Jason’s Jukebox Volume 35

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 3 5 Chart Date: 30th September 1995 Online Date: 30th September 2004

Shaggy: Best of Vol.1 In ten years’ of hit-making, Simply Red had fallen one place short of the top spot on two occasions; 1986’s Holding Back The Years and 1989’s If You Don’t Know Me By Now both reached #2, but that first UK chart-topper eluded them until the final chart week of September 1995 when Fairground went straight in at #1. During 1991 and 1992, Mick Hucknall’s crew had established themselves as by far the biggest album act in the country; 1991’s Stars album had been the best-seller of both years, an unprecedented feat at the time and one still to be emulated. Fairground was the introductory single from Stars’ follow-up, the ultimately disappointing Life which failed to yield another Top 10 single, and dislodged Shaggy‘s Boombastic from the summit.

Nearly half of the Top 40 were new to the chart, and there was only one climber – Smokie‘s irreverent remake of their own 70s classic Living Next Door To Alice in league with foul-mouthed comedian Roy “Chubby” Brown, entitled Who The Fuck Is Alice – which moved up 3 places to #5. Michael Jackson‘s former #1 You Are Not Alone slipping another notch to #3 and Fantasy by Mariah Carey remaining at #4 completed the Top 5. Michael’s sister Janet was in the Top 10, her Runaway single falling 2 places from its debut position of #6 the previous week. It was one of two new songs on her Greatest Hits set Design Of A Decade.

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The Cardigans: Life A group of four debutants occupied the positions from #10 to #13, led by Wet Wet Wet‘s Somewhere Somehow. The umpteenth single from their Picture This album, it continued a sequence of Top 10 hits started by Love Is All Around some 18 months earlier. That 15-week reign revived their chart fortunes for a third time, the momentum of Goodnight Girl‘s #1 success in 1992 having started to wane by Love Is All Around‘s release in the spring of 1994. All of the Picture This singles did well, but the band came fatally unstuck after 1997’s 10 managed just one Top 10 hit and a pointless cover of The Beatles’ Yesterday for the Mr. Bean movie became their chart swansong not much later. The quartet of arrivals was completed by 20 Fingers featuring Gillette‘s censored Short Short Man at #11, Something For The Pain by Bon Jovi at #12 and Cast‘s Alright at #13.

Britpop had already peaked, and was in the process of transforming into Dadrock; Paul Weller‘s fourth and final single from his Stanley Road set, Broken Stones, entered at #20 while a pre-Bittersweet Symphony The Verve debuted at #24 with the mournful History. There was, however, still time for Menswear to extend their chart career with another middling Top 20 hit; Stardust was new at #16, but two bands of the immediate future were already making modest inroads – Garbage and The Cardigans both made their Top 40 breakthrough on the same week with Only Happy When It Rains (#29) and Sick & Tired (#34) respectively.

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Carter USM:
Straw Donkey (Best of) Emerging R’n’B queen Mary J Blige came in at #17 with Mary Jane (All Night Long), and TLC had the longest-running single on the Top 40 as Waterfalls dropped to #18 after 9 weeks of action.

Between #31 and #40 Annie Lennox debuted at #31 with Waiting In Vain, her third single from covers album Medusa, AC/DC were struggling to remain relevant in the 90s with Hard As A Rock managing a meagre #33 peak, idiosyncratic indie troupe Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine continued to think up punsome titles as Born On The 5th Of November entered at #35, and Dubstar got their first Top 40 hit courtesy of Anywhere (in at #37). In a reflection of the times, 17 of the week’s 18 entries wouldgo into immediate decline 7 days later.

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