US #1s of 1991

has to be Justify My Love

‘or Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss

this list kind of sucks. voting for "rush, rush" even though objectively it is a mess

C&C Music Factory

OK I guess this would be the first “The pop charts are not as good as they used to be, mannn” kinda year. Nothing here’s really out-and-out _bad_, just mediocre. “You’re in Love” is not as good as “Hold On”. “Black or White” started MJ’s descent into New Jersey-land. “When a Man Loves a Woman” is predictably terrible (though it did inspire a side-splittingly hilarious skit on In Living Color). There are about seven or eight better songs on Rhythm Nation than “LWNDWY”. So yeah this should’ve been a warning sign to all of us that the 90s wasn’t gonna hold a candle to the previous decade. By the way, I think people have forgotten how massive the Rhythm Nation album was. I remember Janet Jackson won so many Grammy Awards for that album she couldn’t carry them all and had to get someone else over to help. Anyway, as much as want to give a little love to “Everything I Do I Do It for You” (which will get a big fat goose egg on this poll, mark my words), I gotta go with Londonbeat.

I saw Bryan Adams play several years back, in a pretty small theatre. He was fine. But when he played “Everything I Do I Do It for You” all these couples starting dancing and it really struck me what a wedding song it became, and who am I to deride even the biggest pile of soggy ballad if it makes so many people happy?

Were any of these hits delivered by listeners under the age of 30? I remember most of these, but I remember few of them being played on purpose by anyway I knew. Maybe they didn't need to because they were ubiquitous?

Anyway, that's the "corporate" vibe at work. These were going to be hits, dammit, no matter how few people wanted them!

I think Chris Molanthy has talked about this as the era of the professional songwriter

I really like the majority of these. Possibly the last time that could be said about a roundup of any given year's #1s.

This has to be Janet, I think. Karyn White, though, man. Why didn't she take off like she should've?

The ones I dislike, though, are pretty awful. Eff a Bryan Adams, for example.

I honestly think it was cool that Extreme went with an Everly Bros pastiche for their hit ballad instead of going the power ballad route.

I also really like the applied dominants under "all you have to do to make it real".

OK I guess this would be the first “The pop charts are not as good as they used to be, mannn” kinda year

Maybe it's age, but that moment happened a good two or three years later for me.

Gonna Make You Sweat

I think maybe '92 was the last year I was actively invested in pop radio as a thing (as opposed to enjoying discrete singles from a broader field of stuff that no longer piqued my interest much).

I honestly think it was cool that Extreme went with an Everly Bros pastiche for their hit ballad instead of going the power ballad route.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Friday, March 15, 2019 6:03 AM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. i think "more than words" is a v good song tbh

PM Dawn by a country mile. Best of rest: C&C Music Factory, Janet Jackson and Prince (though hardly one of his best).

Never liked Justify My Love, something hollow and contrived about it.

Awful list in general.

also led to Justify My Thug

Like I've said, 1991 was the best year for pop since 1984, not necessarily reflected in these #1s.

I liked 1991 a lot when it happened because I was young. I like 1991 a lot now because I am old.

This should've been #1 instead of "Joyride"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fGLiIvKKys

Hard to believe "Summertime" was never a number 1. Has a lot more staying power than most of these.

or "3 A.M. Eternal."

or jean leloup's '1990'

The #2s of 1991:

Cathy Dennis, "Touch Me (All Night Long)"
Color Me Badd, "I Wanna Sex You Up"
Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
Rythm Syndicate, "P.A.S.S.I.O.N."
Amy Grant, "Every Heartbeat"
Lenny Kravitz, "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over"
Roxette, "Fading Like a Flower (Everytime You Leave)"
Natural Selection feat. Niki Haris, "Do Anything"
Bryan Adams, "Can't Stop This Thing We Started"
Boyz II Men, "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday"

I'm consistently disappointed that Rythm Syndicate didn't title their song 'P.A.S.I.O.N.'.

Cathy Dennis, "Touch Me (All Night Long)"
Color Me Badd, "I Wanna Sex You Up"
Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
Rythm Syndicate, "P.A.S.S.I.O.N."
Amy Grant, "Every Heartbeat"
Lenny Kravitz, "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over"
Roxette, "Fading Like a Flower (Everytime You Leave)"
Natural Selection feat. Niki Haris, "Do Anything"
Bryan Adams, "Can't Stop This Thing We Started"
Boyz II Men, "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday"

a marvelous sequence; not one sucks

I see very little wrong with this year in pop music.

I saw Bryan Adams play several years back, in a pretty small theatre. He was fine. But when he played “Everything I Do I Do It for You” all these couples starting dancing and it really struck me what a wedding song it became, and who am I to deride even the biggest pile of soggy ballad if it makes so many people happy?

I fucking hate it with a passion. Did America have to suffer through it being number one for FOUR FUCKING MONTHS?

PM Dawn ftw

xp: I was grounded for one of those 4 months and had little to occupy myself with except sitting in my room listening to the radio. That song was my worst enemy.

xpost Don't get me wrong, I can't stand the song. I just won't begrudge those happy couples dancing to their terrible song. Though tbf it's not even the worst Bryan Adams movie song.

but I always begrudge happy couples

Polarizing reactions. my thoughts:
- There were a lot more songs on the radio then. vs today, I'm pretty sure the iHeart station down the street still has "Thank You Next" in their Top 10 at 10. In 1991 there was a new "Thank You Next" every 4-5 weeks. (By that, I mean a song you could tell would be remembered for decades as an artifact of the era, event-type songs widely associated with personal moments -- these songs obv still exist but I don't think receive excessive airplay as often and are thus not treasured as widely)
- "Bad songs" were shitty but at least fun to laugh at. I've sung "I've Been Thinking About You" at karaoke 3 or 4 times in my life because I think it's bad but also funny enough that it no longer sounds quite as bad.
- Many 12-year-olds in 1991 thought "Everything I Do" was a cool song, which I guess is sort of helping me understand how many 12-year-olds in 2019 don't hear Imagine Dragons as vicious eardrum stabbing
- I'm not old; YOURE old.

Voted for PM Dawn

It's hart to call the Londonbeat "bad" when it's got that amazing high life-drenched guitar part.

I didn't know it was good until like 2004

So no it's not bad at all and I def wanna hear it right now.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who wasn't an old ever thought 'Everything I Do' was cool. Even as a fairly uncritical consumer I knew back then that that song and everything Bolton did was and always would be lame. And turns out I was right.

It was the summer of my junior year and we all -- girls and boys -- thought it a damp Kleenex.

The kids who took "Chorus" class (probably 50 kids) sang "Everything I Do" during my 6th grade school concert.

i remember LOVING "everything i do" at the time. i was ... four

I never realized Bryan Adams had an album between Reckless and Waking Up The Neighbors. I recognize zero of these songs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Fire_(album)

PM Dawn by fucking miles. The MJ and Madonna songs are great too, but come on.

Is there any other year where one chart topper is better than all of the others by such a huge margin?

Also re: "Everything I Do," I was, I think, 8 when that song was a hit, and it was very popular in my peer group. I have no idea why. The movie tie-in? I don't remember Prince of Thieves being that much of a thing in third grade at the time.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is something of a Forgotbuster, or at least it would be if it didn't have that song attached to it. It was definitely pitched as an Event, and was actually the second highest grossing film of the year, behind Terminator 2; we were still in the post-Dances With Wolves but pre-Waterworld era of Costner, after all. I saw it opening night with my mom (something I remember feeling embarrassed about when I ran into a couple of kids I knew from school in the theatre, which attests to the fact that sixth graders, at least, were into it) and liked it okay, though when T2 came out the following month, I'd all but forgotten why I ever cared.

I don't really hate the song, btw. The first minute or so, before it gets carried away into bombast, is sorta pretty, and its certainly less painful than that Bolton cover on this list. I'd gladly have it erased from history, though, if it meant we would have been spared the Bryan Adams/Sting/Rod Stewart monstrosity "All For Love."

I really hated it but, yeah, lots of kids obv liked it. I feel like I remember my high school concert band playing an arrangement of it (as part of some kind of Prince of Thieves medley?) but I'm not sure if the timeline works (was in hs from 92-97, band from 92-95 iirc).

i was 8 in 1990. i remember sleeping outside one night that summer on top of a fort i had built out of logs and scrap wood with my cousin behind the doghouse. we had the radio on and "everything i do" came on and as i lay there looking up at the stars i thought it was the most beautiful thing i had ever heard and told my cousin so much.

as much.

terrible list. voting “gonna make you sweat”

On the other hand, I just saw Alfred's ranking of *favorite* 1991 songs, and that list is much more appealing.

― Josh in Chicago

it's magnificent