Thursday, 19 March 2020

25 Years Ago This Week: March 19, 1995

If there were two things that defined the first half of the '90s it was grunge bands and vocal harmony groups. This week in 1995, the most successful example of the latter returned to the ARIA singles chart with a song that fell some way short of the chart highs we'd come to expect from them. 

New vocal harmony group 4PM succeeded as Boyz II Men stumbled

Their latest single was also much faster than their recent big hits. They were joined on the top 50 this week by a new quartet, who followed the vocal harmony playbook (down to the tempo) and earned themselves a spot in the top 10. 

ARIA Top 50 Singles and Albums Chart - week ending March 19, 1995

At number 1 this week in 1995, MC Sar & The Real McCoy spent a sixth week on top with "Another Night" and once again kept Hocus Pocus at bay. But "Here's Johnny" would not be denied for much longer.

Off The Chart
Number 98 "Annihilating Rhythm" by Ultra-Sonic
Peak: number 84
One upside of the success of "Here's Johnny" was that it opened the door for some actually quite good techno, like this floor-filling release by Scottish group Ultra-Sonic.

Number 97 "Tonight" by Violent Femmes
Peak: number 62
Returning to the top 100 for the first time in just over three years, Violent Femmes lifted this sub-two minute single from their seventh album, Rock!!!!!, which was initially only released in Australia.

Number 79 "You Wreck Me" by Tom Petty
Peak: number 72
A slight chart improvement on "You Don't Know How It Feels", which we saw back in January, this second single from Wildflowers would be Tom Petty's final top 100 appearance.

Number 75 "Joy" by Toni Pearen
Peak: number 71
Also charting for the last time was singer and actress Toni Pearen, who missed the top 50 for the first time with her fourth single, which was remixed from the superior album version.

New Entries
Number 49 "Believe" by Elton John
Peak: number 23
I finished reading Elton John's autobiography, Me, just recently, and, given by 1995 he had kicked his addictions and was in the process of settling down with future husband David Furnish, this era of his career doesn't provide as many reminiscences as his earlier, hedonistic days. Appropriately enough, given where the music legend was in his life at this point, this lead single from his 24th album, Made In England, is quite a stately, mature affair, and while the album went top 10, "Believe" ended up as a mid-table hit.

Number 48 "Open Your Heart" by M-People
Peak: number 25
As much as I liked M-People - and I liked them a lot - the one thing that frustrated me about the British dance band was that the album versions of their songs always went on for so long, like the 5:42 version of "Open Your Heart" found on Bizarre Fruit. Luckily, my favourite song of the album became its second single and came with a tidy 3:41 radio edit. And while I bought the CD single even though I already had the album for that very reason, it seems not enough other people did, with the song becoming their latest UK top 10 hit to get stuck in the 20s here.

Number 44 "Mr Natural" by Mental As Anything
Peak: number 27
Last week, we saw the final hit for Divinyls, and seven days later, another Australian band that had been releasing music since the dawn of the '80s (slightly earlier in this case) entered the chart for the last time. The lead single from the Liar Liar Pants On Fire album, the Martin Plaza-sung "Mr Natural" would give the Mentals a 20th top 40 hit, something they wouldn't manage again despite continuing to release albums for some time afterwards.

Number 42 "Thank You" by Boyz II Men
Peak: number 33
Excluding Christmas single "Let It Snow", Boyz II Men had not peaked lower than number 11 with their previous four singles, which shared one thing in common: they were all ballads. Mixing things up for the third single from II, the world's premier vocal harmony group released uptempo new jack swing track "Thank You", and suddenly found themselves much lower down the chart. It wasn't just Australia that didn't embrace the song as wholeheartedly - even in the US, where debut single "Motownphilly" had reached number 2, "Thank You" just missed the top 20. I actually really like "Thank You" and thought it was a good idea to take a break from the mega-ballads. And perhaps it was - the song's relative lack of success might have had nothing to do with the song's tempo but more the fact that, up until this week, II had not been out of the top 20 on the albums chart since October.

Number 41 "Everlasting Love" by Gloria Estefan
Peak: number 29
Traditionally, Gloria Estefan's hit rate in Australia hadn't seemed to be governed by whether a song was fast or slow - over the years, she'd had hits ("Dr Beat", "Anything For You") and unexpected misses ("Get On Your Feet", "Coming Out Of The Dark") with both. But after the failure of her previous remake, ballad "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me", to progress further than number 48, another uptempo cover did better. The latest version of perennial favourite "Everlasting Love", Gloria's rendition was accompanied by a music video featuring drag queens dressed as her at different stages in her career since she was heavily pregnant with daughter Emily when it was filmed.

Number 37 "Sukiyaki" by 4 P.M.
Peak: number 3
Standing for For Positive Music, new vocal harmony quartet 4 P.M. burst straight out of the gate with a play straight from the Boyz II Men rule book - a partly a cappella remake. In this case, it was a cover of A Taste Of Honey's 1981 worldwide hit "Sukiyaki" (which had peaked at number 24 locally), a song that had in turn been an English-language version of the 1961 tune by Japanese artist Kyu Sakamoto (which reached number 1 in Australia two years later following its US success). Whether 4 P.M. could sustain a chart career beyond this hit remake would remain to be seen...

Number 23 "Yesterdays" by Cold Chisel
Peak: number 23
With everything else going on this week, it's something of an anti-climax that the highest new entry on the top 50 was the latest song plucked from Cold Chisel's bits and pieces album, Teenage Love. "Yesterdays" spent just three weeks on the top 50.


Next week: a new hit from a local vocal harmony group, plus a novelty hit about sperm.

Back to: Mar 12, 1995 <<<<<<<<<<<<<  GO  >>>>>>>>>>>>> Forward to: Mar 26, 1995


  1. I thought at the time that Ultra-Sonic must have been an Australian, Sydney-based act, given that the "video" - at least what aired locally - was clearly filmed at a dance venue in Australia.

    I had forgotten about the Violent Femmes song.

    I'm pretty sure 'Free Falling' dented the top 100 after Tom Petty's death, but yes, this would have been his last chart 'hit' here before he died.

    'Joy' was the weakest of the 4 Toni Pearen singles, IMO.

    My mum got the Elton John and M People albums in '95... but surprisingly not the Gloria Estefan one. I wasn't really a fan of the Elton song, but did like the extended instrumental outro. The M People track was just the sort of thing the now "all new" (as in, we now play some commercial dance music and not just rock) major FM stations in Melbourne lapped up; I'm surprised it didn't peak higher.

    'Thank You' was really the first Boyz II Men charting single I had semi-liked since 'Motownphilly'. OK, I did like 'End of the Road' at first, but it quickly became grating.

    Embarrassing confession - I didn't realise at first that the Glorias in the 'Everlasting Night' video were drag queens, and not actually her in multiple costumes. I had the same issue with Annie Lennox's 'Little Bird' video.

    I have no recollection of this Cold Chisel track. I suspect only die-hard fans do.

  2. Always remember the 'Mr Natural' song by the Mentals as they played it whenever Jason Taylor from North Sydney Bears kicked a goal in the National Rugby League ... aah memories.

  3. I've always thought it irritating (and vaguely racist) that Kyu Sakamoto's song "Ue O Muite Arukou" has always been referred to by the stupid title "Sukiyaki". What's even worse is that 4PM kept that title even though they changed all of the lyrics. Disgraceful.