In this series I have been looking back at each year on the charts between 1986 and 1996 and asking the question "When did the Eighties actually end?" The background to this is a research project that focuses on the proliferation of Greatest Hits albums in the early 1990s. The assumption is that the shift from vinyl to CD, the influence of Baby Boomers and the value offered by compilation albums, reframed the way people thought about Pop.
Nineteen Ninety-Two might be the year Nirvana's Nevermind really broke through, but far more significant is the rehabilitation of Abba. Ushered in after ten-years in the wilderness, Erasure's Abbasque EP topped the singles chart for five weeks, deposing of KWS's House reworking of K.C and The Sunshine Band's 1979 hit"Please Don't Go". It was like the Eighties never happened: 'I Will Always Love You', 'Baker Street', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'I'm Doing Fine Now' all topped the chart. The ensuing Abba Gold: Greatest Hits, released in the run up to Christmas, went on to become the twelfth best selling album of 1992 . It was a moment of departure; arguably more significant than Grunge, or The Shamen's ecstasy-themed playground anthem 'Ebenezer Goode'.
On the surface, the success of the anthology symbolised Abba's inauguration into the rock canon, alongside other 70s artists already historicised by the Compact Disc: Queen, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music, David Bowie etc. This, however, is misleading. The wrap-around narrative attached to the Abba revival was still very much that of post-modern irony and kitsch revelry. This is epitomised U2's reprise of 'Dancing Queen' as part of the bricolage aesthetic of the band's Zoo TV Tour: assembled from fragments of 20th Century cultural waste matter, the track fitted in perfectly. Arguably, it would not be until the 21st Century that Abba's innovation and musicianship would be fully recognised. The success of Gold , however, was a portent of two significant things. In the first instance, it reflected fin de sielce anxiety, not just about the end of the century, but also the Millennium. Bathing apprehension about the future and uncertainty the 21st Century in a warm glow of nostalgia. The same process can be observed in Nineties cinema, with the success of Merchant Ivory literary adaptations (Howards End, Feast of July, Remains of the Day) and Richard Curtis's films (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill). Secondly, Abba Gold inaugurated a new sensibility for thinking about the history of rock that would replace the CD at the vanguard of that heritage: pop as a franchise. A schema that would be adopted by every 'heritage act' in the 21st Century, from Iggy Pop to the Rolling Stones.
As we approached the 21st Century, sales of Abba Gold skyrocketed: it became the fourth best selling album of 1999 and the 9th best selling album of the decade, thanks in no small part to the success of the stage musical Mama Mia. Since then, it has become the longest running Top 100 album of all time, with over 900 weeks on the chart, multiple top-10 re-entries and a second tenure at the top in 2008. The juke-box musical Mama Mia films have pioneered the format for the way in which pop history is now consumed by mainstream audiences. From Elton John to Queen, George Michael to Bruce Springsteen, cinema cohered around the pulling power of a back catalogue has become a sure-fire recipe for box-office success. Just as these films are often very anachronistic, the mood music of 1992 captures the beginning of that disruption in the time-space continuum, with the proliferation of greatest hits, cover-versions and re-releases.
The Album Chart
Nineteen Ninety-Two is the perfect coda to the 1980s on the album charts, with 47% of the Top 30 made up of compilation recordings and the majority of those with a footprint in the preceding decade:
Lionel Ritchie’s Back to Front (#2)
Cher’s Greatest Hits: 1965–1992 (#3)
Simple Mind’s Glittering Prize 81/92 (#4)
Madness’s Divine Madness (#8)
Erasure’s Pop!: The First 20 Hits (#11)
Abba’s Gold: Greatest Hits (#12)
Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits (#13)
Genesis’ The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts (#18)
Queen’s Greatest Hits II (#19)
Tina Turner’s Simply the Best (#21)
Tears For Fears’ Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92) (#25)
Belinda Carlisle’s The Best of Belinda, Volume 1 (#28)
Freddie Mercury’s The Freddie Mercury Album (#29)
Neil Diamond’s The Greatest Hits: 1966–1992 (#30)
Other notably retrospective themed Top 30 listings included: Michael Bolton’s album of soul covers Timeless: The Classics (7); Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II (#22); as well the The Commitments Original Soundtrack (#24), also featuring soul classics from the Sixties and Seventies. Capturing the mood music of the time, non greatest hits packages in the Top 10 show a predilection for nostalgic Soul-Pop with antiseptic production:
Simply Red’s Stars (#1);
Michael Jackson’s Dangerous (#5);
Annie Lennox’s Diva (#6);
Shakespeare Sister’s Hormonally Yours (#13);
Wet Wet Wet’s High on the Happy Side (#15);
Lisa Stansfield's Real Love (#16);
Curtis Stiger’s Curtis Stigers (#23)
Madonna’s EroticA (#27).
Standing out from this is the dad rock of Genesis’s We Can’t Dance (#9) and the camp frippery of Right Said Fred’s Up (#10). Portents of the polarised direction of Rock and Dance come in the form of Nirvana’s Nevermind (#20) and The Shamen’s Boss Drum (26). The exception that proves the rule being REM’s Automatic For The People (#17). Indeed, away from the end of year Top 30, 1992 saw a record 25 rereleases make the Top 10. In addition to those previously listed, significant acts anthologised for perpetuity included:
ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits (#5)
Sisters of Mercy’s Some Girls Wander By Mistake (#5)
Squeeze’sGreatest Hits (#6)
Alexander O’Neal’s This Thing Called Love: The Greatest Hits of Alexander O’Neal (#4)
Queen’s Live at Wembley ’86 (#2)
Prefab Sprout’s A Life of Surprises: The Best of Prefab Sprout (#3(
The Smiths’ Best... I (#1)
Kylie Minogue Greatest Hits (#1)
Bob Marley’s Songs of Freedom (#10)
The Police’s Greatest Hits (#10)
The Sex Pistols’ Kiss This (#10)
Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime (#7)
Other heritage acts (less connected with the post-Punk/80s era) anthologised and appearing in the Top 10 also included included: Scott Walker; Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; Joseph Locke, The Temptations, Dr Hook, Joe Cocker, Beatles, Tom Jones, Neil Diamond and Jim Reeves. Likewise new recordings by Eric Clapton and Neil Young reprising early success’s (MTV Unplugged and Harvest Moon) were also strong sellers.
The Singles Chart
Looking at the end of year singles chart this hyper retrospective sensibility threw up some interesting anomalies. Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s "I Will Always Love You” (#1) topped the charts for ten weeks; likewise Erasure’s Abba-esque EP (#5) enjoyed a five week tenure at the top. Also topping the chart for five weeks was KWS’s cover of KC and Sunshine Band’s 1979 recording “Please Don’t Go” (#5). However, perhaps the most implausible cover version of 1992 was Undercover’s re-interpretation of Gerry Rafferty’s 1978 hit “Baker Street” (#11).
Sales of “Bohemian Rhapsody” remained strong (#15); followed up by Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé’s 1987 recording “Barcelona”(#30). However, the re-release of The Temptations’s “My Girl” (#22) from 1965 (on the back of the film of the same name) was a surprise hit: eventually reaching number 2. Echoing this timbre, The Pasadenas cover of New York City’s 1973 hit “I’m Doing Fine Now” (#28) peaked at 4. Elsewhere this pastiche of American Soul could be heard on Charles and Eddies “Would I Lie to You?” (3#), Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” (#6), Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” (#20), Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile” (#24), Lionel Ritchie’s “My Destiny” and Curtis Stigers “I Wonder Why” (#38).
Other notably cover versions included: Guns ’N’Roses’ reworking of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin' on Heaven’s Door (#34); Nick Berry’s Buddy Holly tribute “Heartbeat” (#35); the Utah Saints’ “Something Good” (#36) - a dance retooling of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting”; Take That’s Moroder-inspired interpretation of “Could It Be Magic” (#37); and Mariah Carey’s Jackson 5 cover “Ill Be There” (#40). In short, 33% of the end of year Top 40 was borrowed, reworked, rereleased or reimagined. Further down the chart a remix of Heaven 17’s Temptation (#41), Undercover’s “Never Let Her Slip Away” (#49) and Kylie Minogue’s “Give Me Just A Little More Time” (#50) repeated the formula ad infinitum.
Conclusion
Nineteen Ninety-Two is deceptively bland: characterised by nostalgia, bland soul-pop and AOR. On the surface, it looks like the slack-water between the twin forces of Grunge and House, and the subsequent proliferation of Brit Pop and Hip Hop. However, beyond this anodyne exterior, significant changes were taking place in the way in which Pop was being conceptualised. In part this can be attributed to the proliferation of the CD and the fragmentation of audiences into defined communities of consumers: from pre-teen community to middle-aged baby-boomers and beyond. Likewise, the appropriation of 1970s motifs was also a rebellion against hegemonic 1980s taste, which lambasted Seventies culture as tawdry and kitsch. These discourses seemed dated and unedifying: the Eighties themselves were now being viewed as gaudy and brash. However, it was also a continuation of the cultural recycling and nostalgia inaugurated by the first Levi's advert in 1985. More significant, however, was the re-positioning of Abba.
As the Eighties concluded, the legacy of Abba had yet to make the transition into the rear view mirror of Pop. Arguably they had lingered too long, with a litany of flop singles throughout 81 and 82. The subsequent (and unlikely) success with which their legacy translated into a post-Millennial pop franchise, therefore, highlights a number of key things. In the first instance, the quality of the songbook had withstood the test of time. Secondly, the camp aesthetic endemic the role of the Swedes as the representers of Ango-American Pop culture in the 1970s, fitted perfectly with the narrative of postmodern bricolage and irony within in which the Nineties revival was framed. Specifically, this was gestured to by both U2's parodic homage and Erasure's gender-bending Abbaesque EP (with its drag-themed promo videos). This anachronistic collision of genre and gender codes created a pantomime of nostalgia in which heritage could be reconfigured into a highly commodifiable entertainment industry simulacrum: a free-floating signifier released from the constraints of its original cultural context.
Although Erasure's Abbaesque and Abba Gold were not the direct catalysts for the Catherine Johnson scripted stage musical Mamma Mia, they did pave the way. The international theatrical Mamma Mia franchise in turn gave way to two films and the renaissance of the jukebox musical . While biopics like Bohemain Rhapsody and Rocketman gesture towards period detail and a chronological sequence of events, the Mamma Mia formula decoupled the musical aesthetic from context of its heritage: transposing grey Stockholm to sun-drenched Greece. Blinded By The Light does the same with Bruce Springsteen's back-catalogue: relocating from New Jersey to Luton; and Yesterday is set in an alternative reality in which The Beatles never existed.While Last Christmas reframes the legacy of George Michael within a heteronormative seasonal romantic comedy. To this end, pop history had become a generic vernacular, enmeshed more in the context of its consumption, as opposed to the providence of its production.
Like airplane food, the vacuum-sealed sounds of 1992 denote a culture preoccupied with its own shelf life: insipid, over-processed Pop for people who don't really like music. This sensibility is captured best in the HIV/AID benefit concert celebrating the life of Freddie Mercury. It took place at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, five months after his death: the immortality of his legacy stage-managed, choreographed and monetised for charity. Superficially,it resembled Live Aid. However, those performing alongside the remaining members of Queen were not contemporary stars. They were mainly heritage acts, recently anthologised on CD and historicised as legacy artists: David Bowie, Elton John, Roger Daltrey, Annie Lennox, George Michael, Mick Ronson, Paul Young etc. The only concession to current sounds coming in the form of Lisa Stansfeld, Seal and Extreme.
Unlike Live Aid, the philanthropic agenda of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was undercut by an awareness of the show's commercial potential: Queen's second imperial phase having been inaugurated by Mercury's show-stopping performance six years earlier. Indeed, it delivered a number one single for George Michael, Lisa Stansfield and Queen a year later when 'Somebody To Love' was released to radio as the lead track from the Five Live EP. Likewise Brian May's solo recording 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' made the Top 5: heralding vault-raiding sequence of rereleases from Mercury's solo career and a posthumous Queen album. However, like so much of 1992, the pertinence of the moment was derailed by an awareness of its own potential for perpetuity. Pop that was once sounded spontaneous and youthful was becoming increasingly formulaic and middle-aged. The self-consciousness situationism of the Eighties now seemed cynical and contrived.
Top 50 Singles 1992 Music Week. London, England: Spotlight Publications. 16 January 1993
1 "I Will Always Love You" Whitney Houston
2 "Rhythm Is a Dancer" Snap!
3 "Would I Lie to You?" Charles & Eddie
4 "Stay" Shakespears Sister
5 "Please Don't Go"/"Game Boy" KWS
6 "End of the Road"
7 Abba-esque (EP) Erasure
8 "Ain't No Doubt"
9 "Heal the World" Michael Jackson
10 "Goodnight Girl" Wet Wet Wet
11 "Baker Street" Undercover
12 "Deeply Dippy" Right Said Fred
13 "Ebeneezer Goode" The Shamen
14 "Hazard" Richard Marx
15 "Bohemian Rhapsody"/"These Are the Days of Our Lives" Queen
16 "Sleeping Satellite" Tasmin Archer
17 "The Best Things in Life Are Free" Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson with
special guests BBD and Ralph Tresvant
18 "It's My Life" Dr. Alban
19 "Just Another Day" Jon Secada
20 "On a Ragga Tip" SL2
21 "Achy Breaky Heart" Billy Ray Cyrus
22 "My Girl" The Temptations
23 "People Everyday" Arrested Development
24 "I Love Your Smile" (remix) Shanice
25 "Jump" Kris Kross
26 "Twilight Zone" 2 Unlimited
27 "Sesame's Treet" Smart E's
28 "I'm Doing Fine Now" The Pasadenas
29 "I'm Gonna Get You" Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown
30 "Barcelona" Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé
31 "To Be with You" Mr. Big
32 "My Destiny" Lionel Richie
33 "Don't You Want Me" Felix
34 "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" Guns N' Roses
35 "Heartbeat" Nick Berry
36 "Something Good" Utah Saints
37 "Could It Be Magic" Take That
38 "I Wonder Why" Curtis Stigers
39 "Everything About You" Ugly Kid Joe
40 "I'll Be There" Mariah Carey featuring Trey Lorenz
41 "Temptation" (Brothers in Rhythm Remix) Heaven 17
42 "This Used to Be My Playground" Madonna
43 "Out of Space" The Prodigy
44 "Shake Your Head" Was (Not Was)
45 "Too Much Love Will Kill You" Brian May
46 "Everybody in the Place" The Prodigy
47 "Slam Jam" The WWF Superstars
48 "Finally" CeCe Peniston
49 "Never Let Her Slip Away" Undercover
50 "Give Me Just a Little More Time" Kylie Minogue
Top 50 Albums 1992 Music Week. London, England: Spotlight Publications. 16 January 1993.
1 Stars Simply Red
2 Back to Front Lionel Richie
3 Greatest Hits: 1965–1992 Cher
4 Glittering Prize 81/92 Simple Minds
5 Dangerous Michael Jackson
6 Diva Annie Lennox
7 Timeless: The Classics Michael Bolton
8 Divine Madness Madness
9 We Can't Dance Genesis
10 Up Right Said Fred
11 Pop!: The First 20 Hits Erasure
12 Gold: Greatest Hits ABBA
13 Greatest Hits Gloria Estefan
14 Hormonally Yours Shakespears Sister
15 High on the Happy Side Wet Wet Wet
16 Real Love Lisa Stansfield
17 Automatic for the People R.E.M.
18 The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts Genesis
19 Greatest Hits II Queen
20 Nevermind Nirvana
21 Simply the Best Tina Turner
22 Tubular Bells II Mike Oldfield
23 Curtis Stigers Curtis Stigers
24 The Commitments Original Soundtrack Various Artists
25 Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92) Tears for Fears
26 Boss Drum The Shamen
27 Erotica Madonna
28 The Best of Belinda, Volume 1 Belinda Carlisle
29 The Freddie Mercury Album Freddie Mercury
30 The Greatest Hits: 1966–1992 Neil Diamond
31 Achtung Baby U2
32 Take That and Party Take That
33 Diamonds and Pearls Prince and the New Power Generation
34 Greatest Hits Queen
35 Adrenalize Def Leppard
36 Shepherd Moons Enya
37 Woodface Crowded House
38 Use Your Illusion II Guns N' Roses
39 Waking Up the Neighbours Bryan Adams
40 Out of Time R.E.M.
41 Michael Crawford Performs Andrew Lloyd Webber Michael Crawford
42 Use Your Illusion I Guns N' Roses
43 The Force Behind the Power Diana Ross
44 The One Elton John
45 This Thing Called Love: The Greatest Hits of Alexander O'Neal Alexander O'Neal
46 Legend Bob Marley and the Wailers
47 Keep the Faith Bon Jovi
48 Symbol Prince and the New Power Generation
49 Seal Seal
50 Time, Love & Tenderness Michael Bolton