As always, a quick note: monthly rankings are based on weekly positions on the Billboard charts collected and scored by an exclusive and elaborate rating system. Rankings are in [brackets] and will correspond to the position on the playlist provided above. Some months not all songs are available to stream and unfortunately cannot be made available for a playlist, so sometimes we just pretend they didn’t exist, sorry.
Soon I will figure out a way to post the exact positions and scores for these monthly charts. It’s a one-man operation over here and I’m spending most of my free time playing Super Metroid, so it’s slow going, at the current moment. Your patience might be rewarded!
Topping the charts this month is the group Hi-Five with “I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)”[1]. One of the many Teddy Riley-penned New Jack Swing hits, and one of four number one singles that Riley produced (including a previously mentioned single in 2001), “I Like The Way” is a sleek and breezy little number with that classic little drum machine lick that perfectly exemplified the R&B side of that New Jack Swing sub-genre. The single enjoyed the number one spot for exactly one week, but its high positions throughout the month gave Hi-Five the nod over Cathy Dennis’ “Touch Me (All Night Long)”. Hi-Five enjoyed some more success with 1992’s “She’s Playing Hard To Get”.
Amy Grant’s signature hit “Baby Baby”[4] enjoyed another week at the top to start the month but eventually settled down to number 12 by the end of May.
This month had a couple legacy acts drop some rather forgettable singles. Styx went ahead and played a safe bet getting on soft rock radio with “Love At First Sight”[42], a song surely to have been played during a romance montage of a Jean Claude Van Damme movie or something. While not anything terrible, or memorable, it’s a far cry from the days of “Renegade”, “Blue Collar Man”, or “Too Much Time On My Hands”.
In addition, Huey Lewis and The News figured, “we had success with one song about the workin’ man “Workin’ For A Livin’”, how ‘bout we do it again?” Well they did and “Couple Days Off” was the result. By this time, the well was all but dried and the luster had worn off and that wasn’t good news for the Hue-dog. If you were to play both songs back-to-back, and I’m begging you to, you could hear that there is just not much heart in “Couple Days Off”. Must be all that working and the workin’ plant. Don’t these bosses know we need some time off to rock? Huey Lewis and The News would again enjoy a radio hit by teaming up with Gwyneth Paltrow in 2000 with a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’”
Some of the more definitive tracks of the nineties just so happened to come out this month. Dance hits like Black Box’s “Strike It Up”[24] which still plays in arenas from coast to coast as it is probably on my Mount Rushmore of Jock Jams. I think I just tasked myself to make a massive playlist of the jockiest jams of all time. I’ll also need to purchase a minor league hockey team. I’ll use the funds this website brings in (-$180 annually) to make this a reality.
Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)”[60] debuted this month and snuck in at the fiftieth spot on May 25 to get a spot of the month-end chart. The track made famous with its la da dee la da dah refrain continues to fill dance floors with countless remixes and versions. Based on an interaction with a woman in Washington DC, Waters wrote the song in hopes for the listener to see and understand homelessness from a different perspective. When the message wasn’t getting through, there was a push to include “She’s Homeless” in the song title (spoiler alert: they did).
EMF hit the US charts with their rave crossover smash “Unbelievable”[27]. With firebrand comedian Andrew Dice Clay offering the assist with his trademark “Ohh!”, the Epsom Mad Funkers hit pay dirt with an unbelievably infectious catchy pop hit that has lived on to be used in commercials to sell you things like back to school clothes at Target and chunks of cheddar cheese from Kraft (“they’re crumbelievable!”).
Fun fact! (for me at least) In June of 1991, Yello, the group responsible for the song “Oh Yeah”, would release the album Baby. Early versions of the album were used for the soundtrack to the movie The Adventures of Ford Fairlane starring one Andrew Dice Clay. On that soundtrack there is a song titled “Unbelievable” which also includes audio drops from the Diceman. Is it a case of parallel thinking, or something more… crumbelievable? (OHHHHH!!)
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