This week in 1991
1 Any Dream Will Do Jason Donovan
2 (Everything I Do) I Do It For You Bryan Adams
3 Chorus Erasure
4 I Wanna Sex You Up Color Me Badd
5 Thinking About Your Love Kenny Thomas
6 Do You Want Me Salt-N-Pepa
7 Rush Rush Paula Abdul
8 From A Distance Bette Midler
9 Always There Incognito feat Jocelyn Brown
10 I Touch Myself Divinyls
Jason Donovan’s second week at the top of the charts at the start of July 1991 is perhaps more significant for what was to follow once he vacated the top spot: Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You hit the top the following week and stayed there for an unprecedented 16 consecutive weeks – a record that still holds today. But back to Donovan who had left Aussie soap Neighbours to follow his co-star Kylie Minogue into a pop career. Through 1988 and ’89 he scored great success with three UK number one singles (one a duet with Minogue) and a multi-platinum selling debut album. His next album and the singles it spawned were not quite as successful and in 1991 he accepted the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium. ‘Any Dream Will Do’, which Lloyd Webber and Rice had penned for the musical back in 1968, brought Donovan back to the top of the charts – a feat he has not managed to repeat.
There are a couple of interesting Irish links with ‘Any Dream Will Do’: long before Jason Donovan recorded it, Joe Cuddy had an Irish No. 1 with the song in 1974; and Mario Rosenstock came up with the memorable parody ‘Jose and his Amazing Technicolor Overcoat’ in 2005, sending up then Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho.