My worst / least liked hit songs of the 90s1990-91 up to 11

[TheThorne]

These lists came to a grinding halt as I had an existential crisis and severe meltdown in February 2022 which was when I was due to move onto the next year. My 1994 album list is still going to take some time so let's do at least one of these. I had made the list in 2022 just never ordered it. Thank you Pick Of The Pops game for reminding me about this. I have 89 songs in my list but we need only 50 so I will need to go through them

1990 was a year when I listened to a lot of Atlantic 252, much of it was great, a lot of it was horrible.

Interesting seeing the songs that aren't bad enough to make the top 50, I could easily make this a top 75

[TheThorne]

So missing the cut are all these, think many of them deserve a mention


51 John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John - The Grease Megamix
52 2 LIVE CREW - Banned In The U.S.A.

How these two miss the cut!!

53 Faster Pussycat - House of Pain
54 Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
55 David Cassidy - Lyin' To Myself
56 The Brat Pack - You're The Only Woman
57 Craig McLachlan;Check 1-2 - Mona
58 Bananarama - Only Your Love
59 Poison - Unskinny Bop
60 Jason Donovan - I'm Doing Fine
61 Stevie B - Love And Emotion
62 Fish - A Gentleman's Excuse Me
63 Glenn Medeiros, Bobby Brown - She Ain't Worth It
64 Cliff Richard - Saviour's Day
65 Double Trouble - Love Don't Live Here Any More
66 S'Express - Nothing To Lose
67 Black Box - Everybody Everybody
68 Wrecks-N-Effect - Juicy
69 Candy flip - Strawberry Fields Forever
70 Megadeth - Holy Wars...The Punishment Due
71 Cliff Richard - From a Distance 
72 Black Box - Fantasy
73 DINO - Romeo
74 Kylie Minogue - Tears On My Pillow
75 Robert Palmer, UB40 - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
76 Bell Biv DeVoe - Poison
77 New Kids On The Block - Step by Step
78 Cliff Richard - Stronger Than That
79 Don Pablo's Animals - Venus - The Piano Mix

These are all not too bad


80 Bette Midler - From a Distance
81 Rod Stewart, Tina Turner - It Takes Two (with Tina Turner)
82 MC Hammer - Pray
83 Whitney Houston - All The Man That I Need
84 Lisa Stansfield, Ian Devaney, Andy Morris - All Around the World 
85 Technotronic, MC Eric - This Beat Is Technotronic - Single Mix
86 Technotronic - Get Up (Before The Night Is Over)
87 Technotronic - Rockin Over The Beat
88 MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This

[TheThorne]

In 1989 everything was a 4 or less in the top 50. This time these are 3 or less making it the worst overall list yet.

50 After 7 - Ready or Not




1990 was the year of swing beat, some of it was excellent. You also got lots of ballads some of them were great as well. This is neither, it is just so wet but there is much worse to come. This reached #7 in the US.

[TheThorne]

49 Jimmy Somerville - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)




I imagine this has some fans here but for me in 1990 it was just too much, his disco/ Motown covers with Communards were excellent this is just not for me and the video makes it worse. This reached #5 in the UK and #87 in the US.

[TheThorne]

48 UB40 - The Way You Do The Things You Do



Don't need to say much it is another identi-kit by the numbers affront to reggae that they just spouted out in 5 minutes. Just pointless and nothing. This reached #11 in the US.

[TheThorne]

47 Jason Donovan - Rhythm Of The Rain



First of three appearances for Jason on the list. This is the lowest as I quite like the original song and it at least moves away from the standard SAW template. It reached #9 in the UK.

[TheThorne]

46 Shakin' Stevens - I Might



We can't have a top 50 without Shaky. This is just another rock'n'roll cover, you know exactly what you are going to get. It reached #18 in the UK.

[TheThorne]

45 Guru Josh - Whose Law (Is It Anyway?)



His 15 minutes is up, 'Infinity' had a great hook this is just an inferior cash in like many house/rave follow-up singles. This reached #26 in the UK.

[TheThorne]

44 Twenty 4 Seven Ft. Capt. Hollywood - Are You Dreaming




Speaking of which the same thing applies here 'i Can't Stand It' was ok this is pretty terrible. The rap especially. This second single from the Dutch Eurodance act reached #17.

[TheThorne]

43 Candyman - Knockin' Boot



This US rap hit may have passed a lot of you by, don't bother checking it out. At least the rapping is fine but it is an example of commercial rap at its worse, just nothing special about it at all. It reached #9 in the US.

[TheThorne]

42 Cliff Richard - Silhouettes



I am sure this is very popular with his fans as it is a bit of a throwback to his early sound. But this has no business being a thing in 1990. He still can make good music this is not an example of that. A live version of this song reached #10 in the UK.

[TheThorne]

41 Jason Donovan - Hang On To Your Love



Back to the most generic SAW sound that featured on about 50 hits or it certainly felt like it. Just an inferior version of 'Too Many Broken Hearts'. Just unneeded in every way. It reached #8 in the UK.

[SheriffFatman]

I guess I’m on my own here, but I’ve always been very fond of Ice Ice Baby. The juxtaposition of how silly the lyrics are and how seriously he seems to expect you to take them is kind of comical, to the point where I wonder if it was somewhat deliberate. The prominent, unashamed sample was something completely new too, and created a very influential template for how to get hip hop into the charts.

I’m quite fond of Black Box’s version of Fantasy too, a straight cover but very warm production.

[TheThorne]

Mar 21, 2024 0:46:56 GMT 1 SheriffFatman said:

I guess I’m on my own here, but I’ve always been very fond of Ice Ice Baby. The juxtaposition of how silly the lyrics are and how seriously he seems to expect you to take them is kind of comical, to the point where I wonder if it was somewhat deliberate. The prominent, unashamed sample was something completely new too, and created a very influential template for how to get hip hop into the charts.

I’m quite fond of Black Box’s version of Fantasy too, a straight cover but very warm production.

I don't hate 'Ice Ice Baby', Atlantic 252 did seem to play it every hour which didn't help and I felt 'U Can't Touch This' was the superior of the two rap mega hits but both heavily relied on their brilliant song choice for backing. And yes Black Box is ok, it is in 5/10 territory.

[Earl Purple]

I like "Are You Dreaming", even more than "I Can't Stand It" and a bit of rap thrown in was so common at the time.

I hated Ice Ice Baby at first for daring to do it over that riff, but apart from the sample, he does do something completely different and original over it and it isn't just an endless repetition in a loop of a sampled bit of a song like happened years later.

I'm expecting turtles to show up at some point...

[greendemon]

'U Can't Touch This' is god tier.

Many of the others I don't remember going off the title and I'm not about to ruin that by playing them

[Earl Purple]

41. Jason Donovan - Hang On To Your Love... 47 Rhythm Of The Rain

I wondered at this point if S/A/W had had enough of working with Jason Donovan and were giving him inferior songs and covers to do. Pete Waterman said in interviews that he wasn't a great singer. That he got "Too Many Broken Hearts" was probably the luck that they'd written it for Rick Astley who wanted to move on to writing his own songs so he was around to sing it instead, as they didn't have a suitable male vocalist to sing it at the time.

Similarly Sonia was given "End Of The World" at the time and she also had other hits with cover versions. Appears they were saving their best for Kylie whose output got better this year.

[TheThorne]

40 Glenn Medeiros - All I'm Missing Is You



More terrible swing beat this time from the US pop star. His previous effort wasn't great but it was much better than this thanks to Bobby Brown. Ray Parker Knr could not give this any credibility. This song reached #32 in the US. His last top 40 hit.

[TheThorne]

39 Stevie B - Love Me For Life



One of the worst new pop/r'n'b artists. He has three tracks on this list and his most famous song you will have to wait some time for, the UK wasn't safe from that one This song though reached #29 in the US

[TheThorne]

38 Madonna - Hanky Panky



After a run of 5 years where I pretty much loved everything they did that all goes south with this. You never hear this anymore and no surprises about that. Taken from her movie Dick Tracy, there is nothing I like about this song at all, although she looks good in some parts of the video. It reached #2 in the UK and #10 in the US.