Yeah, I'm even later than I was last week. Things are getting busy in Gloveheadland. But here I am at last. But before we conclude this week's proceedings, let's take a quick jaunt back to September 10, 1983.
Michael Sembello's "Maniac" was at #1. The rest of the Top Ten included "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), "The Safety Dance," "Puttin' on the Ritz," and "Total Eclipse of the Heart."...The first newcomer is the last pop Top 40 from jazzman George Benson, the smooth "Lady Love Me (One More Time)" at #30...Speaking of final pop hits, Juice Newton is here at #31 with her last Top 40, a flavorlessly synthy cover of a hit by The Zombies in 1965, gender-flipped as "Tell Him No"...Continuing with the theme are The Little River Band at #35 with their last American hit, the uncharacteristically decent dance-rocker "You're Driving Me Out of My Mind"...And at #40, we find Paul Anka with, you guessed it, his last Top 40 hit, the meh ballad "Hold Me Till The Morning Comes, featuring backup vocals by human sleeping pill Peter Cetera...But this week, my spotlight shines on...
32 - "Big Log," Robert Plant
The ex-Led Zeppelin frontman scored his first Top 40 solo hit with this bluesy ballad about the joys of travelling the open road. "My love is in league with the freeway," he sings. I have no idea what a log has to do with anything, but regardless, a nice tune to mellow out to.
And now, here's the rest of 1990.
20 - "My, My, My," Johnny Gill
19 - "Oh Girl," Paul Young
18 - "Can't Stop Falling Into Love," Cheap Trick
17 - "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven," Phil Collins
16 - "Love and Emotion," Stevie B.
The second half begins with Johnny Gill's second entry this week. This one is your basic let's-get-it-on loverman jam. It certainly seems like it would be effective.
Englishman Paul Young had his last U.S. Top Ten with a completely unnecessary cover of The Chi-Lites 1972 soul classic. He sings it fine and all, but there's no reason for it. Find your own song, Paul.
Next are Cheap Trick with their last Top 40, an unremarkable midtempo rocker about love and lust and stuff like that there. Bland and commercial, with none of the wit and swagger that made them great. Rinse this out of your ears by listening to "Surrender" ten times.
Then it's Phil Collins with the fourth Top Five smash from his album ...But Seriously. It's an upbeat, horn-heavy statement of purpose about wanting to do all one can to save a relationship. "How many times can I say I'm sorry?" Phil asks. "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" I ask back for some reason. In both cases, the world may never know.
Closing out this quintet is Miamian Steven Bernard Hill with a boring Latin freestyle track on which he says of the title "It's the only thing that turns me on." Um, Stevie, love and emotion are two things, so you should have said "They're the only things that turn me on." And furthermore, "emotion" is a pretty vague term. Anger is an emotion. So is sadness. All I'm saying is, more specificity would have been nice.
15 - "Tic-Tac-Toe," Kyper
14 - "Jerk Out," The Time
13 - "Close to You," Maxi Priest
12 - "Vision of Love," Mariah Carey
11 - "Thieves in the Temple," Prince
Leading off this bunch is the only hit by Lousiana rapper Kyper. Over a beat that heavily employs samples from Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart," he compares his quest for sexual conquests to the centuries-old game involving X's and O's on a nine-square grid. I'm not sure exactly what makes the comparison relevant, but I do know that his go-to move of "pull(ing) out the portable car phone" would be much, much less effective 22 years later.
Minneapolis funksters The Time had their third and biggest pop hit with this Prince-written number about picking up women and being, well, a jerk about it. A bit of old-school funk among the New Jack Swing. A great, great song.
Next is the biggest hit by British soul-reggae artist Maxi Priest. It's just a simple love song over a sparse, Soul II Soul-ish beat, but that's all it needed to be to propel it to Number One. He had the pipes to deliver the goods. I also like his first hit, a pleasant reggae-lite cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World."
Then it's the song that introduced the world to a then-unknown 20-year-old named Mariah Carey. Signed by Columbia Records (whose president, Tommy Mottola, she would later marry and divorce), much was expected of her, and the label paired her with top songwriters and producers for her debut album, and then spent over a million dollars promoting the record. The first fruit of this effort was this dramatic ballad about finding the love of one's dreams, and the investment was rewarded with a #1 single. The song itself still hold up as one of Carey's best, and while it does contain many of the vocal gymnastics that she became known for, it does not employ her "dog-whistle" high note. And that's a good thing. It wasn't necessary here.
Rounding out this section is Prince's first Top Ten hit of the 90s, the first single from the soundtrack of his flop sequel to the movie Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge. It's about betrayal and personal strength and things like that, backed with solid funk-rock. Not among the man's best, but certainly a worthy hit.
These go to Ten. Top Ten.
10 - "Come Back to Me," Janet Jackson
Miss Jackson's tenth Top Ten was this pleading ballad. Uncomplicated, but solid. She was becoming the same sort of hit machine her brother was at his peak.
9 - "Epic," Faith No More
These San Franciscans were on more of the arty side of metal, but they did have one moment in the mainstream sun with this fantastic track on which singer Mike Patton raps the verses and sing-snarls the choruses over stomping hard rock. And the song's memorable ending, where it's stripped down to a simple piano line, seals the deal. What's it about? It doesn't matter. Or to put it another way "What is it? It's it!"
8 - "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection," Nelson
Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, luxuriously blond-locked twin sons of fifties heartthrob Ricky Nelson, scored their first and biggest hit with this straightforwar.d pop-rocker that made their family the first ever three-generation charttoppers (Grandpa Ozzie began the legacy). Nothing groundbreaking, but very well-crafted.
7 - "Tonight," New Kids on the Block
The Boston boy band's ninth and final Top Ten is a fitting coda to their run at the top. It's a half-ballad, half-rock anthem about the group's already-loosening bond with their millions of fans. Contains vaguely-classical musical elements, references to their previous hits, and a line that seems to indicate that they consider girls not to be people. My favorite of theirs, based mainly on its relative strangeness.
6 - "Have You Seen Her," MC Hammer
The pop-rapper who became a superstar with the Rick James-biting "U Can't Touch This" followed that up with this week's second Chi-Lites cover. As purposeless as Paul Young's, but at least the Hammer contributes his own softly rapped lyrics which include pleas to famous friends like rapper Rob Base and the hosts of Yo! MTV Raps for assistance in locating his missing love. Still, justly forgotten.
5 - "If Wishes Came True," Sweet Sensation
This Bronx girl-groups last hit was their only #1. A boilerplate pop ballad, remarkable only for a line about "warm September rain" which reminds me of the parcipitation of another month and temperature mentioned in a much better song that would come out a year or so after this.
4 - "Unskinny Bop," Poison
These stalwart hair farmers coined a new sex euphemism on this dumb-fun boogie-rocker that contains the immortal line "Like gasoline you wanna pump me." Their best moment. Nothing more to say.
3 - "Do Me!" Bell Biv Devoe
The group composed of New Edition members Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe had their second Top Five hit with this lascivious New Jack Swinger that, appropriately for the changing times, includes a veiled advisement to use condoms, although unfortunately this is given during a rap that also seems to be about statuatory rape. All in all, their first hit, "Poison," is much better.
2 - "Release Me," Wilson Phillips
The combination of Beach Boy Brian Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy and Chynna Phillips, offspring of John and Michelle of The Mamas and the Papas, became huge superstars this year with their debut album. This, their second #1. is typical of their output: a catchy bit of MOR in the if-you-love-me-let-me-go vein. Not a big fan of this. I was more of a "Hold On" guy, and it was a kick to see them do that one at the end of Bridesmaids.
And at Number One 22 years ago we find...
1 - "Blaze of Glory," Jon Bon Jovi
The lead singer and namesake of New Jersey's pop-metal mainstays made a solo foray with this track from the Brat Pack Western Young Guns II. It's a power ballad with some vaguely countryish instrumentation and lyrics about sleeping outdoors and dying like a man. A decent little lighter-raiser, and a foreshadowing of the more blatant country move his band would make in the late noughties.
In the lone LDD, an adopted girl searching for her birth parents decicated Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram's "Somewhere Out There" to them
And at last, 1990 is in the books. Very soon, I will tackle a week in 1991. I hope to finish it much more promptly than I have these last two years. Will I? Watch this space.
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