Compilation: 100% Hits Volume 16
Released: 1995 – PolyGram
Number of tracks: 20
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 4
Best track: "Everything Zen" by Bush
Hidden gem: "Gel" by Collective Soul
Whoever compiled this one was on drugs. There, I said it.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; it can lead to some rather, shall I say, unconventional track sequencing. There are no number one hits here, and out of the first six tracks, five of them are instrumental dance tracks (with only sampled vocals). What was going on here? Did the compilers envision this as largely a dance party album? I'd really like to know.
Speaking of those six dance tracks that Volume 16 starts with – number 11 hit "The Bomb!" by The Bucketheads is easily the best of the bunch, followed by "Speed" by Alpha Team, although the mix I'm familiar with (the one used in the music video) isn't the one that's used here. "You Belong To Me" by JX is pretty good, although those sampled vocals get on my nerves. And another one of the six is Clock's version of "Axel F", which leaves out the jazzier B-section of Harold Faltermeyer's original, but is still an okay version. It came ten years after the original and ten years before that fucking awful Crazy Frog version which helped kill it stone dead. Thanks a lot, primitive ringtone culture.
There's a bunch of other weird stuff – I thought Janet Jackson's "Whoops Now" was a hidden track at the end of the janet album. What's it doing here? Was it released as a single or what? Looks like it was, although who the hell knows why, it's twee rubbish. Sorry Janet, but it is. "Let It Rain" by East 17 made the top 15 here, but it's hardly one of their best tunes. There's the obligatory wussy Boyz II Men slow jam™, a track from Joshua Kadison that sounds like an '80s American soap's end credits music, and Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" which I would probably like if it wasn't by Sheryl Crow.
"Sukiyaki" by 4PM, which reached number 3, is also here. Why the hell is it called that, you may ask. It's actually a cover of a great '60s Japanese tune called "Ue O Muite Arukou" (which means something like "walking looking up") by Kyu Sakamoto. I hate hearing it being referred to as "Sukiyaki", but it had been for decades. And 4PM just kept that title even though they substituted all their own lyrics which don't equate to the meaning of the Japanese lyrics in any way.
As you can see I chose "Gel" for the hidden gem, a pretty rockin' tune I hadn't heard before, but I almost chose "Funtime" by Boy George, and I would never have guessed this was one of his songs without the track info. Like the compilers, this song sounds like it was conceived (and recorded) in a druggéd stupor. Not that it's a bad song, it actually isn't, and it has a mega-weird ending, which only furthers the bizarreness on display here.
But it's not all bad! Down the back end of the tracklisting, where all the shifty weirdos hang out, Tumbleweed bong on once again with a pretty cool tune called "Hang Around", Max Sharam's "Be Firm", while not as good as "Coma", has a nice piano solo, and Bush closes the album with their 'grunge'™ debut single which I've picked as the best on offer here (although Duran Duran's "White Lines" came close).
I'd also like to make mention of "When I Was A Sperm" by Master Wel (chart peak: number 26), a thought-provoking listen, but its subject matter probably precluded chart success in those innocent days of 1995. It's too bad there aren't more songs these days like that.
Kids: say no to drugs.
Rating: 4/10
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