Throwing back to the week of June 11, 1994, we find All-4-One atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘I Swear.’ As I noted a few weeks ago, this song spent 11 straight weeks at #1, making it one of the longest-running chart-toppers in history.
Holding the #2 spot is Madonna with the ballad ‘I’ll Remember,’ a soundtrack cut from the forgettable film With Honors (do you remember a movie about a Harvard student played by Brendan Fraser befriending a homeless man played by Joe Pesci? Neither do I.).
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.
Throwing back to the week of April 23, 1994, we have repeats in the #1 and #2 spot with R. Kelly’s ‘Bump N’ Grind’ and Ace of Base’s ‘The Sign,’ respectively.
In the third spot that week was 90s hitmaker Mariah Carey with her cover of Badfinger’s ‘Without You.’ The original didn’t make much of a commercial splash but it did spawn two hit versions.
I’ve gone 5,753 songs of the day and nearly 16 years without featuring an R. Kelly song, but that streak ends today. Long before the R&B singer was convicted of child sexual abuse, racketeering, and sex trafficking, he had a #2 hit the week of April 2, 1994.
‘Bump N’ Grind,’ in hindsight, reads a bit like a confession. “My mind is telling me no, but my body’s telling me yes,” he says in the song’s intro. “Baby, I don’t want to hurt nobody.”
Throwing back to the week of March 12, 1994, we find Swedish pop band Ace of Base atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘The Sign.’
Late last year, I featured the band’s previous hit, ‘All That She Wants,’ which peaked at #2. That song, plus today’s track and ‘Don’t Turn Around,’ which reached #4, all showed up on the band’s debut album, Happy Nation. To be more precise, they showed up on the U.S. version of that album, which had a different track order than the initial Denmark release and added three new songs (including ‘Don’t Turn Around’ and ‘The Sign’).
Meet Me In Montauk 