Started from the Bottom: Week of 2/23/1991
A view from the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100.
Like most music enthusiasts, I love the Billboard charts - and like most music writers, I am constantly trying to think of different ways to look at and talk about pop music. In that spirit, I present a regular free feature called Started from the Bottom, where I take a look at a random Hot 100 chart's lowest 10 entries. Are they classic hits on the way down? Future classics just starting their run? Forgotten fun that never reached the highest heights? Come and take a look with me!
Hot 100 date: February 23, 1991
At the top: Whitney Houston's "All the Man That I Need" has just become her ninth career chart-topper, nudging C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" from the peak.
Absolutely true story: my cousin dated Suzanne Vega for awhile. Never met the family.
- DNA feat. Suzanne Vega, "Tom's Diner" (previously peaked at No. 5)
One of the weirder left-field success stories of 1990: a three-year-old a cappella track from urbane folkie Vega's sophomore LP gets a lo-fi mix to chill to, courtesy of a U.K. production duo - a bootleg 12" that gets so popular, A&M buys it outright and watches it go Top 5. Probably more interesting when the a cappella track was being used to start the avalanche that upended the music industry, but I also can't get this insane parody of the track out of my head after 30 years, either.
Give The Adventures of Stevie V this credit at least: being jealous sucks!
- The Adventures of Stevie V, "Jealousy" (previously peaked at No. 94)
It's a short trip for the third single from this U.K. dance trio, who took "Dirty Cash (Money Talks)" to No. 2 in their home country and the top of America's dance charts. The presumptive Stevie V is miming the shit out of that keyboard in the video, which makes up for his very ineffectual rap toward the end.
- Jule Cole, "House Full of Reasons" (previously peaked at No. 69)
While putting this together, I learned some incredible things about this lite-rocker I'd never really heard of: 1) Cole was briefly a member of The Records, of the power-pop classic "Starry Eyes," 2) he's good friends with Kiefer Sutherland and has produced multiple(!) country(?!) albums from the 24 star, and 3) this guy's biggest hit, "Baby It's Tonight," sounds like the kind of song you'd make up to make fun of my music taste: trebly, synth-dappled-with-guitar works by emotive white guys. It's a catchy chorus, but I can understand why it never broke the Top 40. But hey, he's got Kief in his corner!
Give this song credit for a typically-great, dramatic string arrangement by Gavyn Wright, who did the same for many Phil Collins records.
- Gary Moore, "Still Got the Blues" (peak position)
Maybe the oddest song of this bottom 10: a cosmopolitan blues track from a briefly tenured member of Thin Lizzy (Moore had been pals with the late Phil Lynott going back to their time in the pre-Lizzy group Skid Row). It sounds 10 years out of time, like an Eric Clapton '80s album cut without the coke. Moore troubled the Hot 100 for exactly two weeks, both at the same entry point - and never, ever again.
Could a soft rapper pull this hat off??
- Candyman, "Melt in Your Mouth" (previously peaked at No. 69)
This South Central rapper kicked it with N.W.A. and Tone Loc before releasing the Top 10 hit "Knockin' Boots." His follow-up, which interpolates the delightful "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" by The Spinners, starts with this hilarious dedication:
This one goes out
To all the suckers out there
Who thought I was soft
When I dropped 'Knockin' Boots'
For the ladies
But I'm-a come correct this time
And do something a little bit different
(Who you gonna cook this to, man?)
Mmm, the ladies
You're welcome, ladies.
Within a year, Nirvana would bring this age of rock to a gradual halt.
- Poison, "Something to Believe In" (previously peaked at No. 4)
The last great gasp of Poison's imperial period sounds at first blush like a retread of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" - but the video really kicks things up a notch. Bret Michaels wrote the lyrics about a friend of his on the band's security detail who'd passed away; unbeknownst to Michaels, the screen started playing footage of that friend as he recorded the video, and you can see him stop lip synching as he struggles to keep his composure. Bret's a hard-living dude who occasionally gets corny, but he also loves animals and is an advocate for diabetics, two causes that are important to me. So this one gets a pass.
This video was nuts before I read that Michael Bay directed it.
- Vanilla Ice, "I Love You" (debut entry)
How do you, a white guy with a ridiculous haircut and spangly jackets, follow-up the first rap song to ever top the Hot 100? Easy: a deeply goopy rap song (R&B backing vocals! wailing sax!) about loving your girl so much that you call her while she's on a pay phone and you're...on top of the pay phone. If you can believe it, this song would keep climbing the Hot 100, settling for No. 52.
Lotta pop stars in the crosshairs here!
- Pet Shop Boys, "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" (peak position)
Leave it to PSB to take a beautiful piss on the pop charts and have it go no further than here. (They wouldn't be regular U.S. hitmakers after 1989's terrific "Domino Dancing.") The slinky Brothers in Rhythm groove is deeply addictive, as is the arc of Neil Tennant's smirking chorus line. I must admit that I don't follow as much of the duo's career as someone of my taste might expect, but this is certainly an intriguing selection.
"Pulling off this breakdown at karaoke" is a stretch goal my life has not afforded me, but it's fun to think about.
- Whitney Houston, "I'm Your Baby Tonight" (previously peaked at No. 1)
A killer rejoinder to the discomforting narrative that she was "too white" of a singer. L.A. Reid and Babyface were in their pocket, for sure. More than one friend has said this reminds them of Ron Wasserman's theme to X-Men from the '90s, but I don't hear it. Plus, this one obviously came first.
That hair! That album title!
- Jellybean feat. Niki Haris, "What's It Gonna Be" (previously peaked at No. 90)
Primarily known as one of the best dance remixers of the '80s, John "Jellybean" Benitez had a fleeting relationship with the pop charts in that same decade with the hits "Sidewalk Talk" (written by his then-girlfriend Madonna, for whom he produced "Holiday") and "Who Made Who." As with many of Benitez's singles, it likely earned a low Hot 100 placement as a residual effect of its Dance Club chart performance: "What's It Gonna Be" (featuring longtime Madonna backing vocalist Niki Haris) was the producer's eighth consecutive Top 10 on that survey.