#nineties dance

While your feet are stomping And the jam is pumping Look ahead The crowd is jumping

from the album Pump Up The Jam: The Album

Milli Vanilli became the poster boys for musical fraud when they were revealed, in late 1990, to have been lip synching to session singers’ vocals, but they were far from the only act of the era to have sold a product with misleading visuals. Black Box, C+C Music Factory and Australian act Euphoria all did it, while Belgian dance project Technotronic, led by producer Jo Bogaert, went one step further: their 1989 breakthrough hit gave an official featuring credit to Felly, a model who had contributed not a shred of original vocals to the song. Lucky then, that much like ‘Ride On Time’ and ‘Gonna Make You Sweat’, ‘Pump Up The Jam’ would become an all-time dance classic, and the controversy was largely overshadowed by the sheer magnitude of the track’s popularity - it would be credited as a breakthrough moment for house music in the US, where it vaulted into the top three, and by mid-1990, they were supporting Madonna on the legendary Blond Ambition World Tour (with the actual ‘Pump Up The Jam’ vocalist, Ya Kid K, front and centre).

Enlisting Ya Kid K as the track’s commanding frontwoman, even if she was initially sidelined, was ‘Pump Up The Jam’s secret weapon - as a rapper/singer, she infused the single with elements of both hip hop and pop, giving it a leg-up over more “pure” house records that may not have appealed so broadly to international audiences. The tactic of tapping into a cross-section of then-current trends makes ‘Pump Up The Jam’ a microcosm of dance-pop in 1989, but it’s the strength of the composition itself - the drama of that instantly recognisable intro, the give-and-take relationship between the vocals and the beat, and the joyful spirit of what would become clichés of the genre (“Get your booty on the floor! Make my day!”) that guaranteed ‘Pump Up The Jam’ would endure far beyond Technotronic’s brief, but hugely important, moment at the top.

‘Pump Up The Jam’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #2, US #2, AUS #4

Don’t freak out until you know the facts Relax Max

from the album Come On Over

I’ve always found it amusing that such lengths were taken to make Shania Twain’s blockbuster album Come On Over more palatable to international audiences (including remixing the entire tracklist), only for the global single version of ‘Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)’ to come out sounding like ‘Cotton Eye Joe’. It does, however, make a lot of sense, once we consider just how much time had passed between the US single release of ‘Don’t Be Stupid’s original country version (September 1997) and the European/Australian “dance mix” (February 2000), plus the ways in which Shania’s image and audience had completely changed over those two-and-a-half years.

Come On Over was always going to be a major event - in North America, Shania’s previous album The Woman In Me had been a massive breakthrough, spawning eight country hits and selling four million copies in its first year, so expectations were high for the follow-up. When Come On Over was unleashed in November 1997, however, it exceeded all predictions, consistently selling huge amounts and delivering hit after hit after hit (twelve in total, a ridiculous amount, even in the golden age of artist’s milking their albums for years). Not only was Shania now the biggest female artist in the US and Canada, she was getting hits in mainland Europe, where she had never experienced success, the UK, where she had no prior chart record, and Australia, where she had snatched a top five hit in 1996, but was not yet a major star.

As the Come On Over campaign continued, with different single releases and different mixes for each territory, Shania Twain began to become something of a cartoon figure, a country artist who, outside of the US, didn’t seem to actually sing much country - the international versions of ‘You’re Still The One’ and ‘From This Moment On’ were pop ballads, ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ was a pumping dance hit, and ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman!’ had more in common with Tina Turner than Tammy Wynette. More traditional country songs from Come On Over, like ‘Honey, I’m Home’ or the title track, had not seen single release in Europe or Australia, so the remix of ‘Don’t Be Stupid’, which came at the end of the album campaign, may have been a deliberate move to remind those audiences of where Shania Twain came from.

With that said, ‘Don’t Be Stupid’ is still, at its core, a brilliant, joyous novelty, a shameless caricature of country set to a dance beat. Lyrically, the song was always ridiculous, featuring Shania rebuffing her man’s relationship concerns with lines like “why don’t you take a pill and put a little trust in me?”, and, as if the whole thing couldn’t get any more late-nineties, the video features Irish dancers - if you embrace Shania in all her aunt-at-a-wedding glory, the whole package is just bliss. Come On Over became bigger than anyone could have imagined, but right to the end, the album cycle was delivering brazenly goofy moments like ‘Don’t Be Stupid’, and luckily for us, Shania’s music would only get more absurd as time went on.

‘Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You) (Dance Mix Single)’ music video:

Chart peak (Original Version, 1997): US #40

Chart peaks (Dance Mix, 2000): UK #5, AUS #32

Tell me baby, are you gonna get high as a kite? Tell me baby, are you gonna let it happen every night?

from the album Behaviour

Though they often seem to move in an elite circle of A-list pop stars, forging friendships with the likes of Elton John and Robbie Williams, the Pet Shop Boys have never been shy about criticising their fellow artists, though not usually by name - see, for example, ‘The Former Enfant Terrible’, a b-side that charts the downfall of a once-revolutionary icon, or ‘The Night I Fell In Love’, which reimagines a thinly-veiled Eminem as a closeted gay man. Both those songs are smartly vicious in their own ways, but from the title on down, there is no more savage PSB diss track than ‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’.

The eighties were the decade that rock stars became irreversibly intertwined with social justice and global politics, staging events that aimed to combat international poverty and famine like Live Aid, while also taking part in smaller, more specific campaigns to raise money for causes such as the Hillsborough and Zeebrugge disasters. While I doubt either Neil or Chris had issues with music being used for charitable purposes, they clearly took umbrage with the pompous and self-congratulatory air that often surrounded such releases, and the rise of pop stars who thought that because they had a single on the charts, they could lecture their fans on complex issues. On ‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ Neil takes aim at a non-specific target, delivering swift and devastating drags, including one of the most casually ruthless put-downs in music history:

You’re another major artist, on a higher plane Do you think they’ll put you in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?

Musically, ‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ ventured into new jack swing, an unexpected but brilliant choice, one that reflected the trend-hopping subject of the song’s lyrics - it was the beginning of a decade that would take the Pet Shop Boys in musical directions far beyond their synthpop origins, and this deep, funky beat perfectly supported the dark humour of this particular track. The video also took the Boys out of their comfort zones, with Neil getting to play Elvis dress-up while Chris engages in some fashionable choreography, an especially unserious visual to accompany the single release*. After all, as the spoken word sample in the track says, “you gotta have fun”, and none of this - not the track, the possible subjects, nor the Pet Shop Boys themselves, should be taken too seriously.

*‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ was issued as part of a double-A side with the discofied U2/Frankie Valli mash-up ‘Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)’, which, if you believe that Bono is the subject of ‘Seriously’, adds a new layer of shade to the proceedings.

‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #4, AUS #9, US #93

And when you find yourself alone Don’t come back crying, you should have known

from the album Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s debut album, on which she co-wrote every song, managed to position itself both as a statement of artistic intent and a carefully crafted commercial product. With first single ‘Vision Of Love’, Mariah would instantly become known as one of pop’s greatest balladeers, but the Mariah Carey album was carefully tailored to several of 1990’s dominant trends: cinematic love songs, light R&B, and dance pop, even dipping into new jack swing on the LP’s third single, ‘Someday’.

Released in the wake of two ballads, ‘Someday’ was the beginning of Mariah the club icon, proof that she could command an uptempo jam while sacrificing none of her voice’s power - the range displayed on the track is nothing short of astonishing, not since Whitney had a diva sounded so at home on the dance floor. It was a role she could slip in and out of effortlessly over the years, diversifying her talents in the public eye and ensuring she could not be successfully typecast (although many would try).

There may have been a small element of risk in releasing ‘Someday’, the first Mariah single to stray from a proven formula, but it was an essential move, as once the track became her third number one, she had successfully expanded her range and could turn back to balladry for the last Mariah Carey single (‘I Don’t Wanna Cry’, an easy fourth number one). When it was time to return for album two, only one of the three singles bore any resemblance to ‘Vision Of Love’. From there, the scene was set for hip hop collaborations, classic club mixes, and an incredible, career-spanning ability to adapt to developments in R&B and pop, none of which would have been possible had ‘Someday’ not paved the way.

‘Someday’ music video:

Chart peaks: US #1, UK #38, AUS #44