Hootie & The Blowfish "Hold My Hand"

Let's take a look at the top songs of 1994 on Top 40 radio:

• Ace of Base "The Sign"
• All-4-One "I Swear"
• Boyz II Men "I'll Make Love to You"
• Celine Dion "The Power of Love"
• Mariah Carey "Hero"

By 1994 standards, Top 40 radio heavily leaned on R&B and Hip-Hop artists and music. A peak further down the Top 100 of 1994 turned up music from artists such as Salt-n-Peppa, R. Kelly, Coolio, and Warren G. This gave the pop-rock group Hootie & The Blowfish some struggles to find a mainstream radio format to embrace the band. Somehow, the Adult Contemporary format answered the call and immediately helped launch Hootie's career. Within 12 months, AC radio stations playlists featured four songs from Cracked Rear View (Hootie's debut album) as well as "I Go Blind" (prominently featured on the TV show Friends). Soon, Top 40 added Hootie's music--though most song charted higher on the Adult Contemporary Chart than the Hot 100--and the band's over-saturation likely attributed to its demise. 

All-4-One "I Swear"

I'll never understand how a country artist (John Michael Montgomery) and an R&B boy band (All-4-One) released two of the same songs ("I Swear" and "I Can Love You Like That") and both managed to score hits within a year of each other.

Gary Barlow - "So Help Me Girl"

In the same way that All-4-One borrowed from John Michael Montgomery in 1994, Gary Barlow of Take That fame took Joe Diffie's 1995 hit "So Help Me Girl" and turned it into an Adult Contemporary pop hit in 1997.  As with the different sounds, check out the different styles of each respective singer from 1995 to 1997.

All-4-One "I Can Love You Like That"

Clearly there was a shortage of new music in 1994 as All-4-One rode the coattails of country superstar John Michael Montgomery.  First, the R&B quartet covered Montgomery's "I Swear" and then the following year they covered "I Can Love You Like That".  Both songs were Top 10 hits.