APRIL 1991
#1s
COMING OUT OF THE DARK –•– Gloria Estefan (2 weeks)
I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT YOU –•– Londonbeat (1 week)
YOU’RE IN LOVE –•– Wilson Phillips (1 week)
BABY BABY –•– Amy Grant (2 weeks into May)
That
Londonbeat song was not a song I ever expected to be a US #1. I'd be curious how well known it is today in the US versus other evergreen #1s... most #1s usually still have some nostalgic traction on YouTube and Spotify by boomers and Gen Xers. But this isn't something you ever hear about anymore. Or the group themselves. It's not a bad song though.
Wilson Phillips make it 3 number ones from the same album out of 4 singles, all Top 10. Very impressive.
Musical Marmite "Baby Baby" becomes a huge hit for long-standing Christian pop pin-up
Amy Grant. I made an error previously that has since been corrected by my chart correspondent
@VoR that Amy had only one pop album before going back to Christian music but apparently the follow up was a pop album too, just nowhere near as popular. So either she was a blip or maybe she was a victim of the change in chart rules at the end of 91 that saw more R&B and country replace the adult pop songs on the charts. I still maintain that "Baby Baby" is amazing though, even though it's the sort of thing I would probably normally hate! I think there was a period in the summer of 91 where I liked virtually everything in the charts.
(Except maybe
Right Said Fred.)
"Sadeness Part 1" by
Enigma peaks at #5 this month, unable to match the chart topping UK performance but still very impressive for a song that in no way screams "American music".
Tevin Campbell's "Round And Round" misses the Top 10 but becomes a huge crossover hit, hovering around the charts for a good 6 months. Quite normal from the mid 90s onwards, very unusual at this time. It peaked at #12 in its 18th week.
Written by
Prince, it features on Prince's
Graffiti Bridge album but he is uncredited on the version on Tevin's debut album. The album was a platinum smash in the US, with 6 singles released including a Top 10 hit. He looked destined to join the R&B explosion of the 90s but, aside from a relatively successful follow up album, he never really translated into a household name, and never crossed over in Europe. He did have some moderate success in Australia.
Cathy Dennis's follow up "Touch Me" is a certified smash, climbing into the Top Ten at #8 by the end of the month.
Rick Astley also gets a hit with "Cry For Help" (#7), four years after "Never Gonna Give You Up". This surprised me as I pegged him as one of those short lived success stories. It was from the next album that he fell off a cliff, but this song was also a #7 hit in the UK. I have no memory of it.
In the UK, the club tunes are still coming thick and fast, with peaks from these absolute CLASSICS:
Brothers In Rhythm would obviously go on to produce some amazing albums for other artists in the 90s including
Kylie, and when you listen to that song above you can hear how much that sound has come back into fashion with dance producers today.
Discoveries:
OK so we have to talk about this song, one of my favourite discoveries so far:
I do love a dramatic soul vocal, so while this took a couple of listens to grow on me as I had no idea who she was, it's definitely a keeper now. While it sounds very typical late 80s / early 90s power ballad, it reminds me of the ballads from
En Vogue's EV3 album in 1997, which had more of a general pop-rock sensibility.
Lisa Fischer only released one album, which produced two hits in the US but didn't trouble Europe and might not have even had a release there. This song reached #11 in 1991. Lisa featured on various soundtracks and guest spots on other artists' songs throughout the 90s, but had no follow up album. A shame because that's a GREAT voice. Wiki tells me that this song also won a Grammy in 1992.
Another artist I know nothing about released this in April:
Yes it's a 90s-fied cover of the
Emotions song. It didn't do much, but a cover of
Rufus & Chaka Khan's "Sweet Thing" peaked at #54 later in the year and the album was a moderate R&B success. Her wiki entry is interesting -
B Angie B is better known as being Mike Tyson's former girlfriend, and was a backing singer for
MC Hammer. She had a follow up album in 1995 that flopped, but apparently it is considered an early neo-soul release and, speculatively, an influence for
Erykah Badu and
Jill Scott. It's not on Spotify, but I might have to track that album down...
Over in the UK, 2 soft rock songs that I would have ignored at the time that I am really enjoying in my old age!...
Both Scottish bands, very similar sound, released the same month. The latter flopped, but "Let There Be Love" reached #6 and the album is GREAT. I love
Simple Minds.
Also a minor hit was this track by American R&B singer
Marva Hicks, who also only graced us with one album:
This is the radio remix from the more subdued album original (which is on Spotify). I prefer this more upbeat version, which sounds a lot like where R&B was now headed in the early 90s as this sort of rhythm and sound was everywhere by the mid 90s.
Notable new entries (US):
April 6
50 — I DON’T WANNA CRY –•– Mariah Carey
73 — LOSING MY RELIGION –•– REM
80 — BITTER TEARS –•– INXS
83 — WORD OF MOUTH –•– Mike & The Mechanics
84 — (IF THERE WAS) ANY OTHER WAY –•– Celine Dion
87 — STRIKE IT UP –•– Black Box
88 — I WANNA SEX YOU UP –•– Color Me Badd
92 — PEOPE ARE STILL HAVING SEX –•– Latour
April 13
63 — MIRACLE –•– Whitney Houston
74 — MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT –•– LL Cool J
86 — WHATEVER YOU WANT –•– Tony! Toni! Tone!
87 — UNBELIEVABLE –•– E.M.F.
93 — BACKYARD –•– Pebbles ft Salt n Pepa
94 — RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW –•– Jesus Jones
98 — HOW CAN I EASE THE PAIN –•– Lisa Fischer
April 20
36 — LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING –•– Michael Bolton
80 — SEAL OUR FATE –•– Gloria Estefan
April 27
56 — COUPLE DAYS OFF –•– Huey Lewis & The News
63 — POWER OF LOVE/LOVE POWER –•– Luther Vandross
66 — PLAYGROUND –•– Another Bad Creation
78 — NEW JACK HUSTLER (NINO’S THEME) –•– Ice-T
88 — NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN –•– Surface
91 — I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOUR LOVE –•– B Angie B
93 — GOOD HEART –•– Starship
That's quite a list of new entries this month!
Mariah was definitely on a roll at this point. As mentioned earlier we didn't get this single in the UK, but I LOVE "I Don't Wanna Cry".
This year was probably my first introduction to
REM and it was years later before I discovered that they had been going for a decade by this point. This was probably their crossover album, and I didn't care for them at all back then, but I do really like some of their stuff now, and I love "Losing My Religion".
I didn't know that
Celine Dion song but I quite like it! It does sound EXACTLY like "Shattered Dreams" by
Johnny Hates Jazz though...
Was 1991 some kind of sexual revolution in the US? After
Divinyls and
Salt n Pepa now we have two overtly SEXUAL songs released in the same week by
Color Me Badd and
Latour. The former obviously screams 1991 and I have vivid memories of this being out at the time. Latour is a song that I haven't heard probably SINCE 1991!
So
EMF and
Jesus Jones released those two songs in the same week... again such US anomolies that would both have a cup of coffee with megafame in the early 90s.