Compilation: Take 40 Australia #1
Released: 1991 – Mushroom
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 7
Best track: "Last Train To Trancentral" by The K.L.F.
Hidden gem: I've heard all of these songs before. I listened to Take 40 Australia every week in 1991!
Well yes, I did. 1991, the year this CD came out, was the year I started listening to it. I did this for two reasons: to tape my favourite songs off the radio, and also because for some reason which I have never been able to ascertain, when they did the Top 40 countdown they always did it for the previous week and not the current week. I didn't mind the one week discrepancy because it meant that if I didn't get up early enough to catch the Top 20 on Rage, I could use Take 40 to fill in the blank spaces in my Top 20 chart book the following week. What a saddo I was!
Also: I was in Year 8. What else was I gonna do on a Saturday evening – homework?? Get real, man!
Anyway, it was essential listening and the host, Barry Bissell, was always entertaining. He'd hosted the Saturday evening show from its inception in 1984 until 2004. The show was eventually cancelled in 2016. But thirty years ago, I'd have my radio tuned to 6PM as it was then, blank cassette tape at the ready.
I've got a soft spot for the pop music of 1991. It was a good time to follow the charts, and probably the midpoint of a golden age, of sorts. The vast majority of the songs on my Top 100 of All Time list are from the years 1990-1992 alone. I had just started high school and was discovering new cool songs every single week. It was an exciting time!
I'm not sure why they waited seven years to put out a Take 40 compilation, but it's funny that it happened to come out in the year I started listening to the show. They called it Take 40 Australia #1 but there aren't any number 1 singles on it. Oh well. There was no Take 40 Australia #2, either, although there were four more Take 40 compilations released between 1995 and 2003.
There's a lot of Australian content on this album – it is a compilation for an Australian radio show after all – and it's Noiseworks that kick things off with their last big hit single "Hot Chilli Woman". I don't mind it, but it was the long-delayed follow-up single to "Freedom", which is my favourite Noiseworks song.
Then it's "Hey Stoopid", an anti-drug song by Alice Cooper. In 1991, I didn't know who this dude was, and only from reading Smash Hits did I discover that he'd been around since the '70s and did mock-theatrics on stage like getting guillotined and whatnot. Crazy, man. It would be another year before I saw him in Wayne's World and thought "It's the 'Hey Stoopid' guy!" We're not worthy!!
Who's next? Hmm, it's Transvision Vamp. "If Looks Could Kill" is hardly one of their typical rawk n' rawl numbers. From what I recall they basically disappeared after this single and the parent album wasn't up to scratch. Then comes Kylie Minogue and "Shocked", and no, she still can't sing. She is the second-best vocalist on this track. The featured rapper Jazzy P is best. Isn't it a bit weird how the final chorus fades out so abruptly? Get it together, Stock Aitken Waterman!
After Kate Ceberano, C+C Music Factory and Yothu Yindi, fine dance/pop singles all, we get to the mighty KLF. Those guys really knew how to put out brilliant and catchy pop music, be it dance bangers, stadium house anthems, synth/trance, or more rock-pop-electro stuff – and their featured rappers were always great, the one here being the late Ricardo Da Force. The synth/string break on this song is one of the best interludes ever. All the elements of a hit pop single are present here: it reached number 2 in their native UK, and number 5 in Australia.
Now it's time to rock it out Kiwi-style, bro! Push Push was a New Zealand rock band that had moderate success here with "Trippin'", and I really like that crazy high note the singer hits in the second verse, but the video stands out to me because the drummer is wearing a T-shirt with "Nirvana" written on it. I didn't know who Nirvana were in mid-1991, but I soon would. I remember asking this kid before school one day if he'd ever heard of Push Push and he just made this weird double hip-thrust motion and went "Uhh-uhh!" What a degenerate.
There's more rock for us with Roxus – didja like what I did there – and "Bad Boys" which was given more than its fair share of exposure via the Summer Bay Diner jukebox in several episodes of Home And Away. Then comes Jimmy Barnes with some mid-tempo rock and mandatory throat-shredding high notes. I don't think I've heard this song in 30 years. Eh, s'alright I s'pose. Deborah Conway's "It's Only the Beginning" is quite a nice tune, although I didn't really care for it 30 years ago. Ditto Daryl Braithwaite's "Higher Than Hope". He's got much better songs than "The Horses", which is sappy sentimental rubbish, in my opinion. "Rise" is his best song. This is NOT negotiable.
"99 Reasons" by Jo Beth Taylor is another song I hadn't heard since its release 30 years ago, and for (99) good reason(s): it's irredeemable donkey twaddle. I remember she copped a fair bit of flak in the Letters page of Smash Hits for slagging off Vanilla Ice and Roxette when she reviewed the singles. That was a bit rich when both of those artists had had number 1 singles when this junk only reached number 31, and that's more than it deserved.
Let's hit the Skip button and go next to "Unity" by Sound Unlimited Posse, a song I had only heard once until now. It's not as good as "Kickin' To The Undersound" – maybe a recognizable sample might have improved it. After that, down the back end, comes "What Comes Naturally" by Sheena Easton which, in reaching number 4, makes it the equal highest-charting track on this disc. I know, I'm as shocked as you. I thought this song was rather naff in 1991. I was only 13 and had no time for these 'sex kitten' antics.
The last two songs on here are rap singles that charted in the top 10, and they're both rather good: "Now That We Found Love" by Heavy D & The Boyz, and "Ring Ring Ring" by De La Soul which is the other song that reached number 4. Still a great track. I had the hook as my answering machine message in the late '90s.
Well, there may have been no number 1s on here but Take 40 #1 is still a solid compilation. Plenty of songs that deserve repeat listens, especially if you want to be transported back to 1991. In a metaphorical sense, that is. Otherwise you'll just have to wait for time travel to be invented.
Rating: 7/10
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