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.

1993 - Time to break free, nothin' can stop me

At some point during the year, one of my newer Rotaract colleagues, Elaine, expressed excitement at the rumour of Gary Barlow moving to Billericay. Noticing my blank look, she seemed part pained, part amused at my apparent – and genuine – ignorance of the aforementioned celebrity, who may or may not have been gracing our town with his presence. “You know? Take That!”.

Well, at least I had heard of Take That; I just wasn’t au fait with the individual band members. By the end of 1993 there probably wasn’t anybody under the age of 50 who didn’t know Gary, Robbie, Mark, Jason and Howard. During the previous year they had racked up five top 20 singles, culminating in the up-tempo cover of ‘Could it Be Magic?’ at Christmas which peaked at three. The next single, the dreary ‘Why Can’t I Wake Up With You’ made two but it was ‘Pray’ which signalled their arrival as true pop stars.

It was a brilliant song, nice vocals by Gary, a beat you could tap your toes to, and another of those daft almost homoerotic videos full of moody, topless poses and slo-mo shakes of the head in water. Their days as purely gay icons were gone; suddenly every young female was after the quintet. To my knowledge, Mr Barlow never bought a house in Norsey Road but his songs were everywhere. Not only ‘Pray’, but also ‘Relight My Fire’ and ‘Babe’ went straight in at number one, making Take That the first act ever to have such a hat-trick in the UK.

I don’t remember the term ‘boy band’ being applied to any previous group, but suddenly it was a popular label with which TT were encumbered, prompting the launching of various copies such as Louis Walsh’s Boyzone. However, Gary and the boys were not ready to relinquish their crowns as pop princes.

I suppose the Osmonds and The Jackson Five had been prototype pop boy bands, releasing a stream of mostly vocal hits. They did actually play some instruments although it was obvious that, apart from Gary on the piano, Take That were primarily eye candy, decent dancers (apart from Gary, again) and proponents of passable vocal harmonies. Michael Jackson’s career clearly hadn’t been harmed by his abandoning his brothers; he was, after all, only the biggest star on the planet.

One reason for that was his willingness to experiment and attract some top-notch collaborators from other genres. One of my favourite Jacko singles from the Nineties was ‘Give In To Me’ which reached number two in March ’93. It was a true rock ballad, fuelled by Slash’s guitar licks and solos. At the same time, Lenny Kravitz was doing the same thing, swinging his dreads while knocking out some mean rock riffs on a ‘flying V’. That month, Iron Maiden also made it a temporary haven for old-school metal. It didn’t last. However, the summer did deliver another slice of meat-and-two-veg rock in the form of ‘Two Princes’ by New York’s Spin Doctors. Angie hates it and it has been voted one of the worst songs ever. Not in my book. Its simplicity, basic structure without the excesses of contemporary icons Kiss and Aerosmith, makes this track one of my not-so-guilty pleasures.

Two British superstars who had long since left the bands which made their respective fortunes were earning rave reviews with new albums. Sting brought out ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales’, including some sumptuous singles. I remember one of my work colleagues, with whom I tended to associate more muscular music, going into raptures over the bucolic charms of ‘Fields of Gold’, and quite rightly so. It’s one of those songs whose layers of echoing synth chords and delicious vocals beg you to stop what you’re doing and listen and lose yourself in the music. ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ was another great record, yet neither pierced the UK top ten, which is quite baffling.

The solo career of another post-punk New Waver, Paul Weller, really gathered momentum with 'Wild Wood'. I recall being delighted on first hearing the title track, yet it spent a mere three weeks on the chart. Another mystery. Maybe it was deliberately deleted by the artist or his record company, but it deserved a longer shelf life.

Duran Duran had taken a few sabbaticals but sensibly Simon le Bon never attempted to go it alone. In January, their beautiful ‘Ordinary World’, from their ‘Wedding album’, crept up to six and proved to the world they weren’t to be consigned to the bargain bins of New Romanticism. Lovely lyrics, written and delivered with mature restraint by a 34 year-old Simon Le Bon, combine with an elegant verse and stirring chorus, topped off by a memorable descending guitar riff. This is probably their last great single but it’s life-affirming that Duran Duran still tour and make new music, free of the nostalgia circuit. Long may they do so!

1993 was the year when I finally realised that, to grow up properly, I really needed to escape the bosom of the family home. I had always got on extremely well with Mum and Dad, which made the whole palaver of searching for my own place less urgent. However, my days in Rotaract (nominally for 18-29s) were clearly numbered and the prospect of finding my own way was not as frightening as it had once been. I had sufficient savings for a deposit, so finance wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t looking to move too far, and so we perused together some local properties. I came close to securing a 2-bed flat but it wasn’t until the next year when I finally moved into 30 Radford Court for the princely sum of £52,000!

All of this coincided with the success of M People’s Elegant Slumming album, including the intoxicating ‘Moving On Up’. Obviously it wasn’t written with my house-hunting in mind. It was more a feminist anthem giving an errant boyfriend the heave-ho, and with Heather Small’s deep, rich voice, no boyfriend would dare challenge the decision. I’m pretty sure I didn’t associate my own life and the song title at the time; only in retrospect does the title neatly encapsulate my thinking. Anyway, Heather Small’s distinctive towering hairstyle was everywhere that year and M People were deservedly hoovering up all sorts of awards.

It was also a year that brought two other very different artists to my attention for the first time. Radiohead seemed quite ‘normal’ back then, and their re-released debut single ‘Creep’ struck a chord with me. Not the weird lyrics about some form of obsession, but the semi-grungey music. That grumbling bass intro, the mysterious chord progression and ugly double guitar slashes were like nothing I’d heard before, not even from Nirvana. This was before Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood et al became rock legends with a disturbingly obsessive, possessive fanbase. Their massively popular Nineties albums did yield the occasional commercial single I liked, such as ‘Fade Out’, but I have never ‘got’ Radiohead, and in my mid-fifties, surely never will.

Of course, they have a right to exist. In fact the rock world would be a poorer place without them. I’ve long felt the same about Bjork. The diminutive ex-Sugarcubes singer has been pigeonholed in the ‘difficult’ box, labelled as perennially weird and an enemy of the media. She may have had her run-ins with intrusive photographers; quite frankly, considering it natural behaviour for a mum protecting her child, I don’t blame her. As for Bjork’s music, my relationship with her has followed similar lines to that with Radiohead. However, in 1993 she released three astonishingly contrasting singles. ‘Play Dead’, made with David Arnold, was a movie song but not for James Bond. They surely missed a trick there. ‘Big Time Sensuality’ was a shimmering electronic oddity, showcasing Bjork’s endearingly unique vocal style, full of squawks and childish dancing. However, it was seeing her perform ‘Venus as a Boy’ on telly, not TOTP, that I recognised her exquisite talent.

It wasn’t a big hit, but the vulnerability and gentle emotion in her voice grabbed me by the gut in a way the Icelander has never achieved since. With her pretty, elfinlike appearance, she came across not so much a pop star but as a fairytale character; not as distant as Enya, less precisely rehearsed than Kate Bush. Bjork was half-tomboy, half pixie. She possessed the innocent moon face of a tweenie, yet the mature musical mind of a 27 year-old woman. The song itself has hints of jazz and touches of Indian percussion yet at heart it’s a simple pop ballad. Her Glastonbury performance sums up everything which seemed so wondrous, yet simultaneously slightly irritating about her.

Michael Stipe was another mild eccentric who by ’93 was helping REM to global superstardom. After hearing the rocking ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite’, baffling ‘Man on the Moon’, bewitching ‘Everybody Hurts’ and the beautiful nostalgic drum-free ‘Nightswimming’, I was moved to buy their new album ‘Automatic for the People’, the year’s second biggest-seller. Even the failed single ‘Find the River’, which closed side two (yes, they still had 12” LPs) was glorious. For all the ingenious string and woodwind arrangements, and Mike Mills’ piano, on ‘Nightswimming’, it was the lullaby-like ‘Everybody Hurts’ which most represents REM that year.

I found it hard to like Stipe’s twang, but I could at least appreciate his phrasing of his own lyrics. The band was impressively talented, too, swapping instruments while the front man did his usual angsty thing at the mic. Like most great acts, they passed me by in the live sense. However, I always enjoyed watching them performing live on TV, if only to spot the fleeting moments when Michael Stipe’s face cracked into a smile!

New Order had been quiet for three years, so it was a welcome treat to see the video for their new single ‘Regret’ on TOTP. Well, the ‘Baywatch’ aspect was largely lost on me – and the band don’t exactly look comfortable on a Californian beach either - but the rockier sound met with my approval. Their ‘Best Of…’ compilation came out the following Christmas and I think I bought the cassette not long after. I think they are dreadfully under-rated. They have done dance, electronica, pop-rock, and often in the same song! From sustaining the Eighties Hacienda scene to appearing at the 1993 Reading Festival, the rockers’ mecca, they were always a cool band. Still are.

2Unlimited certainly weren’t cool but ‘No Limit’ proved to be their biggest UK hit. The contemporary joke was that, once the minute-long techno intro finally gave way to Anita’s vocals, she sang “No, no, no-no-no-no, no-no-no-no, no-no there’s no lyrics”. Of course, dance anthems don’t exactly demand deep and meaningful words, and the Dutch duo enjoyed a string of successful singles using the same winning formula.

There was more of the same from Capella’s ‘U Got to Let the Music’, Culture Beat’s ‘Mr Vain’ and one of the great Nineties tracks from any genre, Haddaway’s ‘What is Love?’. The Germany-based Trinidadian gave us this majestic debut, a searing dance beat with a melody worthy of listening to without your dancing shoes on. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the pre-Will Smith Fresh Prince hip-hopped their way to number one with ‘Boom Shake Shake the Room’. One of the rare rap tracks I quite liked, thanks to Will’s tongue-in-cheek delivery, it was a million miles from the new breed of gangsta rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac and Public Enemy who were beginning to infiltrate the UK singles chart.

For some reason, 1993 became one of the biggest years ever for reggae and its modern offshoot, ragga. In one March week, the top three consisted of Shaggy’s “catchy” ‘O Carolina’, Canadian white boy Snow’s ‘Informer’ (“repetitive crap”) and Shabba Ranks’ “sexist ego trip”, ‘Mr Loverman’. Note the italicised quotes from my diary on 26^th March.

Two months later, it was a top three consisting entirely of more traditional reggae. Only Inner Circle were Jamaican, and ‘Sweat (la-la-Long)’ bounced its merry way to number three, justifying my description as “a jolly little holiday song”. Swedish band Ace of Base went further with their ‘All That She Wants’. The Berggren sisters could sing live, too, as they did on TOTP here. The blonde-brunette combo had a slight touch of the Abbas about them, and indeed their 30 million global sales put them third behind the fab foursome and Roxette in Swedish pop annals. ‘The Sign’ was another number one the following year and, to my surprise, it even became America’s biggest-seller of 1994.

Of course, any period of reggae dominance must include our own UB40. On their way to the top that week in May, their inevitable contribution was another cover version, this time of ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love’. Shuffling along in the same predictable groove as ‘Red, Red Wine’, it had similar huge success without really floating my boat. It was at least better than the “erotic” Sharon Stone thriller Sliver from which the track emerged. However, when it came to enervating Caribbean rhythms, the year belonged to Chaka Demus and Pliers.

The Jamaican DJ and singer combined to entertaining effect, making the top three with three consecutive singles. At first, I didn’t appreciate ‘Tease Me’, but it grew on me. ‘She Don’t Let Nobody’ was a slower number but probably my favourite was their ragga take on ‘Twist and Shout’. It never stood a chance of being the Christmas number one, but did top the chart once the decorations came down. I’ll even go as far as saying this version surpasses that of Brian Poole or The Beatles three decades earlier. It’s not exactly the same structure, of course, but through the patois you can just about detect the familiar guitar riff.

Apart from Take That, what kept Chaka Demus and Pliers at bay for a few weeks was an act which sends shivers down the spine to this day. The ‘performer’ must be the tallest ever to make number one and probably the pinkest. Mr Blobby was simply unstoppable that Christmas! The spin-off from BBC1’s Saturday evening show Noel’s House Party was the first, and surely the worst, in a sequence of home-grown children’s TV characters to achieve Christmas success. Give me Bob the Builder any day! At least the proceeds helped supplement the Beeb’s income and kept me in a job!

From Mr Blobby to Meatloaf isn’t as vast a chasm as you might think. And I’m not talking merely of the physical similarities, uncanny as they are. No, size is unimportant; I simply hate them both.

I cannot fathom why normally sane friends dissolve into raptures on hearing the first chords of ‘Bat Out of Hell’, a track so long I’m convinced whole civilisations have grown and collapsed before the final bursts of motor bike engine. The news that Meatloaf and Jim Steinman were working on a sequel to the original Seventies album filled me with dread. Unsurprisingly Bat Out of Hell 2 conquered all in 1993. But worst of all was the lead single, ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’. Seven weeks at the top felt like seven years, it was a typical “interminable epic”. I won’t give it the extra exposure of a YouTube link but I can’t deny it formed part of my musical backdrop that autumn.

Changing the subject rapidly…. Ah, I refer to a band which has become possibly my favourite of all time. Yes, I know I have raved about Abba, Madness or even The Beatles, but they are predictable choices. I can claim only a quantum share of such musical megastars. However, I feel this band is more – well – mine: Saint Etienne.

They’ve had only one top ten hit, but umpteen which briefly illuminated the top thirty. In 1993, I first became enamoured of their wistful, Sixties-influenced covers and original music, when ‘You’re in a Bad Way’ and the joyous ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ adorned the stage of TOTP. Sarah Cracknell’s fresh and light vocals proved such a perfect fit with the rhythms of Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley, and I must confess I found her easy on the eye, too. My relationship with Saint (never St.) Etienne intensified two years later when they released a singles compilation Too Young to Die.

They may have taken their name from the French football club but Saint Etienne are very much part of the fabric of London. Most of their material from the mid-Nineties have been love songs to hidden corners of the capital and its people. Bob and Pete are also well into capturing the city on film, while Bob has written some well-received books and articles about the history of pop. His byline in The Guardian is always a welcome sight.

Imagine my delight, too, when I caught a short ad in Metro for remaining tickets to the band’s 2003 Christmas concert at the London Palladium. Who cared if I had nobody to go with; this was an opportunity not to be missed. It also turned out to be an unforgettable evening’s trawl through all their singles complete with guest stars like Etienne Daho and Edwyn Collins. Sarah self-consciously performed - complete with small baby bump! – front of stage, while black-clad Bob and Pete twiddled knobs behind banks of synthesisers. Thank you, Saint Etienne, for your enduring talent, and also staying below the celebrity radar and allowing me to feel that little bit closer to you.

Another London band was garnering rave reviews amongst the more mainstream media. Suede hadn’t really done much chart-wise but Melody Maker’s 1992 description of them as ‘the best new band on Britain’ helped convince the BPI and BBC to open the prestigious 1993 Brit Award broadcast with ‘Animal Nitrate’. I’m not sure they merited the introductory epithet of ‘already legendary’ but their performance of the song certainly made an impression on me.

The single was propelled to seven in the chart and Suede blasted off into the forefront of a whole new UK-born musical genre. Brett Anderson’s love of removing his shirt did nothing for me, and neither did his exaggerated vocal Cockneyisms, but I’d never before heard guitar work like Bernard Butler’s. If I had been remotely musical, I’m sure he would have inspired me to take up the instrument myself. Instead I contented myself with listening to his instinctive ear for accompanying melodies, riffs and licks on several chart hits. Maybe The Stone Roses and other indie bands had done something similar before, but for me this was a whole new sound. The shy Butler left Suede the following year but the band became a cornerstone, and maybe a catalyst, for a host of new bands which exploded from the underworld in 1994. Shining singles like ‘Trash’ and ‘Wild Ones’ were still to come but, while the term had yet to be coined, Britpop was upon us.