US #1s of 1992

Boyz II Men.

Babyface = genius.

"All 4 Love" is a lot better than I might expect of a CMB single that isn't "Sex You Up". It's a decent Motown-era pastiche that would be completely respectable if recorded by Tony Toni Tone. I could swear it kind of rips off Salt N Pepa's "If You Really Want Me", if not some mutual older source.

As far as George & Elton go, completely unnecessary. Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" aside, has there ever been a "cover featuring the original artist" that was worthwhile?

"I'm Too Sexy" is overtly gimmicky, but still fun. Hi haters.

Big lols at this hitting number one at the height of the grunge era. "To Be With You" is another one where I expect dog shite looking at the artist, title, and year, but the song turned out to be altogether decent. I'll take a folksy, minimalist hair ballad over an overproduced, maximalist hair ballad in a heartbeat. The chorus is pretty catchy, too. It seems like an oddly low-key song to hit number one, but I like its presence on this list.

I seem to remember thinking the lyrics of "Save the Best for Last" were clever when I was very young, but this is just schlock.

"Jump" is overtly gimmicky, but still fun. Hi haters.

Not only does "I'll Be There" have a better tune and better performer than "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", but Mariah doesn't try to do anything stupid like shoehorn Michael Jackson in.

I could gladly never hear "Baby Got Back" again, and it still stands out as the winner here.

"This Used to Be My Playground" is the biggest non-entity here. I can't believe it hit number one or even the top ten.

I have a big soft spot for Boyz II Men, and I still dig this breakup/makeout jam.

AEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUURRRRRRRRHHH

I have a hard time judging Whitney's "I Will Always Love You", because I tend to hear it more as a platonic ideal of its sort of histrionic ballad than as an example thereof. The sort of song you can't help but acknowledge as great, but never actually want to hear.

I love the Vanessa Williams song, or did at the time. But out of what's here, it's still the one I'd most likely listen to given the choice.

My eyes glazed over looking at the list, but listening through, I'm surprised to find that I'll at least half-heartedly rep for 8 of the 12.

God, this an absolutely fucking awful selection of tracks. Really awful.

Never thought Right said Fred and Kriss Kross would be competing for anything but the last bed in the homeless hostel, but, there it is.

"To Be With You" is legit awesome, possibly my favourite 90s power ballad

"Jump," by a considerable distance. "Save The Best For Last" is one of the sweetest songs ever sung. It's like a Christine McVie ballad: the character is a decent woman who's found her chance at happiness, and it's embodied in Williams' perfectly respectable, normal-person's voice.

i have a soft spot for 'this used to be my playground'

i have a soft spot for 'this used to be my playground'

― metametadata (n/a), Saturday, 25 October 2008 23:43 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

Mrs Hassel Schmuck does too. I have no idea why.

"Jump," by a considerable distance. "Save The Best For Last" is one of the sweetest songs ever sung. It's like a Christine McVie ballad: the character is a decent woman who's found her chance at happiness, and it's embodied in Williams' perfectly respectable, normal-person's voice.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, October 25, 2008 3:40 PM (20 minutes ago)

rep

"This Used To Be My Playground" was probably Madonna's best song of the 90s until 1998. So, that one, in an otherwise rather boring selection of songs (the two best ones otherwise were both live cover versions)

Is that because it has no drums?

Wow, there's nothing I abjectly dislike, but nothing I really like. I was kinda disengaged from chart music at this time. I went with Madonna in her best adult-contemporary guise.

"This Used To Be My Playground" is one of her more obscure singles, isn't it, even though it hit #1? Anyway, "I'll Remember" is better, methinks.

I just youtubed it and I don't remember it at all. Which you can pretty much not say for any other Madonna single.

Is that because it has no drums?

It did have drums. But it had a tune too.

"Baby Got Back" is great, no apologies needed. For me second is Whitney; though the original is better, this is still a great record, but I could listen to Whitney sings The Knack and I'd love it.

VANESSA

WILLIAMS

aaah hang on a sec no, it's 'end of the road'!!!

Best for Last or Used to Be My Playground. The latter is probably my favourite Madonna ballad behind Live to Tell.

oh god, End of the ROad

kriss kross all day

Fuck off.

End of the road 'til the end of the road.

I'm willing to wear matching shit to the regatta with my compadres.

I was gonna be all "How Could Baby Got Back lose this really" but then remembered how amazing "End Of The Road" is and voted for that.

see, i just don't REMEMBER that about end of the road, and i'm not willing to double check.

It's hilar how much I HATED HATED HATED Boyz II Men when I was 12 cuz all the other kids liked em and I grew my hair long and listened to Ministry and The Misfits and shit. But now I get all sensitive when I hear them in the Chinese restaurant or whatever and wonder to myself if they have a decent Best Of...

Big lols at this hitting number one at the height of the grunge era.

Rev, you're a young'n right? Don't believe the rose-colored glasses that people see the grunge era through. Guns N Roses was still the biggest band on the planet even if Vedder had more talking points for Newsweek articles.

People forget about all the residual post-hair-metal shit that still thrived like crazy in the early '90s. There's probably a thread in there somewhere:

Mr. Big, Saigon Kick, Ugly Kid Joe, Damn Yankees, Jackyl, cheesy Aerosmith ballads, Tesla, Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid...

Yeah, I get all that. I was directing those lols at the wearers of the rose-colored glasses.

the daddy mack'll make you vote

big hoos better start suing some of these motherfuckers

Greil Marcus on "Save the Best for Last":
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_/ai_20363526

Easily Baby Got Back for me, although I feel its 1991 release date should omit it.

1992 was the year Al Bell of Stax fame hit with Duice's Dazzey Duks, followed closely with Tag Team's Whoomp in 1993.

This brand of Miami Bass wasn't even from Florida, which seemed understandable after Baby Got Back (from Seattle) shot up the top 40 charts in a way no Florida Miami Bass act did (not even L'trimm, who was M&D'd by Atlantic, nor 2 Live Crew, who had broken up in 1990/1991).

1992 is oddly more notable for LaFace Records (based in Atlanta and backed by Arista) hitting with Boomerang Soundtrack, paving the way for TLC, which paved the way for Organized Noize, who signed Outkast, and redefined Southern Hip-Hop, getting us to where we've been since Cash Money's Universal deal in 1998.

Before this, Atlanta was mostly Jermaine Dupri and Dallas Austin working their angles to varying degrees of success, mostly in the New Jack Swing field outside of rappers (ala MC Shy D and Raheem the Dream) coming to Florida. The reversal happened here.

Oh, yeah, and "Alternative", of course...

1. vanessa williams
2. boyz ii men
2. kriss kross
2. madonna
5. i'll be there
6. all 4 love
the others are terrible

Saying "Baby Got Back" is terrible means you are not human.

Or really skinny.

yeah this is a pretty bad selection.
whitney houston, why not?

Jump

"This Used to Be My Playground" has me wondering: what was the first music video to feature clips of the movie it was cross-promoting?

Queen 'Flash'?

PW, it ain't about when it came out, it's about when it hit #1

Also, don't forget that Jermaine Dupri was behind Kriss Kross.

"This Used to Be My Playground" has me wondering: what was the first music video to feature clips of the movie it was cross-promoting?

"Flash" does sound like a good answer. I would also submit "Another Brick In the Wall".

lol at the heights

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/356631176_23bc2c0f33.jpg?v=0

PW, it ain't about when it came out, it's about when it hit #1

Point tooken.

Also, don't forget that Jermaine Dupri was behind Kriss Kross.

Kinda what I'm pointing to.

"This Used to Be My Playground" has me wondering: what was the first music video to feature clips of the movie it was cross-promoting?

I'm always surprised to be reminded that no clips of Saturday Night Fever showed up in those Bee Gees videos.

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I voted Whitney.

jump jump jump jump!

"Jump" edging "Last." Leafing through my Billboard Top 40 book, I see a few other Top Fives that I liked as much as the chart-toppers: "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover," "If You Asked Me To," "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "My Loving (Never Gonna Get It)."

Baby Got Back just ahead of Jump - the only two songs i could really sit through now on this list, and only because they make me smile.

in primary school i tortured people with long and repeated off key renditions of End of the Road

"Jump" is fucking dope! That beat is unstoppable and there are so many great little vocal moments where once you know them you can't wait for them to come around so you can sing along. Does this count as G-Funk, with that weird squiggly thing under the chorus?

"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover," >>>> most of the number 1 list

Yes.

Wow, blockbuster year for R&B power ballads and hip-hop novelty songs. My mind is kind of blown that all those songs actually came out in the same year, the year of my bar mitzvah, no less.

"This Used to Be My Playground" has me wondering: what was the first music video to feature clips of the movie it was cross-promoting?

― abanana, Sunday, October 26, 2008 9:24 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark

I Will Always Love You also did that.

I know it was waaaaay before those two, because the Ghostbusters theme song video did that.

Haha, it would be really weird if Ray Parker Jr. did a totally non-movie-based video for that.

am i seriously the only person voting for Right Said Fred?

Sir Mix-a-Lot has no competition whatsoever.

am i seriously the only person voting for Right Said Fred?

I like the RSF song still. I used to only like the beat sans elmer fudd, but the whole thing has grown on me since.

Does this count as G-Funk, with that weird squiggly thing under the chorus?

Ohio Players "The Worm" was the sample. Dre used it first in Dopeman back in 1987, kinda making the sample a semi-standard, but you know, Jump was more in the vein of Naughty By Nature overall...

Yeah, G-Funk did grow out of Dre's use of the Worm though (maybe building from Appetite For Destruction from EFIL4ZAGGIN in 1991, shortly before he was commisioned to contribute to the Deep Cover sdtk in 1992).

Too Sexy was fine but it ain't no Jump for real.

Lol @ Mr. Big trying to be Extreme. And sort of succeeding I guess, considering they had a #1.

"Just to be the next to be with you" is kind of a gross lyric, when you think about it.

Sheela na gig - P.J. Harvey
Summer babe - Pavement

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System otm

bunch of shit

"I'm Too Sexy"

i LOVE i'll be there

her voice on it, it's the perfect example of how mariah used her falsetto early on. not just a manifestation of her age.

i used to love that mtv unplugged.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

great results!

Well knock me down with a feather.

it was a great year. can't remember what i voted for in the end but it could've been any of at least 5 of those and i'd be happy. 'this used to be my playground' is one of my favourite madonna ballads, i loved her "white sade" phase.

also i remember having an argument w/this girl in primary school about the spelling of kris kross, which i won by bringing in a copy of smash hits the next day. unfortch, rev, you got it wrong too :(

I noticed that after I posted and didn't care enough to correct myself because I mistakenly assumed no one would be pedantic enough to bring it up.

But this is ILX, and so I digress.

I mistakenly assumed no one would be pedantic enough to bring it up.

shit should be an option in prefernces

prefernces

damn, i haven't had that much to drink tonight...

i loooved 'save the best for last' at the time. 10-year-old me would have picked the ballads, which all sound pretty good in my head atm. somehow i never really heard 'jump' or any of that hippity hop. i don't remember the heights at all.

I think it was on after 90210.

yeah, good results--top two def rock! (tho i can't remember a damn thing about the Vanessa Williams single).

x-post - i pretty much wasn't allowed to watch pop tv but that didn't keep me from tuning in to kasey kasem! i'm pretty sure i made a tape w/ mr. big, vanessa, boyz ii men, madonna, whitney at some point. maybe with m.j. remeber the time and that bryan adams song from the robin hood movie whatever that was, the song was 'all for love'. i was out on the roof of a bad-ass plywood fort with my cousin listening to the radio when i put my finger on 'all for love' and now it's all of 'america' by john fahey as the thing that will save all of us. 'all for love' sounds ok now, but i remember a guitar solo that lasted forever. no solo in that song now.

cool reverb though. and all for love.

Comparing these to the 1981 poll makes one wonder at which point exactly American top 40 radio started to suck. Clearly it was at some point between 1981 and 1992.

I'd study the 1985 list closely.

Yeah, I think it was around then.

I, personally, blame hair-metal. I used to love everything on the radio until Poison showed up (although in fairness, had it not been for the hair-metal explosion, I wouldn't have been driven towards discovering The Cure, New Order, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Skinny Puppy, Ministry or My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult).

The top tens of 1992!

Are we sure the switch to Soundscan was a game changer? This list sounds very similar to last year’s.

Fewer #1s. You'll see the true effects next year -- the number of top tens steeply drops.

The #1s, and I love Vanessa Williams + Kriss Kross.

^ That links to "The malignancy of George W. Bush" - should we read that first?

#DubyaBushInterzone

lol

here.

This list might as well be called "The malignancy of George H.W. Bush."

Read my lips: I like big butts

It's telling that a good seven or eight of Alfred's picks teeter on the brink between one-hit wonder and outright novelty song. More, if you include high-concept one-offs like "How Do You Talk to an Angel."

Did Boyz II Men release nothing but ballads after "Motown Philly"?

bunch of shit

"I'm Too Sexy"

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 29 October 2008 14:09

:)