Over the next two weeks, I’ll look at 1995 albums that didn’t make my personal top ten, either because I’ve never heard them or I haven’t heard them enough to qualify.
Or, in today’s case, because the album isn’t a favorite but it’s too big to deny.
Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill was not only the top-selling album of 1995, it is the 14th top-selling album worldwide of all time, and the highest-selling debut album in history.
The week of May 30, 1964, saw the continued dominance of The Beatles on the Billboard Hot 100. Beatlemania was in full swing — this was the fourth #1 of an eventual six in a one-year period, still a record.
Before it topped the charts in the U.S., ‘Love Me Do’ was the band’s first single and first hit in England the previous November, peaking at #17.
Throwing back to the week of May 29, 1954, we find Kitty Kallen atop the Billboard charts with ‘Little Things Mean a Lot,’ a song written by Edith Lindeman and Carl Stutz. Kallen’s version was the most popular of several recordings of this song.
It was so popular, in fact, that it claimed the title as the #1 song for all of 1954. This week was the first of nine straight it would spend atop the chart.
Concluding a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#1 – Ben Folds Five – Ben Folds Five
This is the third debut album in my top five, making a case for 1995 as a banner year for new talent.
Of all the acts I discovered in the 90s, none blew me away quite like this amusingly named trio out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Singer-songwriter Ben Folds on piano, drummer Darren Jesse, and bassist Robert Sledge quickly cemented their status as one of my favorite bands, largely on the strength of this wonderful album.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#2 – Relish – Joan Osborne
Almost every album on this list is by an artist I’ve stuck with, for at least several more releases if not an entire career. This one is different.
Singer-songwriter Joan Osborne has released 13 studio albums, one less than a year ago. I might have listened to one of them briefly when it came out, but otherwise my appreciation for her is based completely on the excellence of her debut album.
Meet Me In Montauk 