funky's journey through the 90s (again, again)

[Shirley]

Didn't MASS ORDER have a small UK HIT with LIFT EVERY VOICE? I have that somewhere

Being a student at the time I fucking HATE Jump Around and could quite happily NEVER hear it again

My mother used to love kd lang live

 

[Shirley]

I remember buying the 12" PICTURE DISC of THUNDER (was this the only release there was? I wouldn't usually buy those) in WOOLWORTHS in BLACKPOOL to the BEMUSEMENT of my GRANDFATHER. Can't think why I was visiting them then.

 

[funky]

Didn't MASS ORDER have a small UK HIT with LIFT EVERY VOICE? I have that somewhere

YES

when I was on the OCC website looking for any morsel of information about them, I was reminded of that. That song did slightly better - #35

 

[funky]

Woolies sold picture discs?

Actually I’m probably thinking of the LOCAL Woolies that I worked in which barely had a Top 40. The ones in Liverpool and Southport were much bigger and probably sold them. They used to have SPECIAL SHELVING where the cassette and CD would sit in front of the vinyl so you could pick which format you wanted for each chart album or single …

These kids DON’T KNOW THEY’RE BORN

 

[alla]

Discoveries:

So this is the Nia Peeples song I like:



A classic ballad production, it hits all the right notes. This only went to #88 however and was her last single.

I was going to post it too the other day with the first 2 singles, but didn't want to saturate, no idea anyone would know/remember this. It got a very positive review from Billboard, but unfortunately didn't do much. Not that she didn't try, she even did promo and went to Arsenio Hall, as I found out in an old magazine:

Spoiler

Other songs released in June that are not gonna make the Hot 100:

· Kathy Troccoli's follow up to Everything changes, a beautiful ballad she cowrote, You've got a way.




· Jody Watley's third single from her very underrated album Affairs of the heart, this is It all begins with you. Not only missed the Hot 100, it almost missed the r&b singles chart, stalling at #80 shame because I really like it.




· Najee was not as popular as Kenny G, but this saxophonist had a bunch of r&b hits, and made the top 40 in the r&b chart with a cover of last year's number one for Color Me Badd, I adore mi amor. Not that I love it, but more a curiosity than anything else.




· And now this is truly a curiosity, because this single by Boyz II Men is not even listed on wikipedia, like if it never happened; no wonder given how chaotic it was. In June 92, a fifth single from their debut album was released, Sympin. That was just 3 weeks before End of the road was sent to radio (being released as a single 2 weeks later). I'm not sure what happened here, because surely they had to know 3 weeks before that End of the road was gonna be released. My guess is they already had the promotion done, the video filmed and the singles (at least promo ones that are sent in advance to radio) printed, because you can't do that overnight, so they had no choice but to release it anyway, knowing it was going to be totally overshadowed by the Boomerang track. Sympin actually made the r&b chart, peaking at #72 the week before End of the road debuted, and it vanished quickly as their new single zoomed to the top.

 

[alla]

A big debut this month - Mary J Blige arrives with first single "You Remind Me" from her debut album What's The 411?. Her rise to fame wasn't immediate - this would peak at #27 and would only hit #90 in the UK. She has certainly endured however as one of the most celebrated R&B singers of the modern era, including her recent addition to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2024. Her singles run is more notable for its endurance than its peaks - she doesn't have a long list of Top 10 singles on either side of the atlantic, but the hits keep coming for the next 15+ years and not with diminishing returns either - some of her peaks are in the next decade.

I'd say she instantly felt like an established singer in the r&b scene, much like En Vogue. True she didn't replicate their massive success in the pop charts, but her debut album was a enormous r&b hit from day one. I remember it like that.

Guns n Roses get another Top 10 hit, the biggest from Use Your Illusion I (and their last Top 10 in the US) with "November Rain", which also hit #4 in the UK and has become one of their signature anthems. I remember this getting heavy rotation on request video channels like The Box in the late 90s.

Isn't this still the most expensive music video ever? It has to be up there, they spent a fortune, even renting an oil tanker A massive hit, it did extremely well on radio, peaking at #12 on airplay, considering the almost 9 minutes long song had no official radio edit. Of course, there were lots of radio edits made by several radio stations, that reduced the length to a more radio friendly 4-5 minutes.

Finally, that House Of Pain song is the anthem of a thousand student uni nights, and I have to confess I used to love jumping around like an idiot to this, for shame. I don't think it has dated particularly well, but possibly out of ubiquity. This is going to dominate the summer of 1992, and I think they have over time been tagged with the novelty rap AND one hit wonder labels, even though they did actually release 3 albums (and had several more hits - successfully in the UK at least). Also frontman Everlast is a great singer-songwriter, who will feature on his own later in the decade.

This hasn't aged well, right? A big seller that struggled on pop radio, peaking at #29 on airplay. I can see why, it had some problematic lyrics for 1992 top40 radio.

It was all about jumping this 1992, and there was still another JUMP hit this year, with even more problematic lyrics.

It's actually called Jump!, by The Movement, an American techno band, even when this sounds more europop than some actual europop hits. A #1 dance hit, it crossed over to pop with new lyrics, changing to "Jump everybody jump" from more explicit lyrics, I'll let you discover what they said in the original version, not even available on Spotify :



And this is the family friendly version that became a pop hit and peaked at a respectable #53 in the Hot 100.

 

[alla]

June 13

91 — MOVE THIS –•– Technotronic Featuring Ya Kid K

Was this a hit anywhere in Europe? Originally a track in their 1990 debut album, it became a huge hit in USA two years later thanks to a tv commercial featuring Her Majesty Cindy Crawford:

 

[alla]

The Cure get the second biggest hit of their strong US run, reaching #18. One of their signature hits, it would peak at #6 in the UK.

What a fantastic song, 33 years later and sounds as good as it did! Btw, I found at home a June 92 issue of Hits magazine, with The Cure on the cover, and I'd like to share some of their charts, a bit different to Billboard. They include comments next to every song in the singles chart yes, most of them are totally pointless. And there is a lot more info about adds on radio and stuff, to a point that my head is about to explote trying to process and understand all that info. I guess they had to offer something else to compete with Billboard. I scanned some pages if you're curious:

Spoiler: June 29th, HITS magazine

 

[Lonely Sardophony (We Will Be Free)]

What a fantastic song, 33 years later and sounds as good as it did! Btw, I found at home a June 92 issue of Hits magazine, with The Cure on the cover, and I'd like to share some of their charts, a bit different to Billboard. They include comments next to every song in the singles chart yes, most of them are totally pointless. And there is a lot more info about adds on radio and stuff, to a point that my head is about to explote trying to process and understand all that info. I guess they had to offer something else to compete with Billboard. I scanned some pages if you're curious:

Spoiler: June 29th, HITS magazine

View attachment 35223
View attachment 35224
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at some of the HOT FACTS

FROM AN ALBUM
SELLING SINGLES
A SONG OF MUSIC