The week of May 22, 2004, found Usher in a familiar place on top of the Billboard Hot 100.
When Usher was named the headliner of this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, I was underwhelmed. But I guess that’s because I wasn’t paying much attention in the early 2000s when he was churning out hits faster than the charts could process them.
Consider that ‘Burn’ replaced Usher’s own ‘Yeah!’ at #1 and was later dislodged from the top spot by ‘Confessions Part II,’ another Usher track.
Throwing back to the week of May 21, 1994, we find the R&B band All-4-One atop the Billboard Hot 100 with their sole #1 hit, ‘I Swear.’
This song was first released five months earlier as the lead single of country singer John Michael Montgomery’s album Kickin’ It Up. That recording spent a month at #1 on the country chart, and made it to #42 on the Hot 100.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#6 – Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith
This is another album I circled back to after discovering the artist a few years down the road. In this case, I first heard Elliott Smith’s 1998 album XO before picking up the three that preceded it.
This self-titled release was Smith’s sophomore effort, and his first on the Kill Rock Stars label. It carried over the lo-fi acoustic style of his debut — the sound most people associate with Smith, though his music was much more produced on future releases.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#7 – What’s the Story (Morning Glory)? – Oasis
The sophomore release by British indie rockers Oasis is a Britpop touchstone and one of history’s best-selling albums worldwide. For a brief period, Oasis was the biggest thing in the UK since The Beatles (though brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher were a much pricklier duo than Lennon and McCartney).
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#8 – Tigerlily – Natalie Merchant
The Decades series offer up two distinct pleasures. One is discovering music that passed me by at the time, and the other is rediscovering music I haven’t listened to for years.
Natalie Merchant’s solo debut, Tigerlily, was a lovely, low-key collection from an artist who had released several strong albums with the alternative band 10,000 Maniacs. This record didn’t have the jangly college radio appeal of her work with the band, but it was resonant in a whole different way.
Meet Me In Montauk 