US #1s of 1989

a few good choices, a few ironic choices.

jesus christ what a horrible bunch

"My Prerogitive" could wipe the fucking floor with this lot.

The rest of my top 5:
"Good Thing"
"Like a Prayer"
"Miss You Much"
"Blame It on the Rain"

a lot of dross, but the good stuff is great. contenders for me:

my prerogative
straight up
like a prayer
miss you much
she drives me crazy

i might need to pray on it...

kinda wanna vote for sheriff

"Like a Prayer," easily, followed by "My Prerogative."

in the end it was down to toy soldiers and she drives me crazy.. FYC wins for proving they could actually write more successful songs than the covers they were better known for up til then..

This is as good a place to ask this as any I guess: Am I the only one who's always thought the singer from Fine Young Cannibals looks like a vampire?

does a bit

Voted for "My Perogative," but I already regret not voting for "The Look" instead, plus I probably should've gone back and listened to Michael Damian's cover of that great David Essex song for the first time in 20 years. Also like "Toy Soldiers," "I'll Be There For You," "We Didn't Start the Fire," "Like a Prayer," most of the Milli Vanilli and Paula Abdul singles, and I bet I wouldn't mind the Richard Marx and NKOTB ones if I heard them right now, either. Not nearly as wretched as list as it looks at first.

dire

Tough to beat "Like a Prayer" for the rest of this bunch...

I don't mind the Michael Damian Cover or "Satisfied" at all.

surprised not to see more love for "miss you much," which strikes me as a better single than "like a prayer" or "my prerogative" (its beat is a lot harder than either) - it gets my vote here in the absence of W.A.S.P.'s cover of "The Real Me"

I actually like a lot of these songs a lot. I voted for "Straight Up" just ahead of FYC, but "Miss You Much", "The Look", "Like A Prayer", "My Prerogative", these are great!

I was only 6 in 1989, but MTV was perpetually on thanks to my older brothers. The only songs on the list I remember liking were Like a Prayer and She Drives Me Crazy

straight up!!

"my prerogative" gets the edge for sexy keytar player

Honestly, I would probably take "Like a Prayer" over "The Look" these days, but I've loved "The Look" longest, so I'm going with those wacky Swedes.

straight up abstain.

xxp

Sherriff!

Paula #2 though.

Ok, i think i've mentioned this like six times on ilx, but "Miss You Much" was number one on my birthday and it is AWESOME.

Oh I like that too.

Tempted to go with Janet or Madonna but Billy Joel has the weight of history on his side.

if "Like A Prayer" didn't tower over this list, I'd be able to say that my 2 favorite songs on here are by Milli Vanilli and not even be kidding.

Seeing this list gave me a swell of nostalgia so thick that I scared myself

It's so hard NOT to got with "My Prerogative" since its held up so well, but "The Look" has a strange pull over me.

That opening guitar riff is deadly.

fuck yes

the vaguely middle eastern college rock guitar riff with the post-nenah cherry world-hop beat all coming from people with intentially mixing metaphors ("tasting like a raindrop", "kissing is a color") in attempt at abba style takeover.

i'm gonna cry myself to sleep at what an old and unfun person my nine-year-old self would see me as.

my birthyear! "miss you much"

Gloria Estefan's is my favorite piece of crap on the list, but Janet (again) gets my vote.

Take out FYC and it shows what a crock o` crap 89 was............

"Like a Prayer". This vintage is kinda better, some good stuff there. I even still kinda like "Toy Soldiers".

How you do these?

How I do these is, go down list, click one I like , then continue, click one I like better, to the end.

Then click "vote" if I'd play it if I had one coin for the jukebox (as opposed to keepeing the coin)

Comes to something when Fine Young Cannibals is the eventual winner.

Yeah, I also voted "She Drives Me Crazy" using the "one coin for the jukebox" principle. But now I'm furiously earworming "My Prerogative" and questioning my decision.

oh I went "Good Thing"

Was going to vote Miss You Much, but thought everyone would have it locked with Bobby, so instead voted Eternal Flame. This is why you should read threads first I guess.

"Like a Prayer," easily, followed by "My Prerogative."

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, January 22, 2009 5:06 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ + "She Drives Me Crazy"

Like A Prayer, easily

runner-ups: Straight Up, Batdance, My Prerogatve

"Miss You Much" always sounds anonymous to me; I certainly don't like it as much as "Alright," "Escapade," "Love Will Never Do (Without You)," and ten other Janet singles.

No love for Simply Red? It's a perfectly decent cover.

Janet Jackson has always sounded anonymous to me, pretty much.

I can't listen to Miss You Much w/o thinking of the Weird Al vers. on Polka Your Eyes Out, and how that version is superior to the original.

man this list is depressing

either Bobby or FYC, I guess

Like A Prayer

the longer I look at this list the more I think "worst year ever" but then I remember 1) thrash and 2) 1989 THE NUMBER ANOTHER SUMMER

pop charts sucked in the late 80s imo

The year of my high school graduation; I was starting to believe myself outside the audience for pop music. Some of these songs make me cringe but I liked a lot of them, sometimes in spite of myself.

"If You Don't Know Me" is a perfectly decent cover but so unnecessary, and not great in its own right. Without the delicious backing vocal (which I believe is H. Melvin himself, but I could be misremembering) it would just be Hucknallian emoting over a ballad, adding little to the musical corpus.

"Eternal Flame" is one of Ms. Hoffs's better vocal performances, I think, but a kind of draggy song overall. I think her hottness made people underrate her as a singer.

Verily do I dig the groove of those FYC tracks but the constant falsetto of "Drives me Crazy" grates and threatens to turn it into a novelty. "Good Thing" is well nigh unimpeachable, though.

The classic rockers here - Rutherford, Joel, Collins - look so out of place here in among the boy bands and dance pop! I almost feel sorry for them, except that these tracks are among their poorest offerings. Only the guitar sound in "The Living Years" is palatable.

"Toy Soldiers" is not bad hookwise but so melodramatic as to seem corny in retrospect.

"Straight Up" rocks like a mofo and renders the other Abdul tyoons superfluous. I would say it also renders Janet's entire oeuvre superfluous, but I may be in the minority there.

Dangit, "Like a Prayer" is probably the winner here. It's held up well.

Not sure what I'd vote for -- liked a lot of these at the time, especially as a DJ in a Top 40 club (must own 12" versions of at least a dozen of them), but have not been in the mood for this stuff in I don't know how long, and lots that I liked at the time is barely tolerable now (and that includes Fine Young Cannibals). Would probably go with "Like a Prayer," which I denigrated for years as being too stuffy and now think sounds pretty great. I will say I'm probably the only person in the room who thinks the two Phil Collins records are among the more enduring pop records here. "Two Hearts" is a better Motown rip than "Good Thing." (I wonder if I'd still hate "Batdance" if I heard it again? My guess is I might be a bit more open to it though I loathed it at the time.)

Also: just me, or is this an exceptionally long list of #1s for a single year?

Wasn't it (the Soul2soul/Paid in full shuffle beat) from "Don't look any further"?

I know the bassline on "Paid in full" came from there.

See, I guess this makes me an old person, or just not a DJ, or something, but I would never put "Paid In Full" or "Sadeness" or "Keep It Together"'s extended mix (all of which I love) in the same category as Soul II Soul, merely on the basis of one element of their sound (even if I'd noticed the similarity before, which I never did.) I think it's interesting that you guys do, but they just don't feel the same to me. Enigma feels more like Alec Costandinos, or Black Sabbath's "Supertzar" even! So when I say I think Soul II Soul were anticipated by Linx, et. al., I'm not necessarily talking about the beat; I'm talking about their whole Brit-soul sound.

I am convinced that many of you are frontin' when you say you hate this list of songs because so many of them are awesome (admittedly "The Living Years" is not awesome)

Okay I looked at the list again and I would like to retract my earlier accusation because really some of these songs should just go suck mouse dick (fuck you, Bad English, just fuck you, and take Richard Marx with you).

xp (to xhuxk)
Well, sure, each of those records has their own completely separate lives and genealogies (?) as well, all I'm suggesting is the S2S beat was one very specific common thread between them. And in a way, it probably WAS a "DJ thing" -- certainly it was for me in that I'd scour record bins for songs with that beat (almost didn't matter what else was happening in the song) because they were easy to mix together and it was FUN to mix them together. (Ditto the zillion "Funky Drummer" tracks available at the time though it became the most irritating cliche eventually.)

"Don't look any further" Hmmm, that might be it.

Not a word about "Hangin' Tough" so far, I see.

Everyone is trying to pretend it didn't exist.

chuck i'm only saying all those tracks use the same basic beat/break - no other meaningful connection. it's fair to say Soul II Soul were picking up brit-soul ethos baton from Linx and whoever tho sure. I don't remember anyone else around the time joining in tho (without veering into Acid Jazz territory).

1989, the year Rhythm Nation came out. so great! i've been listening to a ton of new jack swing lately. voted for "my prerogative" just over "miss you much" though i love both about equally.

so many awesome songs in 1989.

I don't give a single crap about anything here but Janet Jackson. And I hate the Bangles, I really really hate the Bangles. Everything by the Bangles, anything to do with the Bangles. End of sermon.

Obviously you've never heard "If She Knew What She Wants," "Hazy Shade of Winter," "Following..."

The Bangles - All Over the Place album is great. I would have thought Bimble would like "Going Down to Liverpool"

Staying slightly off topic, I wish Roxette's "Must Have Been Love" was on here because that is the kind of sappy ballad that gets to me.

"Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave)" still sounds great to me; and "Dangerous" is their best popper.

Did we already do 1990? I want to vote for Maxi Priest "Close to You."

man that Bangles "Hazy Shade" is for me a huge example of a band covering a song and just blowing the original right out of the water.

yep. and "in my room" is flawless sexy mod-pop.

man that Bangles "Hazy Shade" is for me a huge example of a band covering a song and just blowing the original right out of the water.

No -- it's the TEXTBOOK example.

(admittedly "The Living Years" is not awesome)

I have to give it my vote for being a shamelessly manipulative "Cats in the Cradle" update that somehow transcends its by-numbers writing to effectively sell a schlocky message complete with a gospel choir knockout punch.

i'm a total sucker for songs about parents and children, but even i don't like that one.

Chuck and Scott should read this about the "Ashley's Roachclip" break (which Soul II Soul reconfigured): http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2008/05/this-is-the-sou.html.

thanks, that mix and writeup is excellent, though Rich's experience/definition is obviously somewhat different than my own, i.e., this strikes me as a little bizarre: "I was so strict with this that I didn't include stuff like Soul II Soul's Club Mix of 'Keep on Movin''..." To me, at the time, Soul II Soul -- regardless of the actual genesis of the beat -- were the outfit most associated with the beat. But maybe that's just how it hit me at the time.

man that Bangles "Hazy Shade" is for me a huge example of a band covering a song and just blowing the original right out of the water.

TRUER THAN TRUE.

But "Eternal Flame" remains a misstep. In this poll, "Straight Up" and "The Look" both demand my vote and are so incomparable to each other that I can't choose, so no vote.

a Bangles singles poll would be great!

eternal flame ownes

Obviously you've never heard "If She Knew What She Wants," "Hazy Shade of Winter," "Following..."

ARRRGH don't remind me of those first two! Shut up! yuck yuck yuck yuck..."Following" I had not heard before, though, and hearing it on You Tube just now, I admit it's a nice tune, a decent, earnest Indigo Girls-y effort. But everything, I mean everything I'm liable to hear of the Bangles on the radio or in public that was in any way a hit makes me want to puke all over the floor. If someone plays "Manic Monday", for example, I am walking out of that place so fast! And it's not because of some associative connection in my personal life at the time of their hits something, I don't know what it is. I just don't like it. There's a gimmicky cheese factor in there or something and I don't like Susanna Hoffs' voice very much.

BUT that said, when Bangles first appeared on the scene with this video in 1984, I actually liked them. I didn't buy the record, but I remember enjoying this song/video. It didn't do much of a dent in the charts, of course, that would come later:

The Bangles - All Over the Place album is great. I would have thought Bimble would like "Going Down to Liverpool"

But that's the thing! It's not THEIR SONG! Kimberly Rew wrote that song! Soft Boys! Katrina & The Waves! All much better artists/bands than the Bangles. Of course I love that song, it's wonderful. But not the Bangles' version.

"Miss You Much" is great, but you know, I don't really love anything here. Record production was in a very weird place this year.

But that's the thing! It's not THEIR SONG!

whatever, Geir

^^^haha--exactly what i was thinking!

Yeah, Michaelangelo, that "Ashley's Roachclip" blog entry was real interesting. I especially liked this:

Lloyd has now interpolated the two major components of PM Dawn's "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" - obviously, "Ashley's Roachclip" on "Girls," but there was also his use of the melody of Spandu Ballet's "True" in his 2006 single, "You." Do you think Lloyd and Prince Be are actually the same person?

And I shouldn't complain about people categorizing songs by certain beats, when I've obviously done the same thing with, say, the "Children of the Grave"/"Call Me" beat in my books. (More likely I'm just jealous when I don't notice them first!)

LOL at someone called me "Geir"...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Why do I always think of Roxette, "The Look" being a year or two later?

Totally satisfying results.

Yeah, I can live with this.

yo!

It's excruciating how pop radio wouldn't have allowed "Bust a Move" to top the chart (even though it's by "Wild Thing" co-writer Young MC), but it knocks most of these out of the water.

Anyway, I rank the year.

i love reading the old hot 100 chatter columns from around that time, when pop radio was starting to splinter severely and the old chart-tabulation methods were seeming increasingly ill-equipped to deal with that new reality. this one, from the week "bust a move" peaked, devotes a whole paragraph to explaining its bizarre (for the time) chart performance. and here another seems to suggest that "wild thing" failing to go #1 despite having been certified double-platinum (when none of the other singles in the top 30 were even gold) was something of a minor scandal that got press coverage in other outlets.

on the bright side, the us did (barely) manage to be one of the few countries where the jive bunny single was did not go top 10.

1. Shake It Off
2. Blank Space
3. Bad Blood (Remix)...
...er, what? oh, sorry

lol :D

I largely agree with your rankings this time, but I do have a very soft spot for Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting”.

Oh my god, that Jive Bunny horror... it was EVERYWHERE at the time in France...

I never really liked "Like A Prayer" although I reckon it's a very good/effective pop song.
The only songs in there I still like are "My Prerogative" and... "Eternal Flame" (and maybe "Batdance" although it's far from my favourite track on that album)!

on the bright side, the us did (barely) manage to be one of the few countries where the jive bunny single was did not go top 10.

― dyl, Monday, March 11, 2019

my abuela loved it #GlennMiller

My critical faculties break down (even more than usual) when it comes to this era, but it's hard to disagree with many of your Hague-bound picks (notable exceptions: Animotion, Surface). Glad to see Donna in good-to-great because where else could that song have possibly shown up.

Thank you for prodding me towards my 255-song '89 pop hit playlist. My workday just became a shade less painful.

the number of Facebook commenters who've liked that dinky Animotion song astounds me.

That's all they need
That's all they ask for
To see you peeved

I'm not like in love with it but it's dece.

that's the one recorded for the movie where Kim Basinger plays an alien with a talking magic purse

Huh, I guess I never picked up on those aspects of her Batman character.