A History of Pop Music Albums – 1990

Featured Album: The Very Best of Elton John

This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in.

I will select a featured album for each year and the link for the whole album, Plus list the songs on it.

As before, it is not just about the songs and tunes, it is very much about memories, and good ones, I hope.

Not everyone will like my choices of course, and you may remember some from each particular year that you feel should have been included, so do please post a link to the song.

1990 a quite pleasant year. I had left TML who were building the channel tunnel and was now one of the first employees at Eurotunnel. A big step up for me and a challenge I relished. Just before Christmas I think it was, the Marine Service Tunnel joined up and we had a bit of a party. It is good when you actually enjoy your work. Maggie resigned at the end of this year; a PM I have always rated at second only to Winston.

1990 was the start of yet another exceptionally dire year in terms of music albums. Not many gems.

The featured album for 1990 is The Very Best of Elton John. Absolute classic masterpieces.

The Very Best of Elton John is a greatest hits compilation album by Elton John, released in October 1990. His first career-retrospective album, and fourth official greatest-hits album overall, it was released in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, and in other countries such as Japan and Australia.

The album spans his second album Elton John in 1970 to the successful then most-recent 1989 album Sleeping with the Past. After the huge hit that was the double A-sided “Sacrifice/Healing Hands” single, which was the third best-selling single of 1990 in the United Kingdom, the album became an instant smash in that country. It spent its first two weeks at #1 followed by nine weeks at #2, kept there by Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. In all the album spent 145 weeks inside the UK top 200 album chart, making a total of 11 re-entries, and it was certified 9× Platinum by the BPI on 1 March 1995.[2]

It includes a total of 28 hit singles plus the new songs “Easier to Walk Away” and “You Gotta Love Someone”, which also made the charts between 1990 and 1991.

Track listing

Disc one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Album	Length
1.	“Your Song“	Elton John, Bernie Taupin	Elton John, 1970	4:03
2.	“Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be a Long, Long Time)“	John, Taupin	Honky Château, 1972	4:42
3.	“Honky Cat“	John, Taupin	Honky Château	5:15
4.	“Crocodile Rock“	John, Taupin	Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, 1973	3:58
5.	“Daniel“	John, Taupin	Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player	3:56
6.	“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road“	John, Taupin	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973	3:17
7.	“Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting“	John, Taupin	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	4:57
8.	“Candle in the Wind“	John, Taupin	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	3:51
9.	“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me“	John, Taupin	Caribou, 1974	5:38
10.	“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“	Lennon–McCartney	Non-album single, 1974	6:17
11.	“Philadelphia Freedom” (Edited version)	John, Taupin	Non-album single, 1975	5:19
12.	“Someone Saved My Life Tonight“	John, Taupin	Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975	6:47
13.	“Pinball Wizard“	Pete Townshend	Tommy soundtrack, 1975	5:16
14.	“The Bitch Is Back“	John, Taupin	Caribou	3:46

Disc two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Album	Length
15.	“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (with Kiki Dee)	John, Taupin (but credited to Ann Orson/Carte Blanche, respectively)	Non-album single, 1976	4:32
16.	“Bennie and the Jets“	John, Taupin	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	5:21
17.	“Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word“	John, Taupin	Blue Moves, 1976	3:51
18.	“Song for Guy“	John	A Single Man, 1978	6:41
19.	“Part-Time Love“	John, Gary Osborne	A Single Man	3:16
20.	“Blue Eyes“	John, Osborne	Jump Up!, 1982	3:28
21.	“I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues“	John, Taupin, Johnstone	Too Low for Zero, 1983	4:46
22.	“I’m Still Standing“	John, Taupin	Too Low for Zero	3:04
23.	“Kiss the Bride”	John, Taupin	Too Low for Zero	3:56
24.	“Sad Songs (Say So Much) (Single Version)”	John, Taupin	Breaking Hearts, 1984	4:11
25.	“Passengers”	John, Taupin, Johnstone, Phineas McHize	Breaking Hearts	3:24
26.	“Nikita“	John, Taupin	Ice on Fire, 1985	5:45
27.	“I Don’t Wanna Go on with You Like That“	John, Taupin	Reg Strikes Back, 1988	4:00
28.	“Sacrifice“	John, Taupin	Sleeping with the Past, 1989	5:08
29.	“Easier to Walk Away”	John, Taupin	Soon to be released on To Be Continued…, 1990	4:25
30.	“You Gotta Love Someone“	John, Taupin	Days of Thunder soundtrack, 1990	5:01

More writings on this album here: The Very best of Elton John

So, on we go with 1990:

The top 10 sellers for 1990 are below, as I say, an exceptionally dire year.

The Top 10 Albums with a You Tube hyperlink on the title:

Top Tip: Right-click and open in new tab

Top Albums of 1990
1	Madonna	The Immaculate Collection
2	Carreras Domingo Pavarotti Orchestra Del Maggio Musical Fiorentino Orchestra Del Teatro Dell’Opera Di Roma Zubin Mehta	In Concert
3	Luciano Pavarotti	The Essential Pavarotti
4	Carpenters	Only Yesterday
5	Elton John	The Very Best Of Elton John
6	George Michael	Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1
7	Sinead O’Connor	I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
8	Soul II Soul	Volume II (1990 A New Decade)
9	Michael Bolton	Soul Provider
10	New Kids On The Block	Step By Step

With the exception of Elton John, I had none of the above. Yes, it is quite nice listening to a bit of Pavarotti, bit of a miserable git though, used to hate it when I joined in with the singing. I could have bought Sinead O’Connor on the basis of “Nothing compares to you”, but I did listen to other tracks on that album someone had bought, and it just did not appeal to me.

Same as the last two years I could only find 4 albums other than the featured album that I liked and bought. Pretty dreadful year.

Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback – I do enjoy this great band. Well worth a listen.

Pet Shop Boys – Behaviour – A most pleasant listen.

Fleetwood Mac – Behind The Mask – I do not think there are any bad albums or even songs from this wonderful band.

Paul Simon – The Rhythm of The Saints – Includes “The Obvious Child”, a most sublime album.

Scoring:

As you know I like to review your “tunes” that you post.

*Note. Anyone scoring a Morrissey (lowest score possible) will be reported and blocked.

Hat tips to these sites:

http://www.everyhit.com/chart1.html these give the top 10 songs for each year.

https://www.youtube.com/ you know them.

Featured Image: “elton john, the very best of,” by badgreeb RECORDS – art -photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0