Compilation: 100% Hits Volume 18
Released: 1995 – EMI
Number of tracks: 17
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 3
Best track: "Country House" by Blur
Hidden gem: "Downtown Venus" by PM Dawn
When I picked up Smash Hits '94 and Hit Machine 8, I also found 100% Hits Volume 19 in the same op shop and passed it up. Looking at the tracklisting, other than Blur's "Charmless Man", most of the songs were rubbish. That's part of the reason why my cutoff year for these chart compilations is 1995; it seems pop music took a large dip in quality after that year. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence but 1995 was my last year of high school and once I started uni the following year I started listening to more alternative music on Triple J because the stuff in the charts largely didn't cut it for me any more. And so, I made a mental note to myself that if I ever found 100% Hits Volume 18 it would be the last from that series I would get. And eleven days later, I got it.
It's a shame because it really is the low point of the series thus far, hence the low rating. One reason for this is it only has 17 tracks, and a comparatively short running time at around 66 minutes. There are no number one singles on it — its biggest hits are "Fairground" by Simply Red and "I'd Lie For You" by Meat Loaf, both of which reached number 7. Four songs on here didn't even chart, and of the remaining thirteen, the average chart position is number 21.
But hey — that doesn't necessarily mean the songs themselves aren't good. For a start, it opens with Queen's "Heaven For Everyone", put together after the sad loss of Freddie Mercury 4 years earlier, and it got to number 15 in Australia. Then comes "Sunshine After the Rain" by Berri, a pretty good dance track but it would have been better if they'd written more than 3 lines of lyrics!
"Somethin' 4 Da Honeyz" (man, it hurt to type that out) by Montell Jordan is sexist rubbish (would a line like "Call up your girlfriends, and you know there always tends to be an ugly one, but bring her too" fly nowadays?) Then comes Shaggy, who sucks bigtime, but he at least insists on announcing his name at the start of each one of his songs so you can reach for the skip button.
Some of the artists here I'd never heard of: Dana Dawson and Billie Ray Martin. Portrait I'd forgotten. I was surprised the PM Dawn track was unconventional and quite good, given their former sadsack wuss-rap output, and I expected to dislike Chris Isaak's number 9 hit "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" (I don't remember liking it first time around) but that was pretty good too.
Blur's "Country House" (a UK number 1, number 28 in Australia) is right towards the end for some reason, and the final track is Tina Turner's James Bond theme "Goldeneye", which I had totally forgotten about. It is a pretty good way to finish proceedings here though.
The CD has quite an elaborate 20-page booklet with one song's lyrics on each page, with corresponding album info. Just to show you it ain't all bad. Also take a look at the typeface used on the cover — that font was everywhere in '95 and '96, wasn't it? But overall, this ain't as great as previous compilations, which proves gauging the popularity of chart music at any given time is, pardon the pun, hit and miss.
Rating: 4/10
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