1991 Top 20 Singles

[11] World Of Twist, ‘Sons Of The Stage’

World Of Twist

World Of Twist were the choice of the cognoscenti during the 90/91 Association Psychedelic Dance-Pop season. A bit of 60s beat group, mixed with Northern Soul and Roxy Music and all manner of swirly things, they were just what the country needed as the Madchester scene began to pall. Of course, the country never realised this.

‘Sons Of The Stage’ was the second single, after 1990’s highly-touted ‘The Storm’. It doesn’t really date, with influences covering 30 years of pop, and still has me bouncing. Junior too. She’d have loved to have seen them live, the stage adorned with bacofoil and various shiny objects, a spinning wheel with a suitable legend daubed upon it and the lightshow a riot of kaleidoscopic colour. It looked really cheap.

As a group of lads near me regaled the singer Tony Ogden with a lusty chorus of “Ogden is a wanker”, I knew they’d made it. For a night, at least.

[All my vinyl rips seem to have corrupted; Top 11 mp3s to follow… later]

[12] Electronic, ‘Get The Message’

Electronic

Everyone liked this at the time. It’s a pleasant little ditty with rolling guitar loops and join-the-dots karaoke lyrics in true Barney Sumner-style, and it’s never going to polarise opinion. Junior and I let it wash over us, as she sat and smiled on the sofa and I took a couple of photos of her in her Fat Willy’s t-shirt. Just to prove to Aunt Aggie that she’s worn it.

Electronic were less than the sum of their parts, or maybe just dead-on. With Sumner, Johnny Marr and the occasional Neil Tennant, they were the cream of the discerning man’s 80s pop but the album was just, well, nice. We were missing the menacing Hooky basslines, Morrissey’s acerbicisms (actually anything other than facile lyrics) and Lowe’s sonic adventure. A supergroup missing the point, maybe.

The clattering drum rolls sound like tin cans being dragged up onto the curb. I like that.

[13] M People, ‘How Can I Love You More?’

How Can I Love You More

No, wait, don’t go. Obviously, M People committed legion aural crimes with 99% of their output. Even long after their split, we’re force-fed an annual re-release of Heather Small’s gut-clearing, pious, schoolma’amish ‘Proud’ dirge. Well, Heather, I’ve sat on my arse at work all day, surfing the internet and slagging off my colleagues. Nothing to be proud of, but what’s it to you?

They made one good single – and I don’t care who knows it – with a restrained vocal performance from Small, before she rammed her histrionics down our throats, before we’d had a chance to wonder at the pineapple on her bonce. It sounds like a New York Garage track, quite different to the wailing dross that followed and the clumsy hit remix of this track itself a few years later.

Junior spends the five minutes laughing at me, of course.

[14] PM Dawn, ‘A Watcher’s Point Of View (Don’t Cha Think)’

PM Dawn

In the pub last night, I launched a robust Hoegaarden-driven defence of PM Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift On Memory Bliss’, thinking it was coming up next and determined to hold my ground. Now I see I got the wrong song, I withdraw my comments. This was always much better. Junior thought it was ace, running through her full repertoire of shakes, rocks and bounces.

De La Soul crossed with The Beach Boys, that’s what they said, near enough. Prince Be was the hip hop Brian Wilson. He certainly carried the ballast.

Pretty, harmony-drenched raps, wordy titles and flaky lyrics only sustained them so long. We didn’t hear much from them after ’91, although I understand that they recently won some American, dignity-shedding revival contest. Maybe there’ll be a new PM Dawn dawn.

[15] Curve, ‘Frozen’ EP

Curve

How we once swooned over dance-goth chick Toni Halliday, so beautiful in that searing white light that would wipe out the imperfections on Jimmy Nail’s face.

We played lead track ‘Coast Is Clear’, a poppy My Bloody Valentine-lite racket with the catchy ‘Now I’m sick, and always will be’ line. I felt like that on Saturday. The ‘Blindfold’ EP’s ‘Ten Little Girls’ was the better song, but this was the better EP. They loved their EPs. They did about nine of them, quality tailing off sharply after the third. The final hurrah must’ve been coruscating.

Junior gazed at her shoes.

[16] Pet Shop Boys, ‘Where The Streets Have No Name (Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)’

Pet Shop Boys

I used to put this on the jukebox in the hall bar at university, just to antagonise the rockists. The Jimi Hendrix lookalike and his Led Zep pals would become particularly vexed, often because it tended to interrupt their ‘American Pie’ loop.

This record’s a thumb of the nose – it couldn’t be anything else with the merging of the Andy Williams camp classic – but there’s affection too. The Pet Shop Boys’ aural soundscapes (wow) are wide enough to do justice to the sweep of the song, and it’s all big and dramatic like Bono thinks he is. I’m sure they’re not JUST taking the piss. Ok, I’m not sure. It’s great, though; I hadn’t heard it for years until this morning, and I still love it.

I’ve banged on about this before, but it’s interesting (well, sorta) that the PSBs and Prince should own the ’80s but then lose the plot at about the same time as each other. Can’t think of any proper good PSBs singles after this – honourable mention, however, to the bit where it goes mad at the end of ‘Go West’.

Junior was rather smitten with this, the Hi-NRG beats bringing forth the cockateel moves. I’ve really brainwashed the poor kid. She’ll be writing her own version of ‘Being Boring’ in about 30 years:

“I came across a cache of digital photos,
And countless blog entries from my dull old father;
He played me records and voiced my opinions,
And Girls Aloud got him all in a lather,
In my 20-noughties…”

[17] Prince & The New Power Generation, ‘Gett Off’

Prince & The New Power Generation

My daughter appeared to be performing the funky chicken to this one, helpless in the face of the snaky, strutting Minneapolitan grooves spun by the indigo imp of funk. That’s right, the indigo imp of funk.

Wringing out the last of Prince’s creative juice here, saving just a smidgen for ‘Sexy MF’. It’s a treat to hear him being all naughty again, the horny pony, and it’s a damn sight more enjoyable than the rest of the Diamonds & Pearls album.

Junior’s heard a lot of Prince, songs and allusions. I reckon he can only be topped as the main act here if the next song has anything to do with U2…

[18] U2, ‘Mysterious Ways’

U2

Never having heard Rattle & Hum, Junior’s not well placed to assess U2’s seismic brand realignment from holier-than-thou, campaigning rock monoliths to fun-loving, wraparound-sporting, INXS wannabes with better songs. Good. 15 years on, Achtung Baby is just another rock album, most songs a bit tighter and poppier than U2’s earlier offerings but there’s more obvious filler.

The Perfecto Mix of ‘Mysterious Ways’ did it for me. A couple of minutes of looped guitar at the start before the nice big riff comes in, and then no sign of the first verse, just the second verse twice with a couple of choruses. It’s careless, but it works. Oakenfold’s sausage fingers were all over 1991.

Junior rocked side to side throughout; she definitely goes for the rock guitars and the sturdy drums. She needs to hear more Belle & Sebastian and Eg & Alice. I won’t have an infant Suzi Quatro on my hands.

[19] Manic Street Preachers, ‘Stay Beautiful’

Manic Street Preachers

So, they arrived looking like Joe Strummer fronting Japan, lost their spiritual core and eventually waddled off dressed as fat Welshman at Next. A bizarre trajectory that became very uninteresting very quickly. They were never much good. Some diverting early singles, the odd OK track on later albums, not enough to justify the devotion.

Standard gibberish in the lyrics. Junior looked all louche, draped over the side of her chair. A mess of eyeliner and spraypaint sounds like a whale of a time to her.

Ah, I do like this shoddy record. It was the first MSPs song I ever heard and I was wryly surprised that this new, shocking punk thing had basically recorded a Huey Lewis melody.

[20] The KLF featuring The Children Of The Revolution, ‘3 A.M. Eternal (Live At The S.S.L.)’

The KLF

Another slab of ludicrous brilliance from Rockman Rock and King Boy D. “Basic face kick, elemental”. You had to laugh, but they were so good at what they did, and they built up their own mythology with every single they released. Then, within a year, they were gone, leaving rumour and apocrypha in their wake. Now there are people – mentioning no names – who look out for KLF-in-disguise records in each crop of new singles.

‘3 A.M. Eternal’ is meaningless, of course – “down with the crew crew” – but we’ve heard as much tosh from serious emcees. It’s the flow that matters, man. Junior was down with the mayhem, shaking the head and shoulders from side to side. Rocking the Stevie, if you will.

Someone nicked my copy of The White Room days after I bought it. I’d hazard that it’s not as good as I think it is, so I’ll continue not replacing it.

Author’s note: There is no Wham! in this chart. I repeat, there is NO Wham! in this chart. However, there is – as Kiss AMC might put it – a little bit of U2.