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.

1979 – Another lonely day, no one here but me-o

This was another of those personal landmark years. Struggling through months of A level revision was bad enough, without the ill-effects of sickness and loss of appetite to contend with. The specialist diagnosis turned out to be Crohn’s Disease and it took a year or so for the treatment to settle the inflammation. Meanwhile I bade farewell to my second home for seven years, the Mayflower School, and made those initial nervous steps into higher education. I probably wasn’t cut out for the whirlwind of sudden independence thrust upon me by attending Exeter University. However, I was exposed to a more eclectic mix of music than I had been whilst relying on the regimented rules of chart-led media. I even went to a few gigs, but they were still some way off

The year began with two massive hits following each other to the top. The Village People's ‘YMCA’ was irritatingly catchy, its brass ‘n’ bass rhythm and arm actions instantly recognisable to this day. I actually preferred the follow-up, ‘In The Navy’, which stalled at two. Hot on the heels of that particular disco classic came the highlight of Ian Dury’s career. ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ shouldn’t really have been successful. Nonsense lyrics, an uncommercial funk vibe, a disabled lead singer whose voice seemed to have been constructed from the gravel pits of the Thames Estuary itself…? Yet it sold a million! ‘What A Waste’ had raised his profile nationally the previous year, but ‘Rhythm Stick’ was on a different plane altogether. Behind Dury’s lyric, those Blockheads were in fine form, too. Norman Watt-Roy’s shimmering bassline and that double-sax solo by Davey Payne were so distinctive. Even Dad liked it!

The song also motivated me to find out more, discovering songs like ‘Billericay Dickie’, ‘Clever Trevor’ and ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll’. The former proved a handy way of introducing myself and my home town to fellow undergraduates that autumn. What I hadn’t quite grasped was that the eponymous character was hardly – shall we say – an icon of middle-class respectability!  As the first verse explains:-

“A seasoned up hyena
Could not have been more obscener”

Hmm. Well. With regard to the fairer sex, I left Exeter as green as I arrived, but at least I got to see Ian and the Blockheads live in the Great Hall.

The band were the leading lights of Stiff Records, a label which had also nurtured Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and a rejuvenated Dave Edmunds. These three also produced songs I really enjoyed in 1979. Costello soared to number two with his bitter but clever ‘Oliver’s Army’, Edmunds to four with the rollocking ‘Girl Talk’ and Lowe had a few hits of his own while playing bass with Edmunds.

Stiff probably would not have existed without the financial fillip provided by Lee Brilleaux, co-founder and chain-smoking singer with Canvey Island’s finest, Dr Feelgood. Already with a number one album to their name, they pierced the singles top ten in February with the powerful ‘Milk and Alcohol’. It was the only time they reached even the top 30, but in our part of Essex they were huge. Not really into R’n’B, it took a while to appreciate their music but a decade or so later I did finally tag along to a gig in Chelmsford to see what all the fuss was about. Being showered with fag ash ain’t my idea of fun, but the atmosphere further back was undeniably fast and furious!

The year also featured the first singles from another Stiff group, Madness. Their revival of the Sixties ska sound left me cold. I’d never even heard of Prince Buster. However, I did recognise ‘One Step Beyond’ as an entertaining foot-tapper, even though Madness were a year or two away from becoming my favourite band. Suddenly ska was everywhere. My first few terms at Exeter played out to a soundtrack of 2-Tone records. Hot Chocolate, The Foundations and The Equals were no longer the only multi-racial groups I’d heard of. In addition to the music, itself a blend of reggae and punk influences, having black and white artists together demonstrated defiance against the rise of the racist National Front and Margaret Thatcher’s new right-wing government. Jerry Dammers’ The Special AKA (not yet The Specials) and The Beat made the top ten, but I favoured the bouncy beat of The Selector’s ‘On My Radio’.

Still in the Home Counties, Squeeze’s ‘Cool For Cats’ was popular with my schoolmates. Amusing lyrics, a deadpan vocal from Chris Difford and cigar-puffing Jools Holland on keyboards was very sixth former-friendly stuff and it went to number two. ‘Up the Junction’ did the same, but was a very different song. Glenn Tilbrook’s lighter voice was perfect for the sweet story of a doomed Clapham romance, which was quite moving. I still can’t decide which of the two hits I prefer. The following few years brought more singles, albeit less popular. ‘Pulling Mussels’ (with a delightful piano interlude from Jools) and ‘Is That Love?’ earned few sales but won my heart. One of my many regrets from those Exeter days was that I didn’t see Squeeze perform there. Difford and Tilbrook are still on the scene so maybe there’s still time….

Wit and whimsicality were not the sole preserve of Londoners like Dury and Difford. Glaswegian B.A. Robertson achieved fame with a sequence of jocular singles in ’79 and ’80, the first of which, ‘Bang Bang’, pulled off the rare feat of being both genuinely funny and great to listen to. ‘Knocked it Off’ was more of a comedy song but also made the top ten. You couldn’t help warm to him. With such depressing politics and economic news weighing heavily even on us teenagers, music to lighten the mood was extremely welcome. 

Disco was still very much to the fore, delivering some crunching dance numbers to complement the 2Toners and wry balladeers. I have never stopped loving the work of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. 1979 was their peak year. Not only did their group Chic release the wonderful ‘I Want Your Love’ and ‘My Forbidden Lover’ but the two ace American musicians/composers/producers gave Sister Sledge their first taste of true success. ‘We Are Family’ is the track which to this day seems to generate most airplay, but in my mind, it’s ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ which stands proud amongst the top three disco records of all time. It’s one you can listen to, but for a pure dance track, Chic’s 1978 track ‘Le Freak’ probably has the edge. Sadly Edwards is no longer with us but, despite his prodigious drug intake over the years, at the time of writing Rogers is very much active - and perhaps even cooler than he was in the Seventies! 

South Essex hadn't really taken the new American fad for roller-disco to its bosom. However, it was prominent in the promo for Gloria Gaynor’s early girlpower anthem, ‘I Will Survive’. Yes, it’s Gloria’s song but it was the segments spotlighting Sheila Reid-Pender’s graceful roller-dancing which for me are the most enduring images. The record displaced The Bee Gees’ ‘Tragedy’ from the number one position here. I confess I liked neither. When the American rock community launched their record-burning backlash and the nation turned against the Bee Gees, with ‘Tragedy’ in my head I could almost feel they had a point. 

However, the huge hit holding the top spot between Ian Dury and the Gibbs was more to my taste. Blondie may have infuriated their old punk supporters when they released ‘Heart of Glass’, but it made them global superstars, and Debbie Harry a thirty-something sex symbol. If I’d been into buying posters, I’m sure she’d have been on one of them! They didn’t become a disco band, though. Their next chart-topper, ‘Sunday Girl’, was a lighter, almost Sixties-ish pop song. Taking these together with the previous year’s rockier New Wave tracks, you had the heart of Blondie’s LP ‘Parallel Lines’, which was the year’s biggest-seller. 

When it came to singles, nothing sold more than Art Garfunkel’s dreamy ‘Bright Eyes’. Of course it was a beautiful song. Everything performed by Art is. However, the association with the ‘Watership Down’ animated movie meant that the oft-repeated film of fluffy rabbits wore somewhat thin! Cliff Richard’s massive hit ‘We Don’t Talk Any More’ was another song which sounded good for the first few weeks before becoming merely irritating. Even with a twenty-year career behind him, Cliff was still a significant artist back then. 

It was a good year for virtuoso guitarists, too. Cliff’s old mates, The Shadows notched a couple of top-tenners with their own instrumental versions of current popular tunes. Much as I had come to appreciate his enormous influence on rock music back in the early Sixties, Hank Marvin’s mix of grinning and gurning over his Fender tremolo arm in 1979 seemed peculiar to say the least. Yet ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’ and ‘Cavatina’ did really well. The latter had been revived by its use in the groundbreaking film ‘The Deer Hunter’ and it was only fitting that the man who had originally recorded the tune, classical supremo John Williams, should also make the top twenty with his acoustic version. I’d never seen ‘The Deer Hunter’ until recently and I still associate the mesmeric melody with children’s TV series ‘Vision On’...

Gary Moore’s ‘Parisienne Walkways’ was another great guitar single, but I was more impressed by Mark Knopfler’s frenetic fretwork on ‘Sultans of Swing’. On that final epic solo, how can anyone play so many notes in such a short time – and in the right order?! I first heard it travelling down to Devon in a minibus for a Geography school field trip. It sure took my mind off the relentless rain! 

There was another great guitar solo in that year’s unforeseen Christmas number one, Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. With its imagery of kids being fed into a meat mincer, and calls of “We don’t need no educay-shun”, it was another of those records which got many educationalists in a tizz. Not Dad, of course. True to form, it merely amused him! It did indeed a memorable video, if somewhat bleak, especially for the season of turkey and tinsel.

The video was in its infancy but starting to move on from Abba-style ‘two-shots’ and bands miming in various locations. As with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, promo films could make a difference to sales. The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was a case in point. I recall first hearing the song on Radio 1 and feeling distinctly underwhelmed. It looked like languishing unloved in the lower reaches of the Top 30 until the video was shown on TOTP. Suddenly I ‘got’ it! Three weeks later in October it was at number one. It all looks rather tame and basic nowadays, but it was cutting edge in the Seventies. Singer-writer Trevor Horn proceeded to be one of the most prolific and influential producers of the Eighties so, ironically, under his guidance, video didn’t actually kill the radio star after all.

Another powerful promo belonged to The Boomtown Rats’ ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. Appropriately for the song’s subject-matter (an American girl’s killing spree) there are lots of scary classroom close-ups and sharp editing but it was the dazzling white-light studio scenes which packed the greatest punch. A great record but an even greater video.

I've written before about my childhood infatuation with drumming. The arrival of punkish white reggae (well, ‘Regatta de Blanc’) group The Police in ’79 brought to my attention the idiosyncratic stickwork of Stewart Copeland. Until that point, most drumming on chart records was regulation stuff. I’m no technical expert but some of Copeland’s rhythms were refreshingly different. Of course, The Police were a trio of brilliant musicians and writers and went on to be so successful, better than the sum of their constituent parts. I first heard them when ‘Roxanne’ reached twelve in the Spring. It didn’t do much for me. However, when ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ soared to number two (behind the Rats) in July, I began to pay closer attention. A few months later, I felt an instant emotional connection with ‘Message in a Bottle’. Topping the chart when I went up to Exeter University, the lyrics chimed with the loneliness I experienced during those early days in hall, trying to get to grips with new surroundings, colleagues and ways of working. I suppose I, too, was “sending out an SOS” but when Sting sang:-

“Walked out this morning I don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore

there was a modicum of hope. As the next line revealed, I realised “I’m not alone in being alone”. I may not have possessed in my room a means of actually playing a record, but ‘Message in a Bottle’ was the first 7” I bought purely for me, a personal statement. I wouldn’t have bought it just for the empathetic words, though. It was a fabulous record. A simple guitar riff, bass line, vocal and fairly straightforward structure, but it all came together in such an energetic package, and The Police had such quality no band could touch them for the next few years.

M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ and The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’ were similar examples of classy singles but they were one-offs. XTC delivered the brilliant ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, but failed to penetrate the top ten. The Jam’s ‘Eton Rifles’ was a tantalising preview of what was to come from Paul Weller and co, while Michael Jackson seemed to come of age with his effortless dance moves and vocals on ‘Rock With You’, ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’ and, with his brothers, ‘Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)’.

I wasn’t really into his music, but his talent was obvious. This was the year of his ‘Off the Wall’ collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, and the hit singles flowed. The ‘Thriller’/’Bad’ Eighties era probably marked Jackson’s pinnacle as a zillion-selling global musical icon. However, 1979/80 appears in retrospect to be the time when young Michael was at his peak as an unblemished human being, before Jacko started to become Wacko.

There was plenty of cheesy pop, of course. Most has been mercifully forgotten but some was too ubiquitous to be easily disposed of with a mental ‘delete’ button. While the Americans had The Jacksons, we had The Dooleys! I kind-of recall 'The Chosen View' but as a product of the Northern club circuit they were pretty dreadful. Not the worst of the year, though…

The Ramblers’ ‘Sparrow Song’ towards Christmas signalled a horrendous start of songs featuring cute kids, culminating in the next year’s mind-numbing number one by St Winifred’s School Choir. I also loathed Lena Martell’s big hit ‘One Day at a Time’ but not all cheese leaves a nasty, mould-ridden taste in the mouth. Dollar were borne out of the crap vocal group Guys and Dolls but David van Day and Thereza Bazar were to release a string of singles in the late ‘70s and, when Trevor Horn assumed control, the early ‘80s. A good-looking couple, but Bazar’s feather-light voice wasn’t really up to much; it didn’t seem to hold them back. As for the music, it wasn’t their most successful, but I had a sneaking regard for their 1979 effort, ‘Who Were You With in the Moonlight’.

It was also the year when ABBA blotted their copybook by releasing ‘I Have a Dream’. For all their amazing back catalogue, I suppose they are allowed one dodgy moment. The simple ballad is OK but once the dreaded school choir kicks in, my patience checks out. 1979 was also unusual given that the Swedes failed to clock a single UK chart-topper. ‘Chiquitita’ came mighty close and is now one of my favourites.

Under 1978, I raved about the Electric Light Orchestra. It’s not that they were top of my list at the time but nostalgia and age has boosted their appeal. In ’79, their album ‘Discovery’ was the second biggest seller, including ‘The Diary of Horace Wimp’. Not one of the most famous ELO songs, but I love it. A silly story, but lovely melody and orchestral arrangements, and the vocoder is used cleverly as a rhythm machine. That autumn, ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ peaked at a very respectable three and consisted of much ‘E’ but no ‘O’. A rock number, allowing Bev Bevan to thrash the drumkit at live shows, I quite liked it, despite the string section’s sabbatical. For all the great Seventies singles, and a few more in 1981, it is painful to recall that ELO’s only chart-topper was the feeble ‘Xanadu’ with Olivia Newton-John in 1980. The least said about that, the better. 

Violins and cellos are all very well, but sounded prehistoric in comparison with a record which captured the imagination in the summer of ’79, much as ‘I Feel Love’ had done a few years previously. Back then we were amidst a feeding frenzy of sci-fi blockbusters like the original ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek movies. Then, as if beamed down from another galaxy, appeared on our TV screens The Tubeway Army. Dressed like Kraftwerk and with a voice akin to a part-alien David Bowie, front man Gary Numan invaded the charts with banks of synthesisers so that pop would never be the same again. At least he also had the foresight to include a few drums and guitars to placate the awe-struck earthlings. ‘Are Friends Electric?’ even had a quizzical title, suggesting an affirmative response was in order. Two years before, The Carpenters had charted with the epic ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’. Now we knew the result. It was Numan who had - to paraphrase the lyric - been observing our earth, wanting to make a contact with us. 

The song was all so epic, yet futuristic. In fact, Numan WAS the future. I loved it and, despite those booming synth chords, I feel it has stood the test of time. Its sample even helped launch the Sugababes' career two decades later. Numan went solo for the follow-up single ‘Cars’ which was number one just before I left Billericay for Exeter. Used for so many adverts in the intervening years, it feels as if it has never been away. Other hit records followed but none had the impact of the first. It paved the way for a new electronic era in pop which caught hold in the Eighties, a decade which was suddenly upon us…