I, like many, was annoyed about (a) so many 1#s missing, and (b) too many remixed versions. But as an album, it works well. And it sold by the million. Warners keeping the price down to that of a single CD for a "long play" release. EG.
At one point in late 1990, it was shifting over 300,000 copies a week. Literally. Not in "Toyah" land EG.
My presence in this thread is likely to be brief as I bought precisely none of the singles in that top 40, though I did have 6 of the top 40 albums.
I have one single. The Tina Turner one that I bought for a non album B-side. Have 19 of the top 40 albums though.
I have every single one of those CDs or 12s! Gino Latino’s Welcome is a total classic, not enhanced by its Paul Oakenfold mix.
Blue Pearl’s Naked was one of my rediscoveries of this month, with the System 7 and Soul Family Sensation CDs, all albums that passed me by at the time. The System 7 debut is particularly magnificent, which led to today’s purchase of the first Chapter and the Verse CD. Their leader, Aniff Cousins did the rap on Kirsty MacColl’s Walking Down Madison.
The Christians had a Top 10 hit here in the Netherlands with "Words". It peaked at number 5. By the way ... "Colour" is a very good album and one of my favorite albums of 1990.
It did! But then I'd already been shocked and disorientated by events during 1987 and 1988....so many acts just went down the dumper or disappeared. 1988 was really weird for that. No Madonna, Janet, HoJo, Nik, Paul Young, ABC, Thompson Twins (aside from a remix) - only the eventual appearance of Spandau and Duran felt like familiar ground. And even Spandau weren't sounding like themselves. EG.
I was a massive Madonna fan in 1990 and was infuriated that The Immaculate Collection wasn't a straight greatest hits compilation. I've made my peace with it over the last few years because I've treated it like a remix album and can appreciate that it's a time capsule of 1990: a snapshot of where Madonna was at artistically (and where pop music was at stylistically) at a very particular point in time. It still bugs me that there are tens of millions of people who think the versions on Immaculate are the originals, but I'm working through that...
So I see you have moved on to the 90s. Not a great decade for pop music IMHO, but by the mid-late 90s there was certainly a lot of interesting things happening in the UK with the arrival of so-called brit pop, very much known for its headlining acts, but while all this was going on, there were also bands left on the margins who crept into the Top-40 once in a while, but really deserved a lot more attention.
The early 90s were a boon for indie acts. Finally, they began to get higher chart peaks (albums and singles). Partly due to a weakening market, partly due to their increasing fanbase power, partly because alternative music in general was becoming the in-thing. In the mid-80s, it would have been almost unthinkable for: The The to have a #2 album Pixies to debut at #3 with a new album Sisters of Mercy to enter the UK Singles Top 40 at #3 ...and so on. It did feel as though the 90s made a point of ditching as much 80s trappings as possible. Everyone wanted to grunge up their sound and image. In the late 80s, pop acts wanted to do a George Michael. In the early 90s, rock bands wanted to do an Achtung Baby. EG.
The 90s for me were punctuated by moments of brilliance, but as a decade I don't look back on it with as much affection as I do the 80s. I like about a dozen singles in the Top 100 chart posted earlier but it's a very far cry from, say, 1982 or 1984. The shift back to rock in the 90s was not something I welcomed, but fortunately some of it contained clear echoes of the 70s and 80s and that made it easier for me to embrace. Without Britpop, I would've retreated back to my 80s record collection much earlier than I did. I loathed grunge then and find it completely unlistenable now.
.....and you have just (unintentionally ?) mentioned the name of one band that made the 90s a little more tolerable overall......
Three favourites in these reviews - the brilliant "Nothing Ever Happens", KLF house classic "Last Train To Trancentral" and Sinead's "Nothing Compares 2 U" KLF are probably better known though for burning a million pounds
I'll enjoy this thread!!! So many singles and albums I know already looking at what's been posted!!! Just starting work...will try and post a bit tonight....later. Good stuff all.....
I have 24 of those albums so was obviously still buying lots of charting records. That would start to change around 1991-1992, I think.
