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Jason Maloney reviews

The Very Best of Cher Cher's commercial rehabilitation, after more than a decade away from the charts, had begun in the late 1987 with the slick AOR of I Found Someone (written by giant of the genre Michael Bolton) and continued through 1989 and 1990 with Dianne Warren and Desmond Child-penned hits such as If I Could Turn Back Time and Just Like Jesse James. Her first single of 1991, however, was something rather different; a cover of joyful 60s pop nugget It's In His Kiss (a.k.a. The Shoop Shoop Song) as featured in Cher's popular film of the time, Mermaids. The track reached the top of the UK chart on only its 3rd week, and was the first time Cher had been at #1 in this country since her days in league with Sonny Bono on I Got You Babe almost a quarter of a century earlier. Another polished album of AOR, Love Hurts, was on the horizon and it would include The Shoop Shoop song at the end as a bonus track.

KLF: The White Room The KLF, brainchild of former Echo & The Bunnymen manager Bill Drummond, had been around in a variety of disguises since 1987; The Justified Ancients Of Mu-Mu and its shortened version The JAMMs to name but two. It was as the KLF, however, that they found greatest success, and 1991 was very much their year. It began with a #1 in the shape of 3AM Eternal and concluded with the Christmas #2 Justified And Ancient (which featured Country icon Tammy Wynette on vocals). Inbetween, there was another #2 hit, Last Train To Trancentral, credited to The KLF featuring Children Of The Revolution. During the first 38 years of the British Singles Chart, the highest debut position for a new act had been #3 (Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice in December 1990). This week in 1991, that record was equalled Crystal Waters' club smash Gypsy Woman, although the single never went all the way to #1. By the end of 1994, Whigfield had trumped all before her by entering the UK Top 40 at the very summit with Saturday Night.

The Best of OMD For OMD and Soft Cell, 1991 was feeling like 1981. 10 years earlier both acts had enjoyed their best chart returns ; the former with Souvenir (#3), and the latter with the Transatlantic chart-topper Tainted Love. Now they were back in the upper reaches, albeit with a new version of their biggest hit in Soft Cell's case (credited to Soft Cell featuring Marc Almond, who laid down a new vocal for the release). The re-voxed Tainted Love was new at #10, and eventually peaked at #5. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark put together an enviable run of Top 75 entries throughout the 1980s, but the genuine hits were becoming more infrequent by the time Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphries parted bitterly not long after their 1988 Best Of set had sold in huge amounts. Following a legal battle, McCluskey emerged with the rights to the OMD name (Humphries taking the rest of OMD's extended family with him to form The Listening Pool) and set about recording Sugar Tax. The album's first single, Sailing On The Seven Sea, was an anthemic update of the classic OMD sound and surprised pretty much everyone by climbing to #3 in the second week of May. It now dropped a place to #4, but the comeback was no fluke - next single Pandora's Box also went Top 10, and the Sugar Tax album stayed near the top of the listings for several months, becoming OMD's second most-successful album after 1981's Architecture & Morality.

The Irresistible Cathy Dennis The maxim of "If at first you don't succeed, try try again.." certainly did the trick for Norwich's pop queen Cathy Dennis, whose slow-burning US Billboard Hot 100 exploits in the early part of the year eventually set up a UK Chart breakthrough with Touch Me (All Night Long), up to #5. Dennis, now more famous (and richly-rewarded) for her songwriting credentials for all manner of pop acts from Kylie to Will Young via Britney and Westlife, had first tasted Top 40 action as guest vocalist on D-Mob's club anthem C'Mon And Get My Love in the autumn of 1989 but the initial releases of Touch Me and Just Another Dream failed to really take off. Once she finally got that first hit, a handful more duly followed - mostly minor Top 30 entries, admittedly - before she quit the spotlight after 1996's Am I The Kinda Girl? album. There were re-issue rewards as well for thoroughly nice chanteuse Beverley Craven, whose debut single Promise Me was moving #15-#6 almost exactly a year after it originally failed to chart. Promise Me eventually reached #3, as did her self-titled album, but not even a Best Newcomer award at the Brits in 1992 could prevent a sharp decline in fortunes. (DVDfever.co.uk Ed: "Note how her record company refused to name her album after her other single, Woman To Woman, for fear that it might have lesbian overtones.")

The Essential Paul Young Paul Young strung together a sequence of 7 consecutive top 10 hits between 1983 and 1985, but the next five years yielded little in the way of notable chart action. Senza Una Donna - his duet with Italian vocalist Zucchero - thus proved a surprised smash when it made #4 in May 1991, restoring Young's popularity enough for his subsequent Singles Collection to top the UK charts upon release three months later. Once upon a time, before Britpop was even a twinkle in their floppy fringe-obscured eyes, Blur were hitching a ride into the charts on the back of Indie-Dance and the Baggy brigade. There's No Other Way (up 2 to #8) marked the band's first Top 40 adventure, and until 1994's Girls & Boys remained their biggest hit in the UK. Having begun as a diversion for members of arguably the 80s' holy trinity of seminal bands (New Order, The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys), Electronic - primarily Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, with the PSB's Neil and Chris chipping in - released a whole album's worth of material in May 1991. Its trailblazing single, Get The Message, had just peaked at #8, coming some 18 months after Getting Away With It (not originally featured on the album) reached #12 just before Christmas 1989.

Paul Weller: Modern Classics Outside the Top 10, there were climbs for Roxette's Fading Like A Flower (up 14 to its peak position of #12) and Baby Baby by Amy Grant (moving #34-#26), while Michael Bolton inched up a place to #23 with Love Is A Wonderful Thing and the fourth UK hit for Wilson Phillips, You're In Love - moved up 10 to #29, emulating the Top 40 exploits of Hold On and Release Me as well as improving on the near-miss that was Impulsive. Arriving on the chart were T'Pau at #31 with their first new single in over 2 years, the future #16 hit Whenever You Need Me, Jason Donovan at #25 with the long-forgotten R.S.V.P., and the Paul Weller Movement at #36 with Into Tomorrow; essentially the start of Weller's solo career after the ignominious demise of The Style Council. Meanwhile, Colour Me Badd's I Wanna Sex You Up debuted at #27 on its way to the very top a few weeks later, and R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People breezed in at #35. Fans of Weller note that he has a new single, The Bottle

Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2004.

The following is a list of Jason's Jukeboxes online for week ending:

Vol.40: The 40 Best Singles That Missed The UK Top 40 (20/12/2004)
Vol.39: November 12th 1977 (12/11/2004)
Vol.38: October 29th 1984 (29/10/2004)
Vol.37: October 15th 1987 (15/10/2004)
Vol.36: October 6th 1973 (08/10/2004)
Vol.35: September 30th 1995 (30/09/2004)
Vol.34: September 22nd 1979 (24/09/2004)
Vol.33: September 13th 1986 (16/09/2004)
Vol.32: September 9th 1989 (09/09/2004)
Vol.31: September 4th 1982 (02/09/2004)
Vol.30: August 26th 1978 (26/08/2004)
Vol.29: August 21st 1976 (19/08/2004)
Vol.28: August 13th 1983 (12/08/2004)
Vol.27: August 3rd 1985 (06/08/2004)
Vol.26: July 25th 1981 (29/07/2004)
Vol.25: July 21st 1979 (22/07/2004)
Vol.24: July 4th 1992 (08/07/2004)
Vol.23: June 24th 1965 (01/07/2004)
Vol.22: June 16th 1984 (17/06/2004)
Vol.21: June 11th 1977 (10/06/2004)
Vol.20: June 8th 1967 (03/06/2004)
Vol.19: May 29th 1971 (27/05/2004)
Vol.18: May 18th 1991 (20/05/2004)
Vol.17: May 14th 1969 (13/05/2004)
Vol.16: May 8th 1982 (06/05/2004)
Vol.15: May 3rd 1980 (29/04/2004)
Vol.14: April 19th 1986 (20/04/2004)
Vol.13: April 14th 1990 (13/04/2004)
Vol.12: April 8th 1989 (08/04/2004)
Vol.11: April 2nd 1983 (06/04/2004)
Vol.10: March 24th 1979 (23/03/2004)
Vol.9: March 19th 1988 (16/03/2004)
Vol.8: March 9th 1985 (09/03/2004)
Vol.7: March 3rd 1973 (02/03/2004)
Vol.6: February 28th 1987 (24/02/2004)
Vol.5: February 20th 1993 (17/02/2004)
Vol.4: February 11th 1978 (10/02/2004)
Vol.3: February 3rd 1966 (03/02/2004)
Vol.2: January 31st 1981 (27/01/2004)
Vol.1: January 21st 1984 (20/01/2004)

And in chronological order:

June 24th 1965: Vol.23 (01/07/2004)
February 3rd 1966: Vol.3 (03/02/2004)
June 8th 1967: Vol.20 (03/06/2004)
May 14th 1969: Vol.17 (13/05/2004)
May 29th 1971: Vol.19 (27/05/2004)
March 3rd 1973: Vol.7 (02/03/2004)
August 21st 1976: Vol.29 (19/08/2004)
June 11th 1977: Vol.21 (10/06/2004)
November 12th 1977: Vol.39 (12/11/2004)
February 11th 1978: Vol.4 (10/02/2004)
August 26th 1978: Vol.30 (26/08/2004)
March 24th 1979: Vol.10 (23/03/2004)
July 21st 1979: Vol.25 (22/07/2004)
September 22nd 1979: Vol.34 (24/09/2004)
May 3rd 1980: Vol.15 (29/04/2004)
January 31st 1981: Vol.2 (27/01/2004)
July 25th 1981: Vol.26 (29/07/2004)
May 8th 1982: Vol.16 (06/05/2004)
September 4th 1982: Vol.31 (02/09/2004)
April 2nd 1983: Vol.11 (06/04/2004)
August 13th 1983: Vol.28 (12/08/2004)
January 21st 1984: Vol.1 (20/01/2004)
June 16th 1984: Vol.22 (17/06/2004)
October 29th 1984: Vol.38 (29/10/2004)
March 9th 1985: Vol.8 (09/03/2004)
August 3rd 1985: Vol.27 (06/08/2004)
April 19th 1986: Vol.14 (20/04/2004)
September 13th 1986: Vol.33 (16/09/2004)
February 28th 1987: Vol.6 (24/02/2004)
October 15th 1987: Vol.37 (15/10/2004)
March 19th 1988: Vol.9 (16/03/2004)
April 8th 1989: Vol.12 (08/04/2004)
September 9th 1989: Vol.32 (09/09/2004)
April 14th 1990: Vol.13 (13/04/2004)
May 18th 1991: Vol.18 (20/05/2004)
July 4th 1992: Vol.24 (08/07/2004)
February 20th 1993: Vol.5 (17/02/2004)
September 30th 1995: Vol.35 (30/09/2004)
The 40 Best Singles That Missed The UK Top 40: Vol.40 (20/12/2004)

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: