US #1s of 1989

correction: make that "awesome stupid fun dance routines."

My fondest memory of MV: deejays changing the lyrics to "Blame It on the Rain" to "BLAME IT ON HU-SSEIN YEAH YEAH" during the first Gulf War.

I vaguely remember that! I hope Rush Limbaugh isn't reading this. Wouldn't want to give him any ideas.

Pretty sure the MV track that would hold up best for me is "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" with its part-and-parcel retread of Chris DeBurgh's "Lady in Red" beat.

(Unless the thievery happened in the other direction, though I don't think so.)

Would have been a neat trick for Deburgh to have traveled forward in time to bite off of Milli Vanilli!

Heh - I couldn't recall what year that came out, but I'm assuming it was '85/86.

Pretty sure it was late '86/early '87

Always appreciated <a href = "http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/rbmilli-91.php";>George Clinton's response</a> to MV:

"'We want to get the funk out of the two Milli Vanilli guys because we don't appreciate how the recording industry is treating the artists,' says proven foe of fraudulent funk George Clinton in the March/April New Funk Times (Ehrenstrasse 19, W-5000 Köln 1, Germany). Clinton notes that the Four Tops were the only Motown act who never 'had people sing lead and background' for them. 'Artist' can mean anything. Dancing is an art and pantomiming is, too--even lip-synching is an art! That's a hard thing to do--to dance and lip-synch. And it's hard to lip-synch when you are passionate 'cause when you get carried away and you want to pause it--'wait a minute'--, but the tape says 'Fuck you!' The tape doesn't want to wait.'" Passing off the duo's egomania as the inevitable fruit of their biz-determined charade, George hopes to repeat his reclamation job on the then scandalized, since high-charting Vanessa Williams. 'Once we finish with them, they'll definitely be sangin'! I mean, everybody can sing--even if it's only in the bathroom or a crowd.' Carsten Heyn, who manages the act now dubbed Rob & Fab, says they're currently in a European studio working up a late-summer single. He was sufficiently flattered by Dr. Funkenstein's plan to try and arrange a meeting last time his clients hit L.A., but couldn't make the hookup."

oops - link here: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/rbmilli-91.php

"Good Thing" towers over everything else on this list. When I was a wee lad I'd always air-piano the Jools Holland solo. Rock!

This might just be the worst list I've ever seen on one of these polls. 1989
was an awful, awful year for mainstream pop music.

That being said, I'm going with Mike & The Mechanics' "Living Years"--subtle, poignant,
and holds up well.

(seriously: "Batdance" all the way)

Batdance is also perhaps the strangest U.S. #1s I can think of...

Those synths on "The Living Years" are as subtle as a sack of apeshit breaking your kneecaps.

"Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" bears more than a slight lyrical/musical resemblance to LL's "I Need Love."

First few times I heard Milli Vanilli on the radio, I just assumed they were another good new-jack-swing group. (Might have even thought one of their songs was Bobby Brown. They weren't really that far apart.)

has way better R&B-flavored songs elsewhere in his solo catalog

"Easy Lover"! (Okay, not exactly "solo", per se'. But still.)

That being said, I'm going with Mike & The Mechanics' "Living Years"--subtle, poignant,
and holds up well.

Haha, a friend frequently likes to point out that "The Living Years" is the worst song ever written.

pretty sure this was the year I got arrested twice

that's just how bad the pop music was

I kinda wanted to vote for "Batdance" because it's weird and silly and fun, but there's no denying "Like a Prayer" has meant more to me than any of these other songs.

vick-vick-vick VICKI VALE

I'm pretty sure I haven't heard 80-90% of this list since 1989... (not complaining!)

timely classics indeed.

Like a Prayer should be the runaway winner, but I voted Straight Up just for the wicked synth lead into the chorus.

"Straight Up" is a worthier heir to Control than "Miss You Much."

b. brown just over bon jovi

"Straight Up" is a worthier heir to Control than "Miss You Much."

so taking you off my speed-dial for this

Absolutely convinced that '89 was a great pop year, but its greatness wasn't so evident in the number ones (lots of better stuff a little further down the chart, "Buffalo Stance," Soul II Soul, "Paradise City," Young MC, etc.).

... "The Way You Love Me" (Karyn White), "Every Little Step" (Bobby Brown), "Funky Cold Medina," "Patience"...

Karyn White's "Superwoman" was that year, too, right? Definitely voted for that in Pazz & Jop. What else hit? Kix "Don't Close Your Eyes," Cinderella "Coming Home" and "Gypsy Road," Def Leppard "Rocket," White Lion "Little Fighter" -- beats the living hell out 2008, that's for sure.

Warrant "Down Boys" and "Heaven," Will to Power "Fading Away," Tom Petty "Free Fallin'," Don Henley "The End Of The Innocence"...

Karyn White is SO forgotten.

yet more here too, probably:

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres89.php

"Every Little Step" didn't reach #1?!

Still think it's weird that "Keep On Movin" did double the business of "Back To Life" on P&J.

My pops used to always sing "Back to Life" when I was v. little.

the bangles wins out over madonna and roxette ('the look').

never pictured myself voting for the bangles in anything.

also, I know xhuxk was never its biggest fan, but Inner City's "Good Life" (though I now much prefer its followup, "Big Fun," which, surprisingly, didn't even make the Top 100 but was a big club hit for sure). Plus the Technotronic hits + Ten City's "That's the Way Love Is" (all from "the Dean's List").

Still think it's weird that "Keep On Movin" did double the business of "Back To Life" on P&J.

i'm not - i think keep on movin' is the much better track. although 13 year old me would probably have wildly disagreed

both those inner city singles were awesome. i can't remember if they were hits in aus but they certainly got plenty of airplay.

that should be "i'm not surprised"

most bewildering is that 'bust a move' did not make #1

Agreed.

I can put myself in the moment of this year frighteningly well. Would have gone "Buffalo Stance" given the chance, but as things are, I want to make sure "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" gets a vote.

PS: Yes, "Batdance" is undoubtedly the strangest #1 hit of the rock era.

I despised "Batdance" at the time, and don't think I found it particularly "strange" at all -- just another collage record in the wake of M/A/R/R/S etc., and bad at it. Maybe I should maybe revisit it.

I know xhuxk was never its biggest fan, but Inner City's "Good Life" (though I now much prefer its followup, "Big Fun,"). Plus the Technotronic hits + Ten City's "That's the Way Love Is"

Did I really dislike Inner City that much then? If so, the hate didn't last long. Debut LP is good, and I reviewed one of their later ones in Rolling Stone. Pretty sure I always thought Technotronic were great. And I like that Ten City single, too, though when I found a cheap copy of their debut CD a couple years ago, I couldn't get into the rest of it.

You know, I feel certain, xhuxk, that around that time you at least mildly dissed Inner City (maybe in that Pazz & Jop CIUT show you did with Phil and Marc Weisblott?), but it's possible I'm confusing them with Soul II Soul. I remember you comparing one of them to Tofu pizza (a comment that made me laugh at the time even though I disagreed).

"Batdance" is a "strange" #1 in that the song doesn't contain a single memorable hook (and only made #1 because of, duh, Batman). Though again -- I have a feeling I'd be a little more receptive to it now.

I definitely dismissed Soul II Soul!! I thought they were real new age bores back then. But I've got to tolerate their debut album's groove over the years.

I can think of lots of #1 records without memorable hooks. (Usually they're just called "bad," too.)

True, though "Batdance" isn't merely devoid of hooks it's jammed with anti-hooks: moments that sound designed to scare me off.

xp I mean I've "come to like" Soul II Soul's groove over the years. Tolerate isn't strong enough. But I think part of the reason it seems better to me in retrospect than it did at the time is that nobody seems to make that kind of r&b anymore, and probably nobody has for years. (People called that stuff "swing-beat," right? Did anybody other than Soul II Soul do it? It probably helped, though, when I started thinking of them more as a continuation of the reserved and smooth-jazzy early '80s Brit-soul of people like Linx and Junior than as the exciting new thing they never were. Also, I was cranky then.)

ilm is the wind beneath my wings.

Did anybody other than Soul II Soul do it?

Well, I was totally obsessed with the "soul II soul beat" at the time (which didn't btw start with Soul II Soul -- an almost identical beat was used on Eric B's "Paid in Full" and it comes from another source entirely, I forget what though) and I own plenty of 12" singles from '89-90 with a variation on it (beat-wise I think of those years as a battle between the soul II soul groove and the "funky drummer" sample, which were around the same tempo though easily discernible from one another). Damn if I can remember now what all those singles are (the only one that comes to mind instantly is a 12" remix of Madonna's "Keep it Together"). I seem to think it crossed over a lot into MOR type stuff, precisely like Phil Collins and Quincy Jones et al.