Featured song:
Free – All Right Now (Doing Their Thing, 1970) Official Live Video
This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 when they stopped making it. One article for each year.
I am only going to select one featured song for each article, which makes it hard. I am going to try and select a different artist for each year.
For many people, and I include myself, you tend to still like the tunes you heard during childhood, which your parents often played. So rather than just pick the top 10 hits of each year, I shall let you know what they were, but also the tunes of that year not necessarily in the top 10 or so, what were in my view classics. I also add a couple of events in history for that year, it helps bring back memories, and hopefully happy ones.
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.
So, on we go with memories from 1991: (Thank you Wiki)
This year was about:
Gulf War, Terry Waite & John McCarthy being released. IRA bombing 10 Downing Street. The start of the World Wide Web, though I suspect few people realised the enormous impact it would have on our lives. Robert Maxwell scandal, stealing the pension money. For me though it was that Freddy died, yes, he was a bit ghey, but he was funny, and in my opinion the best male vocalist ever.
What was I doing: I left TML, the Channel Tunnel builders and spent a year as a consultant/trainer for a software company. Not a bad move, I learned a lot.
TV programmes included:
Twin peaks started, though I confess I never have watched it. ITV airs the first Prime Suspect serial starring Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. Channel 4’s three-week Banned season features a series of films and programmes which had previously been banned from British television or cinema. The season includes network television showings of Scum, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Sebastiane. There is also a second broadcast of the controversial 1988 Thames Television documentary Death on the Rock which investigated the shooting of three members of the IRA by the SAS in Gibraltar. The season proves to be controversial and Channel 4 is investigated by the Obscene Publications Squad and referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The final season of Dallas. Comedy series Bottom starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson debuts on BBC2 (I really liked that).
Two TV moments of the year, apart from the Gulf War coverage, first was Oliver Reed appearing on an edition of the late-night discussion programme After Dark discussing militarism, masculine stereotypes and violence to women. Reed drinks alcohol during the broadcast, leading him to become drunk, aggressive and incoherent. He refers to another member of the panel, who has a moustache, as ‘tache’ and uses offensive language. After one-hour Reed returns from the toilet and, getting more to drink, rolls on top of the noted feminist author Kate Millett. The show is briefly taken off air following a hoax call to the station claiming that Channel 4 boss Michael Grade is furious.
For those that remember, also, on an edition of Terry Wogan’s evening chat show Wogan and amid howls of laughter from the studio audience, former footballer David Icke claims that he is “the son of God,” and that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.
Events:
Prime Minister – John Major (Conservative)
3 January – The UK expels all Iraqi diplomats from the country due to the Iraqi government’s illegal annexation of Kuwait five months earlier.
5 January – 27 people die as a result of gale-force winds across Britain.
8 January – A train crash at Cannon Street station in London kills one person and injures over 500.
17 January – The Gulf War begins, as the Royal Air Force joins Allied aircraft in bombing raids on Iraq.
7 February – The Provisional Irish Republican Army launch a mortar attack against 10 Downing Street, blowing in all the windows of the cabinet room, during a session of the War Cabinet, but there are no injuries.
8 February – Heavy snow disrupts the country for a second time during the winter 1990–1991 season as Britain experiences a prolonged cold snap.
26 February – British scientist Tim Berners-Lee introduces WorldWideWeb, the first web browser, while working at CERN in Geneva, the first website goes online on 6 August.
14 March – The Birmingham Six are freed after the Court of Appeal quashes their convictions over the 1974 pub bombings in Birmingham which killed 21 people and injured more than 160 others.
15 March – Unemployment is now above 2,000,000 for the first time in two years. The number of British workers employed in the manufacturing industry has fallen below 5,000,000 for the first time since records began.
16 May – Unemployment is now at 2,175,000 – the highest figure since late-1988. It is also above the European average for the first time since 1987.
22 May – Nearly six months after the breakthrough in the Channel Tunnel service tunnel, the breakthrough in the North rail tunnel is achieved. On the same day, road links to the British terminal are improved when the final section of the M20 motorway is opened between Maidstone and Ashford, meaning that the Chunnel’s unbroken motorway link with London has already been completed an estimated three years before the first trains move between Britain and France. Happy days for me as I worked there at the time, and the missing link (M20) as we called it saved going down a very busy A20 twice a day.
28 June – The final breakthrough in the Channel Tunnel is achieved when the last section of clay in the South rail tunnel is bored away.
8 August – John McCarthy, a British hostage held in Lebanon for over five years is freed.
19 October – Canadian singer Bryan Adams makes history when his hit single (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, which features in the film Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves (released on 14 June this year, and starring Kevin Costner) enters its fifteenth successive week at No 1 in the UK singles charts. By the 10th week, I remember ToTP not playing it at the end, but always featuring another song. It lost top spot 2th October.
5 November – Robert Maxwell, owner of numerous business interests including the Daily Mirror newspaper, is found dead off the coast of Tenerife; his cause of death is unconfirmed, but reports suggest that he has committed suicide.
18 November – Terry Waite, a British hostage held in Lebanon, is freed after four-and-a-half years in captivity.
24 November – Freddie Mercury dies at his home in London, just 24 hours after going public with the news that he was suffering from AIDS.
5 December – The Robert Maxwell business empire goes into receivership with debts in excess of £1,000,000,000, exactly one month after Robert Maxwell’s death. The Daily Mirror reports that Maxwell had wrongly removed £350,000,000 from its pension fund shortly before he died. (Reported as “wrongly” removed.)
23 December – Bohemian Rhapsody returns to the top of the British singles charts after sixteen years, with the proceeds from the re-release being donated to the Terence Higgins Trust.
The Top 10 Singles with a You Tube hyperlink on the title:
Top Tip: Right-click and open in new tab
| Top Hits of 1991 | ||
| 1 | Bryan Adams | (Everything I Do) I Do It For You |
| 2 | Queen | Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are The Days of Our Lives |
| 3 | Cher | Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss) |
| 4 | Right Said Fred | I’m Too Sexy |
| 5 | Jason Donovan | Any Dream Will Do |
| 6 | Chesney Hawkes | The One And Only |
| 7 | The Simpsons | Do The Bartman |
| 8 | Vic Reeves & The Wonderstuff | Dizzy |
| 9 | Oceanic | Insanity |
| 10 | 2 Unlimited | Get Ready For This |
I know it’s cheating a bit, as the original version was 1970, but I had to pick Simon & Garfunkel for that year as the featured song. As I have always enjoyed listening to this song, I am pleased to feature it now.
“All Right Now” is a single by the English rock band Free. The song released in 1970 and reached No 2 on the UK singles chart and No 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. “All Right Now” originally appeared on the album Fire and Water, which Free recorded on the Island Records label, formed by Chris Blackwell.
In 1991, the song was remixed and re-released, reaching No 8 on the UK singles chart. This version features Brian May.
According to drummer Simon Kirke, “All Right Now” was written by bassist Andy Fraser and singer Paul Rodgers in the Durham Students’ Union building, Dunelm House.
More writings on this song here: – “All Right Now” In my view the best songs of the year, after the featured track are:
Soft Cell – Tainted Love – Almost made my featured song. Superb.
James – Sit Down – great song this.
The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go – not a punk fan, but I do like this,
George Michael, Elton John – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Live version here, top song.
Scorpions – Wind Of Change
Rod Stewart – Rhythm Of My Heart – I like Rod.
OMD – Sailing On The Seven Seas – Great band, great tune.
Queen – Innuendo – not my favourite track, but it is Queen.
Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby – Probably our first taste of *cultural appropriation* Still good song.
Guns N’ Roses – You Could Be Mine
Iron Maiden – Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter
Brian May – Driven By You
The KLF – Feat Tammy Wynette – Justified And Ancient – Love this.
The Waterboys – The Whole Of The Moon – Great song, classic really.
The Wonder Stuff – The Size Of A Cow
Monty Python – Always Look On The Bright Side of Life – I think a great song, so not added as a fun song. I have put the version with lyrics on, as I know you want to.
Fun song: Hale And Pace And The Stonkers – The Stonk
Just 17 songs for 1991 in my favourites list, another shite year in general on the music scene, but I think I found some little gems.
Hat tips to:
http://www.uk-charts.top-source.info/ these give the top 100 selling charts for each year
http://www.everyhit.com/chart1.html these give the top 10 songs for each year
https://www.youtube.com/ you know them.
Next Time 1992 – Pretty dire, down near the bottom of the barrel now.
Featured image: Rob Mieremet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
© Phil the ex test manager 2019 2025
