Compilation Album Review: "100% Hits Volume 11"

Here's the latest entry in my series of reviews for compilation albums from the '90s that I have bought second-hand and at least two decades after its release! Picked this one up today for a dollar. Let's go back a quarter-century, folks.

Compilation: 100% Hits, Volume 11
Released: 1994 – Warner Music Australia
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: 3 – "Give It Up" by Cut 'N' Move, "It's Alright" by East 17, "Asshole" by Denis Leary
Other top ten singles: 2
Best track: "What's My Name?" by Snoop Doggy Dogg
Hidden gem: "Nails In My Feet" by Crowded House

The eleventh entry in the long-running 100% Hits series, this compilation has a fair bit of filler at the back end, but it's not a bad listen. It starts, oddly enough, with Snoop Doggy Dogg's "What's My Name?", which is the only song I like by him, before it gets to the first two above-mentioned number ones. I think pop music in 1994 saw a general decline in quality to previous years – sappy love ballads were everywhere – but thankfully there aren't too many here. Thanks to D:Ream and Melodie MC (the rap lyrics in "Dum Da Dum" are bloody awful, aren't they?), it's mostly upbeat. Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax MCMXCIII" is included as well, and I'm not too familiar with the original version, so I can't tell if it's a remix or a re-recording.

Now to the filler and non-charting tracks. This is where the title "100% Hits" becomes a bit of a misnomer. The Crowded House track, which I had never heard of, sounds a lot like "Fall At Your Feet" but is actually a rather nice song. I have a new-found appreciation for them after I recently learned how to play "Weather With You" on guitar, that I didn't have in the '90s. Gary Sweet covers a Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs song from the '70s, and then there's one of those songs about sport/sportspeople that are best avoided. In this case it's some bloke called Doug Parkinson who I'd never heard of, but he's a singer who started in the '60s and here he's singing about some cricket player. You would have to travel far and wide to find someone who hates cricket more than I do, so you can probably guess my feelings on this.

But then! It finishes with number 1 hit "Asshole", the song that won Triple J's Hottest 100 poll in 1993, and the swearing is left in! I wonder if this was intentional, because the 'clean version' of the Snoop track is used (and the word 'bitch' gets censored). Whoever was responsible for this is a legend.

Rating: 6/10