Ten worst number-one songs of the 1990s
By Jonathan Eig
10. "I SWEAR" by All-4-One (1994)
All-4-One’s “I Swear” is one of those songs that stayed at number for more than ten weeks. Throughout most of the Summer of 1994, the California R&B harmonizers held onto the peak of the charts with this treacly pledge of everlasting love.
To be fair, “I Swear” has a decent chorus, which opens the song. Usually, that alone would be enough to exclude a song from this type of list. But once the verse begins and the lead singer begins to pledge his devotion, things take a most distressing turn. (I think I am borrowing that phrase from J Peterman.)
I don’t know who is singing that first verse, but his voice is too tortured and whiny to take the lead. It really shows up because the harmony on that decent chorus is significantly better. Though a different voice picks up the second verse, that whiny screech keeps returning. It’s so incongruous because these guys can sing. They just had the wrong lead voice.
The generic strings don’t help, nor does the sax which merely piles on top of the mix. The song gets busier and busier as it goes on until it is hard to identify the actual melody. Country singer John Michael Montgomery had already recorded a country-pop version earlier in ’94. It doesn’t exactly make the song good, but his slightly stripped-down version at least can pass the time until something better comes along.
9. “BECAUSE I LOVE YOU (THE POSTMAN SONG) by Stevie B (1990)
The self-proclaimed savior of freestyle scored his biggest hit at the very end of 1990. And as with the All-4-One song mentioned above, I’m going to begin with a compliment. This song would have been so much better if Stevie B had performed it a cappella. There’s an OK melody and Stevie can sing, though he borders on the overly-tortured delivery that grates after a verse or two.
But he loaded it up with the most soporific strings imaginable and with the requisite tinkling piano playing counterpoint to the vocal. I can handle the piano. But those strings? Sorry. I suspect they put people to sleep. They certainly did nothing to make them dance which was Stevie’s usual modus operandi. The same guy who did “Spring Love” and “Party Your Body” should never be doing something this sleepy. And if he does, he should do it without the benefit of strings.