Hill, S. (2022), 'The Greatest Hits of 1992’, Record Collector  (London: Metropolis)

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Nineteen Ninety Two might be the 40th anniversary of the launch of the compact disc, but it took ten years for the new format to change rock history. By this point Greatest Hits CDs dominated the charts, with sales of the new medium expanding exponentially, displacing both vinyl and cassette tapes as the only relevant musical format. This not only paved the way for the digital culture of the Noughties but also liberated albums from the restrictions of vinyl and refreshed the way audiences engaged with the history of popular music. Ironically, the 21st Century has seen a resurgence in vinyl, and it is now the compact disc that seems anachronistic. Here we take a look back at 1992, a year in which the CD was king and the music culture anticipated the new Millennium with both sentimentalism and trepidation...

 

Although the compact disc was launched way back in 1982, it took ten years for the new format to take off. A premium-brand heritage product from the outset, classic albums, and greatest hits CDs in particular, captured perfectly the retrospective sensibility of the 1990s. They blended a heady mix of cultural nostalgia and technological anxiety, as we approached the unknown digital landscape of the new Millennium. 

 

On the surface 1992 is not the most interesting year in pop, characterised by soulless soul-pop and vacuum-sealed sentimentalism. Wet Wet Wet, Curtis Stigers, and Simply Red dominated both the album chart and the airwaves. However, it was a liminal moment. A year in which the technological innovation that followed punk and disco into the 80s, was replaced with pre-Millennial nostalgia, and its longing for an imagined past. The success of the greatest hits package was in part a barometer of this. However, it was also a function of the proliferation of the compact disc, a technology that had been launched on the market a decade before. Indeed it was not until 1990 that compact disc sales surpassed those of the cassette, with the new format reaching a crescendo in 2001.

 

With nearly fifty percent of 1992’s album chart made up of rereleases, the year represents a watershed moment for the optical data storage format developed by Sony and Philips at the end of the 1970s. In the subsequent years, sales of the CD skyrocketed. However, it wasn’t always thus. When the compact disc was first launched in October 1982, the only pop title available was ABBA’s The Visitors. While this was soon joined by releases from Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, it took a long while for the new format to get a foothold in the mainstream market. By contrast, the classical music community was far more receptive to the CD’s promise of superior sound fidelity. 

 

As the 1980s progressed, and the Swedish quartet slipped from view, the new medium gained momentum with rock fans. Dire Strait’s Brother’s in Arms was the first million-selling CD, and in the aftermath of Live Aid, a nostalgic sensibility began to permeate the mainstream. When the Beatles back catalogue was released on CD in 1987 the concept of the classic album was cemented in the public’s imagination, conferring authenticity on the new format as the ultimate heritage product. Subsequent releases from Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Who, etc conspired to create a refreshed account of the rock canon, which had been around since the Seventies, that was coincidentally very white, very male, and very middle-aged.

 

As popular as the classic album was, The Beatles Sgt Pepper was the only re-release to make the Top 10, peaking at number three in 1987. In part, this can be attributed to the higher retail price. With CDs costing around a third more than vinyl or cassettes, buyers were understandably selective about what to buy in the new format. In this two-tier economic framework, the proposition that had the most appeal for consumers was the surefire return of the greatest hits album. It was a formula that had been around since the late 1950s, with Johnny Mathis’s 1958 anthology pioneering the concept. A halcyon period in the 1970s saw the release of classic vinyl greatest hits from Eagles, Elton John, and Rolling Stones. However, the digital collections that dominated this second era in the early 1990s were far more contemporary, orientated towards Eighties artists that included greatest hits from Eurythmics,  Queen, Tina Turner, Madonna, Paul Young, Cher, and Simple Minds.

 

In this respect 1992 was the perfect coda to the 1980s. Of the 47% of the chart made up of compilation recordings, the majority of those had a footprint in the preceding decade. These 1992 releases included new anthologies from Lionel Ritchie, Madness, Erasure, Gloria Estefan, Tears for Fears, Belinda Carlisle, and Freddie Mercury. Other notably retrospective-themed Top 30 listings included Michael Bolton’s album of soul covers Timeless, The Classics; Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II, as well The Commitments Original Soundtrack, also featuring soul classics from the Sixties and Seventies. Capturing the mood music of the time, non greatest hits packages in the Top 10 show a predilection for white soul with antiseptic production. The biggest selling albums of new material in 1992 included Simply Red’s Stars, Annie Lennox’s Diva, Shakespeare Sister’s Hormonally Yours, Wet Wet Wet’s High on the Happy Side, Lisa Stansfield's Real Love, Curtis Stiger’s Curtis Stigers, and Madonna’s EroticA.

 

Standing out from this is the dad rock of Genesis’s We Can’t Dance and the camp frippery of Right Said Fred’s Up. Portents of the polarised direction of rock and dance come in the form of Nirvana’s Nevermind and The Shamen’s Boss Drum. The exception that proves the rule is REM’s Automatic For The People. Indeed, away from the end of year Top 30, 1992 saw a record twenty-five rereleases make the Top 10. In addition to those previously listed, significant acts anthologized for perpetuity included ZZ Top, Sisters of Mercy, Squeeze, Prefab Sprout, The Smiths, Kylie Minogue, Bob Marley, The Police, The Sex Pistols, and Talking Heads. Other heritage acts less connected with the post-punk/80s era appearing in the Top 10 also included Scott Walker, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Joseph Locke, The Temptations, Dr. Hook, Joe Cocker, The Beatles, Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, and Jim Reeves. Likewise, new recordings by Eric Clapton and Neil Young reprising earlier successes (MTV Unplugged and Harvest Moon) were also strong sellers.

Looking at the singles chart this hyper retrospective sensibility threw up some interesting anomalies. Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ topped the charts for ten weeks; likewise, Erasure’s Abba-esque EP enjoyed a five-week tenure at the top. Also topping the chart for five weeks was KWS’s cover of KC and Sunshine Band’s 1979 recording ‘Please Don’t Go’. However, perhaps the most implausible cover version of 1992 was Undercover’s re-interpretation of Gerry Rafferty’s 1978 hit ‘Baker Street’. Sales of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ remained strong; followed up by a rerelease of Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé’s 1987 recording “Barcelona”. However, the re-release of The Temptations’s ‘My Girl’  from 1965 (on the back of the film of the same name) was a surprise hit, eventually reaching number 2. Echoing this timbre, The Pasadenas cover of New York City’s 1973 hit ‘I’m Doing Fine Now’  peaked at 4. 

Elsewhere this pastiche of American soul could be heard on Charles and Eddies ‘Would I Lie to You?’, Boyz II Men’s ‘End of the Road’, Jon Secada’s ‘Just Another Day’, Shanice’s ‘I Love Your Smile’, Lionel Ritchie’s ‘My Destiny’ and Curtis Stigers ‘I Wonder Why’. Other notably cover versions included Guns ’N’Roses’ reworking of Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin' on Heaven’s Door’, Nick Berry’s Buddy Holly tribute ‘Heartbeat’, the Utah Saints’ ‘Something Good’ (a dance retooling of Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’), Take That’s Moroder-inspired interpretation of ‘Could It Be Magic’, and Mariah Carey’s Jackson 5 cover ‘I'll Be There’. In short, 33% of the end of year Top 40 was borrowed, reworked, rereleased, or reimagined. Further down the chart, a remix of Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’, Undercover’s ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’, and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Give Me Just A Little More Time’ repeated the formula ad infinitum.

 

Nineteen Ninety-Two itself is a deceptively bland year in pop, characterized by a surfeit of nostalgia pop, anemic soul, and bland adult-orientated rock. On the surface, it looks like the slack-water between the twin forces of grunge, house, and the subsequent rise of Brit-pop and hip hop. However, beneath the anodyne exterior, significant changes were taking place in the way in which popular music history was understood. In part, this can be attributed to the rise of the CD and the fragmentation of audiences into defined communities of consumers. This was reflected most obviously in the music press. From the pre-teen community of Smash Hits to the middle-aged baby boomers of Q, by 1992 the record-buying public was much more neatly stratified than at the beginning of the preceding decade. 

 

The traditional ‘inkies’ like Melody Maker and NME were of course pre-occupied with indie, and bands like Suede and Blur, which in turn manifest in the appropriation of some very 70s cultural motifs. This was in part a rebellion against 1980s popular tastes. While Thatcher’s Britain mocked the preceding era as tawdry and kitsch, by 1992 the Seventies were back in vogue. By contrast, the glitz of Duran Duran and New Pop now seemed gaudy and brash. However, it was also a continuation of the nostalgia inaugurated by Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s infamous adverts for Levi Strauss. The campaign put eight reissues back in the Top 20 during this period, including number one’s for  Ben E King, the Steve Miller Band, and The Clash. More significant, however, was the re-positioning of Abba.

 

Erasure's Abbasque EP was arguably the defining moment: ushering Abba back in after ten years out in the wilderness. It was, in effect, like the Eighties had never happened. The ensuing Abba Gold: Greatest Hits, released in the run-up to Christmas, went on to become the twelfth best-selling album of 1992. It was a moment of departure more significant than Nirvana’s Nevermind or The Shamen's ecstasy-themed playground anthem 'Ebenezer Goode'. 

 

On the surface, the success of Abba Gold symbolized Abba's inauguration into the rock canon, alongside other Seventies artists already historicized by the Compact Disc: Queen, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music, David Bowie, etc. This, however, is misleading. The wrap-around narrative attached to the Abba revival was still very much that of kitsch revelry and post-modern irony. This is epitomized U2's reprise of 'Dancing Queen' as part of the bricolage aesthetic of the band's Zoo TV Tour: assembled from fragments of 20th Century cultural waste matter, the track fitted in perfectly. Arguably, it would not be until the 21st Century that Abba's innovation and musicianship would be fully recognized. 

 

The success of Gold, however, was a portent of two significant things. In the first instance, it reflected fin de siecle anxiety, not just about the end of the century, but also the Millennium. Abba Gold helped bathe apprehension about the future and uncertainty of the 21st Century in a warm glow of nostalgia. Secondly, Abba also inaugurated a new sensibility for thinking about the history of rock that would replace the CD at the vanguard of that rock as a heritage product, with pop as a franchise. A schema that would be adopted by every heritage act in the 21st Century, from Iggy Pop to the Rolling Stones.

 

As we approached the 21st Century, sales of Abba Gold skyrocketed. It became the fourth best selling album of 1999 and the 9th best selling album of the decade, thanks in no small part to the success of the stage musical Mama Mia. Since then, it has become the longest-running Top 100 album of all time, with over 900 weeks on the chart, multiple top-10 re-entries, and a second tenure at the top in 2008. The juke-box musical Mama Mia films have pioneered the format for how pop history is now consumed by mainstream audiences. From Elton John to Queen, George Michael to Bruce Springsteen, cinema cohered around the pulling power of a back catalogue has become a sure-fire recipe for box-office success. However, just as these films are often anachronistic, the mood music of 1992 captures the beginning of that disruption in the time-space continuum, with the proliferation of greatest hits, cover-versions, and re-releases.

 

​​Forty-Seven Percent of 1992’s End of Year Album Top 30 were Historical Anthologies...

1. Lionel Ritchie’s Back to Front (#2 on End of Year Top 30)

2. Cher’s Greatest Hits: 1965–1992 (#3 on End of Year Top 30)

3. Simple Mind’s Glittering Prize 81/92 (#4 on End of Year Top 30)

4. Madness’s Divine Madness (#8 on End of Year Top 30)

5. Erasure’s Pop!: The First 20 Hits (#11 on End of Year Top 30)

6. Abba’s Gold: Greatest Hits (#12 on End of Year Top 30)

7. Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits (#13 on End of Year Top 30)

8. Genesis’ The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts (#18 on End of Year Top 30)

9. Queen’s Greatest Hits II (#19 on End of Year Top 30)

10. Tina Turner’s Simply the Best (#21 on End of Year Top 30)

11. Tears For Fears’ Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92) (#25 on End of Year Top 30)

12. Belinda Carlisle’s The Best of Belinda, Volume 1 (#28 on End of Year Top 30)

13. Freddie Mercury’s The Freddie Mercury Album (#29 on End of Year Top 30)

14. Neil Diamond’s The Greatest Hits: 1966–1992 (#30 on End of Year Top 30)

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Thirty-Three Percent of 1992’s End of Year Singles Top 40 were Re-releases or Covers...

1. Whitney Houston Dolly Parton’s "I Will Always Love You” (#1 on End of Year Top 40) 

2. Erasure’s “Abba-esque EP” (#5 on End of Year Top 40) 

3. KWS’s  “Please Don’t Go” (#5 on End of Year Top 40). 

4. Undercover's“Baker Street” (#11 on End of Year Top 40).

5. Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” (#15 on End of Year Top 40)

6. The Temptations’s “My Girl” (#22 on End of Year Top 40)

7. Pasadenas’  “I’m Doing Fine Now” (#28 on End of Year Top 40)

8. Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé’s  “Barcelona”(#30 on End of Year Top 40) 

9. Guns ’N’Roses’  “Knockin' on Heaven’s Door (#34 on End of Year Top 40) 

10. Nick Berry’s “Heartbeat” (#35 on End of Year Top 40)

11. Utah Saints’ “Something Good” (#36 on End of Year Top 40)  

12. Take That’s  “Could It Be Magic” (#37 on End of Year Top 40)

13. Mariah Carey’s  “I'll Be There” (#40 on End of Year Top 40)

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