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.

1995 – See our friends, See the sights!

Fed up with a life of frustrating singledom, this was the year I tried to take control of my own destiny. Tantalised by those new-fangled dating pages in the free local newspapers, I made a few tentative contacts. Later in the year, attracted by an advert seen on the Tube, I joined Dateline. It wasn’t about the internet back then, of course; just sending personal details and receiving five contact numbers. You could also subscribe to a magazine which proved more successful in actually meeting people. I had several autumn dates, some promising, some not. No girlfriend, but at least I enjoyed getting out and about in London, visiting unfamiliar corners of the capital and experiencing a different form of social life, post-Rotaract..

None of the encounters involved music. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Instead, my principal link with the latest sounds remained that frail and frayed umbilical cord connected to TOTP and the Radio 1 chart show. Neither were the appointment to view or listen they once were, of course and the ‘papers offered a chance to keep up with the charts for my diary. Actually there was some decent stuff to listen to, although much of it could be bracketed under Britpop.

Amidst the increasing dominant hip-hop and R’n’B scene, largely white guitar bands were suddenly everywhere. Not just in the clubs where they had always been, but on the radio and telly. Radio 1 really championed the genre, and so it also entered my own precious little world. And about time, too.

I didn’t necessarily lump all the artists together under one media-friendly banner. Sleeper’s ‘Vegas’ just sounded different, and had the additional benefit of singer Louise Wener. I could, and often did, lose myself in her big brown eyes. And she was single! AND from London? Dream on! It was followed by another excellent single ‘What Do I Do Now?’ but Wener was soon to put music to one side and become a highly regarded novelist. Those eyes strayed elsewhere…

Sonya Maden also made a splash in ’95. Not just because she was a front woman, but also because she was an ASIAN frontwoman. To me, that wasn’t significant. More importantly, her band Echobelly purveyed a similarly appealing brand of pop-rock. I particularly liked ‘King of the Kerb’. No ladies amongst The Levellers, but the ‘crusty’ band enjoyed a rare hit with ‘Hope Street’, which became one of my favourites of the year. 

Those loveable lads from Oxford, Supergrass, finally cracked it with ‘Alright’, smashing in at number two in July. I may never have been tempted to “smoke a fag, put it out” or “got some cash, bought some wheels, took it out through some fields, lost controls, hit a wall” but its frenetic pace and joyous outdoor video nonetheless evoked images of summer holidays past and deserved its success. Gaz Coombs’ simian sideburns were definitely a symbol of ’95, and the band produced a number of top-quality songs across the whole decade.

Another under-rated act was The Lightning Seeds. By 1995, they were expanding from being Ian Broudie’s studio project into a proper touring band, and it was their top 20 single ‘Lucky You’ which made me sit up and listen. Match of the Day’s adoption of the instrumental intro to ‘The Life of Riley’ to accompany the Goal of the Month competition clips also raised the band’s profile and the following year Broudie became forever associated with football and lad-dom, of which more later.

Another group which finally found their moment was Pulp. I’d never heard of them until ‘Common People’ flew into the top three at the start of June. Jarvis Cocker’s unfashionable glasses, clothes and geeky, gawky limbs stood out in so many ways, while his perceptive lyrics begged to be heard, enjoyed and repeated. However, it was their performance of the song as their finale at Glastonbury a few weeks later (on a programme called 4 at Glastonbury – none of the saturation BBC coverage back then) that really made an impression. Apparently they had only been included after The Stone Roses pulled out and it had been feared the Glasto crowd would have booed them off the stage. Quite the opposite; ‘Common People’ became part of the festival folklore. I wasn’t ‘there’, but I did see it on the telly that night.

By the end of the year, I actually preferred ‘Sorted – For Es and Wizz’ which also reached number two. The Press predictably slated it as a grotesque advert for drugs. Listen to the bloody lyrics! More memorable was Cocker’s performance at the start of the 1996 Brits broadcast, ending with him  soaring high above the auditorium in a wire singing “What if I never come down?”! An hour or so later, his position as media hate figure and simultaneous man of the people was firmly set in stone as he mischievously mooned in front of Michael Jackson’s much-hyped Messiah depiction while singing ‘Earth Song’. Consequently I’ll never hear a bad word about Jarvis, one of the truly great eccentric British pop stars and a damned fine songwriter to boot. Meanwhile, that once all-conquering American genius had dipped beyond parody.

But of course, retrospectives of 1995 tend to focus primarily on the supposed bitter rivalry between Blur and Oasis…. The country was allegedly split in two. Forget the Brexit division; this was far more significant! North v South. Art school v Old school. Middle class v Working class. Cocaine v cannabis. When Blur’s ‘Country House’ was released on the same day in July as Oasis brought out ‘Roll With It’, the race to number one was dubbed the Battle of Britpop. The result made the national TV news. The winners were…..Blur! Ironically, neither song was anywhere near their best.

The following singles releases were, in my opinion, possibly their finest. The strings intro and verse for ‘The Universal’ are simply stunning, and have since achieved lasting fame through use in British Gas adverts. Subtle Graham Coxon guitar and Alex James bass and mature vocals from Damon Albarn came together nicely, and they could do it live, as this ‘Later….’ performance demonstrates. Rather too much brass for my liking, perhaps, but nevertheless I was shocked that it went straight in at five only to make an unceremonious slide.

Meanwhile, Oasis were robbed of a number one spot for ‘Wonderwall’, the pinnacle of the Britpop production line. Gone were the Grunge guitars and the angry Liam Gallagher snarl. This was an astonishing rock ballad, the acoustic intro and cello accompaniment giving the song an other-worldly sound. I even insisted on having the track played at our wedding in 2017. This wasn’t Britpop, it was sheer magic. Meanwhile, on 2^nd October the Manc quintet gave their second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory to the world. For all Noel Gallagher’s stupid statements about drugs, there was no doubting his genius for writing, and the album ensured that, while Blur won the 1995 battle, Oasis undoubtedly won the war. It was also a conflict which was yet to run its course. It may seem too obvious but it remains one of my favourite CDs, retaining its beauty, rhythm and relevance two decades later. Oasis were a bunch of weed-smoking dickheads but how the music scene today could benefit from a band of their calibre.

So where did I stand on the stand-off? As ever, I didn’t quite fit in with the media view on the world; I just loved both bands. Each were giants of Britpop and Nineties music generally and sit happily side-by-side in my CD collection.

I was becoming a regular viewer of Jools Holland’s Friday night show on BBC2 and, with the use of video I could record it to see at a more convenient time and fast-forward through the boring World Music segments and cringey interviews. As with Blur, I’m pretty sure I also watched the performances of McAlmont and (Bernard) Butler, including their rendition of the gorgeous ‘You Do’. The same was true for Everything But the Girl delivering their dance re-mix of ‘Missing’. My then work colleague Lesley is somewhere in the audience with her latest boyfriend, behind Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn in this clip but the recording quality is a bit too ropey for me to pick them out! Whatever, it was a great record and a November contemporary of ‘Wonderwall’. 

Another superstar who wore his Sixties influences prominently on his sleeve was Paul Weller. He won hearts and minds in ’95 with his finest solo album Stanley Road. He was always a popular choice for Later… and here he is doing his thing at the piano on probably his best ballad ‘You Do Something To Me’. As in his Jam days, his singles usually blazed into the top ten before descending rapidly off the radio stations’ radar. It happened to this one, and also the rockier ‘The Changingman’ but I really liked them both.

I’d say that Weller fans were even more hostile than Albarn fans to Noel Gallagher. However, Oasis were already being flattered by the sincere form of imitation of tribute bands like No Way Sis and Wibling Rivalry. However, no cover versions were quicker out of the blocks, nor more successful, than the Mike Flowers Pops’ version of ‘Wonderwall’. It was outrageous, so bad it was good! Almost. The cheesy be-wigged singer, Mike Sammes-esque backing chorus and the bossanova beat should have consigned the record to oblivion. But it matched Oasis in going to number two at Christmas, much to Noel’s amusement. Who says Mr Gallagher doesn’t have a sense of humour? 

However, Mike Flowers appeared at some major venues, presumably as a novelty act. I admit I never heard their take on The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’!  It was perhaps unsurprising that this type of faux easy listening didn’t catch on. On the other hand the more modern dance music was not finished. However, examples which got me jigging were becoming fewer and further between. 

Belgians Alex Party did well with ‘Don’t Give Me Your Life’ as did Strike’s ‘U Sure Do’. However, I took a greater shine to the two big hits by N-Trance. I’d assumed they were yet another European outfit but apparently they were true Brits. ‘Set You Free’ was the archetypal club anthem but its follow-up, an update of ‘Stayin’ Alive’, was even more successful. Kinda tongue-in-cheek, it boasted rapping by Ricardo da Force, whose unorthodox corruption of the verse shouldn’t have worked. However, according to my diary, this turned out to be my favourite dance track of 1995.

I’ve written much about 1995 being the year of Britpop. That’s probably the product of my selective memory. Even a cursory flick over the year’s charts reveals that where singles are concerned, hip-hop, reggae fusion and R’n’B definitely had the upper-hand. Wacko Jacko had two number ones, Shaggy’s impenetrable ‘Boombastic’ was all over the airwaves, and Coolio’s collaboration with LV, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’, was ‘95’s second biggest seller.

That was a decent single but until researching this section I had buried all trace of The Outhere Brothers in the deepest recesses of my memory banks. Damn! Out they came again. ‘Boom Boom Boom!’ ‘Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle….’ Aarrghhh! They also topped the charts twice. But worse was to come.

Like millions of others, Mum loved watching ITV’s drama series Soldier Soldier. After an episode in which the two main characters sang ‘Unchained Melody’ at a wedding, huge public interest spurred Simon Cowell into pursuing the actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn into recording the song. They eventually relented and ended up making a fortune. The first single sold 1.8 million. The next, a similarly sickly saccharine cover of ‘I Believe’, also broke the million barrier. It gets worse. Their cringeworthy covers album outsold ‘Morning Glory’ in 1995 and, with the hastily recorded follow-up, sold a combined seven million! Being far superior actors than vocalists they didn’t even sing all the harmonies on the records. Robson and Jerome were all over that year like a nasty rash but don’t expect a YouTube link in this blog.

Phew! That’s enough of them! Back to some of the music I did enjoy hearing. This was the time I first became aware of Green Day. When Billy-Jo Armstrong launched into ‘Basket Case’, I was immediately transported back to the late Seventies. The frenetic guitar intro was pure Punk rock but the Californians nevertheless somehow forged their own path to massive global success for another two decades and counting.

Punk was one of the few genres Madonna never experimented with. Mercifully Madonna had closed her outrageous sexually-explicit chapter but in 1995 seemed to be drifting inevitably towards middle-age sentimentality. Her album Bedtime Stories yielded decent singles like ‘Secret’ and ‘Take a Bow’ without taking the charts by storm. Then an elegant acoustic production of the ballad ‘You’ll See’ made the top five in November and was in my mind her best of the year. M People also released ‘Search for the Hero’, an eighth successive top-tenner for them. It was in and out remarkably quickly but the lyrical message has guaranteed airplay on radio, adverts and sporting video sequences ever since.

I’ve already written about the Britpop conflicts dominating the UK music scene. However, now for a reality check. In 1995, the truly dreadful, pointless (is there any other kind?) civil war in Yugoslavia was in its fourth year. It gained prominence because for once the pictures of shelling, snipers, civilian massacres and political mayhem were not in some distant corner of the world but just a few hours away in Europe. The nation had splintered and various state and breakaway militias were fighting over the spoils, avenging past nationalist ‘wrongs’ with fascistic fervour. One of the worst excesses was the siege of Sarajevo.

For all the news coverage, it can often be a piece of music which brings home the true horror of war and spurs people into bringing the warring factions to a ceasefire. The U2/Brian Eno project Original Soundtracks 1, under the name Passengers, yielded one memorable single ‘Miss Sarajevo’, its official video consisting entirely of film of life in the besieged capital of Bosnia. Weirdly, it’s not Bono’s verses which stirred my senses but the operatic segment sung by Luciano Pavarotti. Sadly the siege continued for several months but this track for me serves as a stunning reminder of that appalling war on our doorstep.

The year even yielded two ‘new’ Beatles hits. However, despite the plentiful publicity, neither achieved the success I originally expected. Probably because they weren’t much cop. ‘Baby It’s You’ was taken from the recent Beatles Live at the BBC album while ‘Free as a Bird’ was cobbled together from an old Lennon demo, with new contributions from surviving members. However, with George Harrison’s long-time collaborator Jeff Lynne co-producing, it just sounded like a feeble ELO-Tom Petty track. Another, similarly unremarkable Beatles single ‘Real Love’ emerged the following year to accompany a new ITV documentary series and Anthology album. 

Other ballads also left their mark on me. Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Julia Says’ was no ‘Love is all Around’ but definitely above average, as was Seal’s ‘Kiss from a Rose’. Boyzone narrowly missed out on a first chart-topper with another three singles, although ‘Father and Son’ sold more than 800,000 copies in the Christmas period. However, when it came to boy bands, Take That continued to reign supreme. It wasn’t plain sailing. Robbie Williams left, allegedly because he considered himself too ‘hard’ for the pure pop world, his personality too big for a boy band and talent to great to play second fiddle to Mr Barlow. His departure didn’t hurt their sales, coming between two of their biggest hits. In July, their gospel/classical-influenced ‘Never Forget’ topped the chart for three weeks, but my contemporary diary note suggests I was no fan. Two decades on, and I think the dramatic intro and chorus are brilliant.

Nevertheless, their preceding single took brilliance to a new level. An instant classic, ‘Back for Good’ shifted 350,000 in the first week and went on to top a million. The quintet were back looking daft under water for the video, but I’ll forgive them because this is Gary Barlow’s finest moment as a songwriter. Robbie was probably in denial but, for all his indie rock credentials, even Noel Gallagher said the song “said something” and “touched” him. Undoubtedly it is one of the finest ‘lost love’ songs I’ve ever heard. But for how long could the Barlow production line continue….?

1990 - You know you talk so hip, man, You're twistin' my melon, man

Ah, the Nineties! In the Eighties the Seventies were ridiculed for their tank-tops, flares and safety pins. In the Nineties, it was the Eighties we all laughed at: all those leg-warmers, shoulderpads, Yuppies and poodle-haired singers. However, apart from MC Hammer's trousers, I think history has treated the final decade of the second millennium relatively kindly.

Radio remained king, Top of the Pops advanced fearlessly into its fourth decade, vinyl’s days were numbered, the cassette survived in its association with the Walkman but the CD took control. Even I could not resist the new dominant technology. Maybe it was my growing up but after years of focussing on taping stuff from the radio, I started borrowing CDs from the library (and taping the best tracks) and even buying them. Mostly Greatest Hits compilations by artists like Kate Bush, Stranglers, Erasure, Julian Cope and such like, but at least I had the kernel of a music collection I could show to anyone who ventured into my little empire.

Talking of empires, the Stock Aitken Waterman hegemony was crumbling. Prolific as ever, but there was no longer the guarantee of massive chart success. Fortunately they still had Kylie. SAW’s final number one single was her cover of ‘Tears on My Pillow’ but 1990 also brought us possibly her best SAW-era pop song, ‘Better the Devil You Know’.

Meanwhile Jason Donovan’s chart career experienced a surprise slump. Kylie’s movie role in ‘The Delinquents’ led nowhere but Jason’s subsequent appearance at the London Palladium the following year was to be a roaring success. I saw him on the famous stage and must admit he was rather good. The Hit Factory wasn’t quite spent. Donna Summer had fallen out with the production trio, but her loss was Lonnie Gordon’s gain. A genuine soul singer rather than pop starlet, she had a number four hit in February with the excellent ‘Happening All Over Again’.

At the same time, Depeche Mode were back at their best. It came only second on my end-of-year ‘Other’ genre list but ‘Enjoy the Silence’ is now probably my favourite electronic anthem of all time. Martin Gore’s writing had turned darker, and his costumes wackier, but the band had also become huge around the world, even in the States. I was horrified upon hearing the 2004 remix. It had jettisoned much of what I loved about the original; the humming harmonising synths providing an opulent duvet of sound, so warm I don’t want it to end.

Electro-pop was nevertheless being relegated under the onslaught of dance music. House may have been an American invention but this was a great time for British acts. For all the excellence of Black Box and Technotronic, who each capitalised on the ‘megamix’ mania in 1990, it was home-grown artists enjoying the most success. So much so that a ‘Brits 1990’ dance medley, featuring the likes of Street Tuff, S-Express and 808 State went to number two in January. There was more to come later in the year.

This was the year when The Dance Anthem was celebrated in Capital Letters. We had The Orb’s ‘Chime’, Guru Josh’s ‘Infinity’ and all sort of weird trance stuff which, in the certain absence of Ecstasy, would have emptied Rotaract dance floors everywhere if played. Inside a mammoth tent in a remote Sussex field, they would have gone down a storm. Helped by 12” single sales, such tracks did make the top 20 and thus almost guaranteed some radio airplay, but this wasn’t the music I was listening and dancing to.

‘Dirty Cash’ by The Adventures of Stevie V was one of the year’s highlights for me, although Adamski’s growling synth classic, ‘Killer’, introducing the silky soulful vocals of Seal, sold many more copies. The lovely Betty Boo went solo, peaking at three with ‘Where Are You Baby?’. The inevitable house piano intro, a catchy chorus and some wacky rap made for a winning combination. Monie Love was a more authentic hip-hop star, and her ‘It’s a Shame’ was a great vehicle for her rapping and genuine singing voice. Its mid-pace shuffle beat was also perfect to move my feet to! 

Brit producers DNA did a wonderful job transforming Suzanne Vega’s wistful New York observations on ‘Tom’s Diner’ into a dreamy chillout dance anthem, in which we could sway a bit to the Soul II Soul-like beat while chanting “Der der der-der, der der-der der” at frequent intervals. Bass-O-Matic’s ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ was another excellent record which pierced the top ten. Londonbeat’s ‘I’ve Been Thinking About You’ was definitely at the pop end of dance, and was another of my favourites in 1990. Despite the name, Londonbeat were partly American, fronted by Jimmy Helms, but we clasped them to our patriotic bosom in that year of British House and trip-hop.

Of course there were some stand-out international dance tracks, too. There was no getting away from ‘The Power’ by German act Snap! or Deee-Lite’s ‘Groove is in the Heart’, and both have stood the test of time, even though I didn’t much like them personally. The same goes for Vanilla Ice’s ’Ice Ice Baby’. Gratuitously sampling Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ bass hook, it was very hard to take seriously the rap credentials of a lantern-jawed white Texan. However, the boy could move and it was infuriatingly infectious, out-selling every other dance record that year.

I couldn’t really take New Kids on the Block seriously either. ‘The Right Stuff’ had been a number one at the end of 1989 and ‘Hangin’ Tough’ was the first new chart-topping single of the Nineties. They were better dancers than singers, although they seemed over-fond of the ‘wave your arms from side to side’ move. In my head I wrote them out of my musical memory as a two-hit wonder. Yet on checking the stats, it appears that they had eight consecutive top-tenners in the UK. What? How did that happen? Fair to say they were much bigger in the States than here, a blue-collar Take That.

One of the dance tracks most fondly remembered from 1990 was the first football song it was OK to like. Englandneworder’s ‘World in Motion’ harnessed the Hacienda cool coefficient of New Order to the lyrics of footie-mad Keith Allen. And then there was that rap by England winger John Barnes. ‘Back Home’ and ‘Fly the Flag’, this wasn’t. Gillian Gilbert looks terribly uncomfortable in the cheap ‘n’ cheerful video, and Bernard Sumner only slightly less so but, excepting his goal at the Maracana, this was Barnesy’s finest hour.  

It was released for the World Cup which would forever be known as Italia 90. On the pitch, at least in this part of the globe, the tournament became associated with Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne, who bawled his eyes out after being booked in the semi-final against West Germany. However, the Italian hosts are of a more cultural disposition. Instead of wheeling out the likes of booze-sozzled Keith Allen, they launched the competition with a concert featuring the global opera stars Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti. They became branded The Three Tenors, and football would never be the same again. Italia 90 was the first football event to transcend mere sport. TV audiences were huge, reaching countries not normally known for their football prowess.  

The fact that the BBC’s coverage used Pavarotti’s rousing rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ strengthened the connection between footie and opera, and the charts suddenly took on a strange look. He went to number two here, and the Essential Pavarotti and the Three Tenors concert recording itself were each amongst the six biggest selling albums of the whole year. Extraordinary! For all the “Vincero, vincero!”s, Italy didn’t win. It would have been fitting had their team of Maldini, Vialli, Mancini, Baresi and Toto Schillaci emerged victorious in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico but they were knocked out on penalties by Argentina.

I loved that World Cup.  Slagged off for its lack of goals and its infamous red card-ridden final, it nevertheless had so many dramatic ingredients, featuring two English teams (one representing Ireland) and Scotland, the surprise heroes of Cameroon and the likes of Maradona at his best. Yet it was the added element of top-class music which cemented this tournament as one of my all-time favourites. It didn’t convert me into an opera fan, buying up Covent Garden tickets for Turandot, but it was an unforgettable summer with the contrasting soundtracks of Pavarotti and John Barnes. 

It wasn’t just opera flying the flag for classical music. Nigel Kennedy’s interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sold an amazing two million copies and the unconventional violinist’s image was as ubiquitous as not only Pavarotti’s but also Kylie’s, Madonna’s and George Michael’s. Not really my thing but the opening bars of La Primavera are as uplifting as any piece of pop.

Unlike Kennedy, you wouldn’t have caught any members of The Housemartins wearing bondage leather boots or Aston Villa shirts. In fact, by this time Hull’s finest had flown the nest for good. And yet their progeny prospered. Norman Cook, not yet Fatboy Slim, went to number one with the sample-heavy ‘Dub Be Good to Me’ as part of his genre-bending Beats International combo. Meanwhile, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway had formed The Beautiful South and in 1990 they matched their ex-bass player’s success. They won hearts and minds with an impudent line in catchy melodies and witty lyrics, few better than ‘A Little Time’, featuring a duet of Hemingway and Briana Corrigan as a warring couple. There would be plenty more from them in the next few years but this was to be their only chart-topper.

I liked some other quirky singles, too. The B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ was an incredibly infectious retro dance track, an instant Rotaract disco stalwart. The Beloved were more of the age. I loved ‘Hello’ which, while not making the top ten, had an off-the-wall lyric. Their eclectic roll-call of names in the chorus was unique. How many songs would rhyme Jeffrey Archer with Jean-Paul Sartre or William Tell with (backing singer) Kym Mizelle?! My favourite couplet, immortalising a Brookside TV character and a once-exciting Crystal Palace winger was:-

“Billy Corkhill, Vince Hilaire
Freddie Flintstone, Fred Astaire…”

Also high on the quirkometer was ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’ by They Might Be Giants. Apparently it’s a song sung from the viewpoint of a nightlight. Yes, really. But it’s just fun listening to the abstract nonsense, delivered in a deadpan Massachussetts drawl. I couldn’t have been the only one because it made surprising progress to number six here.

For all her colourful career, Madonna entered a monochrome phase, at least where her videos were concerned. In April, her paeon to the magazine ‘Vogue' went straight in at four, supported by a typical song-and-dance video (“Strike the pose”). My diary recorded: “she’s joined the House beat brigade and beaten them at their own game. Shame I don’t like the song”. I was astonished to read this final sentence as ‘Vogue’ quickly became my favourite of Madonna’s copious canon.

For all ‘Vogue’’s magnificence, it wasn’t enough for La Ciccone. She had been flirting with controversy for a while but when the tacky ‘Hanky Panky’ came out, some of us thought she had lost the plot. It was back to the Forties but with a song explicitly yearning to be spanked! It wasn’t even any good. Talking of explicit lyrics there was little ambiguity in the words of ‘Justify Your Love’. The black and white video depicting plentiful sex and gender-bending S&M was banned by MTV, which of course merely cranked up the notoriety dial to eleven and made the song a worldwide hit in December.

The drum riff was lifted from James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’ and everyone was sampling Clyde Stubblefield’s solo, from Public Enemy to George Michael. True to form, Madonna virtually made it her own on ‘Justify Your Love’, the beat complementing the eroticism of her breathy, mostly spoken, vocal. I felt almost guilty at liking the record but it was beautifully beguiling.

Another b&w video falling foul of some censors was made for Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’. After featuring in David Lynch’s film ‘Wild at Heart’, the song took off around the world. The ghostly slide guitar and Isaak’s cool, brooding voice helped place the song second on my end-of-year ‘slow/ballad’ list. Apparently about unrequited love, there didn’t seem to be much ‘unrequitedness’ going on in the video, as Isaak cavorted on a beach with a naked Helena Christensen!

It was a good year for director David Lynch because his groundbreaking TV mystery series ‘Twin Peaks’ was unleashed. We wouldn’t normally have watched such a programme, especially as it was scheduled on BBC2. However, the gamble paid off.  The pilot episode was like nothing like I’d ever seen before. Basically a whodunit but with so many red herrings, weird characterisation and stylish touches that it seemed impossible to pigeonhole into any known genre. Indeed, as the series progressed, the plot also became impossible to follow but that wasn’t the point. Part of its charm was in Angelo Badalamenti’s music. The eerie theme tune was an instrumental version of Julee Cruise’s ‘Falling', with words by Lynch. Borrowing a phrase by lead character Dale Cooper, it was ‘damned fine’! 

There was more backwoods Americana in the form of Alannah Myles’ bluesy ‘Black Velvet’. OK, so Myles is Canadian, but it’s a paean to Elvis Presley, inspired by a bus trip to Graceland. From the first line:- 

                        “Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell”

the mood is set, the picture painted; you can almost feel the oppressive heat. It was popular just about everywhere, and still sounds great. Coincidentally, Bobby Vinton’s Sixties track ‘Blue Velvet’ also made number two on the UK that year, but I’d rate the darker material slightly higher.

Big ballads provided the three biggest selling singles of 1990. It proved the symbiosis between film and music which was to dominate the charts in the early Nineties. Weepie ‘Ghost’ topped the box office list, and its soundtrack centrepiece, ‘Unchained Melody’ by The Righteous Brothers did the same for UK singles. Bobby Hatfield’s soaring tenor filled the airwaves throughout autumn while the erotic clay scene in the film must have sent thousands, humming the song, to pottery evening classes. 

The second most popular film was ‘Pretty Woman’. I don’t know whether careers advisors were overwhelmed by girls wanting to become call girls and meet wealthy Richard Gere lookalikes but the movie’s top track was Roxette’s magnificent ‘It Must Have Been Love’. This certainly ranks amongst my fave ballads, even if it tells a sad story. Only a number three hit here, it was huge in the States.

On the other hand, a Prince composition handed Sinead O’Connor her career highlight, ‘Nothing Compares 2U’. Prince’s obsession with numbers and letters in song titles was rather tiresome but I can forgive him anything after Sinead’s emotional performance of his unreleased track. The simple video has become iconic, and it’s hard not to be affected by the sight of O’Connor’s full-screen pixie face and blue eyes letting tears fall in tune with the autumn leaves. Apparently she and Prince almost came to blows, his hostility to her fondness for swearing merely serving as a challenge. I’m sure he didn’t resent the generous royalties the cover version generated.

Putting aside the hysterical horrors propagated by the living mullet that was Michael Bolton, the other successful slowie I enjoyed from that year was Elton John’s ‘Sacrifice’. One of those songs which flopped originally, it gave Elton his first solo number one single in the UK, and deservedly so. Hardly an uplifting love song, it nevertheless resonated with the public and kept Pavarotti and the England football team off the top during the World Cup. I like to think it was the summit of the summer soundtrack, although the truly awful ‘Turtle Power’ and Timmy Mallett’s ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny…..’ (under the pseudonym Bombalurina) actually topped the charts during a hot and sticky August.

As an aside, visiting a small art shop in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, we showed interest in an attractive painting of a boat. The £5K price tag put paid to any realistic thought of purchase but it was a revelation to be told it was the work of the aforementioned Mr Mallett. No longer the irritating children’s TV entertainer, he is now apparently a respected artist. A shame that to people of my age he will always be associated not with beautiful beachscapes but stupid hats and hideous summer party hits like this one.

1989 had been dubbed the official Second Summer of Love. However, 1990 was the year when the Madchester sound, MDMA and yellow smiley logo really crossed over into mainstream common culture. Not that we were all dancing like loons fired up by LSD or Ecstasy pills. It’s just that a lot of the music seemed really good.

The Stone Roses were the archetypal Madchester band, their first album frequently appearing in ‘greatest of all time’ polls despite hardly anyone ever having bought it! They had numerous singles, half of them with ‘Stone’ in the title, but I don’t remember any of them. It was only when I borrowed the album from the library several years later that I discovered the glories of the slow-burning opener ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ and ‘She’s a Waterfall’.

I’ve never warmed to Ian Brown’s airy-fairy voice but I suppose having strong powerful vocals weren’t really important, potentially detracting from the psychedelic sound which was aimed at stoned partygoers. Shaun Ryder probably never won awards for his singing ability either, but his Happy Mondays released two Mancunian monsters in ‘Step On’ and ‘Kinky Afro’. Both stalled at five in the charts but I really enjoyed them. The former was better to dance to, while the follow-up was made for turning up the volume and listening. 

Also demonstrating their ‘mad for it’ credentials were The Soup Dragons’ ‘I’m Free’, The Farm’s ‘Groovy Train’ and Candy Flip’s lazy, hazy cover of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. Nevertheless, perhaps the outstanding example of the genre was EMF’s ‘Unbelievable’. An infectious dance number with attitude, it did its stuff without MC Hammer’s baggy ‘loons or Bez’s maracas, but apparently if you listen to the backing vocals it’s full of profanities. Ah, 1990. You could get away with anything. Unless you’re Margaret Thatcher, whose reign of political and social terror finally, and surprisingly, came to an ignominious conclusion. That, too, was unbelievable. As The Las sang that winter, ‘There She Goes’….

1989 - Life is a mystery, Everyone must stand alone

If 1988 was a personal low point, then the following year signified a renaissance of sorts. The BBC research job was going well, the intestinal surgery had left me pain-free for the first time in two years, and Rotaract had brought me right out of my stubborn shell. 

OK, life wasn’t perfect. I never left a Rotaract disco with a young lady on my arm, or a phone number in my pocket. Nevertheless, for all that romantic disappointment there was social fulfilment of a different kind. I was Treasurer and Publicity Officer, throwing myself into all sorts of activities and an enthusiastic participant in a myriad of quizzes, sports challenges, days out, nights out, concerts and those village hall discos covering the four corners of Essex and everywhere in between.  I may have sat out the slowies at the end, but it was a cracking year for dance music.

It wasn’t all about the American house or British rave scenes either. Italian production team Groove Groove Melody formed Black Box and created possibly the greatest floor-filler in history, ‘Ride On Time’. Model Katrin Quinol was the face of Black Box, but the single’s vocals were sampled from an old Loleatta Holloway song. It didn’t really matter at the time that the sexy dancer on the video was miming; it simply made you want to dance, and what more could you want from a dance track?! For all its obvious house origins, it still sounds great well into the twenty-first century.

Belgian ensemble Technotronic got in the act, too, with the pulsating ‘Pump Up the Jam’ but Double Trouble and Rebel MC from London also made the top three with ‘Street Tuff’. I also had a fondness for the Beatmasters’ ‘Hey DJ’, which introduced us to the rap of Alison Clarkson, aka Betty Boo.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. I recall being in a car heading for a Rotaract event on a Sunday evening. One of my fellow passengers suddenly turned up the radio to hear the chart show, exclaiming: “It’s a woman having an orgasm!”  Lil Louis’ ‘French Kiss’ throbbed away seemingly forever before the rhythm slowed and ‘vocals’ kicked in. This was indeed clearly depicting more than a little tongue-on-tongue action! Embarrassing to dance to, though. An enduring Rotaract favourite was Damian’s version of ‘Time Warp’. 

The choreographed moves brought everyone together:

                        “It’s just a jump to the left

                        And then a step to the right.

Put your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight"

but I confess I hated the record. I just had to go along with the rest.

By November, a new dance craze, the ‘Lambada’ had spread across Europe. The band was French, the singer Brazilian, the language Portuguese, the song adapted from a Bolivian original, but the infectious Latin beat traversed all borders and was something I could happily attempt to sway along to.

I’m pretty sure ‘Bring Me Edelweiss’ was not such a global success, but it was a heady hotch-potch of – would you believe? – House piano, ‘scratching’, rap, yodelling, cowbells and a sample of Abba’s ‘SOS’ chorus. You might expect such a bonkers collection of Alpine stereotypes would kill the record stone dead, but you’d be wrong; the band Edelweiss were Austrian and the record topped the chart from Basel to Vienna, reaching five here. 

Another top 5 hit which appealed to me also relied on gratuitous (but no doubt legal) borrowing of bits from old records. Kon Kan’s ‘I Beg Your Pardon’ was a fast-paced track sampling various sources, especially Lynn Anderson’s ‘Rose Garden’. I don’t remember the Canadian duo doing much else but this was great stuff. Not a staple of Rotaract discos but fun to listen to nonetheless.

A glance at my 1989 diary uncovers the revelation that none of the above was my favourite ‘dance/disco’ single of the year. That contemporary decision fell the way of the Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘You Drive Me Crazy’. They’d been around for a few years with some interesting dance tracks but this was the time when they really hit the big time on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘Good Thing’ also made our top ten, boasting a very catchy jump beat. Lead singer Roland Gift had a distinctive mixed race appearance and unusual vocal style, which endeared him to the media and girls alike. He seemed to abandon music for acting and did indeed nab some decent film roles, but in more recent times I read that the recording studio has lured him once more.

I didn’t buy FYC’s album The Raw and the Cooked but I did splash out on Sydney Youngblood’s debut. This was purely down to the magnificence of the Texan’s singles ‘If Only I Could’ and ‘Sit and Wait’. If he had stuck with a conventional soul production, I’d never have liked him. However, his voice was mixed with some darned funky, hip-hoppy rhythms, but after these two crackers he never reached the top 40 again. A shame.

Apparently Mr Youngblood was criticised for one or two tracks sounding too similar to some work by another breakthrough act of ’89, Soul II Soul. Jazzie B became one of the faces of London R’n’B, his ‘pineapple head’ dreadlocks swaying alongside the sexy string section and behind the collective’s female singers. Caron Wheeler fronted the number one ‘Back to Life’ but it was the Soul II Soul beat which influenced a shedload of dance acts in the coming years. Impossible not to dance to.

Another icon of late Eighties hip-hop was Neneh Cherry. With Swedish-Sierra Leone parentage, she seemed to spend much of her time in the UK, which was great because she enlivened any number of British pop programmes in 1989. She sounded pure London on ‘Buffalo Stance’, especially in the delicious dialect ‘break’:-

“What is he like? What's he like anyway?
Yo' man. What do you expect? The guy's a gigolo, man
(giggling) You know wha’ I mean?!”

Yet this wasn’t my favourite Neneh Cherry song. That was the magnificent ‘Man Child’. The melancholic chord changes and melody, plus Neneh’s sassy rapping, gets me on an emotional level which few songs ever do. I remember seeing her perform it some years later at Glastonbury, and she was sensational then, too. A host of twenty-first century American stars owe so much to Neneh Cherry’s trailblazing as credible feminist musician, writer and performer. Forget Nikki Minaj et al; listen to the real deal.

According to my diary, ‘Manchild’ was my favourite ‘Slow/Ballad’ record of the year, edging out ‘The Living Years’ by Mike and the Mechanics. As my entry of 10^th February records:

            “At last, Mike Rutherford has merged from the shadow of 

            Genesis colleagues Collins and Gabriel, taking his Mechanics

            Up to number two in the singles and album charts. It’s one of 

            those ballads with (a) rousing choral chorus which has ‘classic’

            written all over it!”

With words by BA Robertson and the voice of Paul Carrack, it is such a sad song about a son's reflective regret over unresolved conflict with his now-deceased father. If it came on the radio, I always needed to keep a tissue handy for Angie. Now, having lost my own Dad, I find it a tough listen myself. 

There were other big ballads that year. The Bangles lit their ‘Eternal Flame’ which illuminated the charts for much of the Spring. Ah, what man couldn’t hold a candle for Susannah Hoffs?! Phil Collins received a cacophony of criticism for his tale of a bag lady, ‘Another Day in Paradise’. The gist was that instead of just writing a song, why can’t a millionaire pop star just give all his money away to the homeless? That was just lazy journalism. Why shouldn’t he do what he does best, enable us to enjoy the music and encourage the rest of us to “just think about it” and do our bit? Bob Geldof and Bono have endured similar belligerent brickbats over the years, but none of them justified. 

Gloria Estefan and The Miami Sound Machine were very popular in the late Eighties, bringing Cuban-influenced Latin rhythms into the mainstream. I wasn’t so struck by them. However, in 1989, the lead singer went solo and enjoyed success with slowies ‘Don’t Want to Lose You Now’ and the re-released ‘Can’t Stay Away From You’. Estefan didn’t endear herself to me with her anti-Castro rants, but back then she did have a wicked way with a ballad. 

I must confess I’d completely forgotten The Eurythmics’ sultry ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ and Richard Marx’s ‘Right Here Waiting’ despite them being amongst my favourites at the time. I do have lasting memories of ‘Belfast Child’, which gave Simple Minds their only UK number one single. I thought it had been a re-working of an Ulster folk song but that proved to be only half correct. Apparently, Jim Kerr borrowed the tune but wrote entirely new lyrics “trying to relate to people in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones”. It’s a blistering record, from Kerr’s unaccompanied intro to the powerful second half. Finally, the easing back at the end, surely designed to allow the listener to sit and contemplate the sadness and emptiness created during the Troubles which were very much alive and kicking in 1989. 

The legendary Roy Orbison had died of a heart attack the previous December. I had come to love some of his Sixties classics, and his voice is an eternal wonder.  Enjoying a renaissance as part of tongue-in-cheek super-group The Travelling Wilburys at least in the States, he was more popular than he had been for two decades. It’s a shame therefore that he didn’t live to see the Jeff Lynne-penned ‘She’s Got it’ go to number three early in February 1989. Actually, I preferred the Bono/Edge composition ‘She’s a Mystery to Me’ even though it failed to make the top 20. 

Roy’s ‘She’s Got it’ was stalled behind another fifty-something singer, Gene Pitney. I’d remembered the original version of ‘Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart’ but it was quite a revelation to hear it given a big production sound twenty-one years later. It complemented Marc Almond’s soulful voice beautifully, so the decision to reunite the song (from the aforementioned Cook-Greenaway partnership) with the now silver-haired Pitney was brave. Fortunately it worked spectacularly. However it didn’t lead to more UK hits although he continued performing up to his sudden death in 2006 after a concert in Cardiff, a few miles down the road from where I am writing this.

Sixties guitar hero and shock-haired singer Joe Brown had been part of my childhood thanks to constant playing of Mum’s 7” EP featuring ‘Picture of You’. I was to be reminded of this when his daughter Sam Brown enjoyed success of her own with the bluesy ‘Stop’. For some reason, I really liked it. Apart from Sam’s voice, it must have been the gentle strings which clinched the deal. Since then I have spotted her doing backing vocals for various bigger stars like Dave Gilmour, and she has been one of Jools Holland’s go-to singers performing with his orchestra. She has shown that you can make a career as a supporting artist and has even taught the art of backing vocals at the Academy of Contemporary Music. 

When it comes to heavy rock ballads, there are few stronger than ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ by Guns ‘n’ Roses. Axl Rose still looked startlingly feminine back in autumn 1988 when this was originally released, but Slash was already enigmatically hidden behind his distinctive long black curls beneath that towering hat. The guitar is just as towering but, for all the record’s enduring iconic status in rock history, it originally reached a paltry 23 in our singles chart before getting a new lease of life in 1989. An unforgettable five fab minutes.

Then in the summer it was surpassed by the roaring return to form of Alice Cooper. I recall first hearing the searing feedback-laden intro to ‘Poison’ while sitting in the car at a rain-soaked West Bay on holiday that August. Alice seemed such an anachronism as the Eighties entered their death throes, but amidst all the crap emanating from the likes of Kiss and Aerosmith, this remains a rock classic nonetheless.

Another record that conjures up memories of that summer fortnight in Dorset is Martika’s ‘Toy Soldiers’. Written about a cocaine-addicted friend, it had a different atmosphere to it, partly because of the childlike backing chorus (featuring, amongst others, future Black-Eyed Pea, Fergie) and also the haunting vocals of Martika herself. She has done all sorts of stuff since, as writer and performer, but this remains the only song I’ve liked.

In October, the Rotaract club travelled en masse to Sussex for a youth hostelling weekend at Alfriston. In addition to savouring the delights of the beautiful village, Eastbourne pier and the Seven Sisters walk, the trip brings back memories of the newly released Tears For Fears album, Seeds of Love.  Three years and a million pounds in the making, it wasn’t the masterpiece everyone was hoping for. Indeed it was panned for obvious echoes of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper in the title track which, for all its rambling excesses, I quite enjoyed listening to. The following March, another large group of us went to see the band at Wembley Arena. Recognising the criticism of the Summer of Love overtones, Curt and Roland had the cheeky temerity to include in the set list a singalong ‘All You Need is Love’.

The only pop concert I attended in ’89 was Elton John, also at the big barn Arena as part of the ‘Reg Strikes Back’ tour. I’ve already alluded to it in respect of Nik Kershaw’s supporting role, but the abiding memory is not of Elton doing his thing belting out hits like ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ or ‘I’m Still Standing’. Unfortunately it is of boos ringing out when it became apparent that Elton wasn’t reappearing for the encore, thus depriving 7,000 people who’d paid at least £17.50 from hearing ‘Candle in the Wind’ and other faves. Reg wasn’t striking back, he was just on strike! 

On Radio 1 the next morning, there were whispers that Elton had had one of his notorious hissy fits and left the building and George Michael waiting in the wings, where he’d been preparing  to duet on ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’. I have no proof of this rumour but the show’s conclusion did leave a sour taste and made for a despondent trudge back to Wembley Park Tube station. Nevertheless the four of us tried to compensate by singing the missing songs ourselves. Apologies to the fellow passengers who had to hear it. 

One of the biggest and most controversial tours was Madonna’s ‘Blonde Ambition, taking in three nights at Wembley Stadium. To my chagrin, I missed out on this one, but not out of choice. I doubt that her sweet Christmas hit ‘Dear Jessie’ reached the set list, which was absolutely laden with hits past, present and future. Her only number one single that year was ‘Like A Prayer’, one of her attempts (successful!) to antagonise the Catholic church hierarchy, especially with the video’s depiction of burning crosses and kissing a black male saint. At least she covered up her Gaultier conic bra and stopped simulating sex on a bed for this memorable concert performance. It’s by no means my favourite Madonna track, with its gospel choir sections, but definitely an example of the Eighties megastar in her pomp.

Well, I’ve reached this far in my 1989 journey without including those initials SAW. They can’t be ignored any longer. If Madonna was at the peak of her creative powers at this time, so was the Hit Factory and the writing of Pete Waterman.  They were on the credits of no fewer than seven number one singles, and heaven knows how many other top tenners.  

Jason Donovan took centre stage from Kylie Minogue. He sold 1.5 million copies of the Ten Good Reasons album, and topped the singles charts with ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’ and the Brian Hyland ballad ‘Sealed with A Kiss’, as well as with Kylie on ‘Especially With You’ and a host of others familiar from the S/A/W roster (plus Cliff, Lisa Stansfield, Bros et al) on the Band Aid 2 Christmas fundraiser. He wasn’t, though, on the SAW-produced Hillsborough disaster charity song ‘Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey’, a number one featuring a ‘who’s who’ of Merseyside pop stars like Gerry Marsden, Holly Johnson and Paul McCartney, and which was actually quite good. 

The twinkly-eyed, delectably-dimpled, red-headed Scouser Sonia also hit the big time with ‘You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You’. Another typically rousing chorus but a forgettable verse melody. I’ve just listened and, er, no, it’s gone… S/A/W also revived the career of Donna Summer in the Spring with my favourite Waterman composition of 1989: 'This Time I Know It’s For Real’.

For all the above, probably the most successful ‘artist’ of the year was not an Aussie soap star, a Euro-dance phenomenon or an American female style icon. No, it was a – cartoon rabbit! Under the banner of Jive Bunny, a bunch of Yorkshire mixers and producers came up with the not-entirely-new idea of sampling a load of old hits for a new generation of partygoers. It proved extraordinarily, and infuriatingly, successful.

Starting in July, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers spent a total of nine weeks at number one, with their segues of songs from the rock ‘n’ roll era, plus a soupcon of Glenn Miller. ‘Swing the Mood’ dominated the summer, returning to the top in October with ‘That’s what I Like’ and again in December with a medley of Christmas hits. That blasted bunny was everywhere!

And so the Eighties came to an end. Yuppies were on the up, the Berlin Wall came down. A decade remembered largely for its excesses, I have fonder memories of the music, from Madness to Madonna, Jam to Jacko. It was a great decade for me personally, representing the journey from shy, naïve student to more socially aware public servant. I would mature further in the Nineties and, as you will read, my musical tastes probably became a little more eclectic.