Radio remained king, Top of the Pops
advanced fearlessly into its fourth decade, vinyl’s days were numbered, the
cassette survived in its association with the Walkman but the CD took control.
Even I could not resist the new dominant technology. Maybe it was my growing up
but after years of focussing on taping stuff from the radio, I started
borrowing CDs from the library (and taping the best tracks) and even buying
them. Mostly Greatest Hits compilations by artists like Kate Bush, Stranglers,
Erasure, Julian Cope and such like, but at least I had the kernel of a music
collection I could show to anyone who ventured into my little empire.
Talking of empires, the Stock Aitken
Waterman hegemony was crumbling. Prolific as ever, but there was no longer the
guarantee of massive chart success. Fortunately they still had Kylie. SAW’s
final number one single was her cover of ‘Tears on My Pillow’ but 1990 also
brought us possibly her best SAW-era pop song, ‘Better the Devil You Know’.
Meanwhile Jason Donovan’s chart career
experienced a surprise slump. Kylie’s movie role in ‘The Delinquents’ led
nowhere but Jason’s subsequent appearance at the London Palladium the following
year was to be a roaring success. I saw him on the famous stage and must admit
he was rather good. The Hit Factory wasn’t quite spent.
Donna Summer had fallen out with the production trio, but her loss was Lonnie
Gordon’s gain. A genuine soul singer rather than pop starlet, she had a number
four hit in February with the excellent ‘Happening All Over Again’.
At the same time, Depeche Mode were
back at their best. It came only second on my end-of-year ‘Other’ genre list
but ‘Enjoy the Silence’ is
now probably my favourite electronic anthem of all time. Martin Gore’s writing
had turned darker, and his costumes wackier, but the band had also become huge
around the world, even in the States. I was horrified upon hearing the 2004
remix. It had jettisoned much of what I loved about the original; the humming
harmonising synths providing an opulent duvet of sound, so warm I don’t want it
to end.
Electro-pop was nevertheless being
relegated under the onslaught of dance music. House may have been an American
invention but this was a great time for British acts. For all the excellence of
Black Box and Technotronic, who each capitalised on the ‘megamix’ mania in
1990, it was home-grown artists enjoying the most success. So much so that a
‘Brits 1990’ dance medley, featuring the likes of Street Tuff, S-Express and
808 State went to number two in January. There was more to come later in the
year.
This was the year when The Dance
Anthem was celebrated in Capital Letters. We had The Orb’s ‘Chime’, Guru Josh’s
‘Infinity’ and all sort of weird trance stuff which, in the certain absence of
Ecstasy, would have emptied Rotaract dance floors everywhere if played. Inside
a mammoth tent in a remote Sussex field, they would have gone down a storm.
Helped by 12” single sales, such tracks did make the top 20 and thus almost
guaranteed some radio airplay, but this wasn’t the music I was listening and
dancing to.
‘Dirty Cash’ by The Adventures of
Stevie V was one of the year’s highlights for me, although Adamski’s growling synth
classic, ‘Killer’, introducing the silky soulful vocals of Seal, sold many more
copies. The lovely Betty Boo went solo, peaking at three with ‘Where Are You Baby?’.
The inevitable house piano intro, a catchy chorus and some wacky rap made for a
winning combination. Monie Love was a more authentic hip-hop star, and her
‘It’s a Shame’ was a
great vehicle for her rapping and genuine singing voice. Its mid-pace shuffle
beat was also perfect to move my feet to!
Brit producers DNA did a wonderful job
transforming Suzanne Vega’s wistful New York observations on ‘Tom’s Diner’ into a dreamy chillout dance anthem, in which we could sway a bit to the Soul
II Soul-like beat while chanting “Der der der-der, der der-der der” at frequent
intervals. Bass-O-Matic’s ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ was another excellent record
which pierced the top ten. Londonbeat’s ‘I’ve Been Thinking About You’ was definitely at the pop end of dance, and was another of my favourites in
1990. Despite the name, Londonbeat were partly American, fronted by Jimmy
Helms, but we clasped them to our patriotic bosom in that year of British House
and trip-hop.
Of course there were some stand-out
international dance tracks, too. There was no getting away from ‘The Power’ by
German act Snap! or Deee-Lite’s ‘Groove is in the Heart’, and both have stood
the test of time, even though I didn’t much like them personally. The same goes
for Vanilla Ice’s ’Ice Ice Baby’. Gratuitously sampling Queen’s ‘Under
Pressure’ bass hook, it was very hard to take seriously the rap credentials of
a lantern-jawed white Texan. However, the boy could move and it was
infuriatingly infectious, out-selling every other dance record that year.
I couldn’t really take New Kids on the
Block seriously either. ‘The Right Stuff’ had been a number one at the end of
1989 and ‘Hangin’ Tough’ was the first new chart-topping single of the
Nineties. They were better dancers than singers, although they seemed over-fond
of the ‘wave your arms from side to side’ move. In my head I wrote them out of
my musical memory as a two-hit wonder. Yet on checking the stats, it appears
that they had eight consecutive top-tenners in the UK. What? How did that
happen? Fair to say they were much bigger in the States than here, a
blue-collar Take That.
One of the dance tracks most fondly
remembered from 1990 was the first football song it was OK to like.
Englandneworder’s ‘World in Motion’ harnessed the Hacienda cool coefficient of New Order to the lyrics of
footie-mad Keith Allen. And then there was that
rap by England winger John Barnes. ‘Back Home’ and ‘Fly the Flag’, this wasn’t. Gillian Gilbert looks terribly uncomfortable in the cheap ‘n’ cheerful video,
and Bernard Sumner only slightly less so but, excepting his goal at the
Maracana, this was Barnesy’s finest hour.
It was released for the World Cup
which would forever be known as Italia 90. On the pitch, at least in this part
of the globe, the tournament became associated with Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne, who
bawled his eyes out after being booked in the semi-final against West Germany.
However, the Italian hosts are of a more cultural disposition. Instead of
wheeling out the likes of booze-sozzled Keith Allen, they launched the
competition with a concert featuring the global opera stars Placido Domingo,
Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti. They became branded The Three Tenors, and
football would never be the same again. Italia 90 was the first football event
to transcend mere sport. TV audiences were huge, reaching countries not
normally known for their football prowess.
The fact that the BBC’s coverage used
Pavarotti’s rousing rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ strengthened the connection between footie and opera, and the charts suddenly
took on a strange look. He went to number two here, and the Essential Pavarotti
and the Three Tenors concert recording itself were each amongst the six biggest
selling albums of the whole year. Extraordinary! For all the “Vincero,
vincero!”s, Italy didn’t win. It would have been fitting had their team of
Maldini, Vialli, Mancini, Baresi and Toto Schillaci emerged victorious in
Rome’s Stadio Olimpico but they were knocked out on penalties by Argentina.
I loved that World Cup. Slagged off for its lack of goals and its
infamous red card-ridden final, it nevertheless had so many dramatic
ingredients, featuring two English teams (one representing Ireland) and
Scotland, the surprise heroes of Cameroon and the likes of Maradona at his
best. Yet it was the added element of top-class music which cemented this
tournament as one of my all-time favourites. It didn’t convert me into an opera
fan, buying up Covent Garden tickets for Turandot, but it was an unforgettable
summer with the contrasting soundtracks of Pavarotti and John Barnes.
It wasn’t just opera flying the flag for
classical music. Nigel Kennedy’s interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sold
an amazing two million copies and the unconventional violinist’s image was as
ubiquitous as not only Pavarotti’s but also Kylie’s, Madonna’s and George
Michael’s. Not really my thing but the opening bars of La Primavera are as
uplifting as any piece of pop.
Unlike Kennedy, you wouldn’t have
caught any members of The Housemartins wearing bondage leather boots or Aston
Villa shirts. In fact, by this time Hull’s finest had flown the nest for good.
And yet their progeny prospered. Norman Cook, not yet Fatboy Slim, went to
number one with the sample-heavy ‘Dub Be Good to Me’ as part of his
genre-bending Beats International combo. Meanwhile, Paul Heaton and Dave
Hemingway had formed The Beautiful South and in 1990 they matched their ex-bass
player’s success. They won hearts and minds with an impudent line in catchy
melodies and witty lyrics, few better than ‘A Little Time’,
featuring a duet of Hemingway and Briana Corrigan as a warring couple. There
would be plenty more from them in the next few years but this was to be their
only chart-topper.
I liked some other quirky singles,
too. The B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ was an incredibly infectious retro dance track, an instant Rotaract disco stalwart.
The Beloved were more of the age. I loved ‘Hello’ which, while not making the top ten, had an off-the-wall lyric. Their eclectic
roll-call of names in the chorus was unique. How many songs would rhyme Jeffrey
Archer with Jean-Paul Sartre or William Tell with (backing singer) Kym
Mizelle?! My favourite couplet, immortalising a Brookside TV character and a
once-exciting Crystal Palace winger was:-
“Billy Corkhill, Vince Hilaire
Freddie Flintstone, Fred Astaire…”
Freddie Flintstone, Fred Astaire…”
Also high on the quirkometer was ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’ by They
Might Be Giants. Apparently it’s a song sung from the viewpoint of a
nightlight. Yes, really. But it’s just fun listening to the abstract nonsense,
delivered in a deadpan Massachussetts drawl. I couldn’t have been the only one
because it made surprising progress to number six here.
For all her colourful career, Madonna
entered a monochrome phase, at least where her videos were concerned. In April,
her paeon to the magazine ‘Vogue' went straight in at four, supported by a typical song-and-dance video (“Strike the pose”). My diary recorded: “she’s joined the House beat brigade and
beaten them at their own game. Shame I don’t like the song”. I was
astonished to read this final sentence as ‘Vogue’ quickly became my favourite
of Madonna’s copious canon.
For all ‘Vogue’’s magnificence, it
wasn’t enough for La Ciccone. She had been flirting with controversy for a
while but when the tacky ‘Hanky Panky’ came out, some of us thought she had
lost the plot. It was back to the Forties but with a song explicitly yearning
to be spanked! It wasn’t even any good. Talking of explicit lyrics there was
little ambiguity in the words of ‘Justify Your Love’.
The black and white video depicting plentiful sex and gender-bending S&M
was banned by MTV, which of course merely cranked up the notoriety dial to
eleven and made the song a worldwide hit in December.
The drum riff was lifted from James
Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’ and everyone was sampling Clyde Stubblefield’s solo,
from Public Enemy to George Michael. True to form, Madonna virtually made it
her own on ‘Justify Your Love’, the beat complementing the eroticism of her
breathy, mostly spoken, vocal. I felt almost guilty at liking the record but it
was beautifully beguiling.
Another b&w video falling foul of
some censors was made for Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’.
After featuring in David Lynch’s film ‘Wild at Heart’, the song took off around
the world. The ghostly slide guitar and Isaak’s cool, brooding voice helped
place the song second on my end-of-year ‘slow/ballad’ list. Apparently about
unrequited love, there didn’t seem to be much ‘unrequitedness’ going on in the
video, as Isaak cavorted on a beach with a naked Helena Christensen!
It was a good year for director David
Lynch because his groundbreaking TV mystery series ‘Twin Peaks’ was unleashed.
We wouldn’t normally have watched such a programme, especially as it was
scheduled on BBC2. However, the gamble paid off. The pilot episode was like nothing like I’d
ever seen before. Basically a whodunit but with so many red herrings, weird
characterisation and stylish touches that it seemed impossible to pigeonhole
into any known genre. Indeed, as the series progressed, the plot also became
impossible to follow but that wasn’t the point. Part of its charm was in Angelo
Badalamenti’s music. The eerie theme tune was an instrumental version of Julee
Cruise’s ‘Falling', with
words by Lynch. Borrowing a phrase by lead character Dale Cooper, it was
‘damned fine’!
There
was more backwoods Americana in the form of Alannah Myles’ bluesy ‘Black Velvet’.
OK, so Myles is Canadian, but it’s a paean to Elvis Presley, inspired by a bus
trip to Graceland. From the first line:-
“Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell”
the mood is set, the picture
painted; you can almost feel the oppressive heat. It was popular just about
everywhere, and still sounds great. Coincidentally, Bobby Vinton’s Sixties
track ‘Blue Velvet’ also made number two on the UK that year, but I’d
rate the darker material slightly higher.
Big ballads provided the three biggest
selling singles of 1990. It proved the symbiosis between film and music which
was to dominate the charts in the early Nineties. Weepie ‘Ghost’ topped the box
office list, and its soundtrack centrepiece, ‘Unchained Melody’ by The
Righteous Brothers did the same for UK singles. Bobby Hatfield’s soaring tenor
filled the airwaves throughout autumn while the erotic clay scene in the film
must have sent thousands, humming the song, to pottery evening classes.
The second most popular film was
‘Pretty Woman’. I don’t know whether careers advisors were overwhelmed by girls
wanting to become call girls and meet wealthy Richard Gere lookalikes but the
movie’s top track was Roxette’s magnificent ‘It Must Have Been Love’.
This certainly ranks amongst my fave ballads, even if it tells a sad story.
Only a number three hit here, it was huge in the States.
On the other hand, a Prince
composition handed Sinead O’Connor her career highlight, ‘Nothing Compares 2U’.
Prince’s obsession with numbers and letters in song titles was rather tiresome
but I can forgive him anything after Sinead’s emotional performance of his
unreleased track. The simple video has become iconic, and it’s hard not to be
affected by the sight of O’Connor’s full-screen pixie face and blue eyes
letting tears fall in tune with the autumn leaves. Apparently she and Prince
almost came to blows, his hostility to her fondness for swearing merely serving
as a challenge. I’m sure he didn’t resent the generous royalties the cover
version generated.
Putting aside the hysterical horrors
propagated by the living mullet that was Michael Bolton, the other successful
slowie I enjoyed from that year was Elton John’s ‘Sacrifice’. One of those songs which flopped originally, it gave Elton his first solo
number one single in the UK, and deservedly so. Hardly an uplifting love song,
it nevertheless resonated with the public and kept Pavarotti and the England
football team off the top during the World Cup. I like to think it was the
summit of the summer soundtrack, although the truly awful ‘Turtle Power’ and
Timmy Mallett’s ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny…..’ (under the pseudonym Bombalurina)
actually topped the charts during a hot and sticky August.
As an aside, visiting a small art shop
in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, we showed interest in an attractive painting of
a boat. The £5K price tag put paid to any realistic thought of purchase but it
was a revelation to be told it was the work of the aforementioned Mr Mallett.
No longer the irritating children’s TV entertainer, he is now apparently a respected
artist. A shame that to people of my age he will always be associated not with
beautiful beachscapes but stupid hats and hideous summer party hits like this
one.
1989 had been dubbed the official
Second Summer of Love. However, 1990 was the year when the Madchester sound,
MDMA and yellow smiley logo really crossed over into mainstream common culture.
Not that we were all dancing like loons fired up by LSD or Ecstasy pills. It’s
just that a lot of the music seemed really good.
The Stone Roses were the archetypal
Madchester band, their first album frequently appearing in ‘greatest of all
time’ polls despite hardly anyone ever having bought it! They had numerous
singles, half of them with ‘Stone’ in the title, but I don’t remember any of
them. It was only when I borrowed the album from the library several years
later that I discovered the glories of the slow-burning opener ‘I Wanna Be
Adored’ and ‘She’s a Waterfall’.
I’ve never warmed to Ian Brown’s
airy-fairy voice but I suppose having strong powerful vocals weren’t really important,
potentially detracting from the psychedelic sound which was aimed at stoned
partygoers. Shaun Ryder probably never won awards for his singing ability
either, but his Happy Mondays released two Mancunian monsters in ‘Step On’ and
‘Kinky Afro’. Both
stalled at five in the charts but I really enjoyed them. The former was better
to dance to, while the follow-up was made for turning up the volume and
listening.
Also demonstrating their ‘mad for it’
credentials were The Soup Dragons’ ‘I’m Free’, The Farm’s ‘Groovy Train’ and
Candy Flip’s lazy, hazy cover of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. Nevertheless,
perhaps the outstanding example of the genre was EMF’s ‘Unbelievable’.
An infectious dance number with attitude, it did its stuff without MC Hammer’s
baggy ‘loons or Bez’s maracas, but apparently if you listen to the backing
vocals it’s full of profanities. Ah, 1990. You could get away with anything. Unless you’re Margaret Thatcher, whose reign of political and social terror
finally, and surprisingly, came to an ignominious conclusion. That, too, was
unbelievable. As The Las sang that winter, ‘There She Goes’….
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