Well, at least I had heard of Take That; I just wasn’t au fait with the individual
band members. By the end of 1993 there probably wasn’t anybody under the age of
50 who didn’t know Gary, Robbie, Mark, Jason and Howard. During the previous
year they had racked up five top 20 singles, culminating in the up-tempo cover
of ‘Could it Be Magic?’ at Christmas which peaked at three. The next single,
the dreary ‘Why Can’t I Wake Up With You’ made two but it was ‘Pray’ which signalled their arrival as true pop stars.
It was a brilliant song, nice vocals
by Gary, a beat you could tap your toes to, and another of those daft almost
homoerotic videos full of moody, topless poses and slo-mo shakes of the head in
water. Their days as purely gay icons were gone; suddenly every young female was
after the quintet. To my knowledge, Mr Barlow never bought a house in Norsey
Road but his songs were everywhere. Not only ‘Pray’, but also ‘Relight My Fire’
and ‘Babe’ went straight in at number one, making Take That the first act ever
to have such a hat-trick in the UK.
I don’t remember the term ‘boy band’
being applied to any previous group, but suddenly it was a popular label with
which TT were encumbered, prompting the launching of various copies such as
Louis Walsh’s Boyzone. However, Gary and the boys were not ready to relinquish
their crowns as pop princes.
I suppose the Osmonds and The Jackson
Five had been prototype pop boy bands, releasing a stream of mostly vocal hits.
They did actually play some instruments although it was obvious that, apart
from Gary on the piano, Take That were primarily eye candy, decent dancers
(apart from Gary, again) and proponents of passable vocal harmonies. Michael
Jackson’s career clearly hadn’t been harmed by his abandoning his brothers; he
was, after all, only the biggest star on the planet.
One reason for that was his
willingness to experiment and attract some top-notch collaborators from other
genres. One of my favourite Jacko singles from the Nineties was ‘Give In To Me’ which reached number two in March ’93. It was a true rock ballad, fuelled by
Slash’s guitar licks and solos. At the same time, Lenny Kravitz was doing the
same thing, swinging his dreads while knocking out some mean rock riffs on a
‘flying V’. That month, Iron Maiden also made it a temporary haven for
old-school metal. It didn’t last. However, the summer did deliver another slice
of meat-and-two-veg rock in the form of ‘Two Princes’ by
New York’s Spin Doctors. Angie hates it and it has been voted one of the worst
songs ever. Not in my book. Its simplicity, basic structure without the
excesses of contemporary icons Kiss and Aerosmith, makes this track one of my
not-so-guilty pleasures.
Two British superstars who had long
since left the bands which made their respective fortunes were earning rave
reviews with new albums. Sting brought out ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales’, including
some sumptuous singles. I remember one of my work colleagues, with whom I
tended to associate more muscular music, going into raptures over the bucolic
charms of ‘Fields of Gold’,
and quite rightly so. It’s one of those songs whose layers of echoing synth
chords and delicious vocals beg you to stop what you’re doing and listen and
lose yourself in the music. ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ was another great
record, yet neither pierced the UK top ten, which is quite baffling.
The solo career of another post-punk New Waver, Paul Weller, really
gathered momentum with 'Wild Wood'. I
recall being delighted on first hearing the title track, yet it spent a mere
three weeks on the chart. Another mystery. Maybe it was deliberately deleted by
the artist or his record company, but it deserved a longer shelf life.
Duran Duran had taken a few
sabbaticals but sensibly Simon le Bon never attempted to go it alone. In
January, their beautiful ‘Ordinary World’,
from their ‘Wedding album’, crept up to six and proved to the world they
weren’t to be consigned to the bargain bins of New Romanticism. Lovely lyrics,
written and delivered with mature restraint by a 34 year-old Simon Le Bon,
combine with an elegant verse and stirring chorus, topped off by a memorable
descending guitar riff. This is probably their last great single but it’s
life-affirming that Duran Duran still tour and make new music, free of the
nostalgia circuit. Long may they do so!
1993 was the year when I finally
realised that, to grow up properly, I really needed to escape the bosom of the
family home. I had always got on extremely well with Mum and Dad, which made
the whole palaver of searching for my own place less urgent. However, my days
in Rotaract (nominally for 18-29s) were clearly numbered and the prospect of
finding my own way was not as frightening as it had once been. I had sufficient
savings for a deposit, so finance wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t looking to move too
far, and so we perused together some local properties. I came close to securing
a 2-bed flat but it wasn’t until the next year when I finally moved into 30
Radford Court for the princely sum of £52,000!
All of this coincided with the success
of M People’s Elegant Slumming album, including the intoxicating ‘Moving On Up’.
Obviously it wasn’t written with my house-hunting in mind. It was more a
feminist anthem giving an errant boyfriend the heave-ho, and with Heather
Small’s deep, rich voice, no boyfriend would dare challenge the decision. I’m
pretty sure I didn’t associate my own life and the song title at the time; only
in retrospect does the title neatly encapsulate my thinking. Anyway, Heather
Small’s distinctive towering hairstyle was everywhere that year and M People
were deservedly hoovering up all sorts of awards.
It was also a year that brought two
other very different artists to my attention for the first time. Radiohead
seemed quite ‘normal’ back then, and their re-released debut single ‘Creep’ struck a chord with me. Not the weird lyrics about some form of obsession, but
the semi-grungey music. That grumbling bass intro, the mysterious chord
progression and ugly double guitar slashes were like nothing I’d heard before,
not even from Nirvana. This was before Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood et al became
rock legends with a disturbingly obsessive, possessive fanbase. Their massively
popular Nineties albums did yield the occasional commercial single I liked,
such as ‘Fade Out’, but I have never ‘got’ Radiohead, and in my mid-fifties, surely
never will.
Of course, they have a right to exist.
In fact the rock world would be a poorer place without them. I’ve long felt the
same about Bjork. The diminutive ex-Sugarcubes singer has been pigeonholed in
the ‘difficult’ box, labelled as perennially weird and an enemy of the media.
She may have had her run-ins with intrusive photographers; quite frankly,
considering it natural behaviour for a mum protecting her child, I don’t blame
her. As for Bjork’s music, my relationship with her has followed similar lines
to that with Radiohead. However, in 1993 she released three astonishingly
contrasting singles. ‘Play Dead’, made with David Arnold, was a movie song but
not for James Bond. They surely missed a trick there. ‘Big Time Sensuality’ was
a shimmering electronic oddity, showcasing Bjork’s endearingly unique vocal
style, full of squawks and childish dancing. However, it was seeing her perform
‘Venus as a Boy’ on telly, not TOTP, that I recognised her exquisite talent.
It wasn’t a big hit, but the vulnerability
and gentle emotion in her voice grabbed me by the gut in a way the Icelander
has never achieved since. With her pretty, elfinlike appearance, she came
across not so much a pop star but as a fairytale character; not as distant as
Enya, less precisely rehearsed than Kate Bush. Bjork was half-tomboy, half
pixie. She possessed the innocent moon face of a tweenie, yet the mature
musical mind of a 27 year-old woman. The song itself has hints of jazz and
touches of Indian percussion yet at heart it’s a simple pop ballad. Her
Glastonbury performance sums up everything which seemed so wondrous, yet simultaneously slightly
irritating about her.
Michael Stipe was another mild
eccentric who by ’93 was helping REM to global superstardom. After hearing the
rocking ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite’, baffling ‘Man on the Moon’, bewitching
‘Everybody Hurts’ and the beautiful nostalgic drum-free ‘Nightswimming’, I was
moved to buy their new album ‘Automatic for the People’, the year’s second
biggest-seller. Even the failed single ‘Find the River’, which closed side two
(yes, they still had 12” LPs) was glorious. For all the ingenious string and
woodwind arrangements, and Mike Mills’ piano, on ‘Nightswimming’, it was the
lullaby-like ‘Everybody Hurts’ which most represents REM that year.
I found it hard to like Stipe’s twang, but I could at least
appreciate his phrasing of his own lyrics. The band was impressively talented,
too, swapping instruments while the front man did his usual angsty thing at the
mic. Like most great acts, they passed me by in the live sense. However, I
always enjoyed watching them performing live on TV, if only to spot the
fleeting moments when Michael Stipe’s face cracked into a smile!
New Order had been quiet for three
years, so it was a welcome treat to see the video for their new single ‘Regret’ on
TOTP. Well, the ‘Baywatch’ aspect was largely lost on me – and the band don’t
exactly look comfortable on a Californian beach either - but the rockier sound
met with my approval. Their ‘Best Of…’ compilation came out the following
Christmas and I think I bought the cassette not long after. I think they are
dreadfully under-rated. They have done dance, electronica, pop-rock, and often
in the same song! From sustaining the Eighties Hacienda scene to appearing at
the 1993 Reading Festival, the rockers’ mecca, they were always a cool band.
Still are.
2Unlimited certainly weren’t cool but
‘No Limit’ proved to be their biggest UK hit. The contemporary joke was that, once the
minute-long techno intro finally gave way to Anita’s vocals, she sang “No, no, no-no-no-no, no-no-no-no, no-no
there’s no lyrics”. Of course, dance anthems don’t exactly demand deep and
meaningful words, and the Dutch duo enjoyed a string of successful singles
using the same winning formula.
There was more of the same from
Capella’s ‘U Got to Let the Music’, Culture Beat’s ‘Mr Vain’ and one of the
great Nineties tracks from any genre, Haddaway’s ‘What is Love?’.
The Germany-based Trinidadian gave us this majestic debut, a searing dance beat
with a melody worthy of listening to without your dancing shoes on. DJ Jazzy
Jeff and the pre-Will Smith Fresh Prince hip-hopped their way to number one
with ‘Boom Shake Shake the Room’.
One of the rare rap tracks I quite liked, thanks to Will’s tongue-in-cheek
delivery, it was a million miles from the new breed of gangsta rappers like
Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac and Public Enemy who were beginning to infiltrate the
UK singles chart.
For some reason, 1993 became one of
the biggest years ever for reggae and its modern offshoot, ragga. In one March
week, the top three consisted of Shaggy’s “catchy”
‘O Carolina’, Canadian white boy Snow’s ‘Informer’ (“repetitive crap”) and Shabba Ranks’ “sexist ego trip”, ‘Mr Loverman’. Note the italicised quotes from my
diary on 26th March.
Two months later, it was a top three
consisting entirely of more traditional reggae. Only Inner Circle were
Jamaican, and ‘Sweat (la-la-Long)’ bounced its merry way to number three,
justifying my description as “a jolly
little holiday song”. Swedish band Ace of Base went further with their ‘All That She Wants’. The Berggren sisters could sing live, too, as they did on TOTP
here.
The blonde-brunette combo had a slight touch of the Abbas about them, and
indeed their 30 million global sales put them third behind the fab foursome and
Roxette in Swedish pop annals. ‘The Sign’ was another number one the following
year and, to my surprise, it even became America’s biggest-seller of 1994.
Of course, any period of reggae
dominance must include our own UB40. On their way to the top that week in May,
their inevitable contribution was another cover version, this time of ‘I Can’t
Help Falling in Love’. Shuffling along in the same predictable groove as ‘Red,
Red Wine’, it had similar huge success without really floating my boat. It was
at least better than the “erotic” Sharon Stone thriller Sliver from which the
track emerged. However, when it came to enervating Caribbean rhythms, the year
belonged to Chaka Demus and Pliers.
The Jamaican DJ and singer combined to
entertaining effect, making the top three with three consecutive singles. At
first, I didn’t appreciate ‘Tease Me’, but it grew on me. ‘She Don’t Let
Nobody’ was a slower number but probably my favourite was their ragga take on
‘Twist and Shout’. It
never stood a chance of being the Christmas number one, but did top the chart
once the decorations came down. I’ll even go as far as saying this version
surpasses that of Brian Poole or The Beatles three decades earlier. It’s not
exactly the same structure, of course, but through the patois you can just
about detect the familiar guitar riff.
Apart from Take That, what kept Chaka
Demus and Pliers at bay for a few weeks was an act which sends shivers down the
spine to this day. The ‘performer’ must be the tallest ever to make number one
and probably the pinkest. Mr Blobby was simply unstoppable that Christmas! The
spin-off from BBC1’s Saturday evening show Noel’s House Party was the first,
and surely the worst, in a sequence of home-grown children’s TV characters to
achieve Christmas success. Give me Bob the Builder any day! At least the
proceeds helped supplement the Beeb’s income and kept me in a job!
From Mr Blobby to Meatloaf isn’t as
vast a chasm as you might think. And I’m not talking merely of the physical
similarities, uncanny as they are. No, size is unimportant; I simply hate them
both.
I cannot fathom why normally sane
friends dissolve into raptures on hearing the first chords of ‘Bat Out of
Hell’, a track so long I’m convinced whole civilisations have grown and
collapsed before the final bursts of motor bike engine. The news that Meatloaf
and Jim Steinman were working on a sequel to the original Seventies album
filled me with dread. Unsurprisingly Bat Out of Hell 2 conquered all in 1993.
But worst of all was the lead single, ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I
Won’t Do That)’. Seven weeks at the top felt like seven years, it was a typical
“interminable epic”. I won’t give it
the extra exposure of a YouTube link but I can’t deny it formed part of my
musical backdrop that autumn.
Changing the subject rapidly…. Ah, I
refer to a band which has become possibly my favourite of all time. Yes, I know
I have raved about Abba, Madness or even The Beatles, but they are predictable
choices. I can claim only a quantum share of such musical megastars. However, I
feel this band is more – well – mine: Saint Etienne.
They’ve had only one top ten hit, but
umpteen which briefly illuminated the top thirty. In 1993, I first became
enamoured of their wistful, Sixties-influenced covers and original music, when ‘You’re
in a Bad Way’ and the joyous ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ adorned the stage of TOTP. Sarah Cracknell’s fresh and light
vocals proved such a perfect fit with the rhythms of Pete Wiggs and Bob
Stanley, and I must confess I found her easy on the eye, too. My relationship
with Saint (never St.) Etienne intensified two years later when they released a
singles compilation Too Young to Die.
They may have taken their name from
the French football club but Saint Etienne are very much part of the fabric of
London. Most of their material from the mid-Nineties have been love songs to
hidden corners of the capital and its people. Bob and Pete are also well into
capturing the city on film, while Bob has written some well-received books and
articles about the history of pop. His byline in The Guardian is always a
welcome sight.
Imagine my delight, too, when I caught
a short ad in Metro for remaining tickets to the band’s 2003 Christmas concert
at the London Palladium. Who cared if I had nobody to go with; this was an
opportunity not to be missed. It also turned out to be an unforgettable
evening’s trawl through all their singles complete with guest stars like
Etienne Daho and Edwyn Collins. Sarah self-consciously performed - complete
with small baby bump! – front of stage, while black-clad Bob and Pete twiddled
knobs behind banks of synthesisers. Thank you, Saint Etienne, for your enduring
talent, and also staying below the celebrity radar and allowing me to feel that
little bit closer to you.
Another London band was garnering rave
reviews amongst the more mainstream media. Suede hadn’t really done much
chart-wise but Melody Maker’s 1992 description of them as ‘the best new band on
Britain’ helped convince the BPI and BBC to open the prestigious 1993 Brit
Award broadcast with ‘Animal Nitrate’.
I’m not sure they merited the introductory epithet of ‘already legendary’ but their performance of the song certainly made an impression on me.
The single was propelled to seven in
the chart and Suede blasted off into the forefront of a whole new UK-born
musical genre. Brett Anderson’s love of removing his shirt did nothing for me,
and neither did his exaggerated vocal Cockneyisms, but I’d never before heard
guitar work like Bernard Butler’s. If I had been remotely musical, I’m sure he
would have inspired me to take up the instrument myself. Instead I contented
myself with listening to his instinctive ear for accompanying melodies, riffs
and licks on several chart hits. Maybe The Stone Roses and other indie bands
had done something similar before, but for me this was a whole new sound. The
shy Butler left Suede the following year but the band became a cornerstone, and
maybe a catalyst, for a host of new bands which exploded from the underworld in
1994. Shining singles like ‘Trash’ and ‘Wild Ones’ were still to come but,
while the term had yet to be coined, Britpop was upon us.
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