (1)
02 2 Unlimited - Get Ready for This (1)
03 The KLF & Children of the Revolution - 3am Eternal (1)
04 Nomad feat MC Mikee Freedom - (I Wanna Give You) Devotion (1)
05 The Prodigy - Charly (1)
06 The KLF featuring Tammy Wynette - Justified and Ancient (1)
07 The KLF & Children of the Revolution - Last Train to Trancentral (1)
08 Source featuring Candi Staton - You Got the Love (1)
09 Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman (La Da Dee) (1)
10 The Shamen - Move Any Mountain (1)

Posted by: Doctor Blind 3rd August 2015, 06:30 PM

I still think getting country music LEGEND Tammy Wynette to sing They’re justified and ancient, and they drive an ice cream van was a stroke of genius!

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 3rd August 2015, 07:53 PM

Great jam all in all. Everything about the song and the video are both wonderfully kooky!

Posted by: paulgilb 3rd August 2015, 10:02 PM

For those two weeks the top 2 were both UK acts with an African-born member.

Posted by: Riser 6th August 2015, 03:48 AM

Yes!

Gotta say these are great commentaries that really do justice to the classic songs featured here. I especially think so with 'Justified & Ancient' which is a personal fave. Provides excellent context for those of us who were too young to follow music at the time.

Posted by: richie 6th August 2015, 09:52 AM

Yes, the commentaries are excellent.

Have either of you read "The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds"? It's an excellent read.

I'm expecting good stuff of 1992 - up until the early autumn where, Shamen, Chemical Bros, Leftfield (?) and a few others aside, I feel the quality will take a rather horrible dip downwards for the rest of the decade.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 6th August 2015, 10:08 AM

Yes! I got it for Christmas - can echo your thoughts and sourced it for my final commentary on the KLF (coming up in 1992).

Posted by: BillyH 7th August 2015, 01:42 AM

Justified and Ancient followed by The Prodigy's Everybody In The Place would have been two incredible #1s, both blocked off the top by Bohemian Rhapsody.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 8th August 2015, 10:17 AM

And that's why we're doing this, BillyH

Into 1992 and, for some, a classic year for dance music. It's the 1995 to 1991's 1994 (or something)

The Prodigy - Everybody In The Place



Date 12th Jan 1991
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 48-10-2-3-5-11-23-46-71-69 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.



For their follow up to Charly, The Prodigy re-mixed a track from their debut EP What Evil Lurks. Their musicianship, if you could call it that (and I do), had advanced a great deal in the months between the release of that EP and the emergence of the new more hook-filled version of Everybody in the Place at the end of December 1991.

This new version was titled The Fairground Mix as one of the prominent swooping sounds used in the song reminded the band of rollercoaster ride - hence also the art work for the single, a photo of the now longer functional Corkscrew roller coaster at Alton Towers.

The remix is an increase in BPM since Charly. The frantic pace sees them introduce their knack for ricocheting, key changing rave riffs with one of their very best. The only samples used were non-musical. The vocal sample in Everybody in The Place is from a speech by The Magnificent Ben Chapman and can be found on a track called We come to Rock by Freska Allstars and the closing passage is from Al Caiola and His Orchestra's For a Few Dollars More.

Last year, the main sample inspired Hardwell to make his own track called Everybody is in the Place.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th August 2015, 10:33 AM

Love “Everybody In The Place” (though it's not my favourite Prodigy release in ’92) - Liam's hip-hop influences quite clearly on show here with the aforementioned Hustlers Convention sample from which the track takes its name, also the frenetic beats that would go on to dominate their next LP in 1994. Great start to 1992!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 10th August 2015, 01:37 PM

2 Unlimited - Twilight Zone



Date 2nd Feb 1992
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 9-3-2-3-8-11-17-29-40-72 (10 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


And also returning in 1992 following a major chart debut in 1991 were 2 Unlimited. Similarly to Get Ready For This, the UK market were treated with a rap-free version courtesy of Pete Waterman's PWL. However, this time Anita had some vocals duties. The song came out in multiple forms - seven remixes in total, with six of the seven being available to listeners in the Benelux counties on once maxi-single disc.

The second movement in the song came courtesy of a sample from 80s synthpop singer Sandra and her 1985 continental smash (I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena which was a top 5 hit in 14 European countries and number 1 in 10 of them, remaining largely unknown in the UK where it reached number 91.

Twilight Zone did well in the US reaching the Dance Chart's number 5 position - remaining the band's biggest success hitting number 49 in the Billboard chart. Like many European dance its it became used as a prominent theme for sports games in the US. In this instance a loop of it was used during National Hockey League games.

More from 2 Unlimited later.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 10th August 2015, 05:34 PM

Twilight Zone feels lifeless without Ray's raps, but it's still a great song, as is Everybody In The Place.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 10th August 2015, 07:16 PM

I only just read this now. No I haven't read it but I will do In the past few years I have a real hunger for information and knowledge on the history of the band.

I'm glad everyone is enjoying the commentary.

Posted by: paulgilb 10th August 2015, 10:31 PM

Shouldn't Twilight Zone have 4 weeks (the week at #3 before it was #2 as well as the 3 listed)?

Amazing that despite all the big dance hits in the latter part of 1991 and early 1992 there had (at the end of February 1992) still not been a dance #1 since 3AM Eternal.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 11th August 2015, 08:31 AM

Indeed you are correct. I've changed that now. My spreadsheet had 4 weeks so the error came from my own mistaken mind!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 11th August 2015, 12:53 PM

Opus III - It’s A Fine Day



Date 23rd February 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 10-5-5-6-10-22-44-66 (8 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

The perfect lullaby for a generation that never slept, “It’s A Fine Day” started out as a haunting a cappella recorded by an unknown singer simply listed as ‘Jane’, which gained exposure thanks to infamous Radio 1 DJ John Peel. That singer was actually 22 year-old Jane Lancaster, the then girlfriend to unconventional Manchester poet/artist Owain (Edward) Barton, whose very British poem entitled “It’s A Fine Day” was sang a cappella by Jane and subsequently released as a single in June 1983, making it to #87. Opus III singer Kirsty Hawkshaw, the daughter of famous British composer Alan Hawkshaw - who amongst others composed the TV theme tunes for Channel 4 News, Grange Hill and Countdown - recreated the vocals from the original, with the remainder of the group (a trio of producers/musicians comprising Kevin Dodds, Ian Munro and Nigel Walton), then sampling these and transforming it into an uplifting club anthem which immediately launched into the Top 10 in February.

The comforting optimism, simplicity and nostalgic feel of “It’s A Fine Day” works brilliantly with the accompaniment of a giddy, thundering breakbeat (even if the sax and piano-loop rather date it somewhat), and the refrain of “It’s going to be a fine night tonight” chimes well with the optimism of youth culture at the time. The Britishness of the original poem is really brought out in that oft-celebrated Anglo weather obsession with the celebration of a break where ’People open windows. They leave their houses, just for a short walk’ - it does work really well. However this anthem was to be bettered in September of 1992 by quite some way when Sevenoaks duo, Orbital, re-sampled, chopped up and reversed Kirsty’s vocals to create the hook in “Halcyon”, in which Kirsty even agreed to appear in the video - however despite this it peaked at a measly #37. As for Opus III, subsequent singles failed to gain traction with the general public as “I Talk To The Wind” and “When You Made The Mountain” crashed in at #52 and #71 respectively.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 11th August 2015, 01:11 PM

Wonderful. Adore this song!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 11th August 2015, 08:03 PM

I actually think I'd prefer an instrumental version of It's a Fine Day.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th August 2015, 02:07 PM

The KLF - America: What Time Is Love?



Date 8th March 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 9-4-4-14-30-49-74 (7 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

The song that effectively bookended their emphatic but all-too-brief hit machine status as ‘The KLF’ is the one song that they just could not leave alone. In total “What Time Is Love?” was remixed four times, from its pure trance original in 1988 to this, their final single “America: What Time Is Love?”. The single immediately followed their infamous 1992 BRIT awards performance with Extreme Noise Terror, where Drummond fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep (with the words ‘I died for ewe - bon appetite’ sprayed on it) at the after-show party. Having achieved everything that they had wanted to, and now quickly becoming accepted and a part of the serious mainstream music industry that they had so tirelessly worked at deriding.. they had nowhere left to go as an entity - and it was decided that it was time to end it. After quietly being advised that ‘drenching the industry audience in sheep’s blood’ and ‘having a motorcycle courier collect their award for Best British Group on their behalf’ were not the best of ideas, Drummond and Cauty ended their career as the KLF that night. They did it simply with the words Ladies and gentlemen, the KLF have now left the music business echoing through the Hammersmith Odeon around the stunned audience as they walked off stage - having just performed a thrash metal rendition of their only #1 single (as the KLF) “3A.M. Eternal”.

The track itself removes much of the hypnotic synth line that drives the original and 1990 versions, and replaces this with the riff from Motörhead's “Ace of Spades” which gives it a much heavier and guitar-driven sound. The inspiration for the single's theme (discovering America) was because 1992 was the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ ‘discovery of America’ - however back referencing the groups Illuminatus! Trilogy fascination (and perhaps seeking to mock the Americans celebration of Columbus), the narration at the start of the track talks of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's odyssey of the year 992 to discover America - and this single celebrating the 1000th anniversary of said expedition! It seemed to work, and went 1 place better than the 1990 version - Isaac Bello returned once again to provide a fast-paced rap to match the pulsating beat, and was joined by Deep Purple bassist and vocalist Glenn Hughes, who belted out the main refrain of 'What Time Is Love?' in a manner not unlike Meat Loaf.

In May 1992 they deleted their entire back catalogue after abandoning their work on follow-up album The Black Room; which remains unreleased.

They did come back briefly in 1997, as '2K' dressed in pyjamas and riding around in wheelchairs with yet another remixed version of “What Time Is Love?”, in a remarkably accurate parody that (post-2000) would predict the seemingly endless roster of artists and groups - long since disbanded - rejecting any principals and dignity they once had to reform for a bit of fast money. “Fuck the Millennium” flopped in at #28. How apt.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 12th August 2015, 03:41 PM

The '88 and '91 versions of What Time Is Love were better.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 13th August 2015, 07:56 AM

I'm not a fan of bands re-hashing their songs but America: What Time is Love? works for me!

Posted by: richie 13th August 2015, 08:17 AM

Been away for a while...

Prodigy - Everybody in the Place. Arguably their finest moment I would say apart from, possibly, one from later in 1992.
2 Unlimited - Twilight Zone. Not much to write home about. At least it had a bit more beef than their tinny breakthrough hit.
KLF - America - Utterly mad with a fantastic video. I would agree that it's the weakest version of WTIL by a long way.
Opus III - It's a Fine Day - Good to see you got the Alan Hawkshaw references in and Orbital's subsequent usage. A strong, beefy track.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 13th August 2015, 06:04 PM

Ce Ce Peniston - Finally



Date 22nd March 1992
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 6-2-5-6-8-15-31-50 (8 weeks) [also peaked at #29 in Nov ’91]
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Remembered as a one-hit wonder, Arizona’s CeCe Peniston actually managed to chalk up 3 consecutive Top 10 hits in 1992. However it is of course the second in this cannon “Finally” that overshadows them all and is easily the most recognised. Despite her big voice CeCe was not a natural dance vocalist by any means, she felt more suited to soulful R&B, but whilst laying down backing vocals on a dance track by Overweight Pooch she impressed A&M record executives enough to be recruited to record her own material. Her debut single “Finally” was released in 1991 and started out as a poem that CeCe wrote in Chemistry class whilst dreaming of ‘meeting Mr. Right’, the uplifting lyrics capturing and conveying the euphoria of that moment when you meet the guy or girl of your dreams.

Though some may recognise the original mix, it was the Choice mix (see below) masterminded by David Morales which spurred the massive success of the single. Based upon the melodic bassline of deep house classic “Someday” by CeCe Rogers, “Finally” was transformed into an addictive mix of perfect piano house, pulled along by Eric Kupper's staggering piano, and guttural vocal acrobatics from CeCe Peniston - making it a feel-good club anthem and floor filler. Despite topping the club charts in 1991, the track initially stalled at a disappointing #29. Convinced it could do so much better, PolyGram decided to re-release the single following Ce Ce’s Top 10 success with her second single “We Got A Love Thang” (#6) during early ’92. “Finally” subsequently took off in a big way (narrowly missing out on deposing “Stay” by Shakespear's Sister) and became the massive hit it was always destined to be.

Peniston continued to have minor success with a further five Top 40 hits through until the late 1990s.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 13th August 2015, 06:08 PM

Still love the song, even though it's very cliché these days. And the song is still played frequently on Heart & Radio 2 very frequently so I can either imagine a remake or remix to hit the charts soon.

Posted by: Ethan 13th August 2015, 09:36 PM

*.* omg what a fabulous start to 1992 ~ prodigy , 2 unlimited , klf *_*, opus iii & cece peniston all classics~

Posted by: Danvicii 13th August 2015, 09:41 PM

it wasn't that long ago when Mr Belt & Wezol did a future house remix of Finally! Was hoping that would be a hit but it wasn't

Posted by: richie 14th August 2015, 07:33 AM

Wasn't a huge fan of Ce Ce Peniston but it was pretty inoffensive stuff. I wonder if the CeCe Rogers lift was because someone saw "Ce Ce" and thought, "Hmm, I wonder?"

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th August 2015, 07:51 AM

I did like Finally from when I heard it first in 1991.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 14th August 2015, 02:53 PM

Altern 8 - E-Vapor-8



Date 12th April 1992
1 Week
Official Chart Run 10-6-11-22-37-51 (6 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

With their trademark look of bright colours, face masks, and industrial boiler suits, Altern 8 served the mainstream media as convenient shorthand for the rave scene of the early 1990s. As already mentioned in this thread the band had strong connections to Stafford, in particular nearby Stoke nightclub ‘Shelleys’ which became - albeit briefly - the epicentre for the rave scene, hosting early performances from The Prodigy and fellow local lads Bizarre Inc. Armed with just a sampler and some Vicks VapoRub, Mark Archer and Chris Peat consistently courted controversy in the press, with talk of ‘disco biscuits’, and scams like standing for election in Stafford for the Hardcore - U Know The Score! party, much to the delight of the tabloid media.

For their fourth single, and 2nd Top 10 hit “E-Vapor-8” (that's two drug references in one kids!) the main attraction was sampling one of the Detroit house scene’s most influential cuts, Rhythim is Rhythim’s “Strings Of Life” which arrives about a minute in and goes on to dominate the track. The band’s distinctive style of stabby synths, heavy and somewhat shameless sampling were on full show here; as was their capacity to not take things too seriously - hence the hiring of Hong Kong police riot tanks for the otherwise budget video below. They even used the ‘They're going mad!!’ sample from commentary recorded at an impromptu gig they performed in the car park of ‘Shelleys’ at 3 in the morning, where they recorded the video for “Active-8 (Come With Me)”. To give the track a more accessible feel, they hired the vocal talents of American soul singer P.P. Arnold to lay some smooth vocals over a simple but effective breakbeat. The winning formula gave them another Top 10 hit, however the success was to be fleeting, and the group disbanded in 1993 citing money troubles after just once more hitting the Top 40 with “Hypnotic St-8” (#16) in July ’92.

Soul Central would return the “Strings Of Life” sample to the UK Top 10 in January 2005 when Kathy Brown teamed up with them on “Strings Of Life (Stronger On My Own)” which peaked at #6.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 14th August 2015, 05:32 PM

Fabulous track. Sonically so different sounding even for its' genre!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th August 2015, 06:29 PM

Love that they shamelessly ripped off other dance music.

Posted by: N-S 14th August 2015, 09:12 PM

I actually have a softpsot for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJl7Y3gqeBI that charted at #62.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 15th August 2015, 11:19 AM

SL2 - On A Ragga Tip



Date 19th April 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 7-3-2-2-2-3-7-7-15-29-43 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Ragga, a sub genre of Jamaican reggae, had been growing in popularity in the previous decade - mainly through the tower block pirate radio movement in London during the 1980s - and would eventually become ensconced within the Jungle music scene that would peak in popularity during 1994. SL2 (sadly not named after the Slough postcode, but a brand of Technics turntable) were Londoners Matt Nelson, John Fernandez and Jason ‘Jay-J’ James. The group were heavily influenced by the growth of hip-hop and ragga in London and indeed ran their own pirate radio in the late 1980s (Awesome FM and Raw FM), however also embraced the rave culture that dominated the same period. This juxtaposition of genres can be heard on their first double A-side single, which scored them a minor Top 20 hit (#11) in Autumn 1991. The lead on the double A was “DJs Take Control”, a hardcore rave track that sounded very much part of the rave explosion on the UK singles chart in November ’91 - the other, “Way In My Brain” had its roots firmly in reggae, having sampled heavily from influential Jamaican singer Wayne Smith and his seminal classic “Under Mi Sleng Teng”. The latter on this double A would be the foundation on which they would build their defining hit “On A Ragga Tip”.

Sounding like nothing else in the Top 40 at the time, “On A Ragga Tip” takes a relatively unknown and unremarkable ragga track from 1984 - Jah Screechie’s “Walk And Skank” - and transforms it into an unbelievable catchy and unique guaranteed dance floor filler with enough momentum to win over the ravers, and a memorable hook (complete with incomprehensible and fun lyrics) that could win over the mainstream... Launching into the chart at number 7, a feat reserved for only the biggest artists/records, “On A Ragga Tip” soon found itself battling for the number 1 spot. Initially it was way behind Right Said Fred, however in their fourth week they very nearly gave independent label XL Recordings their first #1, however it was very narrowly pipped to the post by a group who brought ‘fake version’ to the UK Top 10 long before the iconic Precision Tunes managed it.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 15th August 2015, 12:49 PM

Please Don't Go (the 1992 version by that band) is awful, but I'm surprised at its exclusion! Still can't believe that band won a BRIT award as well.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 15th August 2015, 12:58 PM

If you're talking about K.W.S. - it hasn't been excluded sadly! The weeks that SL2 were at number 2 it was climbing from 30-9.

Posted by: Ethan 15th August 2015, 01:25 PM

'on a ragga tip' is a bonafide classic ~ still relevant to this very day

Posted by: richie 18th August 2015, 12:00 PM

Best not mentioned really!

Posted by: richie 18th August 2015, 12:04 PM

SL2's 'On a Ragga Tip' might be the most played rave track of all time (that or 'Out of Space' by The Prodigy) - both continue to get played on the radio today...testament to their catchiness I suppose...reggae and rave meet together uptown and all that.

Worth pointing out that there was a response ragga-rave record by Progression called 'On a Rubbish Tip' that wasn't anywhere near as good as the title suggests...or is exactly as bad as the title suggests.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 18th August 2015, 10:45 PM

I'm up next with 5 of the big hitters of 1992. Next entry tomorrow.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st August 2015, 06:39 AM

KWS - Please Don't Go/Game Boy



Date 3rd May 1992
7 Weeks
Official Chart Run30-9-1-1-1-1-1-2-3-5-7-12-20-30-40-63 (16 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Originally a KC and the Sunshine Band hit song from 1979, in a very much ballad tradition, Please Don't Go was covered in 1992. Twice.

A dance version of the song was recorded by Eurodance group Double You and was a major world wide hit. It earned Double You gold and platinum records in a number of European countries including Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Pioneering dance music distributor Network Records (Neil Rushton and Dave Barke) applied to release the record in the UK but failed to secure these rights. Knowing there was money to be made they quickly recorded and released an almost identical version of the song by an unknown band KWS. This was a huge hit spending 7 weeks as the best selling dance single in the UK.

However, the story wasn't over for Network Records and KWS.

The similarity to the Double You version resulted in Network Records paying compensation to Double You’s producer Roberto Zanetti, following legal action. The proceedings lasted 3 years with the judge finally ruling that there was a separate copyright in an arrangement, distinct from the copyright in the original song.

The KWS’ defence was that their version was claimed to be released in honour of European football defender Des Walker (of the Nottingham Forest) who was about to sign with an Italian team called Sampdoria.

The song (backed with its double A side partner, the much more rave-tastic Game Boy) was also a moderate hit in the USA for KWS. It was released in German, managing to peak at number 7 despite Double You's version already having been a hit.
It wouldn't be a feature on German Singles Chart for long as it disappeared due to the legal issues with Double You. Because of this, Please Don’t Go is the highest positioned single to drop dropped out of the German Singles Chart the following week.

KWS had 3 more UK Top 30 hits with covers of Rock Your Baby, Hold Back The Night and Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better).

Somewhat perplexity, considering that The Prodigy and Altern-8 had emerged with debut albums in 1992, KWS were nominated for the Best British Newcomer award at the 1993 BRIT Awards alongside another covers group, Undercover. These nominations drew criticism from the British music press taking into account the exciting dance music that was being released.

However, according to the Brits website KWS lost out to Tasmin Archer - which is at odds with the claim earlier in this thread that they actually took the trophy home with them

Posted by: richie 21st August 2015, 08:35 AM

For some odd reason, I bought the KWS single. I quite liked the cover at the time (although don't think much of it now) but I knew that their other tracks were more in keeping with the hardcore sound of the time and thought "Gameboy" might have been a rave track I'd heard somewhere earlier in the year that sampled the music from Tetris. Of course, it wasn't - it was pretty non-descript.

Tetris would come to the charts later in the year, not in the form of the hardcore white label I'd heard but its polar opposite in L.L.W....urgh

Posted by: Doctor Blind 21st August 2015, 09:01 AM

To add insult to injury, the Double You version peaked at No.41!

Worth noting that Shut Up and Dance also caused controversy during this period with an uncleared Mark Cohn sample, leading to a midweek #1 relegated to 2 and then quickly dissapearing from the chart. Even the ToTP performance had to use a different mix of "Raving I'm Raving".

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st August 2015, 10:44 AM

I liked Please Don't Go at the time. Lord knows why. I cant stand it now.

Was Raving I'm Raving relegated to number 2 because of the uncleared sample or because its sales dropped off?

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 21st August 2015, 10:52 AM

The single was deleted from stores during the end of it's release week due to the uncleared sample and because of it, it's one of the lowest top ten selling singles ever.

Posted by: richie 21st August 2015, 11:24 AM

Something has never seemed right about Raving I'm Raving. I bought a copy of it in an Inverness shop two weeks before it got to number two which makes me think the stock was already out but embargoed as there was an ongoing dispute. The Inverness folk either didn't get informed of the embargo or didn't care as nobody would check that far north. As I recall, Marc Cohn allowed the release to go ahead but no more discs were to be produced and ALL royalties had to go to charity (or maybe him, I can't remember). So, it ended up at no.15 the week after as stock simply ran out and then disappeared from the chart 100%.

It ruined SUAD financially and, yep, the hastily put together "remix" with random synths replacing the piano sample and the new 'melody' for Peter Bouncer to try to sing was horrible.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 21st August 2015, 11:59 AM

I remember it falling to 15 in the chart. It was afterwards that I found out about the uncleared sample.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd August 2015, 08:09 AM

Utah Saints - Something Good



Date 21st June 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run9-6-6-4-5-7-14-29-43 (9 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

And now for something good.

Based in Leeds, Utah Saints were formed in 1990 after its two members, Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt, met each other while working at Mix Nightclub in Harrogate. Their early mission was to get guitars into dance music and to sell it.

They'd struck gold with their debut hit single in 1991 What Can You Do For Me? (Third best selling dance single in Sept 1991 behind Oceanic's Insanity and The Prodgy's Charly). But this was only a pre-amble to what would become their best known and signature hit.

Something Good continued their prominent use of 80s vocals legends with a sample from arguably the greatest of 80s singers - Kate Bush. Unlike some of their contemporaries (Hello to Shut Up and Dance ), the Utah Saints were good citizens and sought official clearance for the vocal sample in Something Good. Although just the vocals were used from Bush's Cloudbusting, the staccato string motif from the song was approximated using synths.

The track is packed with movements and sections - never maintaining a theme for more than 4 bars. The shuffling beat, the propulsive bass, the thin techy synths, the cascading piano, the textured guitar sample, and a wonderful manipulation of that vocal sample make for an intoxicating and joyful 3 minutes which resonates still today.

They would follow this up, and into the top 10, with the third part of their "vocal sample trilogy" Believe in Me, this time using Philip Oakey's vocal for Love Action. After that the hits became less hooky and less successful.

Something Good's fame would be revived when in 2007 when Australian electronic band Van She produced an unsolicited white label remix of the song which gained attention from local DJs. Impressed with how the song maintained its fun, almost euphoric atmosphere the Utah Saints sent the original tapes to Van She for them to make an official remix for public release.

This was released in 2008 and, unusually for a dance single, hit the top 10 in the UK on downloads alone. The remix is also notable for it's "running man" video which won the award for Best Dance Video at the UK Music Awards later that year.

A much less palatable drum and bass remix of What Can You Do For Me? was the band's final Top 40 single in 2012.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 23rd August 2015, 08:26 AM

Wahoo! Utah Saints U-U-U-tah Saints.

This song is pretty much how I discovered the wonderful Kate Bush and went on to mine her rich musical catalogue after starting with “Cloudbusting” - the opening strings and crowd noise floor me every time.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 23rd August 2015, 12:11 PM

A bona fide classic! Love both it's versions!

Posted by: dandystar 23rd August 2015, 01:47 PM

Love Something Good. Unusually for a 90s dance band (of the 1993 variety), their album was better than you may expect.

Posted by: Ethan 23rd August 2015, 02:17 PM

love 'something good' such a jam

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd August 2015, 02:33 PM

I remember getting it on tape. I can't remember much about it.

Posted by: richie 24th August 2015, 09:05 AM

Something Good was such a good record! I'd say that "I Want You" from 1993 was still a good record even though it wasn't anywhere near as big as their first 3 singles.

Not sure if the Utahs managed to get all their samples cleared though. I think the early white label versions of 'What Can You Do For Me' had a snatch from 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen which they weren't able to clear for the full release.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th August 2015, 10:08 AM

I wasn't either but as I knew they got clearance for the Cloudbusting sample I noted in the commentary that they did so for that sample alone.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th August 2015, 06:47 PM

Smart E's - Sesame's Treet



Date 5th July 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 3-2-3-4-8-15-27-45-60 (9 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


The Smart-E's were Christopher Howell, Tom Orton and Nick Arnold.
Howell and Orton met in a record shop, both browsing the hard core records section. Orton DJ'd and helped run a weeknight rave called Ultimatum and Howell began DJng at this event too.

Arnol was a friend with a modest recording studio and when the other two approached him with a plan to record some music together the three of them formed Smart-Es.

The first tune Smart E's released was on Boogie Times Records, an offshoot of the parent label Suburban Base Records, and was called Bogus Adventure. It was a simple hardcore track that featured samples from the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Selling a couple of hundred copies it was no more successful than expected by the band.

This gave them the confidence to make a second attempt and so they produced Sesame's Treet with it's well known sample of the piano refrain from the theme from Sesame Street complete with the Count's intro.

Interest in the record was considerably higher and the limited number promos for the single became highly sought after. It became a daily staple of Kiss FM's Steve Jackson dance music show.
However, to avail of the potential commercial opportunity they needed a much more professional sounding track and approached Jackson to remix it. Word of the track soon to spread to raves and pirate radio stations and when the distributor ordered copies to be pressed found themselves with 50,000 pre-orders.

When the track was released demand was so high that the single matched the record for the highest entry for a debut single (not including charity records or entries in the very first top 10 back in 1952) of a number 3 placing - Crystal Waters' Gypsy Woman was the record holder, at the time

Public popularity didn't mean critical acclaim - it never does - and the press laughed the track off as furthering the bandwagon that The Prodigy created with Charlie. The band were seen as opportunists cashing in on the trend of dance tracks with child friendly samples.

After the pressure to promote the record around the world, a poor professional relationship with promoters and management and the negative press coverage Howell decided to abandon the Smart-E's name and move on to many other aliases during the 1990s - none of which were aimed at singles chart success, setting up Kniteforce Records so that he could have more control over his output.

Another single that is often associated with Sesame's Treet is Trip to Trumpton by Urban Hype which, although in the Top 10 at the same time, was only the third best selling dance single in any one week. The next entry in this countdown would be sandwiched between them for both of the weeks that Sesame's Treet was the best selling dance single

Posted by: dandystar 24th August 2015, 08:12 PM

Awful. I'd forgotten all about it and have just listened to it, really really really bad.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th August 2015, 08:21 PM

I preferred “Trip To Trumpton” which underneath the (thankfully) more restrained sampling was a half decent track. I think should be re-released featuring Donald Trump gaffe's sporadically interspersed throughout the track!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th August 2015, 09:52 PM

You used to be such a nice chap.....

Posted by: richie 25th August 2015, 07:30 AM

I've still got a lot of time for Sesame's Treet. There's certainly nothing wrong with the track if you remove the samples - and the same with Urban Hype - but that's what caught the record buying public's imagination. I was the perfect age - 15 - old enough to remember the kids TV shows and young enough not to let the cheesiness bother me. The trend went on and on and later in 1992 two acts released tracks that sampled the Rainbow theme in the same week. Only one had the backing of Zippy and George (the rubbish(er) one). Then at Christmas, Keith Harris and Orville were given the hardcore treatment..... It was immense fun for me, but pretty tiresome for most...and we haven't even got on to the Nintendo remixes yet...

Anyway, if anything, Sesame's Treet introduced me to Suburban Base Records and what was by far the best hardcore label then and now.

There's a great clip from Dance Energy about the emergent 1992 Essex hardcore scene here -> http://idmmag.com/news/the-essex-rave-scene/

Posted by: AntoineTTe 25th August 2015, 08:50 AM

I remember hearing the Rainbow one when I was in in England in 1991. I never heard it since. Were either hits?

Posted by: richie 25th August 2015, 09:25 AM

Nope, I bought the Sonz of Bungle one!



(17:44 in)

This is the one that managed to rope Zippy and George into a TV appearance on The Word (I think)

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th August 2015, 04:32 PM

Snap! - Rhythm Is A Dancer



Date 17th July 1992
8 Weeks
Official Chart Run 13-6-3-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-3-4-10-14-20-32-50-57 (19 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Being 1990s top selling dance band and with dance music being more popular than ever you'd think that a Snap! comeback single would be some sort of event. But in the UK it wasn't so. The lead single from Snap!'s second album, The Madman's Return, limped to number 54 in late 1991. That single was Colour of Love and is almost unknown in the UK by mainstream music fans.

Another potential lead single had been suggested but after early support lost out to Colour of Love because of objections by Turbo B. That other single is Rhythm is a Dancer.
It's hard to image that it would have topped the charts had it been release in late 1991 as it would have had Bohemian Rhapsody to contend with, so it's probably good fortune that it made its debut in the charts the following Summer at the insistence of the rest of the band.

Although she was the author of Rhythm is a Dancer former vocalist, Penny Ford was, for contractual reasons, not permitted to take care of vocals on the track itself - she signed to Sony and they wouldn't let her sing on any more Snap! singles. In her place arrived Thea Austin who Ford met at a press interview.

There was quite a leap in the sophistication of the sound, with its sweeping synphonic phrasing echoing the riff from Automan's Newcleus and the electo-influenced synth backing that up.

The controversy surrounding a Snap! single for once didn't concern sampling or copying. This time it was lyrical content that drew attention. The band got significant flack for the lyric "I'm serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer" betraying a lack of knowledge by commentators as the phrase "serious as cancer" had been frequently used in hip hop tracks before this.

The song is now part of the fabric of 90s dance music spawning multiple sound-a-likes some of which we will encounter later in this rundown. The band themselves would continue to perform well and we will see more of them later, too. For many fans of 90s music it is the peak of Euro-dance.

Rhythm is a Dancer would appear a few more times in the chart. It would be re-recorded by the band in 1996 for their first hits set - Snap! Attack: The Best of Snap!, but not chart. It would resurface again in 2003 and reach the top 20 in a further remix. Finally, the original would chart again in 2008 due to use in a Drench advert.

Turbo B would leave the group soon after its success in 1992 due to conflict between management and himself and the negative press over the lyrical controversy mentioned earlier. He would reunite with them in 2000 for a new album project which was aborted when the first single failed to chart.

Posted by: Ethan 26th August 2015, 04:40 PM

'rhythm is a dancer' ~ such an amazing and timeless jam

*.* epic chart run for a dance record run as well :cheeseblock:

never knew that sesame thing even existed tbh~

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 26th August 2015, 04:46 PM

What more can be said about the song? It'll always stand the test of time.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 26th August 2015, 07:10 PM

It sounded massive at the time, especially when that deep bassline kicks in.. so was surprised to see it only debut at 13 and slowly climb to #1, but as you say the group had been absent from the Top 40 for 15 months and so many had likely assumed they were gone for good. I love the track, it was definitely the pinnacle of the Eurodance movement and nothing that came after really topped it.

It was the biggest selling single of 1992 until the very last week when it was overtaken by Whitney Housten.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 26th August 2015, 09:46 PM

So Whitney went from ~490,000 to #750,000 in the final week?

Posted by: richie 27th August 2015, 07:23 AM

A strong dance track, not my favourite at the time or even now but there was a punch in the tracks at the beginning of Euro-Dance that started to get diluted as the years went on. Pretty much the blueprint for many to come - including "Mr Vain" which is practically the same song with different lyrics.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 27th August 2015, 07:43 AM

On the youtube clip I was playing yesterday while doing the write up Mr Vain always come afterwards on autoplay and I thought to myself - This is a new mix of RIAD I haven't heard before.

Posted by: Gambo 28th August 2015, 11:37 AM

REEEALLY petty but hopefully still worthwhile observation re the Snap! entry: the date the chart in which it became the best-selling dance single was issued should read 19th July 1992, not 17th. None of this charts being revealed on a Friday nonsense back then!

Posted by: N-S 29th August 2015, 04:31 PM

My favourite Utah Saints track is 1995's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPUmYZD97S4 (#42 in the UK Chart), mixing up Ohio Players' Fire, Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy and KC & The Sunshine Band's That's The Way I Like It.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th August 2015, 06:53 PM

Yeah - we messed up the dates at one point and were too lazy to go back and change them all. It's all relative, anyway.

Posted by: BillyH 29th August 2015, 07:10 PM

Is that the one that was performed on Going Live? I'm too young to remember it when first shown, but there's an brilliant clip I've seen of them performing it and the camera cutting back to a horrified/disgusted looking Phillip Schofield, to huge laughter from the camera crew.

The Rainbow remixes are completely new to me! Here's a great one of Pacman:

Posted by: dandystar 29th August 2015, 07:39 PM

Yes I quite liked this at the time too. It annoys me that it's not available to download anywhere as I want it for completist purposes!

Posted by: dandystar 29th August 2015, 07:39 PM

Haha!

Were you a fan of Sesame's Treet then?

Posted by: Doctor Blind 29th August 2015, 09:17 PM

Not one of Aphex Twin's finest moments!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th August 2015, 07:49 AM

Not hugely. But you used 3 'reallys'....It's 1 really at most.

Posted by: dandystar 30th August 2015, 12:23 PM

Can't we compromise at 2 reallys?

Afraid I don't like it at all.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th August 2015, 12:43 PM

I can understand that and while I dont listen to it very often at all I do like some of the music in parts of it.

Posted by: dandystar 30th August 2015, 12:50 PM

Anyway... are we due a couple more of these today? I'm loving the memories that this thread brings back

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th August 2015, 06:22 PM

No. One tomorrow - I have deadlines of a different kind looming.

Posted by: richie 31st August 2015, 12:24 PM

Yes, Trevor and Simon had a couple of characters called 'Pot Fish' who were some sort of rave roadshow a bit like The Hitman and Her. Trev had Pat Sharp hair and Simon was dressed in a leotard as 'Moon Monkey'. They basically used to just talk nonsense about being sorted while The Prodigy's 'Jericho' played in the background.

The Keith Harris and Orville rave track is here if you want to hear it. They 'cleverly' got Orville to sing 'E E E - look at me, I'm fying'.





Despite what others think, this was at least a little bit of quality in my opinion. I had a Carl Cox at the Coventry Eclipse (I think) mix tape some time in late spring 1992 and this was on it. I had no idea what it was, but I loved it. I was really chuffed when it got released properly a few months later.

I'm a pretty big Richard D James fan and I think I'd stick this on a best of compilation of his any day!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st September 2015, 08:37 PM

New job is making me tired! I'll get the next entry up soon

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th September 2015, 08:31 AM

The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode



Date 3th Sept 1992
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 6-2-1-1-1-1-3-8-29-48
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


And here's another song that is part of a slightly perplexing sequence of single releases.

Having become successful, but not quite household names, in 1991 with the re-released (and re-named) Move Any Mountain, and despite the tragic loss of Will Sinnott, The Shamen pressed on and capitalised on their position with a new album in 1992, and its attendant singles.

The first of these was L.S.I (Love Sex Intelligence). Now, while this was a substantial hit (coming in as the third highest selling dance single behind Sesame's Treet and Rhythm in a Dancer in July) it was to be vastly overshadowed in terms of sales, notoriety and in the public consciousness by its follow up Ebeneezer Goode.

The notoriety is a well documented controversy concerning the alleged promotion of ecstasy in the chorus chant of "Es are good". Several other drug references are present in the lyrics - most famously "Veras" for Vera Lynns: skins, and "salmon" for salmon and trout: snout, slang for cigrarettes. It was initially banned by the BBC but this didn't deter the single from hitting number 1 during the BBC's drug awareness week.

The band were asked to change some of these references for their Top of the Pops performances. Rapper, Mr C, would perform the lyric "Has anyone got any Veras?" as "Has anyone got any underlay?". He would later claim that this was a gratuitous rug reference.

The song, overall, is ebullient and has a childish infectiousness which grated on many listeners after the huge exposure that ensued. The verse lyrics are an easy flowing character description of Mr Goode in which Mr C's delivers his most upbeat rap on any Shamen single. It is endlessly quotable with a video that matches the almost hyper-active vocal delivery perfectly. Of course, the avenue the band took to reach mainstream success was so shamelessly populist that there were claims of selling out from former fans of the band and from fans dance music in general and the song has become something of a novelty song, in retrospect. Mixmag weren't at all impressed.

Its chart success was intentionally cut short by the band, deleting the song while it was at number 1 because it was potentially going to mess up the release schedule of the follow up singles. They were the first act to delete a single while it was still at the top of the charts.

Those follow up singles came thick and fast, and as a result The Shamen featured in every weekly Top 40 from 18th July 1992 to the end of January 1993.

Posted by: dandystar 5th September 2015, 09:56 AM

I never knew it was deleted, I remember at the time being perplexed by it's sudden tumble down the charts. Loved this when it was out - and still have a soft spot for it now actually.

Posted by: Gezza 5th September 2015, 10:38 AM

Sorry I hate to look like I'm picking holes in this excellent thread but just to throw a bit of extra light on this subject......Until recently I thought this was true but as it transpires the original Band Aid was deleted on new years day 1985 due to a dispute between Bob Geldof and the record shops about pricing. I think this MAY be the first instance though I'm prepared to be corrected?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th September 2015, 11:16 AM

I would say you are correct, Gezza. I was taking The Shamen's own word for it from an interview for The Guardian and they are probably not the chart afficianados that you are.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 5th September 2015, 12:05 PM

Despite Mr C’s OTT cockney geezer performance I do still enjoy “Ebeneezer Goode”, it's a really fun track and the Beatmasters mix which made it a number 1 record is probably my favourite. There is something deliciously childish about the Beeb not quite getting the pretty obvious drug reference and it climbing to #1 during their national ‘drug awareness fortnight’ campaign. Not sure why they deleted the record, probably because they were fed up with it being at number 1 or maybe worrying about losing their credibility. They have two more entries to come in 1992!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th September 2015, 12:32 PM

If you read my write up it said that continued success of EG was going to potentially mess up their release schedule.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 5th September 2015, 01:00 PM

Great, fun track! All the Shamen's 91-93 singles were quality!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 5th September 2015, 01:40 PM

Yeah I did read it, but I don't buy their explanation!

Posted by: Fgiboy2511 5th September 2015, 04:45 PM

I didn't get it at the time either I was 13. Went completely over my head. I was a lot more innocent than I ever thought I was. I also didn't get why there was fuss about "we call it acieeeed" at the time. I thought Acid was just a type of dance (which of course it also was) I also remember "Everything starts with an E" been played on the top 40 again I didn't get it.

It seems nowadays they are hypersensitive to certain things when pointed out i.e. "drunk sex" edited out on Rita Ora's "this is how we do" on certain tv and radio channels.

I remember in late 1987 there was a single in the top 40 called 2there ain't nothing like shaggin'" Bruno used to skip over it and not even say the name as an 8 year old this caught my attention. I asked my Dad what "shaggin" was. Oh dear.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th September 2015, 06:36 PM

No spoilers please

Posted by: dandystar 5th September 2015, 07:02 PM

Oh I totally didn't understand the controversy around Ebeneezer Goode either as I'm pleased to say those references weren't commonly used in my childhood!

My dad banned me from buying it due to the lyrics though. Not that this stopped me, I just bought it and pretended a friend had given it to me as a present.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th September 2015, 07:03 PM

I got the references as I'd heard of E when rave music broke into the mainstream charts and heard people talk on the radio about the lyrics.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 7th September 2015, 02:48 PM

Bizarre Inc ft. Angie Brown - I’m Gonna Get You



Date 18th October 1992
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 17-6-4-3-4-5-9-16-25-42-57-73-x-72 (13 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Making their long overdue appearance in this thread are Stafford’s Bizarre Inc, who were formed in 1989 by Mark Archer (who later went on to set up Altern 8 with engineer Chris Peat) and Dean Meredith. The duo’s first release, a stripped down house track “It’s Time To Get Funky” received strong club play but failed to chart and later the group ended up on hiatus as Mark left to pursue other projects. However, less than a year later the group reformed when Dean invited studio engineer Andy Meecham and local club DJ Carl Turner to join and they started to produce demos. Once such demo, the pulsating classic “Playing With Knives” was sent out to independent label Vinyl Solution and bagged them a contract - it shot to No.43 when released in March 1991 and was followed by the equally impressive “Such A Feeling” which became their major breakthrough hit, peaking at 13 in September ’91. A springboard re-release of “Playing With Knives” got them into the UK Top 5 (at #4) in November under the momentum of the rave chart takeover, however it took them almost a year to follow it.

Returning in October ’92, the group took inspiration from Jocelyn Brown’s 1986 minor hit “Love’s Gonna Get You” (peaking at #70), which had already inspired two Top 10 hits in the 1990s already, with uncredited samples used by Snap! (for 1990 #1 hit “The Power”) and Moby (for 1991’s “Go”). Using a catchy old skool breakbeat, a string-drenched backdrop as well as a sample from Dupree’s “Brass Disk” (Yo DJ, pump this party!), the group went for a more vocal driven commercial direction for “I’m Gonna Get You” which paid off when it duly delivered their biggest hit to-date. The trio originally tried to get Jocelyn to sing on their reworked version, however she declined and in the end they settled for Brixton-born session singer Angie Brown who provided her own incredibly powerful vocals and launched her into the big time. The group continued to collaborate with Brown and hit the Top 20 the following year with “Took My Love” (#19) however despite signing with a major label and later being A-listed on Radio 1 with 1996 single “Keep The Music Strong” (peaking at #33) they failed to recapture the spark that had provided Top 10 success and were soon dropped.. their final outing was an Al Scott remix of “Playing With Knives” which charted at #30 in March 1999. Angie Brown (who goes around touring as Bizarre Inc) was last seen in 2014 appearing on the third series of The Voice UK singing “I’m Gonna Get You” but failing to capture the attention of any of the judges!

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 7th September 2015, 03:04 PM

Still love the song. Anthem!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 7th September 2015, 07:36 PM

I always really disliked that song and things haven't changed. Even if they hadn't been responsible for the amazing Such a Feeling I would still find it repetitive and irritating. Awful.


Sorry

Posted by: AntoineTTe 7th September 2015, 07:55 PM

A recap of my favourites and least favourites so far.

Best
1 Adamski - Killer
2 SL2 - On a Ragga Tip
3 Utah Saints - Something Good
4 The Prodigy - Charly
5 KLF - Last Train to Trancentral


Worst
1 Bizarre Inc- I'm Gonna Get You
2 KWS - Please Don't Go
3 Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman
4 Oceanic - Insanity
5 2 Unlimited - Get Ready for This.

Overall it's been an amazing chart so far (not just because I'm involved )

Posted by: girlsaloudjunkie 8th September 2015, 12:22 PM

I'm LOVING this thread
As an Aussie, some of these songs weren't hits in Australia so I've found a couple of new JAMS here
Am living for Oceanic's 'Insanity', The Shamen's 'Move Any Mountain' ('Ebeneezer Goode' was their only hit back in Oz) and Shut Up & Dance's 'Raving I'm Raving'.
The rest I either knew or have found to be absolute shit

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th September 2015, 04:06 PM

Glad you are enjoying - that is why we are doing it!

Rage - Run To You



Date 1st November 1992
1 Week
Official Chart Run 10-3-5-10-13-25-34-45-51-54-61 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

A lot of the criticism aimed at the music scene of 1992 was its lack of musical direction - at times the UK singles chart was overwhelmed with covers or re-releases of older hits: In February “My Girl” by the Temptations was riding high at #2 concurrently with “It Must Be Love” by Madness, reinforcing the nation’s nostalgia fix and setting the tone for the rest of the year; sales consequently were at their lowest ebb of the decade. Of course this wasn’t strictly fair, the growing dance scene was providing some of the most exciting and innovative hits for years but the most interesting tracks didn’t always register - instead sadly a number of fairly uninspired dance covers triumphed in their place. Of course we have already seen K.K.S. who spent 5 weeks at No. 1 in May/June, but in September Undercover’s retread of the Gerry Rafferty classic “Baker Street” spent 7 weeks in the Top 5, and a year earlier East Side Beat added a beat to Christopher Cross’ relatively unknown “Ride Like The Wind” and shot it into the Top 3.

Next up were Rage - or En-rage as they were known in Europe due to a legal dispute with the German rock band Rage - who updated Bryan Adam’s career launching debut “Run To You”. The 1985 original (which incidentally holds the UK record for most consecutive weeks at #11 without peaking higher) dealt with the subject of infidelity, and took the guitar intro from “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and reworked it to create a melodic pop/rock track which melded well with Adam’s throaty vocals. Rage were created by UK producers Barry Leng and Duncan Hannant, and were fronted by seasoned singer and frontman Tony Jackson (whose previous claim to fame was voicing the Um Bongo adverts in the 1980s). MC Chill Rob G is also sampled for the incongruous rap towards the end of the track: ‘You need to slow your speed, stop the nonsense’ taken from 1989s “Let The Words Flow” (also sampled by Snap’s! “The Power” 2 years earlier) - which was a commentary on how MC's are rapping faster but not actually saying anything of worth. Originally released in May but failing to get anywhere, a re-release in November secured a Top 10 debut and a fairly sizeable hit, though it soon drifted and they never again returned to the Top 40, achieving just two further minor hits with the same basic backing track/beat - the highest of these - an Animals cover - made No. 41 (“House Of The Rising Sun”) the following year.

Posted by: dandystar 8th September 2015, 06:47 PM

How weird, I have never even vaguely thought of that as a cover of the Bryan Adams track!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 8th September 2015, 10:06 PM

It's preferable to Baker Street or Please Don't Go.

Posted by: richie 9th September 2015, 07:34 AM

Worth pointing out that Jerry Sadowitz played the titular character in the video for any fans of foul-mouthed Scottish comedy (or magic for that matter).

Yeah, it was a really aggressive release schedule - Boss Drum and Phorever People were both out really quickly. Not sure the releases of Re:Evolution and Comin' On were needed!

Posted by: richie 9th September 2015, 07:41 AM

I remember very well an interview with Altern 8 in Select where they were in the studio they shared with Bizarre Inc. Mark Archer loaded up their DAT (I assume) and listened back then the two of them laughed themselves silly as "Bizarre Inc. had gone garage".

Wasn't a huge fan - a real toning down from Playing with Knives, but it wasn't completely awful.

Posted by: richie 9th September 2015, 08:16 AM

I didn't realise at the time that Rage had covered Bryan Adams...but I didn't like it very much, so I guess I should have realised!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 9th September 2015, 04:28 PM

The Shamen - Boss Drum



Date 8th November 1992
1 Week
Official Chart Run 6-4-6-9-13-30-57 (7 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

This is second of three appearances in ’92 for The Shamen. Whilst many of the bands original fans had long since departed by this point, the commercial success of the Scottish rock/dance group continued to soar - helped massively by the controversy surrounding their previous single “Ebeneezer Goode”.

In October the title track became the third single from their 5th album Boss Drum, which was the groups first LP without the late Will Sinnott following the tragic incident that sadly marred their commercial breakthrough “Move Any Mountain” 18 months earlier. Once again the group called upon the production talents of the Beatmasters for the single edit, and “Boss Drum” was transformed from sparse techno into an upbeat pop track which recalled many of the groups traditional psychedelia soundscapes and lyrical themes first experimented with on 1989s In Gorbachev We Trust. Mr C's abrasive cockney patois is dialled down a notch which allows Colin Angus’ echoed mantra Activate the rhythm, the rhythm that has always been within you to dominate.

Like “Ebeneezer Goode” the track stormed into the chart at number 6 (with fifth format - the 12” vinyl - debuting on its own at 58 in the same week) to give the group their 4th consecutive Top 10 hit, however without the commercial edge of its predecessor it failed to find much of a footing in the Top 5 and quickly retreated after limping to number 4 the following week. Founding member Colin Angus was already tired of the dance sound the group had found themselves cultivating over the past year and following one final venture into the Top 10 would gradually move the group towards a more ambient and chill out sound drawing their brief flirtation with the mainstream to a close. Ever the innovators, in 1995 “Destination Eschaton” the lead single from their next album was made available only on the internet in advance of the physical release, a fore bearer of things to come.. Colin suggested at the time that ‘The internet has the potential to circumvent the record companies completely, with consumers buying music direct at source from the artist on a pay as you play basis’. In 2007 Radiohead did just that with their pay-what-you-want digital LP release for In Rainbows.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 9th September 2015, 04:47 PM

Another great track from the Shamen.

Interesting to hear that both the KLF & the Shamen weren't too fond of their commercial success.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 9th September 2015, 05:27 PM

A lot of bands reject their commercial success for a variety of reasons. One of them being that being famous, popular, rich and in demand didn't live up to expectations. Members of Blur and Pulp had such a reaction.

Then there were bands that loved being big - The Manics and Suede always seemed to need validation from the buying population.

Posted by: dandystar 9th September 2015, 07:02 PM

I loved Boss Drum at the time, the strategy of releasing specific single mixes was really clever as it prompted people to buy the singles even after purchasing the album. I think I may have to download their best of as I've just watched to the video it's making me feel a tad nostalgic.

At the time I was such a big fan that I bought all their early albums - to much ensuing horror as they sounded nothing like the 'dance pop' act they had become in 1992.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 9th September 2015, 07:39 PM

I just played the 12" this evening. It doesn't sound like a top 5 single. It did well on the success of EG, I think. They went poppy again for Phorever People single.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 9th September 2015, 07:41 PM

I hope you will be compiling a list of your favourite 43 tracks to be made into a compilation next year called Now That's What BuzzJack Calls ACTUAL 90s Dance Music

Posted by: dandystar 9th September 2015, 07:43 PM

Yes, my overriding impression was that it wasn't particularly commercial. Although a 12 year old me did really like it at the time so maybe it was more commercial than it seems.

Posted by: BillyH 9th September 2015, 08:05 PM

1992's commercial dance scene really doesn't compare to the brilliance of mid-late 1991 for me, and this isn't based on any memories of the time as I'd have only been about 3 then. Bizarre Inc's transition from Such a Feeling/Playing With Knives to I'm Gonna Get You is kinda painful to listen to, it's so bland in comparison.

The Shamen have their moments but their singles, particularly by now, are just too poppy for me.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 9th September 2015, 10:31 PM

Now that's what I call a good idea.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 9th September 2015, 10:34 PM

It's the usual thing of a scene being fresh and inventive one year becoming silly and opportunistic the following year. The same happened with brit pop and trance too. But even in the silly years there's solid gold to be found.

Posted by: richie 10th September 2015, 07:48 AM

I think Boss Drum is still pretty poppy - the main hook certainly is. Might have been the lack of a female vocal in there as it's certainly less pop than LSI or Phorever People.

Interesting reading that Destination Eschaton was originally released only on the web as I do remember going to an Internet café in Edinburgh in the summer of 1995 and being amazed that I could play music on a PC from a remote location and listen to it through headphones...and, indeed, it was that track and associated remixes.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 10th September 2015, 04:52 PM

Undercover - Never Let Her Slip Away



Date 15th November 1992
1 Week
Official Chart Run 7-5-5-7-17-24-29-27-36-58-75 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

As mentioned earlier, there was a strong resurgence of nostalgia in the pop charts of ’92 - dance remixes are a great way of breathing new life into forgotten classics and introducing these songs to a new generation, usually however it has to be said, at the revulsion of those who remember the original. Undercover were a studio collaboration that set out to do just as the name suggested - perform cover versions of underrated classic hits. They were formed the year before by lead singer John Matthews, who was joined by Tim Laws and John Jules, and returned to the Top 10 in November having already managed a massive #2 during September with their updated version of Gerry Rafferty’s classic “Baker Street”. Unsurprisingly given the huge success of their debut, they used exactly the same formula for their follow-up. Essentially this involved adding a catchy dance beat to a 70s record with a prominent saxophone hook, and for “Never Let Her Slip Away” they once again raided the pop charts of 1978 and came across the Andrew Gold original which coincidentally also peaked at number 5.

“Never Let Her Slip Away” is one of their better covers (although the saxophone hook is much less distinctive) and it thankfully doesn't venture too far from the wistful and saccharine original. Complete with original saxophone lilt the 1978 hit single is updated with a Eurodance beat and those electronic blips that Pete Waterman liked to put in most of his productions at the time. The single benefitted hugely from following “Baker Street” which had only left the Top 40 the previous week after 13 weeks residency. It was however to become their penultimate Top 40 hit, the follow-up “I Wanna Stay With You” (1976 cover of Gallagher & Lyle) hit reverse gear immediately after debuting at 28. Their final single release of the 90s “Best Friend” fizzled out at a disappointing #79 in 1994 (and it was an original recording, though it sounded suspiciously like Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson’s “The Best Things In Life Are Free”). Unbelievably the group continued until 2005 when they finally disbanded, though not before threatening to return to the Top 40 with the frankly bizarre Only Fools and Horses influenced ‘unofficial’ Euro 2004 single “Viva England” which charted at #49.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 10th September 2015, 05:08 PM

That Undercover track isn't that bad. It still surprisingly sounds modern for 2015 considering the recent sax revival in these "tropical/melodic house" tracks (which is getting generic too).

Posted by: AntoineTTe 10th September 2015, 07:28 PM

As Steps once said - better best forgotten.

Posted by: richie 11th September 2015, 09:03 AM

Oh God, the singing geography teacher...

Posted by: Doctor Blind 11th September 2015, 04:55 PM

Heaven 17 - Temptation [Brothers In Rhythm Remix]



Date 22nd November 1992
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 9-4-4-5-13-18-17-16-35-49-66 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Continuing the nostalgia trip, we now have the Brothers In Rhythm remix of Heaven 17’s “Temptation”, which originally peaked at #2 in the Spring of 1983. This is the first and sadly only entry we will encounter from the respected production duo of Dave Seaman and Steve Anderson, aka Brothers In Rhythm. They met at the DMC label in 1988 where Seaman had recently taken over as the illustrious editor of Britain’s soon-to-be leading dance music publication Mixmag. Dave’s love of remixing provided Steve with some inspired sampling ideas which he was able to construct into dance anthems... and so the successful duo of Brothers In Rhythm was born.

In 1991, the group lent their remixing talents to Sabrina Johnston’s “Peace (In The Valley)”, their huge sounding production soldering her euphoric soul vocals to a blistering house beat. That remix used as the single edit helped the track to storm into the Top 10 just at the same time that their own piano house driven debut “Such a Good Feeling” (confusingly released at the same time as, and charting similarly to Bizarre Inc’s “Such a Feeling”) was climbing its way up the national chart to peak at number 14. Following a successive string of very well received mixes the group were invited to collaborate with some big names such as Michael Jackson and Kylie Minogue. One such artist was Heaven 17, and in November ’92 they were drafted in for a remix of “Temptation” released as a teaser to what would be the groups forthcoming Greatest Hits Higher and Higher. Anderson and Seaman took the original, added a few new drum beats in, some harder bass, and a few additional riffs to tighten the track up and turn it into a disco anthem which built and built until the songs climax. The remix was a massive success, charting in the Top 5 for 3 consecutive weeks during the bustle and rush of the pre-Christmas singles chart.

After 1992 the duo left remixing to concentrate on production and songwriting, notably writing Kylie Minogue’s emphatic comeback single “Confide In Me” 18 months later in September 1994 which peaked at #2.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 11th September 2015, 05:03 PM

"Temptation" is an all time classic. Love both versions - though this is the version Heaven 17 still perform at the festival circuits these days.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 11th September 2015, 06:14 PM

I love that you did your write up about Brothers in Rhythm rather than Heaven 17.

Posted by: BillyH 11th September 2015, 06:44 PM

My ideal mix of Temptation would be somewhere between both versions - the 1992 mix is almost perfect but add on some of the synths and that thudding 80s drumbeat from the original and I'd be in heaven!

Posted by: richie 14th September 2015, 08:35 AM

Ha! Yes indeed, good point.

Loved the Heaven 17 mix - nice to see we're still getting good number ones as we approach the end of 1992. I suspect this thread will be generally more full of badness than goodness as the decade moves on!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 14th September 2015, 03:20 PM

There will still be solid gold in several spots. Dont be so down about the rest of the decade.

Posted by: Ethan 14th September 2015, 06:29 PM

'temptation' ~ classic bop

Posted by: dandystar 14th September 2015, 06:33 PM

Quite! There are a whole range of fantastic dance tracks through the 90s, we have the likes of Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, (yet more) Prodigy, Robert Miles etc and I'd imagine a fair few guilty pleasures along the way too (hi Urban Cookie Collective and Cappella?)

Posted by: richie 15th September 2015, 08:04 AM

I'll look forward to a few treats! I'm just a grumpy git anyway - it pretty much follows the fact I went right off dance music in 1993 and became far more indie.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 16th September 2015, 10:28 PM

The Shamen - Phorever People



Date 13th Dec 1992
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 7-5-6-5-7-11-18-30-46-72->10
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


And here they are again.

They are far from the only act who manage three consecutive number 1s in this run down but they are the ones who did it in the shortest span of time. A mere 9 weeks after Ebeneezer Goode spent its final week at number 1 in our rundown they hit the top spot for the third time - this time with a lot more staying power than with the interim Boss Drum.

Once again the Beatmasters are on re-mix duty making an effectiveness pop confection from what is easily the catchiest song on its parent album after Ebeneezer Goode. Another reason this was a sizeable hit was the presence of the glorious vocals from Jhelisa Anderson who was absent from Boss Drum. You really start wondering why Phorever People wasn't released as the direct follow up to EG in the first place though December sales helped this become their third highest seller after Move Any Mountain and Ebeneezer Goode.

A fun Top of the Pops appearance may have helped its fortunes - see below

The Shamen would be back in the top 20 February of 1993 with their Terence McKenna narrated Re:Evolution, and later with The SOS EP.

1995's comeback Destination Eschaton would be their final top 20 hit with one more appearance in the Top 40 with Heal the Separation in 1996 before a re-remix of Move Any Mountain became their final hit that same year.


As it is an all time classic it's worth a mentioning that while The Prodigy's Out of Space was outsold by either Heaven 17's Temptation or The Shamen's Phorever People in the weekly charts it sold more than both in the long run and by a decent margin too - 60,000 copies.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 16th September 2015, 10:34 PM

Phorever People - another flawless bop!

I'm presuming L.S.I. didn't hit #1? It's my favourite of the 4 Shamen singles from that album!

Posted by: richie 17th September 2015, 01:23 PM

Very surprised that Out of Space was not a dance chart number one!

Bring on 1993 - gently.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 17th September 2015, 07:13 PM

It did spend 5 weeks in the runner up position.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 17th September 2015, 08:13 PM

1992 at a glance...


1992-01-12 The Prodigy - Everybody In The Place (2 weeks)
1992-01-26 2 Unlimited - Twilight Zone (4 weeks)
1992-02-23 Opus III - It’s A Fine Day (2 weeks)
1992-03-08 The KLF - America: What Time Is Love? (2 weeks)
1992-03-22 Ce Ce Peniston - Finally (3 weeks)
1992-04-12 Altern 8 - E-Vapor-8 (1 week)
1992-04-19 SL2 - On A Ragga Tip (2 weeks)
1992-05-03 KWS - Please Don't Go/Game Boy (7 weeks)
1992-06-21 Utah Saints - Something Good (2 weeks)
1992-07-05 Smart E's - Sesame's Treet (2 weeks)
1992-07-19 Snap! - Rhythm is a Dancer (8 weeks)
1992-09-03 The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode (5 weeks)
1992-10-18 Bizarre Inc ft. Angie Brown - I’m Gonna Get You (2 weeks)
1992-11-01 Rage - Run To You (1 week)
1992-11-08 The Shamen - Boss Drum (1 week)
1992-11-15 Undercover - Never Let Her Slip Away (1 week)
1992-11-22 Heaven 17 - Temptation [Brothers In Rhythm Remix] (3 weeks)
1992-12-13 The Shamen - Phorever People (4 weeks)


01 Snap! - Rhythm Is a Dancer (1)
02 KWS - Please Don't Go/Game Boy (1)
03 Undercover - Baker Street (2 - held back by Snap!)
04 The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode (1)
05 Dr Alban - It's My Life (2 - held back The Shamen)
06 SL2 - On a Ragga Tip (1)
07 2 Unlimited - Twilight Zone (1)
08 Smart Es - Sesame's Treet (1)
09 Bizare Inc - I'm Gonna Get You (1)
10 Felix - Don't You Want Me (2 - held back by Snap!)

Posted by: Doctor Blind 18th September 2015, 06:53 PM

A massive comedown after “Boss Drum”, still ok - but really quite mediocre considering their previous form.

“Coming On” was the sixth single wasn't it in 1993? It debuted at 18 and climbed to 14 the following week because of the single having to be taken off the shelves in week 1 (temporarily) after they dropped the artist who provided their artwork and the dropped artist subsequently took out an injunction on the new artwork for the single - it ended up re-released later that week in a black sleeve. Bizarre but true. They never once again made the Top 10.

Posted by: Ethan 18th September 2015, 07:23 PM

'it's my life' + 'don't you want me' ~ two amazing old skool tunes

Posted by: AntoineTTe 18th September 2015, 10:20 PM

I wouldn't say it was a come down at all. I prefer it to Move Any Mountain and Bossdrum.

Comin' On was the lead track on The SOS EP.

Posted by: dandystar 19th September 2015, 07:01 PM

I'm pretty certain I bought the original version with artwork then, in fact I think there were 2 CDs housed in one overall package as was getting quite common during the 90s.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 19th September 2015, 07:39 PM

Yes sorry Tony, the single was an EP called Show of Strength (S.O.S.) and the lead single from it was “Comin' On”

Here's the banned artwork (which Dandy owns ) http://www.discogs.com/Shamen-Show-Of-Strength-EP/release/1916485
and the re-branded black sleeve: http://www.discogs.com/Shamen-SOS-EP-Part-1/release/1916484

Posted by: AntoineTTe 19th September 2015, 07:50 PM

Snap! - Exterminate



Date 10th Jan 1993
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 7-2-2-2-4-7-13-19-36-50-64-
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


So far, not exactly in a hurry with their Madman's Return album campaign (one single in each year 1991, 1992 ) Snap! return to the charts in 1993 with Exterminate. This time with the assistance of Niki Harris.

Exterminate wasn't really part of the album campaign in conventional terms. The song is "based on the track Ex-terminator" which did feature on the album but bears very little resemblance to the single release that it might as well be a different song - quite the opposite approach of the KLF who made several songs out of the same hook

As Turbo D had left the band in 1992 they'd have had trouble promoting a song that featured his raps on it in any case, so perhaps this was also a motivation in releasing a song that didn't have him on it. It was a continent-wide success reaching the Top 5 in 9 territories and hitting the top spot in Spain and Finland.

The star here is Niki Harris. Niki was somewhat of a friend of the stars at this point, working closely with Madonna since 1987 and choreographing one of her MTV Awards performances. Her portfolio is world class, having worked as backing singer or choreographer with countless performers, the most famous of whom are Mick Jagger, Prince, Whitney and Kylie. Check your local Wikipedia for a fuller list

She held down a career in jazz also and even turned her hand to acting in Heat and staging scenes in Basic Instinct. An all rounder, you could say.

Now this is the surprising part - perhaps. This is the last we'll see of Snap! with or without Niki. They continued to have original top 40 hits until the end of 1994 and one of them - Welcome to Tomorrow - would be their slowest rising taking eight weeks to peak at number 6 that year.

After some minor hits after that in 1996 we'd regularly see them in the charts with re-releases, most commonly Rhythm is a Dancer.

Alas, we must now say goodbye to the most successful dance band of the early 90s in terms of weeks in the official Top 10 and weeks at number 1.

Their closest rival is up next.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 19th September 2015, 08:21 PM

They took so long to follow-up “Rhythm Is A Dancer”... instrumentally this is actually pretty good and really doesn't sound as dated as it should from 1993, though I could do without the Enigma-esque pan pipes! Mostly rather forgotten and definitely not played anymore though as it has been overshadowed so much by its predecessor.

At the time I much preferred The Beloved's “Sweet Harmony” which sadly will not be making an appearance in this thread.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 19th September 2015, 08:38 PM

Exterminate is pretty good. Love the vocals from Madonna's backup singer, Niki Harris.

Posted by: dandystar 19th September 2015, 11:42 PM

I was obsessed with the Beloved in early 1993 and I still think the Conscience album is a decent enough listen. Sweet Harmony was fantastic but I also really liked 1000 Years From Today, You've Got Me Thinking, Spirit and Dream On. A shame the main single won't appear here, it went through a period of being quite the classic when Ministry of Sound first ventured into chill out albums.

Posted by: richie 21st September 2015, 11:08 AM

Aha, I think I know who that is...no limit to my knowledge.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 22nd September 2015, 09:03 PM

2 Unlimited - No Limit



Date 31st Jan 1993
9 Weeks
Official Chart Run 4-2-1-1-1-1-1-2-4-5-8-10-18-24-43-60 (16 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


How much can be said about this totemic, iconic staple of 90s eurodance? Ripe for parody ("There's no lyrics" ), the song made the duo a household name, established them as a major chart force and help propel them to the top of the album chart as well as dominating the singles charts for quite some time.

Once again, the UK release had most of the rap removed at the behest of Pete Waterman (was he the Vidcapper of his day?) - all that was left for Raymond to mime to on Top of the Pops was the repetition of the word "Techno" four times. The Bluebells would take the mick on Top of the Pops a few weeks later by interjecting in their Young At Heart chart topping single a refrain of "indie, indie, indie, indie".
It hit number 1 in 9 European countries and sold 2.8 million copies.

No Limit remained one of the top 5 biggest selling dance singles of the decade until the late 90s when sales sky rocketed. It is also the current longest reigning number 1s in this run down.

Will it keep that accolade? Any guesses for challengers?

We will see more of Raymond and Anita in a while.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 22nd September 2015, 09:05 PM

A true classic & probably their signature song in Europe.

Posted by: richie 23rd September 2015, 07:35 AM

I suspect there might be challenges from the Vengaboys, Outhere Brothers and, way way off, Eiffel 65.

Hmm...what did the Europeans ever do for us?

Posted by: dandystar 23rd September 2015, 09:56 AM

Assuming you're counting the remix of the track as being the single, then I'd imagine the longest runner to be a certain unexpected smash that never even made the top 2...

(and it would be a great title holder too!)

Posted by: richie 23rd September 2015, 10:28 AM

Can't work out what that would be - will sit tight and wait

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd September 2015, 10:47 AM

I couldn't possibly comment

Posted by: Gezza 23rd September 2015, 11:53 AM

"No limit" remains an eyesore on the face of pop music, not even an ironic revision of it can redeem it.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd September 2015, 12:26 PM

not even this?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd September 2015, 01:14 PM

Sybil - When I'm Good And Ready



Date 4th Apr 1993
1 Week
Official Chart Run 22-16-8-5-5-5-7-13-16-23-40-54-65 (13 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Sybil Lynch arrived in the mid 80s with her wonderful voice and churned out a string of minor hits. It wasn't until her second album that she gained notable popularity updating classic Dionne Warwick songs - Don't Make Me Over and Walk On By (both written by Bacharach/David). Both UK hits.

But she wasn't able to maintain the momentum of this recent success and her third album failed to produce any hits at all and so she trundled on in the margins quietly making beautiful music.

In 1993, Messrs Aitken and Waterman took advantage of the traditional January slump in the singles market and promptly thrust our starlet into the lime-light with yet another cover, this time it was soul ballad writers Gamble and Huff's song The Love I Lost, made famous by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. This was a huge hit nestling behind Snap! as the second best selling dance single for two weeks in January.

By the time March came it was time to follow this up and Aitken and Watermen (lordy, men do love writing songs in pairs) provided Sybil with a newly written song When I'm Good and Ready.

As Doctor B mentioned in the Undercover write up (apolz from mentioning that again ) Pete Waterman was fond of using bleeps in his productions around this time, and this was no different. It's a pleasing confection, showcasing Sybil's effortlessly classy vocals.

Alas, her success was short-lived and she never again had a Top 40 hit in the UK, managing to reach number 41 with her two follow up singles Beyond Your Wildest Dreams and Stronger Together.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 23rd September 2015, 01:34 PM

Always liked this. Inoffensive but fun!

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd September 2015, 01:36 PM

Perhaps inoffensive is the wrong word to use. I will change it.

Posted by: BillyH 23rd September 2015, 01:58 PM

This is such an underrated pop gem - it feels very poppy now but I guess it would have been closer to a dance track for 1993 ears. Has anyone heard it played in the last 20 years? I wasn't even aware of it existing until a decade ago, my iPod copy is from a second-hand purchase of Now Dance 93.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 23rd September 2015, 02:32 PM

She's an underrated singer.

Posted by: dandystar 23rd September 2015, 05:56 PM

I hope I was suitably vague in my description for you to know what I was referring to without giving it away to everyone else.

(plus I hope I'm correct as the track is one of my favourites from the 90s )

Posted by: dandystar 23rd September 2015, 05:59 PM

I think I had the Sybil album! Oh my, I bought so many terrible albums based upon a love of one or two decent pop tracks back in those days...

(also see the likes of Real Mccoy later on in the decade)

Posted by: Doctor Blind 23rd September 2015, 08:08 PM

Dizzee Rascal also trolled 2 Unlimited by singing ‘Disco Disco Disco Disco’ in the pretty DIRE offering that was “Dirtee Disco” which hit #1 in May 2010.

Posted by: paulgilb 23rd September 2015, 10:51 PM

Wave 105 plays it fairly frequently (often on Saturday evenings). They also play No Limit - but they play the version with the rap (which doesn't feature the Techno Techno Techno Techno line), which is unusual because in many other cases they play non-rap versions of songs.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 24th September 2015, 11:37 AM

It hasn't given it away I don't think.

Posted by: richie 25th September 2015, 07:42 AM

Nope, I'm still none the wiser and I spent a while thinking about it!

Sybil - cheesy and best ignored but, yeah, inoffensive is fair enough.

No, I don't think I've heard No Limit in 20 years either except maybe in the odd parody version that no longer hits the mark.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 27th September 2015, 07:52 AM

Sub Sub featuring Melanie Wiliams - Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)



Date 11th Apr 1993
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 10-4-3-4-7-9-13-19-34-46-71 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Sub Sub were Jimi Goodwin and twin brothers Andy and Jez Williams. The twins and Jimi met at school in the mid-80s and were regulars a Manchester's legendary Haçienda club.

In 1991 they released Space Face on 12", with a somewhat 808 State and New Order influence (hardly escapable influences given the bands history). After joining Rob's Records in 1993 they constructed Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use) primarily using a sample of Good Morning Starshine from disco band Revelation.

Needing a vocalist to make this more of a commercial prospect they asked Melanie Williams to perform on the track and to help the during promotion of the song.

An album followed in 1994 but when a fire destroyed everything in their recording studio in 1996 the trio changed direction completely and formed Doves who went on to have significant success in the 00s becoming one of the major guitar bands of the era earning Brits and Mercury Prize nominations.

Melanie went on to have a few minor hits in 1994 and 1995, her final appearance in the chart being a duet with Joe Roberts, You Are Everything, in 1995.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 27th September 2015, 11:07 PM

Great track. Had it's own edge in production to stand out at the time. Love it.

Posted by: richie 28th September 2015, 08:03 AM

I wasn't a massive fan of 'Ain't no Use' at the time as I thought it was a disappointing departure from Space Face but I really do quite like it now. A welcome change from rubbish europop at the top of the dance chart!

Think a few people were surprised to learn that Doves were Sub Sub in an earlier guise, but it makes sense when you examine the Doves records as waveforms (not that I suggest anyone do this - I was making a long mix using their song 'Pounding' once on the computer!) and realise that they are perfectly quantised (beat-mapped) and ready to mix into dance records.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th September 2015, 11:00 AM

I was never really a fan. The sample sounded too quirky for me. I didn't dislike it either.

Doves Pounding is so euphoric and was one of my favourite tracks from the 00s.

Posted by: dandystar 28th September 2015, 11:44 AM

I liked that one at the time and I think I like it even more in retrospect, as you say it's pretty quirky which is always a good thing in my book. It's one of the few tracks that feels even vaguely in the same mould as Groove Is In The Heart.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th September 2015, 11:58 AM

I was thinking the same myself.

I've sequenced them consecutively in my Now That's What Buzzjack Calls 90s Dance compilation - to be released when this thread is finished.

Posted by: dandystar 28th September 2015, 12:10 PM

lol - Fabulous! *.*

Posted by: richie 28th September 2015, 01:27 PM

Ha ha, excellent. Will it be on Spotify?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 28th September 2015, 04:47 PM

Spotify has dodgy versions of some tracks so no.


I will provide a pack of ones and zeros which should be enough to make your computer or phone make the right sounds.

Posted by: richie 29th September 2015, 08:20 AM

Heh, ok. I've pretty much given up on MP3s now - just Spotify for me, dodgy versions or not.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th September 2015, 08:58 AM

Nah, I couldn't survive on Spotify version of KLF

Posted by: AcerBen 29th September 2015, 09:54 AM

Heart sometimes play it as a "Club Classic". Also seen it on Heart TV.

Posted by: richie 29th September 2015, 10:27 AM

Ha ha! True that. I really should load my iPhone with the few tracks I can't get on Spotify. Those that are deleted or very rare mostly...I don't tend to bother with anyone who's that up themselves they have their music exclusively with one provider.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 29th September 2015, 02:56 PM

2 Unlimited - Tribal Dance



Date 2nd May 1993
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 4-4-5-5-8-11-18-28-42-64-71 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

When we first heard from 2 Unlimited - masterminded by Belgian producers Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde, but fronted by handpicked 19 year-olds Anita and Ray - in 1991, they were something unique, fresh and memorable. The relentless urgency of “Get Ready For This” was a force to be reckoned with and Pete Waterman’s acquisition of the rights to release the track for just £1,000 a steal. By the early part of ’93 however, with the popularity of rave and acid house fragmenting rapidly, a vacuum opened in the UK commercial dance scene. This was rapidly filled by the eurodance that was growing in popularity across the continent. Whilst 2 Unlimited would eventually become engulfed within this surge of rival groups (one of which we will encounter very soon) - few, if any of these - would go on to replicate the kind of success and popularity that the group were able to sustain. They scored 13 Top 20 hits and 2 number 1 albums in the UK; with their second LP: No Limits climbing to #1 in its fourth week on release. In the spring of ’93 the duo were riding high at their commercial peak, thrust into the mainstream after their 5 week run at No. 1 with “No Limit” and the aforementioned Spitting Image parody.

“Tribal Dance” didn't change the winning formula too much, the track is announced with a drum roll and promptly arrives on a trumpet riff that is built around the main synth that dominated 1992 single “The Twilight Zone”. Many of the eurodance trademarks (taken from its origins of house, hip-hop and rave) that would go on to dominate the mid-90s are exhibited here, including a catchy female driven melodic chorus provided by Anita’s uplifting vocals, a frantic beat and pounding bassline which is punctuated in the original with a rapid fire rap from Ray to change things up. Incidentally his rap is removed once again for the UK release, though is he at least given more on-record contribution than simply the word ‘Techno’ repeated eight times consecutively.

There were tumultuous happenings on the UK singles chart this week too - which was the first in history to ever have 3 new entries inside the Top 5, of which 2 Unlimited was only the second highest - as a result “Tribal Dance” was unable to advance beyond its entry point of 4, and it also ultimately became the groups last ever Top 5 hit.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 29th September 2015, 03:33 PM

Back then it didn't seem that they were a huge band. I was getting into REM, New Order and Depeche Mode in 1993, dance was receding into the backgrond. In late 93 I would be swept away by Kate Bush and Tori Amos.

It was a pivotal year for me. I started it being an Erasure fan and finished it by being captivated by those two women.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 29th September 2015, 09:34 PM

"Tribal Dance" is one of 2 Unlimited's best singles. They kind of owned the early '90s dance wise.

Posted by: richie 30th September 2015, 07:52 AM

Yes, 1993 was the year I went off dance music too with a couple of notable exceptions in The Orb re-releases and Leftfield's collaboration with John Lydon towards the end of the year. Rave completely ate itself and I just couldn't get into drum 'n' bass when jungle morphed into it. I was getting hugely into the bands who would be clumsily gathered together to form the nascent 'Britpop' scene soon after - Pulp, The Auteurs, Sleeper, Elastica, Suede, Blur - and some of those still hanging on from the previous "scene" - Kingmaker, Levellers, Carter USM, Pop Will Eat Itself etc. and a few other oddities that didn't fit in anywhere - Senser, Cornershop, Back to the Planet, Credit to the Nation and possibly some other bands with "to the" in their name.

Posted by: BillyH 30th September 2015, 01:47 PM

1993 isn't one of my favourite musical years of the 1990s anyway, it's probably only just above 1992 for me which is my least fave year of the decade. But then I only discovered most of it years later, I'm massively more biased to the second half of the decade as I remember more of it from the time.

Just scrolling down my iTunes for 1993 tracks, the likes of Suede and James stand out more along with the whole of the 'Very' album by the Pet Shop Boys. Although The Time Frequency made some pretty good tracks that year.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 30th September 2015, 03:27 PM

Haddaway - What Is Love?



Date 6th June 1993
8 Weeks
Official Chart Run 18-6-3-3-2-2-3-5-6-9-16-20-32-47-64 (15 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Even if you weren’t born in the 90s, you are very likely to be aware of this song. Trinidadian Alexander Nestor Haddaway shot to #2 in the summer of ’93 with his debut hit “What Is Love?”, asking one of the most profoundly deep rhetorical questions you’re ever likely to find in a dance record, and also became the first of 3 enduring 90s dance classics that dominated the singles chart during that summer.

Whilst in America the song became a sizeable hit (peaking at #11) he remained the very definition of a one-hit-wonder there, however “What Is Love?” continues to be remembered thanks to enduring SNL sketch The Roxbury Guys which featured the nightclubbing addicted Butabi brothers (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) and even spawned 1998 film A Night at the Roxbury. Across much of Europe however, Haddaway had massive success, particularly in Germany where “What Is Love?” spent 23 weeks inside the Top 10. It was Germany after all (in Cologne) where he had settled in 1989 after spending his formative years in the United States. He initially worked as a choreographer and carpet seller, but always wrote music in his spare time, eventually he hit the big time and achieved his lifelong dream after signing with German based label Coconut Records and releasing the thumping soulful eurodance of “What Is Love?” (written and produced by Tony Hendrik and Karin van Haaren) in 1993.

The track uses the much employed formula of juxtaposing downbeat and heartbreaking lyrics with a euphoric beat and unbelievably catchy synths, so that as Haddaway’s lament to ‘a girl who won't love him back’ echoes through the track’s chorus - the emotion is only heightened by the backing track and successfully turns the song into something both relatable and danceable. The repetitive nature of the chorus in the song matching the frustration in the way we that we often make the same mistakes in relationships over and over.

Though it was blocked from the #1 by Gabrielle’s “Dreams”, “What Is Love?” spent an impressive 12 weeks in the UK Top 20, and did reach #1 in Austria, Belgium, France, and Ireland amongst others, and it also outsold many of the years chart toppers here ending as 1993’s 8th biggest hit in the UK. Perhaps surprisingly, Haddaway managed a further 3 consecutive Top 10 hits here, including Christmas ballad “I Miss You” which debuted at a worryingly low No. 34 but managed to crawl into the Top 10 in early ’94.

Posted by: richie 30th September 2015, 03:30 PM

I always thought Haddaway was part of a Geordie rap duo? The other chap was a bit unfortunately named.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th September 2015, 03:36 PM

Love that song. The riff is pure euphoria and the verse melody is very strong. I always felt it owed something to Rhythm is a Dancer with it's snaking synth backing.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 30th September 2015, 03:44 PM

Signature track. Love his followup, "Life" which was also huge in Europe.

Posted by: Fgiboy2511 30th September 2015, 03:45 PM

I won the Sybil album on cassette from Fast Forward magazine. My name was printed as a competition winner but it never arrived. At the time I thought it was the geatest injustice .

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th September 2015, 06:09 PM

I just listened to Tribal Dance and it's much worse than I remembered. Twilight Zone seems to be the least rubbish of all the 2 Unlimited singles.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 30th September 2015, 06:18 PM

The text under Haddaway's clips on Youtube contains the words "Haddaway is one of the pop music world's global players."

Posted by: Ethan 30th September 2015, 06:21 PM

'what is love' is a tune

Posted by: Doctor Blind 1st October 2015, 04:17 PM

Urban Cookie Collective - The Key: The Secret



Date 1st August 1993
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 40-29-20-11-6-2-2-4-6-7-13-20-33-42-56-67 (16 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

We continue with more eurodance in the summer of 1993, though this time its origins are British and it has fewer and even more memorable lyrics than “No Limit”!

Urban Cookie Collective, were exactly that, a collective of Manchester-based record producers, songwriters, and musicians brought together by Rohan Heath - probably the most well-known and successful of which was Neil Claxton, aka Mint Royale - who now provides amusing commentary of the UK midweeks on twitter. Heath was himself influenced heavily by the Manchester dance scene that was tied closely to the hugely successful Haçienda nightclub and its co-founders New Order. He had previously worked with Together (who hit #12 in August 1990 with “Hardcore Uproar”) and toured as keyboardist with Gerald Simpson (aka, A Guy Called Gerald) who was responsible for the early acid house classic “Voodoo Ray” which also got to #12 in the summer of 1989.

Wanting to go it alone, Rohan set up Urban Cookie in 1992 and wrote/produced the hip-hop influenced track “Pressin’ On”. Both that single and follow-up “Lucky Stars” failed to chart, along with the original “The Key: The Secret”. Step forward into 1993 and the development of the ‘collective’ which included Mark Hadfield and the aforementioned Neil Claxton, who were both just starting out, but also Simon Bentall, Peter Samon and Johnny Jay. Perhaps the biggest coup however was the extremely talented vocalist Diane Charlemagne who had been the lead vocalist with 52nd Street during the 1980s, and was approached to provide the vocals on a remixed club ready version of “The Key: The Secret” which was based on Glam “Hell's Party”.

Despite its understated chart debut at 40, it quickly became the soundtrack to the summer with Diane Charlemagne’s soulful vocals elevated by the uplifting piano house melody, providing indie label Pulse-8 with their biggest hit when it went all the way to #2. The near identical follow-up “Feels Like Heaven” went to #5 in the autumn but diminishing returns soon set in. Charlemagne went on to record Goldie’s brilliant early D&B classic “Inner City Life” (which charted at an unfairly low #39 in 1995), and Neil Claxton went on to form Mint Royale with Chris Baker in 1997, who belatedly reached #1 in 2008 thanks to a dance by George Sampson on Britain’s Got Talent.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 1st October 2015, 05:11 PM

The first time I heard The Key The Secret I thought the vocals were Carol Decker's from T'Pau.

Sail Away was always my favourite of theirs.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 1st October 2015, 05:46 PM

Another signature track of the '90s! Never seems to get old!

Posted by: gooddelta 1st October 2015, 10:35 PM

My older brother's favourite song of all time. He used to hammer it in his car when I was very young.

Posted by: richie 2nd October 2015, 07:44 AM

Great write-up there about UCC. I remember when 'Pressin' On' came out and I thought, firstly, what a bloody awful name and, secondly, they'll never amount to anything. But this one track did make their name.

I remember hearing Hell's Party and really loving the riff, then I heard this while out one night and thought it was a really odd remix. In a way it's a shame they went on to have the big hit with that riff as it's the only part of the tune that's any good - the vocals are teeth-clenchingly irritating. Practically every big-lunged female vox dance hit of the mid 90s would have been better as an instrumental (Set You Free by N-Trance is a good example).

Posted by: N-S 2nd October 2015, 02:02 PM

So many memories. 1993 was the year I first had MTV Europe at home and when I started following the UK chart.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd October 2015, 02:23 PM

I know what's next!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 2nd October 2015, 04:08 PM

I know what is next and I want it now?

SPOILERS!!

Posted by: Doctor Blind 2nd October 2015, 04:59 PM

Culture Beat - Mr. Vain



Date 22nd August 1993
5 Weeks
Official Chart Run 24-12-6-1-1-1-1-3-5-9-13-16-28-43-65 (15 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Next up is an anthem about narcissism, a trait that the majority of us wrestle with, but has been increasingly celebrated in the era of Facebook and the ‘selfie’. In the 1970s we had “You’re So Vain” which was addressed to men specifically, but “Mr. Vain”, which exploded across Europe during the spring and early summer, was less gender specific despite the honorific, and thanks no doubt to the track becoming the soundtrack to Brits getting slightly inebriated on holiday in Europe - this led to the song rocketing into the upper reaches of the singles chart when these holidaymakers returned.

Culture Beat had been around for a good few years already, having formed in 1989, and were put together by German 25-year-old DJ Torsten Fenslau. The group scored a hit in Germany and minor hit here with Jo Van Nelsem (a well known cabaret singer in Germany) on “Cherry Lips (Der Erdbeermund)” (No. 55) but the follow-up “I Like You” flopped in at #96 in the UK. A few years passed after which British singer/songwriter Tania Evans was spotted and recruited by Torsten to replace original singer Lana Earl, and together with New Jersey rapper Jay Supreme took to fronting the group for the much more urgent and powerful eurodance sound he’d put together for second LP Serenity.

We mentioned earlier how influential Snap!’s 1992 #1 “Rhythm Is a Dancer” was to become, and here “Mr. Vain” unashamedly wears this influence, taking a similar but much harder approach ramping up the BPM with an urgent beat from the outset, and that influences the mood of the track (the UK special edit has a softer tinkly intro for the first 6 seconds before that beat punches in). Where it differs are the lyrics which take a darker approach, Jay Supreme’s expertly delivered rap sketches out a dancefloor predator with the confidence and charm to get whatever he wants - whenever he wants. However the line ‘I know what I want and I want it now’ could almost double as the decades mantra, summing up as it does the boom in the consumer driven economy. When the group invite us to note the equivalence of Mr. Vain to Mr. Wrong, it is quite clear the message that they are putting out however. There’ll be more to discuss about the tragedy that struck the group later in the year…

Fun-fact: This was the first UK number 1 single to not be available on the 7” vinyl format since the 1950s.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd October 2015, 05:00 PM

I want you cause I'm Doctor Blind

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 2nd October 2015, 05:47 PM

Another classic track, from the beat to the lyrics! Adore it!

Posted by: paulgilb 2nd October 2015, 06:21 PM

It looks as though dance re-mixes of non-dance tracks have not been included (otherwise Living On My Own would have appeared), so I believe the track you are referring to will be *missing* from this list.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 2nd October 2015, 07:10 PM

Then why was the Heaven 17 remix still included?

Posted by: BillyH 2nd October 2015, 10:44 PM

Brilliant song but does anyone know why they completely messed up the radio edit? The video - and the 12" mix - starts with that brilliant opening synth riff, but the radio mix has a really underwhelming first minute or so in comparison, like they massively watered it down. And there doesn't seem to be a radio edit like the one in the video, unless you edit the 12" or copy the sound from the video.

EDIT: Oh, even the linked video above has the radio edit I mentioned. The video mix I mean is this one, which is the first version of it I heard. Note the completely different intro:

Posted by: AntoineTTe 2nd October 2015, 10:51 PM

Living On My Own wasn't included because it was deemed too pop/synth pop. Other remixes will be included

Posted by: Doctor Blind 3rd October 2015, 05:16 AM

The video I linked to is the UK special radio edit which was track 1 on the CD single and the version played on UK radio, the video mix you've linked to is the album version (which was 5 minutes 37 seconds) and was the basis behind the 2003 remix “Mr. Vain - Recall” which made #51. Most of the tracks on Serenity were over 5 minutes and the radio edits were definitely needed!\

I've tried where possible to always link to the version that UK radio played at the time.

Posted by: girlsaloudjunkie 4th October 2015, 05:37 PM

Great tune but I've always preferred Feels Like Heaven

Posted by: N-S 4th October 2015, 05:42 PM

That moment in the Mr. Vain video when everybody starts eating fruit like crazy.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 4th October 2015, 08:23 PM

M People - Moving On Up



Date 26th September 1993
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 4-2-3-5-5-11-15-23-38-59-75 (11 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

Mike’s People, later named M People, came about in the early part of 1990 when Mike Pickering and Paul Heard started writing together, and planned a succession of singles to recreate the best traditions of Northern Soul - these were initially planned to be recorded with a roster of different guest vocalists but that changed very quickly. Mike had been one of the original DJs at The Haçienda, giving the group a heavy club influence - though when they came across the distinctive vocals of Heather Small she was more used to singing ballads with the band Hot House, who had charted at #70 in 1988 with “Don’t Come To Stay”.

It was indeed this reason that they wrote and released the ballad “How Can I Love You More?” (their second single), which managed to sneak in a few weeks inside the Top 40 just before Christmas in 1991 and peak at #29. A re-release of “Colour My Life” followed as well as a cover of Ce Ce Roger’s “Someday” (sampled heavily in ’92 by Ce Ce Peniston - as discussed earlier) and deciding that Heather was suited so well to their sound, they decided to make her a permanent member. In 1993 the group exploded in popularity, so much so that a remixed re-release of “How Can I Love You More?” made the Top 10, and “One Night In Heaven” bagged them extensive mainstream radio play and a #6.

Continuing the upbeat pop sound, “Moving On Up” encompasses some elements of disco, and has an addictive melody that kicks off the track and mixes with a sax riff throughout. In ’93 we were still 3 years away from the ‘girl power’ mantra of The Spice Girls, and the ladette culture that followed; however the world had changed - women were much more empowered and equality, both of gender and sexuality were moving swiftly in the right direction. As you’d expect music was continuing to reflect this, and Heather Small took up this mantle of female empowerment in “Moving On Up”, a saxophone drenched kiss-off to her cheating partner, where she angrily barks ‘Take it like a man baby if that’s what you are’ recalling other such anthems like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. It became their biggest single when it peaked at #2 behind DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “Boom! Shake The Room”, and started what would be the groups most successful period.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 4th October 2015, 08:32 PM

Always loved this song. They still remain the most surprising winner of the Mercury Music Prize though! Other than Speech Debelle.

Posted by: Gezza 4th October 2015, 09:03 PM

Honorary mention naturally to Heather Small who had already had a number one.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 4th October 2015, 10:02 PM

Yes, which I completely overlooked!! Completely forgot about “Ride On Time”.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th October 2015, 11:43 AM

I really disliked M People. Their Bizarre Fruit singles were uniformly awful.

Posted by: richie 5th October 2015, 12:28 PM

Feels like history has been changed somewhere - how come I had never heard about this until now?

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th October 2015, 01:13 PM

I only heard about it two years ago. It was kept quiet for a long time, probably but if you go back and listen to Ride On Time you can hear the Manchester accent in the vocals Especially the way she sings "such".

Posted by: Fgiboy2511 5th October 2015, 01:15 PM

It depends when you purchased it though, I bought it early on in it's chart run before it was changed to the Heather Small vocal.

Posted by: *Ben* 5th October 2015, 01:16 PM

Oh god, I should read this thread more often... why haven't I????

Classics: Mr Vain, The Key The Secret

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th October 2015, 01:34 PM

You should read it all.

Posted by: *Ben* 5th October 2015, 01:41 PM

Ouch 23 pages... but 2 Unlimited

Now I'm listening to the very best of 2 Unlimited on my iTunes

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th October 2015, 01:59 PM

It wont be finished until 2016 so you have plenty time to catch up.

Posted by: BillyH 5th October 2015, 05:13 PM

Re: Ride On Time, it seems to be about 50/50 these days as to where you hear the original Loleatta Holloway sampled vocal or the re-recorded Heather Small vocal, different compilations and different youtube uploads have both. My iPod copy is from 2003's Now That's What I Call Music Decades and it's Holloway, but on 1989's 'Monster Hits' it's Small.

The biggest difference for me is on the line "You're such a" which sounds notably different on the Small re-record. Here's both to compare:

Loleatta Holloway


Heather Small

Posted by: Fgiboy2511 5th October 2015, 05:53 PM

http://www.masterton.co.uk/2011/03/numero-uno-was-better/

That's James' write up about it. Blew my mind when I found out about it!

Posted by: AcerBen 5th October 2015, 06:00 PM

Yeah it is a fun game trying to work out which version of Ride On Time you're listening to when you hear it out and about. Heather did an amazing impression!

Posted by: AcerBen 5th October 2015, 06:02 PM

I would guess that the softer start to the song just made it more palatable for mainstream radio play.

Posted by: AcerBen 5th October 2015, 06:03 PM

The Special Radio Edit was released worldwide, not just the UK

Posted by: dandystar 5th October 2015, 06:10 PM

I really liked them when they began but have to agree they became absolutely dreadful from Search For The Hero onwards. At the time of it's release, I was particularly fond of One Night In Heaven and it's intro that I always used to think was a sample of the theme tune to kids cartoon Stop It & Tidy Up. I was also fond of Renaissance if I remember correctly.

Posted by: *Ben* 5th October 2015, 06:12 PM

Wow I've never known about the two versions of Ride On Time. Very interesting read and I agree Heather Small did a good job, although here and there you can hear the differences.

Great track anyway. Loved it that time

Posted by: N-S 5th October 2015, 08:13 PM

Ironically my fave 2 Unlimited track is their only non-dance single, "Nothing Like The Rain". But at the time I also listened to this "Rainy Remix" as much as the ballad version.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 5th October 2015, 08:14 PM

I'm really glad that this thread is getting more contributions and enjoyment

Posted by: richie 6th October 2015, 07:45 AM

That means I probably haven't ever heard the original vocal mix. Wow.

Posted by: richie 6th October 2015, 07:48 AM

They did get worse as they went on. I did really like How Can I Love You More? when it first came out though.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th October 2015, 10:07 AM

I didn't mind How Can I Love You More? the intro was cool.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th October 2015, 10:19 PM

Cappella U Got 2 Let The Music



Date 24th Oct 1993
2 Weeks
Official Chart Run 7-2-3-5-6-12-24-35-56-55-55-68 (12 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.


Way back on page 1 of this thread we mentioned that a Gianfranco Bortolotti would become better known as part of Cappella. Well, here he is making his second appearance. Although they had been having hits - some of them very good hits - since 1989, it was 1993 when they started having Top 10 hits. And despite being known as an Italian dance outfit they were fronted by two Brits during their purple patch - Kelly Overett (who appeared with SL2)and Rodney Bishop. Bortolotti also founded the unsually titled Anticappella.

Like many others around them, Cappella used the formula female singer + male rapper + sythns + liberal samples = eurodance. A slight difference was employed by this lot - they stole their riffs from better places - stand up Siouxsie and the Banshees and your Happy House.

And so to U Got 2 Let the Music - which is basically three things put together.

1 A riff from Sounds Like a Melody by Alphaville
2 A vocal sample from Let the Music Take Control by JM Silk and
3 Another vocal sample from Dance Now by Mosaic.

This would be their biggest hit and sadly their only appearance in this run down. Further hits would come, though - the biggest of which was Move On Baby in early 1994.

After a few more hits in 1994 Kelly Overett was fired from the band when it emerged that she hadn't sang any of the vocals on any of the singles which she promoted, which is bizarrely harsh given the genre she was working in.

They continued to have minor hits on the continent for the rest of the decade but by the end of 1995 the UK had lost interest and their final chart placing was for Tell Me The Way, reaching number 17.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 6th October 2015, 10:28 PM

I love Move On Baby, the synths in that one are really good.

Played it at the nineties night and the reaction was most favourable!! : )

Posted by: AntoineTTe 6th October 2015, 10:36 PM

Move On Baby is my favourite of all of their songs. I love the way it fades out at the end. Like a Depeche Mode song, the layers get thinner and fewer at the end until it disappears.

Posted by: Ne Plus Ultra 6th October 2015, 11:02 PM

Another great song! Incredible production, I would kill for a proper Eurodance revival. "Move On Baby" is even better!

Posted by: Fgiboy2511 7th October 2015, 11:49 PM

This is a hoot..... in an era when you weren't allowed to mime on TOTP Kelly Overett's real vocals




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g27_buTv7Fw

Posted by: N-S 8th October 2015, 09:08 PM

The blue corridor video for UG2LTM is better but I have a soft spot for the falling shoes video.