1996 - Step outside, summertime's in bloom

I reckon 1996 was one of the better years, personal and musically. Of course there were the usual highs and lows, disappointments and moments of euphoria but memories have been kind to the year in which I turned 35. However, for many teenage (and older!) girls, the walls of the world caved in on 12^th February 1996. Official helplines were set up. Samaritans volunteers must have worked their socks off. Yes, Take That announced their split. Four weeks later, their final single – an insipid cover of The Bee Gees’ ‘How Deep is Your Love?’ made its predictable entry at number one. The UK sat back and prepared to be wowed by Gary Barlow’s barnstorming solo career. To my surprise, the UK was to be sorely disappointed.  

Mark Owen actually won the race to release the first post TT album, but his opening single ‘Child’ in November was even worse than Barlow’s ballad 'Forever Love'. Back in the summer, his old mucker Robbie Williams zoomed in with a faithful copy of George Michael’s ‘Freedom’. Competent enough, but it sounded too similar to George’s original. So was this the new Robbie? While pratting about trying to be the Gallagher brothers’ new best friend – to their obvious irritation – doing as many drugs as he dared to ingratiate himself with Noel, would he attempt to carve a niche as a boring covers singer? Well, that’s how it looked at the time.

George Michael himself bounced back into the limelight after a five-year hiatus resulting from a lawsuit against his label Sony. The mournful ‘Jesus to a Child’ and upbeat ‘Fastlove’ each made number one and displayed the vocals and production quality to which both Gary and Robbie must have aspired and, in 1996, failed to do. I was no fan of George’s ‘mature’ music but had to admit that the man could sing.

Boyzone also capped a successful twelve months by taking another old Bee Gees song to number one. ‘Words’ was a decent effort, but the Irish quintet was such a feeble covers act compared with Take That. Despite Ronan Keating’s distinctive vocals, I found their impressive chart run inexplicable.

Talking of inexplicable, one of the most shocking news events of the year was the massacre on 13^th March by Thomas Hamilton of sixteen schoolchildren and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland. Once the nation stopped grieving, the Government took responsibility and cracked down on handgun ownership. I’m not sure it actually reduced firearms offences but at least it sent out the right signals. Another outcome was a Christmas charity fundraising number one but also, indirectly, the success of a masterful chillout dance track by Robert Miles.

I read at the time that, frustrated by a lack of appropriate tracks with which to wind down his club sets, the Italian DJ produced his own: ‘Children’. This video made an atmospheric accompaniment to the soothing synths and the record sold 600,000 over here, plus millions more around the world. Who knew that a dance instrumental could pack such an emotional punch?

I also enjoyed Livin’ Joy’s ‘Don’t Stop Moving’ and Gina G’s ‘Ooh Ah…Just a Little Bit’. The latter’s success was no surprise, unlike its choice to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. An unashamed pop dance track, it finished a creditable eighth place in Oslo. How we would welcome such a lofty position nowadays. At the time of writing, it remains the last UK Eurovision to top our charts, and unless there’s some seismic shift in Europolitics, I’m confident that won’t change in my lifetime.

However, when it comes to instantly recognisable Nineties dance intros, few can match the impact of The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’. I’d written them off as a rave act whose music meant absolutely nothing to anyone not off their face on Ecstasy. My opinion was swiftly swayed as soon as I heard that opening synth blast and watched that underground tunnel-set video with the spine-chillingly scary Keith Flint spitting out the lyrics. Grown-ups fainted in horror at Keith’s appearance but I was relieved to be sufficiently immature to relish the promo and the track itself. Bigbeat meets punk (‘Pigbeat’? ‘Bunk’?!). Whatever genre it’s allocated to, I loved it and still do.

As an aside, my sister Catherine got to know Keith as a regular customer when she worked at Chelmsford’s DVLA office. And very polite he was, too, apparently, although he kept his intimidating head under cover in the office! Good to know that, for all the band’s success over more than two decades, he remains true to his Essex roots. ‘Breathe’ also went to the top in the autumn, and the Braintree boys paved the way for another British bigbeat dance act, The Chemical Brothers, to have a number one. Admittedly, recruiting Noel Gallagher to provide vocals on ‘Setting Sun’ probably helped.

At the lighter end of the spectrum, it was a good year for wry, witty British pop. The Beautiful South had for some time shown the way for the genre, but ’96 featured what is my favourite TBS single, ‘Rotterdam’. Paul Heaton seemed to be taking a worrying Country turn, but this one just about stays on the right side of the divide. The acoustic guitar, complemented by accordion, blends beautifully with Jacqui Abbott’s voice. What’s more, it has such a happy vibe!

I’d never previously heard of The Divine Comedy, beyond some vague association with Dante. However, Neil Hannon’s band burst into my consciousness in July with ‘Something For The Weekend’. I don’t know why, but his melodies remind me of old TV or cinema ads but the lyrics sit up and beg to be heard over and over again. My old BBC colleague Russell once burned a Divine Comedy CD for me, but I confess I simply didn’t ‘get it’. However, I could listen to ‘Something….’ on a continuous loop. It starts out like a sleazy Leslie Phillips comedy before turning into a whimsical mystery. I think the whole is a modern fable warning dirty old men about taking girls into a woodshed. Great stuff!

Another band new to me was Space. Not the ‘Magic Fly’ French electro-disco outfit from 1977 but the bunch of Liverpool indie rockers. Lead singer Tommy Scott reminded me of the Buzzcocks front man Pete Shelley but his compositions were poles apart. ‘Female of the Species’ is perhaps best known, thanks to being used as the theme tune for ITV’s Cold Feet, but this was followed by the equally brilliant ‘Me and You Against the World’, ‘Neighbourhood’ and the following year’s ‘Dark Clouds’.

Combining nifty tunes and entertaining words is never easy to pull off successfully but Space were the mid-Nineties masters of the craft. What’s more, Scott broke the Britpop rules by actually appearing to enjoy himself on stage. No Gallagher-esque scowls; just cheeky grins or, in a V Festival performance I recall watching in 1998, Scott almost ‘corpsing’ with laughter in mid-verse. 

I can’t imagine Jas Mann doing that. When it comes to eye-catching debuts, few could beat his band Babylon Zoo. After part of their debut single, ‘Spaceman’ was used for another of those Levi’s ads, it generated huge advance sales and became the fastest selling single since ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ in 1964. I recall the first performance on TOTP and Jas Mann’s striking silver skirt ensemble became a talking point even in my office. The whole song was actually better than the advert extract had led us to expect and, with Mann’s otherworldly persona and the distorted guitars and backing vocals, ‘Spaceman’ sold a million inside five weeks. It wasn’t quite a one-hit wonder but they never graced the top ten again.

Kula Shaker may not have resembled alien astronauts but their fondness for Asian instruments, Eastern mysticism and Sanskrit lyrics marked them out from the rest of the Britpop crowd. Main man Crispin Mills, one of the thespian dynasty, was often written off as a pretentious prat, perhaps with some justification. Nevertheless, ‘Tattva’ was an interesting record, going to four in July, and superior to the more Western, Sixties-ish rocker ‘Hey Dude’, which went two places higher. 

Jamiroquai sounded like a Stevie Wonder tribute act but couldn’t have looked more different. Jay Kay’s penchant for wacky Native American headgear (as in the ‘Iroquai’ bit, although mis-spelt) got him noticed, and ‘Virtual Insanity’ was agreeably funky. However, my appreciation of pop stars usually ranks in indirect proportion to their egos, and in those years the Cat in the Hat’s ego was one of the most monstrous in music.  

The Lighthouse Family were the new darlings of Easy Listening. Renewed airplay led to a re-release of ‘Lifted’ and suddenly they were on every show going. The ‘Ocean Drive’ album had actually been deleted. A year later it had sold well over a million. A bit too Easy listening for me, and I’m no fan of Tunde Baiyewu’s voice, but the gently flowing verse and rising chorus always leaves me – well, uplifted! It does stray into dangerous Gospel territory towards the end but I’ll forgive them.  

The Britpop guitar bands were still going strong, with Shed Seven’s ‘Going For Gold’ and Mansun’s ‘Wide Open Space’ adding to my engagement with the genre. The latter band, from Chester, was hotly tipped to be the Next Big Thing. Wrong! Great debut, though, the epic sound living up to the title. John Power’s band Cast were always reliable hitmakers, and ‘Sandstorm’ in January was probably their best.

The Manic Street Preachers were never really part of the Britpop scene. In fact, prior to 1996 I knew very little about them, other than the mysterious disappearance of their troubled guitarist and co-songwriter Richey Edwards. Suddenly, emerging from the ether at the end of April, came a new single ‘Design For Life’ and I had a new modern favourite. It made a huge impression on me. If I thought ‘Wide Open Space’ was epic, then ‘Design….’ transported epic to a whole new dimension. It had a stirring continuous riff, anthemic chorus and lyrics about working class struggles (“Libraries gave us power”). What could I not like about it? The Everything Must Go album also gave us another solid rocker in ‘Kevin Carter’ and seeing them on TV at Glastonbury made me resolve to see them live. I’m still resolving…. 

Of course, they wear their Welshness very prominently on their sleeves. The red dragon breathes fire from their stage, and of course it was the Manics who wrote and recorded the Euro 2016 song for the Wales football squad. Loving the Manics has certainly helped me integrate with the locals since moving to Wales; it’s practically the law. However, I wish they’d do one big gig in Cardiff so I can get tickets before they are snapped up. I had a chance in 2016 but I was too old and set in my ways to make the trip to Swansea. Some fan I am.

It was a memorable summer. My attempts at meeting someone special via Dateline finally brought me to the hands of Jane in Ealing but sadly no further, and the first fickle flames of a relationship were quickly extinguished by the lady in question before we could celebrate my birthday. I did make a few lasting friends. In particular, Polish Margaret (and husband Minas) still swap Christmas cards with me and she motivated me to take a coach holiday to Zakopane in September. It was also a notable summer for sport, and a few songs are forever associated with the big events.

The big holiday hit in Europe was a remix of Los Del Rio’s ‘Macarena’. It made number two here but was absolutely massive in the States. I tend to associate the song with the Atlanta Olympics in August. It seemed obligatory for participants and the American spectators to perform the awkward little dance. For me, it did at least distract from the fact that the Games were the worst in living memory, not just for the British team’s paucity of medals but for the whole crass commercialism and US propaganda preached by the domestic TV coverage. Thank God for the BBC!

Slightly more parochial than the Olympic fortnight are the European Football championships, now abbreviated handily to ‘The Euros’. In ’96, England were the hosts, sparking a wave of football mania throughout June and beyond. Simply Red had the official England song, but nobody remembers it now, and even fewer bought it then. Keith Allen inevitably was involved in a left-field pub fan ditty ‘England’s Irie’ with Black Grape. However, the record which really captured the mood of the times was ‘Three Lions’ by Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds.

The two comedians had become well known for their Friday night show on BBC 2, Fantasy Football League, essential viewing for Dad and me. It was a live and irreverently funny half hour with amusing clips, light-hearted footie chat with guests, dressing-gowned Statto, local park or back garden re-creations of famous football incidents, and all usually ending with a dreadfully tuneless song performed by Jeff Astle. The Euros were made for them. Football was coming home…. With Ian Broudie’s music and lyrics by David and Frank, ‘Three Lions’ turned the traditional tale of England’s perennial tournament failures into a realisation that the heroics of 1966 “could be again”. It’s a fantastic record. I still get goosebumps listening to it now, and I don’t even support England. It sold well over half a million, reaching number one twice, split by the four weeks in which The Fugees’ million-selling hip-hop ‘Killing Me Softly’ cover held sway.

Sadly for the home fans, England bowed out in a semi-final penalty shoot-out against the Germans (who else?). A nation mourned. Maybe the record was simply too good to be wasted on England. According to the striker Jurgen Klinsmann, the German team were also singing it on the way to Wembley and it reached their own top 20.

A World Cup update also topped the UK chart two years later but England’s ‘years of hurt’ have now expanded to fifty years and counting. The words are due a re-boot. After all, I remember:-

                        That Beckham red card

                        Rooney stamping too hard

                        Seaman grasping thin air

And Iceland’s war chant….

Never mind. For a few glorious weeks, England was united in a unique mood of unfamiliar optimism. Of course, Terry Venables’ side weren’t actually going to win the trophy but it was fun to see and hear 90,000 stadium spectators singing a humble pop song, encapsulating ‘lad-dom’, Britpop and the renewed appetite for the sport, for just under four minutes.

Yet even Euro 96 doesn’t quite hit the highest notes. Probably the most anticipated and celebrated concerts of the decade were the two headlined by Oasis at Knebworth on 10^th and 11^th August. At the end of February, Oasis soared to the top with ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, the epitome not only of Britpop but of the whole ‘Cool Britannia’ era. When Noel sang it at their April gigs at Manchester City’s Maine Road ground, it really couldn’t have got any better for the band.

It bore such a perfect message that, although having been released only a few weeks earlier, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ was played in full to conclude the iconic BBC2 drama series ‘Our Friend in the North’. For some, it was a brilliant chronicle of Northern working class aspirations, success and failure (a bit like England FC), for others it was the series which made the name of Daniel Craig, in a most un-Bond- like character! For me, that musical climax was probably the most moving five minutes of non-sporting television I have ever experienced.

I also recall the TOTP finale in the week the single went to number one. Not only did they feature ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ but then Liam swaggered across from the piano (bet he didn’t play it!) to mime the B side. It turned out to be a belligerently unsubtle cover of Slade’s ‘Cum On Feel the Noize’. Oasis  definitely blotted their copy book that evening. It got me wondering what Noddy et al would have done with ‘Morning Glory’, etc. Rather well, I reckon!

Fast forward to August, and I tuned in to Radio 1’s live transmission of the Sunday night Knebworth concert. Typically, two people rang me that evening, interrupting my listening of the ‘Gig of the Decade’ (honestly, it was thus described at the time) and depriving me of an opportunity to say I was (virtually) there throughout. At least I did get to hear Oasis at their primal live best on tracks such as the opener ‘Columbia’, ‘Champagne Supernova’ and the peerless ‘Live Forever’. Sorted! Mad fer it! Summertime was, most definitely, in bloom.

It’s easy to visualise 1996 as a year when lads ruled the airwaves. From the Gallaghers to Prodigy, Paul Weller to Peter Andre, Jez Mann to Mark Morrison, men would appear to have a chart stranglehold. Not true. 

For starters, the biggest selling album came courtesy of the previously unheard of Alanis Morissette. There were no massive hits on Jagged Little Pill, just several excellent tracks delivered in unique style by the young Canadian. She sounded scary and even a little potty-mouthed as the woman scorned in ‘You Oughtta Know’, crazily kooky on ‘Head Over Feet’ and close to the edge in ‘One Hand in My Pocket’. Yet it’s her engagingly misunderstood take on irony which has probably been her most enduring song. Probably too many ‘aye-ee-aye-ee-aye’s but Alanis neatly channelled her inner Joni Mitchell into the live rock arena, as in this Hyde Park performance of 'Ironic'. 

She paved the way for any number of similar artists, from Meredith Brooks to Avril Lavigne, but it was a shame that her follow-up album failed to live up to the sky-high expectations of JLP, and Morissette moved naturally into acting. Country star Sheryl Crow also dipped her toes into rock with surprisingly superb results. There’s a nod to her roots with the squealing pedal steel bit but it could almost be the Oasis rhythm section behind the brilliant ‘If It Makes You Happy’. 

There’s obvious sonic references to Alanis on Alisha’s Attic’s ‘I Am I Feel’. From their mid-Atlantic accents I certainly thought the duo were more Americans but they were in fact from East London sisters, daughters of The Tremeloes founder Brian Poole. Dubstar were from Newcastle with a tendency to dreamy trance music. Fronted by Sarah Blackwood, I preferred ‘Not So Manic Now’, which managed to sound so blissfully uplifting while telling a sad story about a young woman attacked in her tower block flat. The lines 

“I was making myself the usual cup of tea
When the doorbell strangely rang” 

demanded I listened to the rest. Who was at the door? What would happen? It’s a song which deserves more recognition than its number fifteen placing indicated. 

Also rooted in social realism were the perfect pop-dance band Saint Etienne. As mentioned before, I became a fan in 1994 but the 1996 greatest hits collection Too Young to Die introduced me to some of their earlier electro-dance material like ‘Only Love can Break Your Heart’ and long-form ballads like ‘Avenue’ and ‘Hobart Paving’ (the flip side of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’). It is probably the CD I’ve replayed more than any other. The videos also transport me back to a London in transition, a capital I recognise from my Tube trips to unsuccessful dates. 

Firmly in Britpop territory were Echobelly, Garbage and Lush. In ’96, Sonia Madan had a penchant for difficult subjects, and for once her lyrics were perfect for a gloomy yet compelling song like ‘Dark Therapy’ yet it failed to crack the top 20. I particularly love those multi-tracked vocal harmonies in the chorus. Like Madan, Miki Berenyi was of Asian descent, and her band Lush delivered ‘Single Girl’, a delicious three-and-a-bit minute thrash, a staple of any self-respecting anthology of Nineties girl bands.

Garbage, on the other hand, were an American outfit fronted by Scot Shirley Manson. ‘Stupid Girl’ was their biggest and best single. It starts out as a fairly conventional rock song with a guitar riff, thudding bassline and sylphlike synth chords. Then in come Manson’s vocals and weird and wonderful ticks and punky parts, and it takes on a life of its own.

However, when it came to females in bands, the rule book was ripped up and scattered in space in July 1996. Bereft of pop celebrity material after the demise of Take That, the mags were keen to grab a piece of an energetically promoted English quintet of girls, whose first video was proving to be a satellite TV hit. Top of the Pops magazine interviewed them, and dubbed them Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh. The epithets stuck, as did their music. They were The Spice Girls, and suddenly everyone was singing ‘Wannabe’. The video was an ideal way of introducing the world to the sassy personalities of Mel B, Mel C, Emma, Geri and Victoria, and the record became a global success, number one in 37 nations, no less!

Apart from Victoria, The Spice Girls could all sing well and weren’t merely Simon Fuller’s puppets. They weren’t just surgically-enhanced dolly-bird models; they looked like real young women, apparently good mates who lived and worked for each other. I think that was their USP, and the reason for their enormous success in the UK and elsewhere. Kids could identify with them. Another factor was the quality of their effortless pop music. ‘Wannabe’ was contemporary, ‘Say You’ll Be There’ had a splash of Seventies R’n’B, while the Christmas/New Year million-seller ‘2 Become 1’ was a timeless ballad. A new marketing phenomenon was upon us. Girl Power had arrived!