2008-10 And I’m on my knees Looking for the Answer

My final forties years formed, in retrospect, a bittersweet period with a mix of hot-headed adventure and the icy chill of a relationship gone sour. The first half of 2008 was occupied by preparations for a move to Somerset and a new life with Jan. I dismissed the nagging doubts and chiming alarm bells as symptoms of my traditional inertia and preference for the safe option, and duly gambled on leaving my childhood haunts and family bosom in June. Up to the point of packing, whilst spending most weekends down at Stogursey, I remained at the agency AMS during the week. Many of my musical memories still stemmed from the hours spent at my desk trying not to listen to the radio being pumped out into the office.

Some I still associate with those times include the debut single from Adele, ‘Chasing Pavements’ I never saw the ‘car crash’ video but those heartfelt vocals and the old-style lush string arrangements emanating from the speakers struck a chord. The whole Adele phenomenon didn’t explode until her 21 album came out a few years later but this track offered a glimpse of what was to come.

It was early days for Onerepublic, too. Ryan Tedder has since become the go-to songwriter for all sorts of pop wannabes but back then he and his band were best known for ‘Apologise’, made into a hit by the ubiquitous Timbaland, typically lacing the original with trademark “Dep dep”s. However, on ‘Stop and Stare’, I found the opening continuous electric guitar sound, reminiscent of some kind of eerie wind whistle, quite hypnotic. Not sure whether the rest of the song lived up to the intro, but it was one of my highlights in a sea of dross.  

North Walean singer Duffy emerged early in 2008 when she released ‘Mercy’. Its Sixties Northern Soul feel and her Dusty Springfield-like appearance singled her out from the crowd, propelling the Rockferry album to sales exceeding 1.7 million by the year’s end. ‘Mercy’ topped the chart for four weeks but it was the follow-up ‘Warwick Avenue’ which floated my boat. A gorgeous ballad, and hats off to the reference to the Bakerloo Line station. Another poignant slowie from that Spring was James Blunt’s haunting ‘Carry Her Home’. It only reached number twenty but certainly one of his best, in my opinion.

Probably two of the most annoying records of any era sent me scurrying back to my geodemographic analysis and Powerpoint reports. Sam Sparro’s ‘Black and Gold’ was pretty awful but Nickelback’s hymn to the stoner lifestyle in ‘Rockstar’ seemed to linger in the top ten forever. And how Virgin Radio loved it! I didn’t. My line manager Ange got it spot on when describing the song as “the anti-rock”. Aargh!!

At least Nickelback were a rock band. In that respect they seemed to be one of a dying breed. Approaching my fiftieth birthday with horrific haste, I was struggling to make sense of the preponderance of urban music at the top of the charts. I was grappling with the problem of knowing my Tinchys from my Tinies from my Taios. Messrs Stryder, Tempah and Cruz seemed to top the chart at will, but I was still none the wiser. At least I was more confident of recognising Dizzee Rascal in an identity parade. I wasn't too fond of some of his spelling, though.  ‘Dirtee’? It’s spelt with a ‘y’, Mr Rascal, a ‘y’! Then there was his crossover hit with Calvin Harris, ‘Dance Wiv Me’. It’s ‘WITH’!! Perhaps he was a secret fan of Slade...

British females were doing pretty well, too. What’s more, I was liking a lot of what they were doing, even if listening to Florence Welch (and her Machine) felt like being blasted by a hurricane while tied to a wall. The ever-outspoken Lily Allen returned to the top with ‘The Fear’. Featuring pithy, sarcastic observations of trashy starlet fame, the track had a more trance-dance sound than Lily’s usual destruction of ex-boyfriends in reggae or Country and I recall seeing her perform it on the Jonathan Ross show. Her lyrics were a tad naughtier live, though.

You’d never hear any profanities in Pixie Lott’s material. Of course there’d be no swearing from the pretty teenager living in my home town of Brentwood. She was no mere attractive ditzy blonde; she had brains and voice to match. Her first chart-topper ‘Mama Do’  was my favourite. Little Boots (aka Victoria Hesketh) was a welcome arrival in the charts with ‘Remedy’ in 2009, although that proved to be her last Top 50 entry. In the same year, a more successful, and slightly more enduring synth pop act was La Roux. Fronted by the androgynous-looking Elly Jackson, they had two big hits which whisked me back to the heyday of electro-dance while still sounding current. The frenetic ‘Bulletproof’ was a number one but ‘In For the Kill’ was, and still is, the track which, once heard, is very hard to shift from the brain. The vocals are a bit shrill but the uncomplicated production is undoubtedly on the money.

From out of nowhere, in 2008 Sugababes sounded back to their best with ‘Denial’. A few years earlier, I reckon this would have been a number one, but the trio were no longer in the limelight and it barely limped into the top 20. Things got worse soon after when Keisha quit the band. As a result, none of the original threesome were left, but they carried on regardless. ‘Denial’ may not have been as blatantly commercial as ‘Push the Button’ or ‘About You Now’ but it was brash and bouncy and deserved greater success.

  

There were plenty of sassy female Yanks around, such as Pink, Kelis and even Kelly Clarkson. Yet it was Katy Perry who had millions of girls around the world dabbling in lesbianism – well, if you believed the Daily Mail! I didn’t really see the virtues of Perry. Her voice was nothing special and I doubt she would ever have become the star she is had she not kissed a girl and liked it.  Ranking even higher on the obnoxiousness scale were the various products of the twin American conveyor belts of commercial crap, the casts of High Street Musical and Glee. Principal guilty party was the latter TV show’s cover of a little-known Eighties flop ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. Add in a young Canadian brat called Justin Bieber and X Factor novelty duo Jedward, and the world of musical entertainment seemed to be wracked by an insidious virus.

Thank heavens for Lady Gaga!

My first experience of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was not a positive one. Her first appearance on the Jonathan Ross programme in 2009 was genuine ‘car-crash’ TV. She seemed totally unengaged and uncommunicative, gratifying fodder for the older generation keen to denigrate the talentless trash posing as modern pop stars. ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Poker Face’ went to number one and Brand Gaga was all-consuming. She was inextricably linked with outrageous costumes (remember the raw meat dress worn at the 2010 MTV Awards?!) and sexually-provocative lyrics which recalled Madonna in her heyday. Except we were now in the twenty-first century, so the celeb-obsessed media demanded notoriety to be ratcheted up to eleven. Gaga was no conventional beauty but she had – well – the X Factor.

Her second interview with Jonathan the following Spring was far more revealing. Behind the in-yer-face fashion it was patently obvious there was an intelligent woman, excellent voice, talented songwriter and musician. Had she been born twenty years later, Madonna simply wouldn’t have been able to compete. After she had steered her extravagant white peacock costume to the piano and began to play and sing ‘Brown Eyes’ live, it was a pivotal moment.

I had already appreciated the perfect pop of ‘Paparazzi’ (shown in its best light, like all Gaga’s music, live on stage), followed by the synth stomper ‘Bad Romance’ and the slower-tempo of ‘Alejandro’ (move over, La Isla Bonita) so here was a pop star I could recognise as the full package. I was compelled to make a rare foray into Taunton’s HMV (probably) to buy a new CD which wasn’t a compilation album: The Fame and the nine-track Fame Monster.

For all the ubiquity of Lady Gaga in 2009, she had fewer number ones than the three chalked up by The Black Eyes Peas. DJ-producer David Guetta added the Peas’ fifth album ‘The E.N.D.’ to his growing list of credits although the hits sounded like typical fare from Will, Fergie et al. I wasn’t fussed about the first chart-topper ‘Boom Boom Pow’ or the third, ‘Meet Me Halfway’ but ‘I Gotta Feeling’ screamed “instant classic” when released in August.

Gaga finished ahead of the Peas in both singles and albums lists, but not at the summit. That accolade went to a 48 year-old Scottish spinster with Asperger’s Syndrome by the name of Susan Boyle. The complete antithesis of Lady Gaga, she nevertheless grabbed more headlines in the second half of 2009 and 2010 than Gaga, Rihanna or Katy Perry combined. Like millions of others, even my jaw dropped when I heard her stunning voice filling the room with ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from Les Miserables.

She was the archetypal overnight sensation and a gift to internet searchers worldwide. Her massive publicity made her such a nailed-on favourite to win the BGT final in June that even I cast a vote – for dazzling dance troupe Diversity. To my astonishment, Ashley Banjo’s boys actually triumphed. Nevertheless Cowell knew he was on to a sure thing with Boyle, and she converted column inches and YouTube hits into enormous album sales worldwide. To my relief, she didn’t shift many singles but I had to grudgingly admit that her success demonstrated the adage that anyone can do it if you really try.

Bruno Mars didn’t need a peaktime TV talent show to make it big. The pint-sized Hawaiian was one of the top artists of 2010 and 2011, churning out umpteen hits singles either as a solo or ‘featured’ vocalist. He seemed to switch seamlessly from vanilla pop to reggae humour and R’n’B ballad, none of which really floated my boat. Take That’s rebirth received new impetus in the form of a new member; an old new member by the name of Robbie Williams. Fifteen years after quitting the boy band, Robbie Williams returned to the fold, albeit temporarily. 

But where were the REAL bands. You know, the acts with guitars and drums. Real instruments. They weren’t anywhere near the top of the UK singles charts, that’s for sure. Of course, there were a few exceptions.

Irish trio The Script weren’t exactly high-energy rockers but did produce a handful of decent ballads, led by ‘The Man Who Can’t be Moved’. This one grew on me, and ‘Break Even’ also met with my approval. I wouldn’t have recognised any of the personnel had singer-songwriter Danny O’Donoghue not been one of the judge/mentors on BBC1’s new talent series The Voice UK. 

But The Script were hardly genuine meat-and-two-veg rockers. Muse and Kasabian were winning awards, more for their stupendous stadium tours than their recordings. Nickelback I have already summarily dissed and dismissed. The biggest selling rock single of 2009 or 2010 was a re-release of a barrage of roaring riffs, a flurry of “fuck”s and not a lot else, entitled ‘Killing in the Name’. I hated the record but applauded its use as a vehicle for halting the run of bland X Factor Christmas number ones. In December 2009, the anti-Cowell campaign coalesced behind the Rage Against the Machine single and, incredibly, succeeded. The latest pretty boy winner, Joe McElderry, was thwarted at the critical time.  It was only a transient triumph but for one glorious week, real music lovers had raged against the X Factor machine and won!

Coldplay, of course, were more to my taste, and they didn’t disappoint with their 2008 single ‘Viva La Vida’. It sounded different from their previous singles, with prominent strings, bell and a thumping tympanum in place of traditional drums. Despite the melancholic lyrics describing a ruler’s fall from his lofty position of power, it’s a thrilling, uplifting four-minute production. Sally gave me the album for my birthday. Sally was blessed with a musical download collection more eclectic than any 15 year-old had any right to possess. From Marley to Florence, burly Yank rockers Bowling for Soup to ginger-dreadlocked Newton Faulkner, Vampire Weekend to Lordi, she took great pride in blazing trails for acts long before they struck stardom in the UK. Another of her favourites were Kings of Leon.

Prior to September 2009 I honestly could not have named a single song from their three-album canon, nor did I know they were in fact a genuine band of brothers by the Tennessee family name of Followill. However, when I first heard that growling, prowling intro I knew ’Sex On Fire’ was a surefire hit. I was also intrigued by the unorthodox placement of the drumbeat on the opening verse before normality was restored for the exhilarating chorus and subsequent stanzas. Apparently the original intention was to call the song Set Us on Fire but a technician’s quip led to the change and the rest is history. 

I would later discover that ‘Sex On Fire’ was a favourite of Angie, too. It’s virtually the law that I request it for her at any discos, the inevitable result being her shaking everything she’s got on the dancefloor. Never mind the knee replacement, hearing those guitar siren calls and Caleb’s soulful vocals never cease to unleash Angie’s inner rock-chick emotions! Hell, isn’t that why rock music was invented?

When it came to musicals in 2008 there was only one name on everyone’s lips. Well, two names, to be precise. It made lots of money, money, money for Abba, the winners who took it all: Mamma Mia! We enjoyed the touring stage production at the Hippodrome, Bristol, in January and hurried to the local independent Bridgwater cinema for the much-heralded movie in its first week on release in July. Abba have been a recurring feature of this memoir, and for good reason; their music has continued to bound back joyfully into British culture at frequent intervals to remind us of their incomparable back catalogue of pop perfection.

Given the lavish cast-of-hundreds Greek location treatment, it was a guaranteed success but nobody could have predicted it would become the UK’s biggest box office hit of all time. Based on the behaviour of those around me, I reckon the cinema receipts benefitted from repeat visits of middle-aged women and their daughters intoxicated by the beautiful setting, the winning performances of Meryl Streep, Julie Walters et al, the stunning set-pieces (for example, Dancing Queen and Voulez Vous) and the feelgood love story.

Mamma Mia would also provide popular raw material for one of the productions by the Quantock Musical Theatre Company (QMTC), of which I was a member for over three years during my time in Bridgwater. It had a surprisingly striking impact on my life, enticing out the latent performer inside me, instilling self-confidence and establishing an inner strength which would benefit me far beyond the evenings in front of an audience.

Until 2008 my experience of being in a choir was restricted to my brief spell at primary school, singing the likes of ‘Little Spanish Town’ or ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. That was all to change. Before I had taken the courageous but ill-fated decision to buy a Victorian house in the ‘nicest street in Bridgwater’ and become a full-time member of the Binstead family, I was already well acquainted with their involvement in the QMTC. 

It was run by Brian and Barbara Williams’, incomers from London who had become part of the fabric of Nether Stowey, a picturesque place at the foot of the Quantocks. Company rehearsals were held at the modern village hall.  The Williamses were massive fans of West End musicals, and had established the QMTC as a mean of directing their own productions of classics such as My Fair Lady and Oliver. For the latter, bolstering the membership created from friends of the family, a host of youngsters had been drafted in, giving the Company an impressive age range.

This blend of youth and maturity was also to serve the QMTC well in its secondary phase. The single-show format, toiling like stink for just a week’s performances a year, didn’t suit everyone. So it was, by the time I entered its lustrous circle, that the 30-odd members were instead spreading their range to encompass material from a host of sources, culminating in a Magic of the Musicals production. With no scenery or costumes to worry about, the QMTC could tour the village halls, appearing on Friday or Saturday evenings to entertain the local populace.

I saw no role for me in such an organisation. However, on my 47th birthday, Jan persuaded me to accompany the others. Believing I would have the chance to sit at the back and listen, I duly obliged. Jan probably smiled to herself. With the short, silver-bearded Brian running proceedings, nobody would be permitted to lurk in the shadows. She was right. I was swiftly set upon by  Brian and interrogated on my voice. Was I a tenor or bass? I hadn’t a bloody clue. I decided to sit with the men at the back. Easier to hide, I thought with cunning but naivete. It wasn’t long before Barbara sussed me out and shunted me forward to the tenors who comprised Scott, his close buddy Dom and Daniel, an entertaining trio who welcomed me into their wacky teenage world.

It was a steep learning curve. Although our first live shows weren’t scheduled until the new year, there was a lot to take in. For starters I could not then, nor can I now, read music. However, like many others around me, I found it possible to follow the staves, recalling long-forgotten teachings about crotchets and quavers, sharps and flats. Then there was the singing itself. As well as struggling with the notes, it became obvious my vocal muscles needed hours in the virtual gymnasium of each rehearsal. Never mind, as each week passed, my voice became more reliable, less likely to sound like Rod Stewart after a 48-hour bender.  

And so to 14^th February 2009: my debut performance! My diary records that despite a paltry audience in the tiny environs of Kilve - its parish one of the oldest in Somerset – we had a “good workout”. Four days later came an altogether different proposition: performing the same show on the sizeable stage of Minehead’s Regal Theatre. Unnerving but gloriously exhilarating! I considered my own voice to be “crap” but the audience seemed to leave happy. The performing bug was in me. Bloody hell, I could DO this….

Way back in my Rotaract days, I remembered going to see Les Miserables in London and departing feeling distinctly underwhelmed. A trip to a school production in Bridgwater Town Hall had me adjusting my opinion. Now I began to appreciate the power of the storyline as well as the music. Until then, ‘One Day More’ had been merely a nightmare of a song to learn: a complicated jigsaw of four-part harmonies, solo parts and chorus. When it worked, it sounded incredible. If someone came in too late: disaster! For three years, it was our show-stopping finale and I was a part of it.

I also immersed myself in the organisation itself, becoming its treasurer. We got through a few pianists in my time there, but most of them contributed different ideas designed to help us develop as individuals and, more importantly, a vocal unit.

For example, Peter threw in some random suggestions such as ‘Save the Best for Last’, ‘Eternal Flame’ and the a capella ‘Only You’. They weren’t strictly speaking songs from the musicals at all, but they undoubtedly developed our skills and repertoire. Peter’s promotion to head of music at Haygrove School left Paul as the custodian of the QMTC keyboard. He was more ‘old school’; a connoisseur of Latin and musical history, precise and a perfectionist, he also brought us on considerably. Even now, if I want to exercise my chords for presentations, interviews or even karaoke, I still practise his “Dah-meh-nee”s and “Ri-ta Chak-ra-va-ti”s to fine-tune my legato and staccato techniques.

The arrival of Shelagh in September 2011 proved a masterstroke. She gamely acquiesced in ceding the musical director’s role to Alice and with her at the piano the QMTC’s future seemed secure. In addition to works such as Oklahoma, West Side Story and Joseph…, there were also memorable performances of songs from Abba and The Beatles. I take particular pride in having my own suggestion of arrangement and audience participation in ‘Hey Jude’ accepted. I wasn’t just a weak tenor and part-time tambourine tapper, you know!

Our Christmas performances also became more important. Our sessions at the Hestercombe House Christmas Fayre and from the balcony of Bridgwater’s Angel Place shopping mall proved popular with players and public alike. However, for atmosphere and a genuine feeling of togetherness, nothing could compete with our mini-concerts on the grand staircase of Dunster Castle as part of the two-day annual Dunster by Candlelight event. I think even Angie enjoyed being in the audience for that one!

Come 2012, my relationship with Angie was blossoming and I was spending more time with her in Cardiff. With  attendance at rehearsals becoming more sporadic, I graciously bowed out in February. I confess I do miss the buzz of performing on stage. I may not be up there with the Michael Balls or Alfie Boes, nor even my fellow QMTC-ers, but my years with the Company gave me confidence and those years as a live performer remain with me for ever. 

1998/1999 - We've got stars directin' our fate And we're prayin' it's not too late

I’ve combined the final couple of years in the Nineties. It wasn’t simply that there were fewer songs appealing to my own appetite, although that was true.  Not only was the music scene in transition but so was my personal life. In February ’98, Kim moved from her grim Grimsby hellhole to a townhouse room in Cricklewood. Just over a year later, she moved in to my flat in Billericay.

My relationship with Kim introduced me to Thai culture. My first trip to Chiang Mai in February 1999 was a real eye-opener; in fact an astonishing feast for all the senses. Music played its part, too. The foyer of any decent hotel seemed to resonate with the beautiful sound of the khim. The player would sit cross-legged before the horizontal dulcimer-like instrument and tap the strings lightly with two spoon-shaped hammers. I could sit and let my mind drift for ages, lost in the Oriental exoticism of it all.

Back in Blighty,  we enjoyed the new Saturday Night Fever musical at the Palladium on my 37^th birthday, full of lively Seventies disco songs and dancing. It wasn’t merely a Bee Gees boogie wonderland. In fact the showstopper was a rumbustious rendition of ‘Disco Inferno’ performed by a character in a ‘Fro-tastic’ wig of prodigious proportions. However the star Andy Garcia’s soundtrack singles were strangely insipid. Clock maintained their impressive chart career of Seventies retro with covers of Michael Jackson and KC, while Bamboo’s number two hit ‘Bamboogie’ was a House mash-up based on a sample of KC’s ‘Get Down Tonight’. Play any Sunshine Band song and you shouldn’t really go wrong, but these updates did little for me.

Seventies nostalgia was given an almighty leg-up by the arrival on the London stage of Mamma Mia in April 1999. The previous December, Kim and I had been entertained by Bjorn Again’s affectionate tribute to the Swedes at  Shepherd Bush Empire, and now the real Bjorn-and-Benny co-production was about to take the world by storm. The first great ‘jukebox musical’ was my next birthday treat and it was hugely enjoyable. I remarked at the time that it was a winner for anyone who didn’t actually hate Abba. Stating the obvious, Mike!

The connection continued with the transition of Steps into what sounded like an Abba tribute group under the writing and production tutelage of the old ‘Hitman’, Pete Waterman. Credit where credit’s due, Pete, but this wasn’t his finest hour. The records still sold by the ton, though.

Britpop was pretty much dead and 1998-99 was the era of the Celts and Continentals. In particular, it felt like the whole world had turned green, wearing the shamrock and downing Guinness. Michael Flatley and his twinkle-toed troupers were tip-tapping on stages round the world and Irish bands were ubiquitous. This was partly created by James Horner’s soundtrack to the all-conquering Titanic movie. I detested Celine Dion’s million-selling ‘My Heart Will Go On’ with a passion and, when Leonardo di Caprio drifted off to die in the frozen Atlantic waters, I actually had to suppress a cheer. 

Boyzone racked up another four number one singles including one which actually still gets played. Their recording of ‘No Matter What’, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Whistle Down the Wind became easily their most popular single. That’s not to say that I liked it, of course. In fact, when I first heard it I wondered who the female lead was on the first verse. I felt rather sheepish on discovering the soft tenor voice in fact belonged to Stephen Gately. Oops! Ronan Keating had his own solo hit, then Boyzone’s stools were borrowed by Westlife, who had four number ones of their own, all in 1999. Aarrghhh!  

Amidst all this millennial MoR melancholy, another Irish band slipped onto the scene, with a slightly different take on the Boghran-Tin whistle-and-fiddle folk-pop crossover for which the public’s appetite was so notably flourishing. Apart from success at home, The Corrs had been languishing in the second division, supporting Celine Dion amongst others. However, when they re-released their album Talk On Corners, the UK was ready for a new family group, and promotion to pop’s Premier League was assured.

It helped that the three sisters were - let’s be frank! - easy on the eye as well as on the ear. Sorry, Jim. I know you played your part, but who was watching you on the guitar? Their hit singles flowed like a County Louth stream, all of them tripping beautifully from the radio. What male heart could not melt watching and listening to Andrea Corr dreamily performing ‘What Do I Do?’ or ‘Runaway’? She took flicking and flirting bedroom eyes to a new level, and the Irish lilt to her voice also contributed to The Corrs’ huge success.

Ireland could even boast a new girl group to rival The Spice Girls in 1998. B*witched (the asterisk was essential) burst onto the scene with the throwaway but infectious ‘C’est la Vie’, complete with the obligatory Riverdance sequence. B*witched also recorded the inevitable dreamy ballad a la ‘2 Become 1’. My diary placed ‘To You I Belong’ as one of my favourites of 1998 but, before Googling it just now, it was just another long-forgotten girl group footnote. Other, similarly unmemorable chart-toppers followed, and three years later they were dropped by their label and split up. Such is pop. 

The Irish didn’t quite have everything their own way; this was a great period for the Welsh, too. The Manics were secure in the upper echelons of UK rock royalty, and their singles success continued effortlessly with another Spanish Civil War anthem ‘If You TolerateThis Then Your Children Will Be Next’ (performed here at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff) and ‘You Stole the Sun from My Heart’. In my eyes they could just do no wrong. 

New kids from the valleys, The Stereophonics, also stepped up a gear. I’d first heard of them when Kelly Jones performed a solo rendition as a busker of ‘As Long as we Beat the English’, for a BBC Wales rugby promo. I quite liked his husky vocals and sense of humour. While they had already enjoyed some hits, it wasn’t until the ballad ‘Just Looking’ that I began to appreciate their music. As with so many acts, subsequent purchase of their greatest hits CD introduced me in later life to other brilliant tracks like ‘Pick a Part That’ New’ and ‘More Life in a Tramp’s Vest’.

So far, so macho. Enter Cerys Matthews. The description of a ‘smokey’ voice was perfect for Cardiff-born, Swansea-educated Cerys, although her smoking and drinking led her into rehab a few years later. Nevertheless, for all her love of booze and the filthy weed, she and her band Catatonia were a breath of fresh air to the charts.

Although the song had nothing to do with aliens, ‘Mulder and Scully’ shamelessly name-checked the character from TV’s ‘The X Files’ and was a bright and breezy post-Britpop hit I couldn’t help liking. In many ways, I preferred the less successful ‘Road Rage’. Cerys was not a typical pop star, nor even rock star; more a slightly hippy-ish Celtic free spirit. Since then she has undergone more re-inventions than Bowie. Nashville Country artist, Welsh language cultural icon, respected radio presenter and music commentator, I reckon she has done more than most to merit her MBE. Nevertheless, for me it was those two Catatonia singles which will always stand out.  

The Welsh music scene was very incestuous back then. Cerys was one of many collaborators on Tom Jones’ huge-selling Reload covers album. I didn’t particularly enjoy any of them, but ‘Mama Told Me Not To Come’ (with the Stereophonics, and Tom’s half-chuckled “I'm lookin' at my girlfriend - she's passed out on the floor”!) and ‘Burning Down the House’ (with The Cardigans) remain staples of Welsh rock station, Nation Radio to this day. 

The old fox even saved a relationship. Well, at least he did in the lyrics of Space’s ‘Ballad of Tom Jones’. And who sang with them? Yes, Cerys Matthews! It was another of Tommy Scott’s wry, witty ditties, in which he and Cerys exchanged snarling ripostes before recognising that Tom Jones’ music had brought their rancorous skirmishes to an end: 

“There was something in that voice
that stopped us seeing red
The two of us would've surely
have ended up dead”

Ahhhh! And all this despite Cerys singing “I’ll never throw my knickers at you” and Tommy’s “And I don’t come from Wales!”

As for the Scots, Texas had been flying the Saltire successfully for a few years but in ’99, Travis finally hit pay dirt with the brilliant ‘The Man Who’ album. Glorious singles flowed freely all year. None made the top five but all were equally fine. They had entered the public consciousness when their opening chords of ‘Why Does it Always Rain On Me?’ triggered a downpour at a previously warm and sunny Glastonbury Festival. Fran Healy may well have dined out on that anecdote ever since, and that song has been their most famous. I could have picked any one of four to represent their end-of-decade dominance, but their first release from the album ‘Writing to Reach You’ gets the nod ahead of ‘Driftwood’.

With B*witched, Cleopatra, S Club 7 and 15 year-old Billie Piper appealing to the Smash Hits generation of young girls, The Spice Girls were beginning to look like grannies. After conquering the world for two years, the only way was down. The lively Sixties-influenced ‘Stop’ was stopped from maintaining their run of number ones by Run DMC and Jason Nevins in March ‘98, but ‘Viva Forever’ got them back on track in the summer. One of their best ballads, it nevertheless couldn’t emulate reality. Between recording their TOTP performance and the single’s release, and during their US tour, Geri Halliwell left the group. Nothing lasts forever, ladies.

Solo projects were an inevitable consequence. Mel B was the first of the five to top the charts (a dull hip-hop duet with Missie ‘Midemeanor’ Elliott), Emma Bunton came close and Mel C delighted with her rock collaboration with Bryan Adams on ‘When You’re Gone’.  But everyone was waiting for Geri’s debut. Everyone, that is, except me.

In May 1999, the former Ginger Spice promoted her debut solo single ‘Look At Me’ at every opportunity on every possible medium on both sides of the Atlantic. Perform as often as you like, Geri; it was terrible! However, thanks to some creative marketing by Team Boyzone, the boyband’s ‘You Needed Me’ beat her to the top.

Geri’s first number one did arrive a few months later in the form of ‘My Chico Latino’, and that wasn’t much better. Her hit was a pathetic amalgam of ‘Las Isla Bonita’ and ‘Viva Forever’. Fortunately for her, she was riding on the coat-tails of a summer Latino explosion. Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ and Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’ dominated the summer months. I have no innate antipathy towards Latin rhythms. Far from it. However, for all their frequent airplay, I had no time for either. The only positive outcome of Bega’s record was its use in that memorable paper-stripping scene on BBC1’s The Royle Family in 2000. Mambo, my arse….!

France, Germany, Holland and Italy all had number one singles in 1999. And a right mixed bag they were. Mr Oizo’s ‘Flat Beat’ was a tuneless bass loop and drum sample, propelled to the top via a Levi commercial. After all those delightful number twos, this execrable effort embarrassingly proved to be the single which ended the 36-year wait for an instrumental UK number one. Tragic. Just for the hell of it, here are The Shadows from 1960 with 'Apache' to restore my faith in the genre....

German producer ATB gave us something rather better with ‘9am (Til I Come)’ while Italians Eiffel 65 delivered ‘Blue’. Many rate this one of the worst examples of Euro-Dance ever to be inflicted on an unsuspecting world. I disagree, and so did the million or so people who bought it. Ludicrous, it may be, but it’s another of my now-not-so-secret guilty pleasures. Altogether now, “I’m blue, da-ba-de-da-ba-da…” I could go on….

Dutch Euro-Dance act Vengaboys had three chart-toppers of their own. Think Gina G meets ‘Barbie Girl’. Oh well. At least their cod-reggae update of Typically Tropical’s ‘Barbados’, in the guise of ‘We’re Going to Ibiza’ (Coconut Airways replaced by Venga Airways) had something to tap my toes to.

Ibiza was the place to be for anyone into dance music rather more hardcore than Vengaboys. The Mediterranean mega-clubs bred the mega-rich celebrity DJs, but these didn’t exactly lend themselves to TOTP or any other TV broadcast. There wasn’t much to gain from watching someone standing behind the decks in those torch headsets. They resembled alien insects waving their arms or pretending to twiddle a few knobs. Did they really think they’d con the viewer into believing these ‘performers’ were doing anything other than switching on a pre-prepared digital segue of banging choons they’d mixed weeks earlier. That didn’t stop them having hits.

I truly hated Armand van Helden’s ultra-monotonous ‘You Don’t Know Me’ but when it came to listening on the radio, we Brits contrived some contemporary club tracks more to my thirty-something taste. Basement Jaxx’s ‘Rendezx-vu’ was OK and The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Hey Girl, Hey Boy’ better. However, when it came to sampling umpteen vocals, riffs and synth beats into something completely new that I actually liked, the ex-Housemartin Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, seemed to have it sussed. In January 1999, ‘Praise You’ reached the summit but one of my favourites from that era was ‘Right Here, Right Now' held off the top by one of those blasted Westlife ballads.

Mr Slim also sprinkled some stardust on a song, ‘Brimful of Asha’ by a little-known British Asian combo called Cornershop. A year before ‘Praise You’, their rather boring tribute to Indian movie singer Asha Bhosle was re-mixed into a joyously upbeat dance number and it sold over half a million.

Like most chart-toppers, ‘Brimful of Asha’ went straight to the top. Back then, few reached number one via a climb and so if I didn’t see them on TOTP when they reached the summit, I didn’t usually see them at all. In 1999, no fewer than 35 singles spent at least one week at the head of the queue. Inevitably, for many it was a case of ‘blink-and-you-miss-it’. In most cases, I don’t think I missed much at all.

Even the million-selling ‘Baby One More Time’ led the way for just two weeks, but its chart lifespan exceeded that of just about all others. Britney Spears herself has, of course, proved more enduring than I and others could possibly have predicted. The naughty schoolgirl video worked wonderfully in ridding herself of an outdated wholesome Disney Club image although, at just 16 at the time of release, the “Hit Me…” lyric left a sour taste in the mouth.

Nevertheless, Max Martin’s composition was intoxicating stuff. From that 3-note bass piano riff and Britney’s breathy “Oh baby, baby” to the chorus crescendo, it’s a great pop song. ‘Oops, I Did It again’ followed the fruitful formula and was to deliver more success in 2000, but Spears, despite the odd meltdown and ill-conceived, short-lived marriages along the way, has somehow come through the subsequent few decades almost unscathed Not really my cup of tea but good on her for surviving so many career ‘car crashes’.

For all the new teenage starlets, there was still space for some golden oldies to make successful comebacks. Cher was 52 when she dominated Autumn ’98 with the irritating ‘Believe’ and the even more irritating use of distorting Auto-Tune software. Debbie Harry was an even more venerable 56 when Blondie enjoyed an even more unlikely number one with ‘Maria’, nineteen years after their previous chart-topper. Not exactly their best, but at least they still had the drive and creativity to record their own new material and find an audience. 

Madonna was relatively youthful, yet approaching forty when her latest reinvention hit the airwaves and record shops in 1998. In those days, she rarely disappointed, and the Ray of Light album fell firmly into that bracket. My first exposure to the new stuff was when she appeared on TOTP performing ‘Frozen’, all long golden curls and floor-length Gothic black lacy costume. This was la Ciccone in spiritual mode, part-Earth mother, part witch! It was surprising that Madonna was on TOTP at all, and yet ‘Frozen’ was quite an entrancing mix of classical and electronica, enhanced by producer William Orbit’s trademark three-beat pulse. The album’s title track was a more effervescent ambient/techno/House track based on a long-forgotten English Sixties folk song which I presume must have been unrecognisable in comparison with the Madonna re-tread. Great video, too, which leaves me breathless just watching it. 

The following year, Madonna again turned to William Orbit for ‘Beautiful Stranger’. It was hard to disassociate it from the second Austin Powers comedy The Spy Who Shagged Me, which I did actually see in the cinema. The Guardian critic led me to believe it would be wet-yourself hilarious. Sadly, it wasn’t. Madonna’s song was one of the better things in it; its subtle dance rhythm with a hint of psychedelia made it a brilliant song in its own right. Yeah, baby!

Blur popped up again in 1999, their new album including the glorious number two hit ‘Tender’. It also provided one of Glasto’s greatest ten-minute ‘moments’ when the band reunited for a summer of glorious festival performances in 2009, featuring  ‘Tender’.  I’m not one for Gospel choirs, but, just watching on TV, the a capella section gave me goosebumps. The Lord alone knows what those present must have felt.

Like Blur, I daresay Radiohead delivered some memorable live renditions to vast open-air crowds but I wouldn’t have bothered switching on to see. Radiohead’s OK Computer is one of those albums which constantly appears in rock mags’ ‘greatest ever’ lists. Cue another yawnnnn from me. Yet personal history registers its ballad ‘No Surprises’ as my faves of ’98. That children’s lullaby guitar intro just doesn’t fit the Radiohead brand, though. Far too good!

My musical memories of these years aren’t restricted to the big guns. For starters, there were some delightful Alternative rock and pop singles around.  I really liked Semisonic’s ‘Secret Smile’. Lovely lyrics and a deceptively simple melody, but it failed to make our top ten. Apparently it featured in a film I’d never heard of. The same was true of the cute ‘Kiss Me’ by fellow Americans Sixpence None the Richer. With a title like that, it’s bound to feature on soundtracks, adverts and Valentine’s Day playlists for generations to come. However corny it sounds, I still quite like its joyfully twangy guitars and Leigh Nash’s natural vocals.

We Brits did the unpretentious songs quite well, too. Best of the lot around that time must have been Tin Tin Out’s trip-hoppy cover of  ‘Here’s Where the Story Ends’, sung by Shelly Nelson. It made seven over here in April 1998.

At the weirder end of the scale was the All Seeing I’s collaboration with Tony Christie, ‘Walk Like a Panther’. It gave the old crooner a helping hand back into the charts after a lengthy gap, but it was co-composer Jarvis Cocker’s TOTP appearance in January ’99 which I remember most clearly. He may not have the rich voice of Christie but only Jarvis he could pull off such a singularly eccentric performance.

 Amidst all the rocket-powered trajectories to number one, it was refreshing when two massive records peaked after two or three months. All Saints’ bleak, bluesy and frankly boring  ‘Never Ever’ took nine weeks to make number one early in ’98, while its chart contemporary ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams spent even longer en route to its highest position of four. The latter must surely be the lowest-charting million-seller in UK history, but laid in concrete Robbie’s solo career foundations.

Two of his best, though not necessarily his most successful, songs topped the chart in this period. Even though the 2000s were still some way off, he released ‘Millennium’ in September 1998. He admitted it was a shameless shoehorning of the great social buzzword into a lyric which had nothing whatsoever to do with the significant calendar event.

Boasting an intro of the incomparable John Barry descending strings from ‘You Only Live Twice’, it could hardly fail. The video, too, was an unusually tongue-in-cheek pastiche of James Bond. Robbie’s Ernst Blofeld-sized ego also deflated sufficiently to allow the final part feature him comically prancing about in a field trying to activate his 007-style jet-pack. Video Gold!

That won him one of his many Brit awards, as did the video for the following year’s ‘She’s the One’. God knows why. Robbie as a champion figure skater? Oh, per-leaze! The song, however, is a superb tear-jerker. It had all the hallmarks of a Guy Chambers melody, and yet, unknown to me, it was actually a cover of a World Party song. From the best video and best ballad to his best lyric. ‘Strong’ wasn’t a classic but did again show Williams’ more sensitive side, featuring the couplet:-

                    “Early morning when I wake up

                    I look like Kiss but without the make-up”

evoking some incomparable striking imagery! One millennium may have passed, but from Robbie, more, so much more was to come.

1981 - The devil take your stereo and your record collection!

This was a mighty strange year for pop, with a unique penchant for packaging nostalgia, allied to a mood for the new. Once ‘There’s No-One Quite like Grandma’ had run its Christmas course, John Lennon took his rightful place at number one. ‘Imagine’ went from decent Seventies hit to a karaoke classic beloved of buskers and – well – everyone, really. The climax of the video shot in the near-empty white room, where John turns to Yoko, pulls an affectionate silly face and plants a tender kiss, is enough to melt the most metallic of hearts.

‘Imagine’ was displaced by one of John’s new songs, ‘Woman’. And if you don’t blub at seeing that posthumous promo film, then you ain’t human. It still gets me every time. I genuinely think it could have gone all the way even had Lennon been alive. It’s such a gorgeous love song, with an entrancing chord progression in the verse and an unambiguously romantic chorus.

Others got in on the act, of course. George Harrison’s Countryfied tribute ‘All Those Years Ago’ was a bitter disappointment. However, Roxy Music’s decision to release their version of ‘Jealous Guy’ paid off, giving them their first and only chart-topper. In my ignorance, I hadn’t realised it had been a Lennon track from ten years earlier. It didn’t matter. Bryan Ferry and friends did it justice, I felt, and provided a fitting climax to the grieving period.

In the meantime, I continued to learn more about Lennon’s history. I even splashed out on buying The Beatles’ 1973 Red and Blue compilation albums, helping me fully appreciate John’s massive contribution to the greatest group the world has ever known. It wasn’t only his role in the familiar hits; I also became acquainted with amazing album tracks such as ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘Across the Universe’. A few years later I also purchased his own greatest hits album, introducing me to his solo specials like ‘No.9 Dream’. Of course, John Lennon transcended music and, in a year of Cold War chaos, his message of peace was sorely missed.

On 11^th May came the news that Bob Marley had died of cancer. This wasn’t as earth-shattering as Lennon’s passing but of course it was a landmark in musical history. And yet in the UK there was no mass re-release of Marley’s back catalogue; ‘No Woman No Cry’ went to number eight, but that was it. Instead, it was Sugar Minott’s gentle ‘Good Thing Going’ which was our reggae record of the year. Nevertheless, death has proved no barrier to success. Bob’s music continues to sell, and his likeness adorns millions of posters, portraits, T-shirts and bath-towels across the nation, and indeed the world. I don’t condone smoking of ganja but it’s impossible not to like Marley’s brand of reggae. As with Lennon, his message of spiritualism and peace lives on, too.

In 1981, there wasn’t much goodwill to all men (or women) in the UK. Thatcher’s Government had succeeded in trebling unemployment. By the start of the year, more than 10% of the working age population were out of work. Months later, many urban areas, notably Brixton, saw anti-police rioting which left streets resembling war zones. At least the political situation inspired some great music.

Back then, UB40 were a politically-conscious outfit rather than a globally-successful reggae-by-numbers covers band. I still reckon their best song was 1981’s ‘One in Ten’, motivated by those appalling unemployment statistics. With bleak lyrics like:

“My arms enfold the dole queue
Malnutrition dulls my hair
My eyes are black and lifeless
With an underprivileged stare”.

it almost felt wrong to dance to it.

Probably the most famous British political single of the early Eighties came that summer, when The Specials swept to the top with ‘Ghost Town’. For once Terry Hall’s hollow, disinterested vocal style suited the subject-matter, which was the impact on local communities by the Tories’ economic policies. He did have help from Lynval Golding and Nevile Staple, not to mention Jerry Dammers, who wrote the gloomy lyrics on urban decay such as:-

“No job to be found in this country
Can't go on no more
The people getting angry”

The contrast with Royal Wedding fever was stark. There we were on 29^th July, encouraged to go nuts for zillionaires Charles and Diana and TOTP would sign off with The Specials careering around sombre cheerless streets in an ancient Vauxhall Cresta. That was 1981 in a nutshell.

Fortunately, even in such miserable times, pop music can come to the rescue before we all slash our wrists. ‘Ghost Town’ was replaced at the top by Shakin’ Stevens, who restored a spark of optimism to the summer. Already in his thirties, Shaky had an incredible year with his Elvis-lite performances. Rubbish miming and shameless wearing of the dreaded double-denim didn’t prevent him topping the charts with fifties covers ‘This Ole House’ and ‘Green Door’, split by an original song ‘You Drive Me Crazy’ which stalled at number two for a whole month. I can’t say Shaky – born just down the road in Cardiff from where I’m typing this – drove me crazy but he had enough fans to make him an improbable biggest-selling singles artist of the entire decade! I still can’t get my head around that statistic but, love him or hate him, Shaky was always within earshot in 1981.

That August, the four of us enjoyed what I think was our final summer holiday as a complete family. The following year Catherine was to grow up quicker than I did, doing her own thing with friends. However, in ’81, we all headed to Pembrokeshire, with overnight B&B stops along the way, there and back. I recall some warm sunshine and our exploration of the Wye Valley and West Wales unfolded to a backdrop of amazing sporting achievement. Ian Botham was doing his thing for English cricket, while Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett were trading middle-distance running world records seemingly every few days.

The musical soundtrack to that holiday was provided, not only by Mr Stevens but the likes of Aneka, who showed him the (green) door while we were away. A Scottish folk singer, Mary Sandeman looked about as oriental as I did, but her song ‘Japanese Boy’ was a surprise hit. Jumping on the Kelly Marie bandwagon, it had obvious similarities with ‘Feels Like I’m In Love’ but there was a naïve charm about it which I actually warmed to.

Bucks Fizz cheered the nation in Spring by winning the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Making Your Mind Up’. Like Shaky’s hits, it harked back to the rock’n’roll and jive era, and was incredibly popular, if not with undergraduates like me. I recall babysitting next-door during the Easter holidays, watching the programme. Obviously the colourful, ripping-off-the-skirts gimmick was by then familiar from pre-Contest performances, but it was nevertheless quite uplifting to see them take the title.

I wasn’t sure whether I should go along with the old-fashioned good-natured style of Joe Dolce, whose ‘Shuddapa Your Face’ so famously kept ‘Vienna’ off the top in March, or want to kill him. Actually, I found Dolce and his singalongaJoe shtick quite endearing. Sorry, Midge! On the other hand, I couldn’t stand Julio Iglesias. He took the mantle of ‘Housewives’ Euro crumpet’ from Distel and Roussos, his soft-focus Spanish tones propelling ‘Begin the Beguine’ to number one just before Christmas. It wasn’t the worst hit single of the year. That must surely have been The Tweets’ ‘Birdie Song’, which sold more than half a million during the autumn term. But who bought it? Anyone who has even attempted to do the dance moves is equally culpable. Own up!

The New Romantic movement really took hold in 1981. It could easily have been a victory of style over substance, but the music was undeniably good. Emerging from the Blitz club scene, Spandau Ballet wasted no time in hitting the charts, but I did find their swirling ‘Highlander’ skirts a mite pretentious. Tony Hadley’s impressively precise old school vocals made an immediate impact on me, even if their take on electronic music didn’t. On the other hand, I did like Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on Film'. I wasn’t sure about the chubby-faced, bandana-clad lead singer but their fashion wasn’t as ridiculous as Spandau’s, and the blend of John Taylor’s funky bass, Andy Taylor’s riffs, Nick Rhodes’ synths and Roger Taylor’s drums definitely boasted ‘something’.

In the lyrics to 1980’s ‘My Perfect Cousin', young Kevin’s mum had bought him a synthesiser and “got the Human League in to advise her”. The result was “Now he's making lots of noise Playing along with the Art school boys”. Lucky Kevin! But maybe he wasn’t moving in the right circles as envisaged by his well-connected mother. By 1981, the original ‘art school Human League had split in two. After their experimental phase, Phil Oakey’s section left the arty crowd behind them and proceeded to make some of the best synth pop ever. 

It took their summer hit ‘Love Action' to make me realise that Sheffield’s finest were actually very listenable. Oakey still boasted the striking but rather silly ‘long one side, short the other’ hairstyle, but the schoolgirl backing singers and dancers Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall had given up university ambitions to join full-time. ‘Love Action’ sounded incredible, and I loved that bass synth line. The Human League’s album ‘Dare’ was the year’s third biggest seller and, with no traditional drums anywhere on the record, it broke new ground, even in the States. 

They even conquered Christmas with the supreme synth classic, ‘Don’t You Want Me'. It has so far sold over 1 ½ million copies here and I could listen to it every day without ever getting bored. While they never quite hit the same heights again, there were more first-class singles to follow, including ‘Mirror Man’, ‘Keep Feeling Fascination’ and ‘The Lebanon’. More impressive still is that, for all those art school origins, Oakey and the girls never sound pretentious, and they are still doing the circuit. I can vouch that Phil’s voice, in particular, is undimmed by the passing years.

Back in August I recall sitting in the room I shared with Catherine in an old hotel in the Malverns, listening to the new Sunday evening chart rundown. By the time they reached the number one position, I was extremely puzzled. For the life of me, I couldn’t work out who could be at the top. Had a record shot straight in? No, the presenter would surely have mentioned it to build some extra excitement. When it was revealed that Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ occupied the number one spot, I was surprised. Four months later, I had a similar mental frustration trying to guess the year’s top-selling single. Blow me: it was ‘Tainted Love’ again!

I really didn’t see the appeal. The song sounded mediocre, and Marc Almond’s camp performance in eyeliner, tight black gear and studded wristbands seemed to lack much substance. So, what do I know?! I much preferred the follow-up, ‘Bedsitter’ and their string of successful torch songs in the next year or so. Some of the gay artists were obviously ‘out’ and for the coming years, camp but clever electro-pop duos were definitely ‘in’. 

1981 also saw the introduction of Basildon boys Depeche Mode to the charts. They had a bright and breezy synth sound, typified by Vince Clarke’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. I didn’t really expect them to amount to much, especially once Clarke left to form Yazoo. It was therefore a pleasure to hear them evolve into a darker, more political band without losing their musical mojo. OMD also stepped up a gear. ‘Souvenir’ had a softer, lusher sound and the quieter vocals of Paul Humphreys, and went to number three. Andy McCluskey’s voice was back in charge for another top fiver, ‘Joan of Arc', in November. Joan was to make an appearance in their next single in 1982’s waltz-time ‘Maid of Orleans’, too, a track introduced by 30 seconds of atonal electronic whine. OMD seemed unable to create a poor record.

The power of the video was growing by the week. In February, Ultravox blew everyone away with their atmospheric gothic masterpiece, ‘Vienna’. A rare synth-pop ballad, the five-minute mini-movie featuring moonlit Covent Garden cobbles, an exotic party, climactic murder and Midge Ure’s sharp collars - and even sharper sideburns - really ladled on the atmosphere. ‘Vienna’ was voted best number two single of all time but its video was definitely part of the whole package. 

Midge also wrote the lyrics to another iconic New Romantic record, ‘Fade to Grey' by Visage. Now, this was pretentious with a capital ‘P’. Just as its singer Steve Strange was, well, strange with a capital ‘S’! I still love the music, though and, like ‘Vienna’, the video images linger long in the memory.  

They were largely the creative brainchild of ex-10cc-ers Kevin Godley and Lol Crème. It was all a bit incestuous at the time, and the chain continues with Godley and Crème performing my favourite song of the year, ‘Under Your Thumb’. I loved it so much I bought the single. That’s two in two years! It was a brilliantly crafted record; the synth replicates the sound of a speeding train, an appropriate backdrop to a spooky story of “woman throws herself from speeding train, identity unknown”. A rare example of a song whose lyrics I could hear and remember, yet for all G and C’s video wizardry, it didn’t need an eerie film to spoon-feed you with imagery; the words and music did the job perfectly well on their own. 

When I went up to Uni, I had abhorred Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’. However, I really liked their new single, ‘Once in a Lifetime’. It had a strange rhythm to it, but David Byrne’s frankly scary vocals and the even scarier video made it work for me. Another arty-farty oddball was Julian Cope. Before his prodigious psychedelic drug intake sent him over the edge, his band The Teardrop Explodes produced some great pop music. In February, they zoomed to number six with the stirring ‘Reward’ and ‘Treason’ also entered the top twenty. Before he became the ultimate hippy for the twenty-first century, Cope was a charismatic frontman with a great voice as well as a talented tunesmith, and I wasn’t the only undergrad fan of his. 

Dum-chah, dum-chah, dum-chah!. 1981 turned out to be the year of the medley single, with the ubiquitous and monotonous ‘clap track’. Even we students had brains subconsciously alive to the ‘dum-chah’ beat. While party medleys weren’t new, a Dutch producer spotted a gap in the singles market and StarSound was born. The first ‘Stars on 45’ 7” edit featured session musicians singing ‘Sugar Sugar’ and ‘Venus’, followed by eight Beatles tracks (mostly B sides like ‘Drive My Car’), and peaked at no.2. That seemed a bit random, but Volume 2 focussed entirely on Abba. It, too, narrowly failed to top the chart but brought to my attention lesser-known songs like ‘Boom-a-Boomerang’ which, like ‘S.O.S’’, ‘Voulez-Vous’, etc, fitted the default beat to perfection.

The bandwagon’s axles must have been close to collapse under the weight of other acts jumping on it. Tight Fit did well with early 60s stuff and Adrian Baker’s falsetto came in useful on Gidea Park’s Beach Boys and Four Seasons segues. There were also Caribbean boom-chahs, Chas and Dave brought out ‘Stars Over 45’ for Christmas and real groups like The Hollies cashed in before a tribute act or unknown Dutchmen could get there first. 

Perhaps the most unlikely bandwagon-leapers were the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Louis Clark created the Hooked on Classics brand which not only created a number two single but also hugely successful albums and concerts Even I went to one at the Barbican later in the decade. The RPO were professional musicians, of course, not session singers. That gave them an advantage of being able to tamper with the time signatures and rhythms of Beethoven, Mozart, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky et al to fit the steady ‘dum-chah’ claptrack. Clark and the RPO must have done more to subsidise classical music than a generation of stingy governments, and good on ‘em!

Another classical number two single came from Ennio Morricone’s ‘Chi Mai’, and 1981 also experienced one of the most famous classical synth records of all time. Greek composer and synth wizard Vangelis was everywhere. Not only did he combine with ex-Yes singer Jon Anderson to release pleasant jingly-jangly ballads like ‘Find My Way Home’ but his popular ‘Chariots of Fire’ theme has probably done more to inspire amateur runners than any piece of music ever written. 

The pouting face of 20 year-old Kim Wilde covered a myriad of student walls after her anthemic debut ‘Kids in America’ blasted the charts early in the year. Co-written by her dad Marty and brother Ricky, the family effort paid off in spades, even if Kim so clearly was a kid from the Home Counties. The rhythm section was traditional but the soaring synths gave the record an ultra-modern vibe. Fantastic ending, too. More hits followed during the year, my favourite being the slower ‘Cambodia’, but ‘Kids..’ must be one of the best examples of early Eighties rock-pop. 

Another hugely successful female artist in 1981 was Toyah Wilcox. Her bright bouncy orange mop-top was a familiar sight on TV throughout the year and beyond. Looking like the love child of John Lydon and Kate Bush, she was often touted as a punk. Indeed, the first time I saw her was in the crime series Shoestring playing, yes, a punk rocker with a heart. Her music proved to be anything but punk. Her first record went top four in February, an EP led by ‘It’s a Mystery’. Her hint of a lisp left her fair game for comediennes like Tracey Ullman to take the pith, but her squeaky voice was endearing and irritating in equal measure. When she sang ‘I Wanna Be Free’, she sounded less a dangerous rebel and more a Roedean teenager having a hissy fit.

Hazel O’Connor had been a far more convincing post-punk icon than Toyah, and then in 1981 she released one of my all-time fave ballads, ‘Will You?’ Going against all my natural instincts, I have to confess that the record was turned from merely great to sensational by Wesley Magoogan’s sultry sensual sax solo. It was so moving that it took over the entire second half of the track. I don’t recall loving it quite so much at the time but it grew on me year by year. It sounds pretty darned cool in this live performance, too.

No saxophones in sight but another hot girl singer was Clare Grogan. In ’81 she played Gregory’s Girl in the brilliant Bill Forsyth comedy, then led Altered Images to number two with ‘Happy Birthday’ in September. I missed the chance to see them play the Great Hall but one of my neighbours insisted on playing the song all the bloody time! I admit I had a mini-crush on young Clare, with her feather-light fluffy voice and engaging stage presence. Altered Images not only had more hits but, along with The Skids and The Tourists helped launch a raft of excellent Eighties Scottish bands. 

Coincidentally, another ‘Happy Birthday’ anthem also reached number two. However, Stevie Wonder’s song was a different kettle of fish. An unapologetic musical demand for a national public holiday to mark the birthday of Martin Luther King, it was the first Wonder composition I really liked. It flopped in the racist USA but eventually succeeded in its objective when, two years later, even President Reagan was persuaded to accede to Stevie’s heartfelt appeal. A delightful record, too.

David Grant’s voice was not altogether different from Stevie’s and his hit ‘Intuition’ with Linx was one of my top singles from 1981. The lively and light-hearted reflection on childhood went to number seven thanks in part to an entertaining video which served its purpose during another TOTP technicians’ strike. ‘So This Is Romance’ followed in similar vein, albeit perhaps a bit funkier thanks to bass player Sketch. Grant went on to pursue a solo career as a poor man’s Michael Jackson but with limited success. 

Another soulful group who enjoyed the first of their five top 20 singles that year was Imagination. Singer Leee John seeemed over-fond not only of ‘e’s but also of spinning on the spot, while bassist Ashley Ingram often appeared to be getting jiggy with his instrument. Nevertheless, ‘Body Talk’ sounded sexy, albeit not as much as the band seemed to think! ‘Just an Illusion’ went to number two the following year and they were TOTP staples for a while.

Some bigger names than Imagination enjoyed their final flirtations with the top ten in 1981. Abba’s unbroken run of perfect pop hits ended with ‘One of Us’ in December. I associate the song with a family journey to Uncle David’s house on Christmas Eve. I don’t know if it was a new chart rundown, but it was dark, it was cold, and it was snowing as it played on the car radio! We weren’t to know it, but they didn’t even pierce the top twenty with subsequent new releases. It was another peerless four minutes of emotional vocals and melody, but Bjorn and Benny were never to repeat the success.

‘Start Me Up’ proved to be the last classic Rolling Stones top-tenner, too, but Slade enjoyed a renaissance  - as heavy rockers! With ‘We’ll Bring the House Down’ and ‘Lock Up Your Daughters’, Noddy et al delivered a totally unexpected reinvention and they were an extremely popular act at the Reading Festival to boot. You can’t keep a good group down for long.

A hundred miles further down the Great Western line from Reading, my halls of residence held their Summer Ball in June. The unofficial Ents Officer Chas seemed to boast an impressive contact book for his age. One year we had comic singer Jake Thackray but in 1981 Chas booked Fassbender Russell as the headline act. “Woo-hoo!” you may sardonically reply. But actually they had, under Susan Fassbender’s name, enjoyed a top 30 single, ‘Twilight Café’, at the start of the year, and fortunately I had enjoyed it. In her unfashionable glasses, Fassbender looked nothing like your average pop star and Kate Russell was a rarity, a female guitarist which I recall prompted a shameful sexist comment by one of the TOTP presenters. I remember nothing else from their set at Exeter that warm summer evening, but ‘Twilight Café’ was worth the wait. It was therefore shocking to read recently that Fassbender had committed suicide just ten years later. The world can be a cruel place.

The world can also be a bright place, especially when Madness are around. They were really hitting their stride, the first band whose videos we all anticipated at least as much as the new singles they were made to promote. The TV room at Birks would fill just to laugh at the latest daft adventures of the Nutty Boys, cavorting around various North London locations like Camden High Street and Hampstead Heath. They had no fewer than four top ten singles in 1981: Labi Siffre’s ‘It Must Be Love’ (he even has a cameo in the video), Mike Barson’s dark ‘Grey Day’, the comical ‘Shut Up’ and ‘The Return of the Los Palmas Seven’ (superb lyrics: “Waiter” was the only word). But they clearly weren’t just a comedy troupe. They were a tight musical unit, brilliant live, as I was to witness for myself at the O2 a decade or so ago.  

Yet, when it came to whimsical, tongue-in-cheek videos, Madness had serious competition that year in Adam and the Ants, surely the biggest band in Britain. From ragged New Wavers at the end of 1980, they blew our socks off in May 1981 by going straight in at number one with ‘Stand and Deliver’. It proved to be the second biggest selling single of the year, and the video’s fleeting singing wolfhound is priceless. The follow-up, ‘Prince Charming’ was third. Their album’ Kings of the Wild Frontier’ was simply unassailable. 

Adam’s ‘dandy highwayman’, complete with trademark white face stripe, and Regency prince were supreme examples of zany pop persona running hand in hand with clever marketing. Not since early 70s Bowie had we seen anything like it. And don’t tell me Johnny Depp’s movie pirate Captain Jack Sparrow wasn’t influenced by Adam Ant’s 1981 characters. Adam’s face and entertaining videos defined 1981 more than any other. He may have invited parody but, as he sang in his second chart-topper, “Ridicule is nothing to be scared of”. A message for us all in the '80s!