Favorite Songs of 1991

The year 1991 was dominated (for me) by the Led Zeppelin revival that was spurred by the release of their boxed set. The local station 103.7-WRUF "Rock 104" would play a block of their songs each weeknight at about eight (nowadays, a rival station, 92.5-WYND-FM, "gets the Led out" at ten weeknights). I grew to love songs like Going to California, The Battle of Evermore, In the Evening, Ramble On, and Hey Hey What Can I Do. But easily, my top two favorites of 1991 were Zep's When the Levee Breaks and Misty Mountain Hop, both from the second side of their fourth album. And When the Levee Breaks quickly became my all-time favorite song (to this day)! Aside from Led Zeppelin, I rediscovered two old tunes: Foghat's Slow Ride and AC-DC's Back in Black.

But as far the songs that actually came out in 1991 are concerned, there were a few good ones as well. Dire Straits had a very underrated song with their defiant and funny Heavy Fuel. Extreme, a west-coast band with promise (but which later fizzled) started out well with Hole-Hearted and More Than Words. The Australian band the Divinyls shocked a few with their I Touch Myself. Aside from the Zeppelin tunes, my favorites from '91 were the Red Hot Chili Peppers and their classic funk/reggae/hard rock Give It Away, along with the explosive dance-blast hit Gonna Make You Sweat by C+C Music Factory. On the mellower side, two traditionally hard-rock bands, Queensryche and the Scorpions, came out with their best efforts in Silent Lucidity and Wind of Change, respectively. Both Wind of Change and Jesus Jones's hit Right Here Right Now presented a hope for the future based on the recent fall of the Iron Curtain. Bonnie Raitt sounded beautiful in Something to Talk About and Marc Cohn presented a dreamy world with his Walking in Memphis. Sting reminisced about his late father with his touching All This Time. And the "happiest" song of 1991 had to be Amy Grant's bubbly Every Heartbeat.

I also, in 1991, purchased the "latest" Moody Blues album, Keys of the Kingdom. Not one of their best works, but it did contain two of my eventual favorites of theirs: John Lodge's love song Lean on Me Tonight and the inimitable Ray Thomas with his mysterious Celtic Sonant.