193 | Joan Osborne - One Of Us

We move to the mid 90s next in the form of one hit wonder Joan Osborne. Thanks to Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette, I was beginning to really appreciate female singer songwriters and I was very optimistic when Joan appeared on the scene with this - although my assumptions have proved to be quite incorrect as Joan in fact didn't write this at all! This had entered the week before but climbed up to the top as I found myself listening to it a lot, I think it was largely the lyrics that made it stand out to me as it was rare that you had a song that debates the relationship with god. I also remember being fascinated by the voice at the beginning of the longer version of the track, which I always thought sounded like it was either a child or a very old woman, which gave it a slightly unnerving quality - I'll link that version in the video so you can judge for yourself.

The biggest song this kept from #1 was I Got 5 On It by Luniz. You could say that me in the 90s was the prototype Buzzjack of today, in so much as generally I hated anything that was vaguely hip hop... but this became only the third (I think) big hit on my chart from that genre. It never made it higher than #5 for me but it stuck around for a long time as I was particularly taken with the production. My second choice is one of the early Cardigans singles, Rise and Shine entered the real chart at #29 this week and I didn't know it until I had it on one of the Shine compilations later that year. Like most of their earlier singles, this is such an upbeat track and is full of infectious joy... they had better still to come and I think they are generally very underrated in terms of their later singles, but this was a lovely introduction to them.

The stats:

Date: 11 February 1996

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 180

2020s plays rank: 176

Biggest song it kept from number one: Luniz - I Got 5 On It

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: The Cardigans - Rise and Shine

Nice restart, I've got a lot of time for Lenny Kravitz too, I very often like his stuff and he does the tender/soulful songs just as well as the rock.

One Of Us was very striking lyrically. I really like that Cardigans track too.

Glad to see this back!

Edited March 16Mar 16 by gooddelta

2 years!! Seems like a few months 😮 Well, coming back with 2 major classics in Lenny K and Pet Shop Boys, love 'em to bits. Joan Osborne I liked more at the time (top 5 I think) than now, but it's still classy, and Luniz is a great track too, love those riffs.

Glad to see some immediate love for the Lenny Kravitz track, I wasn't sure how that one would go down ☺️

192 | Paula Abdul - Opposites Attract

We go back to the beginning of the decade for the next track, Paula Abdul's sole #1 on my chart. Helped out by that oh so cool cartoon cat (performing the vocals of the Wild Pair), this does a pretty good job of encapsulating the style and tone of 1990. I always think it's so funny looking back at videos like this one, it really did seem very convincing at the time to me, yet it clearly is so basic in retrospect. It remains a really fun track though and one that I do still enjoy, even if it has been let down a bit in this ranking by the fact it isn't a genre or style I find myself listening to that often. Worth noting that it was a slow climb to #1 for this, it spent a few weeks at #2 behind a song still to come and I rather suspect I gave this a token week at the top to try and ensure that my faves all made it (those sorts of things are important to 10 year olds!), in reality I think this would have never made it past being my second favourite song at the time.

Stuck behind the top 2 that locked out at least a month was the also excellent Dirty Cash, one of 1990s biggest dance singles. It's not a track I return to that often nowadays but it does have that great early 90s sound to it. Oddly the biggest fave now that I didn't love back then was the highest new entry of the week, the comeback single from Kylie! I don't really remember paying it too much attention at all, I think I'd decided by this point that it was too childish to like Kylie (as you do as you're preparing to go to secondary school and you need to be much more cool) and so I think I decided I wasn't going to like it without ever really thinking about whether I did. Now I think the singles from her third album are actually easily the best of her early career so it definitely should have done better for me.

The stats:

Date: 06 May 1990

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 132

2020s plays rank: 224

Biggest song it kept from number one: The Adventures of Stevie V - Dirty Cash

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: Kylie Minogue - Better The Devil You Know

191 | Jason Donovan - When You Come Back To Me

This was the very first #1 of the 90s for me, ruling for the first week of January. This was a huge favourite at the time and would have been #1 all the way from its release had I been doing a chart in 1989. Obviously this is very dated now but at the time I thought it was easily his best single, and I was gutted when it never made #1 - never more so that this week when New Kids on the Block leapfrogged him whilst he stayed at #2 ahead of all the christmas songs that had beaten him in December. I think this is the biggest casualty of my format as it would be 91st on chart points alone (and that doesn't even include anything from 1989) yet is torn right down by it being one of the few songs in this countdown that I have really played since.

Stuck at #2 in my chart was Madonna with another track that appealed to kids, the slightly magical Dear Jessie. The song never really gets a look in these days, it's one of those that I think she likes to pretend doesn't really exist, along with the likes of Hanky Panky and even True Blue. I don't think I realised it at the time but it definitely has a slightly Beatles-esque production that you could kind of see sitting with their work such as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or I am the Walrus etc - possibly a stretch but I'll stand by it 🤭 The other pick of this week is the Soul II Soul track that had also been big in the UK over the christmas period, but was probably a bit too cool for me - going with that as I can't say I'm huge on any of the new entries this week.

The stats:

Date: 07 January 1990

Weeks: One

1990s chart rank: 91

2020s plays rank: 258

Biggest song it kept from number one: Madonna - Dear Jessie

Biggest fave now that I didn't love at the time: Soul II Soul - Get a Life

Opposites Attract was a great video and this was Paula's best track, takes me back to my first Florida holiday with my mum and dad and niece and nephew aged 6 and 5. Off to Abba Voyage with my niece in June, having been back to Florida last year. Paula Abdul is not an act I tend to dig out much though, I don't think they have weathered well over-all, but I liked her at the time. Dirty Cash OTOH was and remains fabulous, and Better The Devil You Know was easily Kylie's best to date, SAW at their best. As I was too old to care what was cool (I never did, and prob partly explains the targeted bullying, oops) I was happy to push what I liked onto other people on the grounds that "I love it to bits so I want you to see that too". Still do 😄

Jason's best record, and peaked at 2 for me I think. That annoying NKOTB record has a lot to answer for. Jason still sounds good, the KNOB's don't and never did. Dear Jessie hit my number one, it was pure delight, and suffered from not being a single in most territories (Keep It Together was the next single in the USA - bought that one too), and the Beatles influences (yes they were there, it's the same vibes she used for Beautiful Stranger) really sounded perfect for Christmas. The video was equally top notch and it deserves to be consider one of her great records, it's not a novelty record, it's lovely.