1990 - done and dusted!

So, 1990 - how was that then?

Overall, I found it a bit of a disappointment - there were a lot of second or third tier albums from top tier artists with Madonna, Paul Simon, Whitney Houston, Prince, Phil Collins and Fleetwood Mac all producing not their finest work.  There were a few gems in there, but we had to search hard for them - however the good news is that there were very few albums that were absolute stinkers (and New Kids On The Block managed to produce most of them).

Looking at the best selling albums of the year, Phil Collins took it, which didn't surprise me after reading its Wikipedia entry - it really sold fantastically well with it starting the year at #1 and not dropping out of the top ten until September.  The rest of the top five were Madonna's best-of, The Three Tenors, Elton John's best-of and Michael Bolton (which interestingly never got any higher than #4).  Approximately 20% of the top 50 for the year were best-ofs including some curiously popular entries from The Carpenters, Status Quo, The Beach Boys, Rod Stewart and The Shadows - I'd have to say there's very little of interest that leaps out of the rest of the chart for me.  Artists with multiple entries in the top 50 are Madonna, Elton John, Pavarotti and Phil Collins (all with two in the top ten) and NKOTB (shakes head slowly - shame on you Rachel Golding).

Considering the albums we saw this year, let's start with the groups for a change - there were quite a few of them this year.  And there's actually quite a few featuring women as well - we have The B-52s (it was really nice to be reminded how much I like this), The Bangles (yes, it was a best-of, but it's a good one), The Beautiful South (OK), Roxette (very 80s, but not bad), Pixies (not their best), Soul II Soul (a bit samey, but not too bad), Technotronic (ditto), Fleetwood Mac (just terrible!) and Heart (not great).  Most of the men's offerings are pretty average except for Talk Talk (another best-of I allowed through), Inspiral Carpets (nicely dated), The Charlatans (nicely of its time) and Del Amitri (fond memories for me).  I am also going to mention Poison (much better than I was expecting), The Notting Hillbillies (surprisingly dull yet astonishingly successful), The Quireboys (dreadful) and New Kids On The Block (not one, not two, but THREE dreadful albums).

Sticking with the guys, how were their solo efforts?  Mostly remarkably average, with only George Michael (quite possibly the best album of the year), Elton John and Chris Rea (my favourite first listen of the year) producing albums worth the effort, although I probably have to mention Phil Collins and (surprisingly) Van Morrison for producing some decent enough tracks on their offerings and Jason Donovan for the simple reason that I had to suffer him twice this year.  As I also had to with Kylie, who probably produced the worst two albums by a solo lady and Madonna who produced a very peculiar album and a particularly fine best-of - the only other albums I'd ever revisit from the ladies are Lisa Stansfield, Tanita TIkaram, Suzanne Vega and Betty Boo (which was surprisingly varied and enjoyable).

Looking at the #1 debuts, it only happened nine times this year which is one less than we saw in 1983 and only one more than we saw in 1973, so it totally breaks my theory that the number only increases over time.  We also only had 18 #1 albums all year (there were 22 in 1983) - a lot of that is down to Phil Collins (9 weeks at the top), The Carpenters and Madonna (7) and Elton John (5).

The generally accepted (by the internet or me!) best albums from the year that we never got close to seeing are Flood by They Might Be Giants (#14 - "It's a brand new record for 1990" and I love it), Reading, Writing And Arithmetic by The Sundays (#4 - we were unlucky not to meet this), 101 Damnations by Carter USM (#29, but in '91), Gold Mother by James (#2, but in '91 so we'll catch up with it then), World Clique by Deee-Lite (#14), Heaven Or Las Vegas by The Cocteau Twins (#7), Jordan: The Comeback by Prefab Sprout (#7 - this is a fine album) and The La's eponymous debut (#30).

Even including these albums, I'm surprised we owned so few of them - eight from the main list and another three from the "best" list and the number wouldn't even have been nudged up by any of the previous visits from this year.  I thought I bought quite a few albums around this time, but maybe I was still mostly buying best-ofs to top up my CD collection - given what we've seen this year it doesn't feel like I missed out on much!  All in all, I'd say that 1990 had a load of distinctly average albums that often became astonishingly popular - I have no idea how this happened and I don't intend to find out!

Where to next then?  That's a decision for next year - I have The Guardian's best of 2023 list to work through and a few other things I need to write up.  But I have a sneaky suspicion it's going to be the seventies or the noughties...

25/12/77 - Surprisingly enjoyable
07/01/90 - What a way to end the year