"Rhythm Of My Heart" by Rod Stewart (#1 on Cash Box for 1 week - May 25, 1991; #5 on Billboard, #3 on Radio & Records) What Blocked It on Hot 100: "I Like The Way," then "I Don't Wanna Cry"; plus "Touch Me (All Night Long)," "More Than Words" and "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls
"Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones (#1 on Radio & Records for 1 week - July 19, 1991, and on Cash Box for 1 week - July 27, 1991; #2 on Billboard) What Blocked It on Hot 100: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"
And speaking of "(Everything I Do)" . . . "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" by Bryan Adams (#1 on Cash Box for 1 week - November 9, 1991; #2 on Billboard, #3 on Radio & Records) What Blocked It on Hot 100: "Cream"
"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" by Boyz II Men (#1 on Radio & Records for 1 week - December 6, 1991, and on Cash Box for 2 weeks - December 14-21, 1991; #2 on Billboard) What Blocked It on Hot 100: "Black Or White"
"Black or White" is okay. The riff is catchy and I agree with the song's message. I always found the drum machine to annoying though.
Now for those that could only get up to #2 on the Hot 100 in '91 (those that made #1 elsewhere will be unlinked): - "Touch Me (All Night Long)" by Cathy Dennis - "I Wanna Sex You Up" by Color Me Badd (blocked by "More Than Words," then "Rush Rush") - "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones - "P.A.S.S.I.O.N." by Rythm Syndicate (blocked by "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You") - "Every Heartbeat" by Amy Grant (blocked by "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You") - "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" by Lenny Kravitz (blocked by "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You") - "Fading Like A Flower" by Roxette (blocked by "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You") - "Do Anything" by Natural Selection (blocked by "Emotions") - "Can't Stop This Thing That We Started" by Bryan Adams - "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" by Boyz II Men
Meanwhile, let us give a shout-out to one of these 1991 hits that, in spite of not "making it" to the top, became pretty much their signature tune - "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls:
Set Adrift on Memory Bliss I have a few rules when it comes to judging the worth of sampled music. AppleBonker's Razor I call it. 1. Would I rather hear the song that is being sampled than the new song? 2. Is there anything other than the sample that the song adds, or is what makes it memorable entirely due only to the sample? This song fails those tests. Years after 1991, I had no idea what the title of this thing was; to me, it was 'the song that ripped off True'. Without Spandau Ballet, it would collapse in a heap of nonsense verbiage. Nonsense includes the title. It sort of seems to mean something. But it really doesn't.
Yeah, there was a lot of sturm and drang, but I wasn't feeling that way at all and still liked a lot of the grunge-era stuff anyways. It was exciting, different and often very clever. Very rarely I would roll my eyes (Teen Spirit is almost comically negative; I think Cobain wasn't entirely unaware of that). But for the most part it didn't impede my enjoyment at all.
Generic early 90s dance pop. But Cathy was pretty hot - though I think I didn't feel that way 30 years ago. Short hair is a no-go with me, but that style doesn't look too bad now!
Black or White An unfortunate title for Jackson's first single off his new album; was there anyone at the time that didn't see the irony other than Jacko? I don't like Jackson very much, but this is not a terrible song, at least tune-wise (although I hate that brain-jarring drum machine). But he was firmly in his messiah-in-his-mind stage, and the pretension was getting to be way too much to handle. Leave it to Jacko to make a song about tolerance sound, once again, like self-absorption -- "tolerate ME" is what I'm hearing. And also, a little bit of 'listen to my message, my disciples' thrown in for bad measure. At least Lennon needed acid before he started to think he was Jesus. He then pushes our patience with the usual endless vocal affectations that by now are starting to overwhelm the music and lyrics. It might be a good message if we could understand what he was saying? But though the morphing at the end of the video is cool, it comes across as a United Colors of Benetton level commentary on race relations. Maybe he'd be more convincing if he extended his tolerance to people above the age of 40?
I can't hear this song without thinking of the scene in Austin Powers with the Fembots. I'll spare you the posting of the video.
This one is iconic for me and really captures the optimistic feeling of the time when the Iron Curtain fell and the whole world seemed suddenly ipen and free. It is cheesy but i love itz
Shoulda been a number one. I cant believe that Bryan Adams and Mutt Lange’s piano turd kept this out of the top spot.
I do not recognize the phrasal verb “to sex up” as existing, and this band is memorable for me for having a George Michael lookalike in it and this song is memorable for sounding like every bad early 90s musical trend —including Garth Brooks— got together and formed a really evil and boring gang.
What irony? People were talking a lot of his change of skin color, and his alleged vitiligo, and the song is saying that it doesn't, or shouldn't matter. Does it matter if his skin was whiter than it was back in 1984?
My 1991 in review..... A common theme as we go through this thread and one that I keep thinking about is money.....and my not having it to buy music. 1991 is no different. As I go back through my collection and the mixed tapes I made throughout the year, I'm reminded of how I acquired or didn't acquire music. I could afford to buy maybe 5 CDs in the year and a few cassettes that were on sale (eg. PM Dawn) but I didn't fill up my '91 collection until the 2000's and 2010's when people moved to downloading and streaming and threw their CDs up on E-bay for $1.00. My radio was MuchMusic and I watched a ton of it. It's all I could afford. As for what has stood the test of time, aside from the end of the year Grunge scene releases, the GnR Use Your Illusions, Metallica's Black Album and U2's Achtung Baby, when it comes to the Top 40, Seal's debut, Enigma's "Sadeness. Pt 1", and Boyz II Men's Cooliehighharmony still find their way onto my playlists. Very few of the #1's have I carried with me and the big stuff like Paula Abdul and Mariah Carey's hits have never made a playlist. For me, 1991 is a benchmark year for what happened at the end of it with the rise of the alternative scene and not when it comes to Top 40. The New Jack Swing and Euro House that was playing in the clubs was a lot of fun but I mostly left that behind when I left the clubs. Bring on '92!
Remember, by this time in history, the majority of listeners didn't even need to accept this version of reality for what the "#1 song" was, as they had so many other places to get music that fragmented away from the sort of stations or playlists that focused just on these top-of-the-chart songs. The act of rising to the top of a chart that doesn't even reflect anything other than an amalgam of other listening genres or formats, barely registers any sense of authority at this point. The more "#1"'s that contribute to the amalgam of this all-encompassing chart, the more different #2's, #3's and #10's that more accurately reflect different segments of people living in their own musical worlds that don't even touch one another. We're entering the stage where there are so many splintered audiences contributing to this chart from different perspectives and musical viewpoints, that it almost challenges the relevance of the chart itself. And remember, we're still eight years away from the anarchy that is Napster! Wild ride!
