My Random Music

1991 was a great year for music though I'm not fussed about any of the featured number 1's so far. Once you get past the title of the Color Me Badd record it's a non-entity of a song. Hale & Pace and The Simpsons are supposed to be rubbish. Not a fan of musicals so don't like the Jason Donovan record. Iron Maiden isn't bad but they've done much better. My general rule for determining how good an Iron Maiden song is the faster the song the better and this ones quite slow by their standards.

It's actually a pro-hunting song in reaction to the proposals to ban fox hunting. I remember it causing a stir at the time and it wasn't the sort of song you'd buy for it's music credentials. That said I couldn't hum the song, have completely forgotten how it goes.

They certainly have their place, if you go to a drum & bass night for example you know the sort of music you'll be getting. There are however genres that are meaningless of misused. In the late 90s/early 00s I remember a lot of pop music being described as R&B to make it sound more credible but even actual R&B in the 90s was nothing like R&B in the 50s so it could be argued they shouldn't have the same genre label. Then you had Britpop which was basically any British band with guitars. Musically Blur and Oasis sounded nothing like each other yet any American band who sounded like Blur or Oasis would be a different genre because they weren't British. In dance music there are far too many genres, the number of different types of house music is ridiculous. The origin of the house genre was music played at the Warehouse Club in Chicago, similarly garage was music played at the Paradise Garage in New York so straight away a musics genre was dictated by whether it was made in Chicago or New York rather than what it sounded like. Make a similar sounding record in the UK in the late 80s and it's acid house. I recall a number of DJs being asked exactly what progressive house was and none of them could really answer.

Been quite tough to narrow it down to 5 but here goes: Iron Maiden - Aces High The Temptations - Treat Her Like A Lady Huey Lewis And The News - If This Is It The Stranglers - No Mercy Smiley Culture - Police Officer Picking the worst was a lot easier: Madonna - Like A Virgin

The 5 best: The Jacksons - Torture UB40 - If It Happens Again Big Country - East Of Eden The Stranglers - Skin Deep Feargal Sharkey - Listen To Your Father The worst: Kim Wilde - The Second Time

The reality is the charts have been fighting a losing battle for 20 years now. I was still in my 20s in 2006 and for the first time in living memory I couldn't of told you what was number one. It wasn't a conscious decision to stop following the charts, just happened naturally. Nowadays I work with several people in their 20s and into music and none of them could tell me what's in the charts now, I know more about it than they do and I'm old. Similarly it seems the youngsters don't watch Christmas Top of the Pops these days, just us oldies who keep the tradition and afterwards talk about how dreadful the music on it was. I can't see a way back. In the beginning it was a way of informing the public what the popular records to go out and buy were. These days the kids can just go on the internet and see what their favourite tiktok person has to say.

Well Pete Waterman was the man who brought 2 Unlimited to the UK for a start. It's also quite normal to not like the modern equivalent of something you do like. Both served the same purpose, cheesy catchy music for the dancefloor but lacking any depth.

Not really a fan of Hi-NRG and I can't say I like Divine either, to me it's the 80s equivalent of 2 Unlimited.

Top 5 Phil Fearon And Galaxy - Everybody's Laughing Windjammer - Tossing And Turning Jeffrey Osborne - On The Wings Of Love Break Machine - Are You Ready Level 42 - Hot Water Worst Hazell Dean - Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go)

It's only really relevant to a niche audience of music nerds these days. Many of those who remember the good old days have reached the "modern music is rubbish" stage of their life whilst many youngsters don't even know there's such a thing as the charts. I've written a post about it myself: https://myrandommusicblog.blogspot.com/2026/07/18-week-number-1.html

5 best: Howard Jones - Pearl In The Shell Change - Change Of Heart Grandmaster And Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Do It) Ollie And Jerry - Breakin'... There's No Stopping Us The Bluebells - Young At Heart Worst: The Pointer Sisters - Jump (For My Love)

The best: Phil Collins - Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) Cameo - She's Strange The Gap Band - Someday Billy Joel - The Longest Time Break Machine - Breakdance Party The worst: The Pointer Sisters - Automatic Tiebreak: Depeche Mode

"Tha Crossroads" by Bone Thugs N Harmony. I couldn't really take to the rap singing style at first but when it came on the music channels a few years later I started to love it and ended up buying some of their albums.

Your Top 2 are probably my numbers 3 and 4. Whilst on a par with each other the A-ha song only has "Take On Me" to rival as the best of their songs but wins because it's not as overplayed. "West End Girls" on the other hand is far from my favourite Pet Shop Boys song but that's due to the high standards they set with other songs.

"Chain Reaction" is the final one of those 5 I really don't like. Diana Ross is quite possibly the best female solo artist there's ever been. She had some great records in the 70s but "Chain Reaction" is so poor in comparison. Even when I used to hear a Diana Ross compilation as a kid with no knowledge of when the songs were from or have any background information on any of them "Chain Reaction" stood out as the weak link. To me it's her equivalent of "I Just Called To Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder.