Good poll! These songs are very much linked in my memory, although looking at Everyhit they were actually a few months apart on the '93 UK chart.
Love them both but went with SWV.
― Gavin, Leeds, Thursday, 10 November 2022 14:23 (one year ago) link
both of these songs have recently appeared on the Top Of The Pops repeats from 1993 airing just now (for non-Britshers who may not know: TOTP was a weekly 30-min show where acts with new or climbing songs in the Top 40 would either perform live, "live" or have their music video shown).
I was five in 1993 and growing up I always linked these two songs together - they were radio staples and I knew them as songs from *just before* I really started paying attention to pop music in 94/95. Of course, when you're that age, a song that's a few years old is normally considered ancient, but neither of them really felt "dated" to me. They just seemed so cool - you couldn't imagine Jade or SWV doing a Saturday morning kids TV show the way Eternal or Take That would appear weekly without fail. Both the groups and the songs seemed sophisticated - stronger hooks, richer harmonies, a more sexy and glamorous style of pop/r&b that we didn't really have here in the UK. The actual production on these singles is better too - "Right Here" hinges on its sample but it would still sound luxuriant without it, and "Don't Walk Away" has those opulent drums.
Other r&b girl-group hits from around this time like "Waterfalls" or "If You Love Me" aren't really doing the same thing in terms of balancing the sounds with the performance - "Waterfalls" is dazzling because of how the drums and synths sound, "If You Love Me" is vocal precision gymnastics, but to me these two polled feel distinctly like a marriage of style and performance where each part is equal.
― boxedjoy, Friday, 11 November 2022 23:19 (one year ago) link
Voted Jade largely because it's probably the unapologetically thiccest rnb hit that year (also maybe higher tempo than most?) - I can't remember what that beat is sampled from (it's also on Pump Up The Volumecl right?) but this song owned it thereafter and otherwise it's not so reliant on a big sampled hook, mixed with a fragility of sentiment or doubt in the music that is curioudly at odds with the singers assurances - a dynamic seemingly absent in Right Here whatever its own strengths.
― nashwan, Friday, 11 November 2022 23:40 (one year ago) link
four weeks pass...