The slowest moving project in the world continues. I'm not saying it's glacial, but George RR Martin has been mocking its deadlines...
The recap:
A number of years ago, when the BBC4 Top of the Pops repeats reached 1984 (they are currently on 1994) I realised that, if you took the best forty songs which made the Top 40 in that year, you would get an amazing playlist. Which you did. The challenge was then to create such a list for each year of the charts. To gnash in fury when favourite songs only made it to forty-two in the charts, and were thus ineligible. To try and get forty good songs out of a year dominated by Jive Bunny.
A number of years ago, when the BBC4 Top of the Pops repeats reached 1984 (they are currently on 1994) I realised that, if you took the best forty songs which made the Top 40 in that year, you would get an amazing playlist. Which you did. The challenge was then to create such a list for each year of the charts. To gnash in fury when favourite songs only made it to forty-two in the charts, and were thus ineligible. To try and get forty good songs out of a year dominated by Jive Bunny.
The elephant in the room is that this is based on the art. Some of the artists may not have been the nicest of people. I'm a Gerry Rafferty man. He was a musical genius, and also a complete sod. So far, I've only disqualified one song based on the artist, a Welsh one from 2001. Which is to say that, when we eventually cover his era, Michael Jackson will be there, because you cannot look at the eighties and ignore Billie Jean. However, R Kelly will not be appearing at all, because personally I think his stuff was rubbish. Hope that helps.
This is the 1994 edition of this project. 1994 was a brilliant year for charting music in the UK. I can say this with confidence because I turned eight years old in 1994, and watched Top of the Pops religiously for the first time, and so all of the major hits are nostalgically embedded into my brain. This made a list of forty rather difficult, however. Where does nostalgia end and greatness start? For too long, I wanted to hang on to songs I liked because they reminded me of youthful times, while finding no room for subjectively better tracks. In the end, here is the best hodgepodge of 1994, and tomorrow I could give you a different list.
This is the 1994 edition of this project. 1994 was a brilliant year for charting music in the UK. I can say this with confidence because I turned eight years old in 1994, and watched Top of the Pops religiously for the first time, and so all of the major hits are nostalgically embedded into my brain. This made a list of forty rather difficult, however. Where does nostalgia end and greatness start? For too long, I wanted to hang on to songs I liked because they reminded me of youthful times, while finding no room for subjectively better tracks. In the end, here is the best hodgepodge of 1994, and tomorrow I could give you a different list.
Omissions List
Everything Changes - Take That
When We Dance - Sting
Since I Don’t Have You - Guns n Roses,
Love is Al Around - Wet Wet Wet (tempted by this but it would be a troll move)
Right Beside You - Sophie B Hawkins
Live Forever - Oasis
Love is Strong - Rolling Stones
Pineapple Head, and Locked Out - Crowded House (alas)
Patience of Angels - Eddi Reader (so you can avoid my thesis on why the song is basically Drive by REM)
If I Only Knew - Tom Jones (so that's my mum not reading this one)
Rhythm of the Night - Corona
Circle of Life - Elton John
Midnight at the Oasis - Brand New Heavies
Things Can Only Get Better - D: Ream (apologies to New Labour)
And the few I was sad I couldn't find room for: Swamp Thing (The Grid), No Good (Prodigy), Sight for Sore Eyes (M People), Rock n Roll Dreams (Meatloaf), Secret (Madonna), Always (Bon Jovi), Connection (Elastica) and the perennial Christmas earworm by Mariah Carey.
Send your complaints in now.
Well, if that's what got dropped, in the words of Troy McClure, what they left must be pure gold!
We'll see.
40. PM Dawn - You Don't Love Me
Reggae style cover of a Bo Diddley classic. Dawn Penn had started a brief music career in the late 1960s, during which time this song was recorded, only to retire in 1970 and move into banking and airline staffing as her means of employment. In 1994, this dance version of the song (produced by Steely and Clevie) went straight into the UK top 3. Penn has been receiving royalties, and touring infrequently, ever since.
39. All 4 One - I Swear
A huge hit in America which didn’t manage to make it to number one here, because the Wet Wets (TM an old lady being interviewed on Reporting Scotland at the time) had sealed up number one for a millennia with Love is All Around. Which I was so tempted to add to this list, for the LOLs. But there are 40 better tracks.
At least.
This was a cover of a John Michael Montgomery song, and the four interlocking voices add to the swearing to the loved one.
38. Blur - Girls and Boys
Was very popular at the discos at the time. Evidence of the “Britpop War” that was to come in 1995.
37. Sting - Nothing 'bout Me
Sting in mischievous form, having his cake and eating it through earworm.
36. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Give It Away
Krusty the Clown: Now, boys... the network has a problem with some of your lyrics. Would you mind changing 'em for the show?
Anthony Kiedis: Forget you, clown.
Chad Smith: Hey, our lyrics are like our children, man. No way.
Krusty: Well, okay. But here, where you say...
"What I got, you gotta get and put it in you," how about just, "What I'd like is I'd like to hug and kiss you"?
Flea: Wow! That's much better.
Arik Marshall: Everyone can enjoy that.
The Simpsons, Kursty Gets Kancelled
In your face, from the guttural guitar work, to the rhythmic lyrics (miser/wiser, prophet/off it) and with a complete lack of clothes, the Red Hot Chili Peppers dispense of subtlety and find themselves indelibly linked into the osmosis of pop culture. Also, this reached the UK charts nearly three years after the US single was released and a year after the Simpsons episode! Also, while the lyrics sound the most innuendo laden you’ll see, Anthony Kiedis continues to claim its actually about being altruistic and giving away what you have to others.
Yes, "giving what you have to others", that's what everyone thought the song was about.
35. Des'ree - You Gotta Be
Catchy pop song from the time.
34. Stiltskin - Inside
While this has a verve to it, I was surprised to see it reached number one in the UK charts, as it is atypical to everything around it. I was less surprised when I found it was the backing track for a popular beer commercial at the time. See Perez Prado and friends, it was a bonafide way to get back into the top 40 in 1994.
33. Erasure - Always
Bombastic love anthem by the band who could do those in their sleep by then.
I'm not claiming it won a fight with Bon Jovi for the right to be the only Always song in the 1994 charts. It is unusual for a band to go from their ABBA cover glory to this more subdued ballad.
It's a bombastic anthem AND a subdued ballad at the same time? Of course it is. It's Erasure!
The music video, featuring a dragon, Chinese folk lore and so on, lingers in the mind too.
32. Nina Simone - Feeling Good
This song appeared at number 40 in the charts in the week of 9th September 1994. This was the only week it ever qualified for this series.
Despite being one of the greatest singers of all time, Nina Simone rarely troubled the UK singles chart. A few hits in the 60s, a brief renaissance in the 80s (My Baby Just Cares for Me reached the UK top 5), and then, this. Anthony Newley wrote the song in 1964. Everyone has covered it from Sammy Davis Jr to George Michael, from Muse to Lauryn Hill. Great voices, all of them. Yet, as soon as Nina Simone covered it in 1965, it became HER song.
And of course we can't have one of these things, with the opportunity to mention Nina Simone, and not take it.
31. Robert Palmer - Know by Now
In recent years there’s been discussion about Robert Palmer’s music videos. Namely the Addicted to Love video, and how what may have been 80s iconic now looks 80s token women.
There’s been less discussion about this short-lived 90s comeback in the charts, which is a shame, as while Addicted to Love is never going to lose a war of instant earworms, Know by Now is a far better narrative song.
“But the yearning grew like the loneliness of a castaway” – great line, but Palmer leave us ambiguous.
Is the relationship dead? Is it just that he can’t express his true feelings and so feels alone even when together with his love?
We never find out.
The song became a regular at Palmer’s gigs until his sudden death in 2003.
30. Pato Banton (and bloody UB40) - Baby Come Back
One of the only singers on this list I’ve actually met. He did a gig at the QMU in 2004. Of course he sang his UK number one, a cover so witty and catch that I can even forgive the presence of UB40. His other half caught him fooling around so she’s taken everything, even his Bob Marley collection. You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
29. Elton John - Can You Feel the Love Tonight?
Did you know Elton John also wrote Hakuna Matata? The wean did. I did not. Elton wrote most of the music for The Lion King, which was Disney’s biggest hit in decades. This is Elton John at his simple best, writing a song about two lions which works for your average couple as well. A twenty plus year of writing top tunes.
28. Seal - Prayer for the Dying
The least chart successful of the four big Seal songs from the nineties. In fact, a 5th song, Fly Like an Eagle, charted higher. It’s slower than Crazy, and relies more on the power of Seal’s soulful voice than before. As usual Trevor Horn turns the Sting like backing guitar into a silky backdrop for the singer. It lacks the bombastic of Killer, the rocking confidence of Crazy, but it sets the scene for Seal’s next big single, which was to be one of the defining hits of 1995…
27. East 17 - It's Alright
Not the last East 17 song on this countdown. This really surprises me thirty years on, but listening at their output here with adult ears, it's held up surprisingly well.
What it gives up in melancholic power (more on this later) it adds in catchy repetitiveness.
Who doesn’t need a bout of “it’s alright, it’s alright, everything’s going to be alright?” in their lives?
Feck knows I do.
Between this and another song on the list, Tony Mortimer earned his Ivor Novello Award for songwriter of the year.
Which sumps up East 17, a band who looked at face value like an attempt to jump on the Take That bandwagon, yet had deeper levels to their play.
26. Crowded House - Fingers of Love
A proper slow building love song from the New Zealand legends. Crowded House were so good at the cynical and the sarcasm – I know fans who claim that not everyone in New York City would pay to see Andrew Lloyd Webber in Chocolate Cake is one of the best opening lyrics to any song. But here they are, all pretensions dropped, singing a poppy love song and doing it better than those who do it for a living.
25. The Beautiful South - One Last Love Song
A single released to promote the Carry on up the Charts compilation album, it reached the top twenty in the UK charts and spurred the album onto the top slot, in a period where the Beautiful South had been struggling.
24. Nat King Cole - Let's Face the Music
A classic which reappeared in the pop culture osmosis thirty years after Nat King Cole’s premature death, and provided its first appearance in the charts. Like Louis Armstrong and Perez Prado, 1994 was a golden year for classics making a comeback. Arguably, partially responsible for part of my musical education at an early age. Apparently it had been recently used for a routine by Torvill and Dean at the Winter Olympics. Irving Berlin songs never die, only the people who originally sung them! (That’s a Simpsons gag.)
23. Aretha Franklin - A Deeper Love
Thirty years after her breakthrough, Aretha Franklin was a cultural icon, a behemoth of popular music. Even so, it’s surprising to see her in the UK top 40 as late as 1994.
22. Pulp - Do You Remember the First Time?
Early chart success in 1994 for Pulp. It only took them fifteen years to become an overnight success…
21. Crash Test Dummies - Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm
At last, I song I knew the entire chorus by heart!
The Dummies arrived, produced two songs that everyone of that era remembers, and then vanished from pop culture.
Brad Roberts wrote the song about children he knew back in school.
20. MC Sar and the Real McCoy - Another Night
Clyde One (FM) and Tiger Tim once ran a competition based around people trying to work out what the lyrics in Another Night said. Which shows you how simple things back were in the 90s, as its quite clearly “I talk, talk, I talk to you”. What I like about this one is it’s a consensual love song, both the female and male characters agreeing with each other about how much they love being in this relationship. It’s also got an incredible infectious chorus. German Eurodance which actually faired better in the UK than in its homeland.
19. Oasis - Cigarettes and Alcohol
A painful song.
A song which always reminds me of my Uncle Matthew. He’s no longer with us.
In 1994, he was staying over briefly at ours, and after a row with my parents, tried to explain things to eight year old me. He described himself as being like Jekyll and Hyde, and how he always wanted to be Jekyll but the lure of Hyde was depressingly too irresistible. And I understood none of this.
Later, when TOTP was on, Oasis were playing Cigarettes and Alcohol, and one of the Gallagher brothers (it doesn’t matter which one) reminded me in appearance of Matthew.
So I said to Dad it was Matthew.
And my Dad, misunderstanding, told me not to make fun of Matthew and how brave it had been of him to try and open up about his problems to me.
And that’s when the penny dropped.
Matthew kept fighting, and gained his family, employment and sobriety back, but the health damage had already been done. He was a funny, kind soul. I miss him dearly.
I can't hear this song without thinking of him immediately.
18. The Pretenders - I'll Stand By You
It's obviously great, but the sincerity of Chrissie Hynde's vocals, and its use for mental health awareness, also make this track a difficult listen now. Hynde knows well what its like to see people fall to demons, as a look at the memorial section of The Pretenders alumni sadly reveals.
17. Pulp - Babies
We were singing this at the school disco. Subversive Jarvis being subversive. It’s got a great tune to it, aided by the unfortunately recently lost Steve Mackey, and the combination of riff and nostalgic, slightly naughty, lyrics properly launched Pulp into the stratosphere of the Britpop miasma. And to be fair, whenever anyone asked who you preferred, Blur or Oasis, we always answered Pulp.
Back in the day, she was with some kid called David. Yeah, thinking of my brother in law, I can well believe it!
16. Louis Armstrong - We Have all the Time in the World
I mean, it only made the charts for the first time in 1994. We had to include it. Louis Armstrong was to jazz, swing and blues what Johnny Cash was to country, folk and rock. Doesn’t matter who wrote or performed it first. If Armstrong’s covering it, its his song now. Just have a listen to his Mack the Knife or Sunny Side of the Street. A musical interpretation genius. And what a voice. Written by John Barry and Hal David (better known for his collaborations with the late Burt Bacharach) the title is a bitter irony. By the time of recording in 1969, the great Louis Armstrong was too ill to play his iconic trumpet, and a session music filled in. He died, aged 69, in 1971, having worked to the bitter end because he needed the money. This song is linked to the Bond series, having been used to signal series changing deaths in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and No Time to Die. It didn’t chart in 1969, however, and, like several tunes in the 90s, came back to public prominence through its use in a Guinness advert. (See also, Prez Prado.) Once it returned, it never left the public conscience, and is now thought of as the Louis Armstrong signature song, over What A Wonderful World.
15. The Cranberries - Dreams
The first of four (count them) songs by the Cranberries on on this year’s list. Dreams has had a Renaissance of late due to its use as the theme tune to Derry Girls. It had previously been released as a single in in 1992 but made international success with this 1994 re-release. Dolores O’Riordan wrote the song about young love when she herself was barely out of her teens. Melody Maker said that The Cranberries may never be this good again. Of their success in 1994, yes, but the hope of futures yet to come being brighter resonates and makes it our perfect fit for the sitcom that made the song part of the 21st century zeitgeist.
14. Marcella Detroit - I Believe
When Shakespeare’s Sister split, Marcella Detroit returned to the charts with this belter. This was her most successful song as a solo artist, as Detroit never had the singles career her voice deserved.
13. Blur - Parklife
The video with Phil Daniels was the first I knew of Blur. Even with a cynicism which seems hypnotic in the way they chased the Britpop cash, this holds up where perhaps Country House does not. It’s the catchy chorus. There’s a swagger to it which attracts the attention. It may be a sign of a band unsure where they stand in the world yet. And a battle with the WKD lads mag stadium rockers Oasis wouldn’t help that. But to take the whimsical away from Parklife would be to assign it sin points for events yet to happen, even if it signposts the oncoming storm.
12. East 17 - Stay Another Day
Somehow this song is forever linked with Christmas, even though it’s a heart-breaking tribute to a brother who committed suicide. To be honest, Tony Mortimer was quite underrated at the time as a writer of catchy pop songs. To write such a memorable one, about a moment of terrible grief, marks him in similar hallowed ground as Chrissie Hynde. Other have covered the song, and given it praise it didn’t get when it was “just” a East 17 track, but no one has managed to convey the sense of loss quite so acutely.
11. Lisa Loeb - Stay (I Missed You)
Acoustic guitar break up music, like a folk rock version of Carly Simon. The song made it big when Loeb’s neighbour (the actor Ethan Hawke) liked it enough to direct the music video and get the song put in his film Reality Bites.
10. The Cranberries - Ode to my Family
A song about where you came from and where we are now. Possessed with a longing to return to those simpler times. In retrospect, a warning that the overpowering emotional nostalgic beat at the heart of The Cranberries lyrics had a troubled personal aspect for Dolores. A longing for the life that could never be again.
9. REM - What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
Everyone tries to pastiche REM lyrics but you can’t. “I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream.” That's a line you can only get from Michael Stipe. In the same way only he can run off The End of the World lyrics without getting tongue tied. There's a poetic meat at the heart of REM that was never beaten. The idea that words matter more than the music. It’s the Leonard Cohen heartbeat at the centre of this very nineties band which remained so even when they were in the eighties or the noughties. The title and chorus refer to the the repeated cries of two men who beat up Dan Rather in 1986. Stipe used that to discuss being out of touch with modern mass media. An idea which only feels more relevant in 2023.
8. Kylie Minogue - Confide in Me
Kylie is the first pop star I remember liking the music of. It must have been around the age of two when I Should Be So Lucky came out. By 1994, she had met, and dumped, Michael Hutchence, and left the nest of Stock Aiken Waterman. This haunting track by the Brothers in Rhythm suggested there was more to Kylie Minogue than pop princess of the eighties, it gave steel to her back catalogue. It presents her as a nuanced narrator of heavier songs. It was a reaction to her SAW days, a denunciation, and it's Eastern influences gave it a higher level of musical intertextuality. And throughout this, Kylie's voice soars, commander of the moment. From this, she went from pop culture moment and went on the road to music icon.
7. SoundGarden - Black Hole Sun
What a wonderfully depressing song. While the lyrics may haunt more now in this post Chris Cornell world, and the music video is one long David Lynch nightmare, the discordant riffs and Cornell’s boyish glee in his horrific lyrics give this song a power which time has only added to.
6. Seal - Kiss from a Rose
The Seal and Trevor Horn partnership score again. Seal's song was released in 1994, and charted here, but then charted again in 1995 when it was used as the backing theme for Batman Forever. When he wrote the song in the 1980s, Seal was embarrassed by how childish he found it and immediately threw it away in a drawer. (This was around the time he was still be belittled by the industry and told he would never make it as a singer. Enter stage left, Adamski...) When he let Trevor Horn see it, Horn instantly saw the potential and had it recorded. And that's another reason why Trevor Horn was a great producer, and why artists make terrible judges of their own work.
5. Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl
Tori Amos is a bit of an acquired taste. Try as I might, I never been quite able to get into her back catalogue. This charting song from 1994 is a killer though. A Cornflake Girl is a female friend who would hurt you.
4. The Cranberries - Zombie
Dolores O’Riordans song which frames The Troubles in terms of the violence. It matters not who has the tanks or the bombs when children are being killed.
3. Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia
My introduction to The Boss was not one of his tubthumping anthems. Nor his critical take on the America Dream, Born in the USA. It was this theme to the movie about AIDS. Jonathan Demme specifically asked Springsteen to produce a track for the movie Philadelphia, about Tom Hanks dying AIDS patient fighting discrimination. Springsteen felt he was unqualified to do a movie score quality song. See, again, how artists are terrible judges of their own art!
Demme would later write how, on hearing the demo for the first time, he sat and cried.
Incidentally, the backing vocals are by Jimmy Scott, who some of you might know as the singer in the red room in Twin Peaks!
It's far better than the film it was written for!
2. Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry - 7 Seconds
This is the Zen master of all of these instant wham songs.
Picture this.
Singapore 1994. Santosa Island. The cable cars are back after a tragedy.
Drifted away from family, an 8 year old Scot tries to find his mum.
And as he passes a café, this song is blaring. Never heard it before. But then you see people of all nationalities listening to it. You could cut the sudden quiet listening with a knife. And at that moment you realise everyone here is experiencing the same Holy Shit reaction to a piece of music at the same time.
1. The Cranberries - Linger
You might say that the the song lingers both in terms of your mind, and in terms of how long it takes to get going. It's not in a rush, this O’Riordan/Hogan track. When when she auditioned for the band, they give her a demo for the music of Linger, and she came back a week later with the lyrics.
They were as bowled over as the rest of us were about to be.
It is is the traditional tale of young love and regret with the lad playing around. “You know I'm such a Fool for you.” We all been there. This song has everything - even a string section. It is also a counterpoint to Careless Whispers. The other half watching the guilty feet with no rhythm.
It's the song I always see as representing the year that was 1994.
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