1997 – Good-bye, England’s rose

This was another of those truly momentous years. Personally, my improbable relationship with Kim developed with the help of lengthy train journeys  to and from Cleethorpes. It would later blossom with short breaks to the Lake District and Paris. Music didn’t play much of a part, unless you count my Friday evening train trip to Doncaster en route to see her, spent in the company of the rock band Terrorvision! A shame I wasn’t better acquainted with their music at the time or I might even have struck up a conversation instead of shrinking into my window seat racking my brains over their identity. It eventually dawned on me before journey’s end.

One of the biggest headlines of the year was the democratic overthrow of the Tory Government by Tony Blair’s New Labour party. I can’t claim to have stayed up into the early hours of May 2^nd to witness the iconic moment of Michael Portillo’s humiliating defeat; in true Mike rock’n’roll style, I needed to bank some sleep in readiness for a night flight to Athens. Painful memories remain of John Prescott and Peter Mandelson awkwardly tapping their feet and nodding their heads to the campaign anthem ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.

As for my holiday in Greece, I had a fabulous time revelling in all that history, from Delphi to Olympia, Mycenae to the Parthenon. I even had the best view of a receding Comet Hale-Bopp. I don’t really recall much on the way of plate-smashing and bazouki music but the UK did triumph at the Eurovision Song Contest the following night, courtesy of Katrina and the Waves. On the coach I expressed my rather negative opinion about the winning song only to discover that the woman sitting behind me was the mother of the composer. Ouch! Only six more days to face in her company… Little did I know that, two decades on and it is still the last example of British Eurovision success. With the current state of continental politics, the years of hurt are likely to stretch towards infinity...

In contrast, 1997 proved that The Spice Girls were not a one-year wonder. If the second half of ’96 had seemed to belong to the famous fivesome, then the following twelve months saw them conquer the entire planet. Every business wanted a piece of them, and they always seemed to oblige with enthusiasm. Not only was the band’s own merchandise everywhere you looked but their faces were ubiquitous on all sorts of other commercial products. When Channel Five launched on 30^th March, it didn’t take a marketing genius to spot the obvious association. Er, are there any really ‘hot’ pop groups linked to the number five we can hire? Duh!

As well as selling squillions of albums and singles, the Spice Girls seemed to win every award going, too. They even made the shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize, although Roni Size’s drum’n’bass thwarted that particular ambition. February’s Brit Awards ceremony entered pop folklore thanks to Geri Halliwell’s Union Flag mini-skirt. When it came to Cool Britannia, the lads of Oasis had been usurped by Girl Power, although the Gallagher brothers were probably too busy getting stoned or fighting to notice. 

‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ was probably the best of their ’97 singles, although the Latino rhythms of ‘Spice Up Your Life’ shifted more copies. Inevitably, the Spiceworld album was supported by a film of the same name, a book sold 200,000 on its first day, and their global travels included a visit to South Africa to meet an apparently admiring Nelson Mandela.

Indeed, Mel B, Mel C, Geri, Emma and Posh were already so immensely powerful they could even fire their manager and mentor Simon Fuller and run the massive machine themselves. Anyone who says that the X Factor has thrown up bigger acts and promotional phenomena obviously wasn’t around in ’97 or has somehow forgotten how huge The Spice Girls were at their peak.

Yet none of their UK singles sold a million in 1997. Remarkably, no fewer than seven other records released that year did break the seven-figure barrier, each of them in the second half.

If you were aged under three, a parent of toddlers or a student, you were probably more emotionally involved with another British supergroup, the Teletubbies. They weren’t the first kids’ TV characters to have a gigantic Christmas hit, nor the last. The song was basically the programme theme song so of course it wasn’t exactly a work of musical genius. It had just the one single redeeming feature: it was better than Mr Blobby!

Barbie dolls had been around for decades longer than Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, and so the whole world could engage with Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’. The Danish-Norwegian band sold more than 1.8 million copies of the uber-catchy slice of child-friendly Euro-dance. Most people I knew understandably sneered at the simplistic pop tune and its even simpler video. Like most of the best and worst pop classics, there’s more to the melody, rhythm and lyrics (too suggestive for Barbie manufacturers Mattel!) than first meets the ear, and it’s near the summit of my list of guilty pleasures. Judging by the single’s sales and the YouTube tally of 300+ million views (in 2016) I am not alone. It was surely destined to be a one-hit wonder over here, yet the similar ‘Doctor Jones’ and brilliant ballad from the film Sliding Doors, ‘Turn Back Time’ followed it to the number one slot.

Gangsta rap was not exactly on my private playlist. I didn’t know my Ice Ts from my Ice Cubes, my Chuck Ds from my Eric Bs, and wasn’t losing any sleep over it. Thus when Puff Daddy (as he was then known) joined forces with Faith Evans to hijack The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’ in July with the tribute song ‘I’ll Be Missing You’, it was the first time I’d ever heard of The Notorious B.I.G. I doubt I’d missed much, and I had a low opinion of this maudlin bastardisation of the Eighties classic. And yet it sold in droves during the summer months.

Not being a viewer of Aussie soaps, I’d never previously heard of Natalie Imbruglia either. Yet who could not be smitten after seeing the video of ‘Torn’ and hear that vulnerability in her voice? It has sometimes been suggested that the success of her debut single is largely down to the line about Natalie ‘lying naked on the floor’ but….. - er……. sorry, I was, um, distracted for a moment there – that’s clearly untrue. Apparently it’s the second biggest selling single not to have topped the UK chart. She had other songs and albums but it’s ‘Torn’ which has stood the test of time.

Another classic never to have made number one was Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’. In fact I think it only peaked at four but kept the tills ringing either side of the Christmas period. With the advent of digital downloads, it eventually passed the million mark and of course has become a radio and wedding staple. For me, it’s not such a great song. It’s even really difficult to sing. However, it was obviously a cathartic time in Robbie’s own life. ‘Angels’ helped change him from laughable chubby, drug-addled, washed-up ex-boybander into cherished national treasure. Ironically, his rise coincided with Gary Barlow heading in the opposite direction.

Perhaps the strangest journey to million-selling status was that travelled by ‘Perfect Day’. Starting life as a long-form promo film for BBC Music and the licence fee’s essential role in nurturing talent, this stunning production of Lou Reed’s 1972 B side boasted such extraordinary power that it led to an understandable clamour to be able to buy it as a single.

Never has the term ‘Various Artists’ been more aptly adopted. The performers really did span a broad range of genres, from pop to blues, jazz to classical, rock to country, avant garde to folk. For all the megastar names like Bono, Bowie and Elton (but no Spice Girls!), the most memorable moments for me were created by Courtney Pine’s flowing soprano sax solo, the rich mellow tones of Heather Small, Dr John’s laconic “such a poir-fick day” and Tom Jones’ show-stopping “You’re going to reeEAPPPP” near the end. But they all played their part.

The record raised more than £2million for the Beeb’s Children in Need charity and I was completely bowled over. and even now it raises hairs on my arms when I listen. There have been numerous attempts to imitate the montage charity single before and since, but this remains the grand-daddy of them all.

Meanwhile the charts were definitely losing their lustre. Not so much with regard to the quality of music but in the trajectories the singles followed. For most of my life, going ‘straight in at number one’ was a rarity. Now it was almost obligatory. Every single chart-topper in 1997 entered the Top 40 either at one or two. I don’t know whether it was the result of a change in the sampling methodology or more cannily targeted record company marketing, or both, but it didn’t feel right. It also meant that, unless you had access to satellite TV channels, the videos were shown a maximum of once on TOTP.

Following ‘2 Become 1’, the first five number one singles spent just the single week at the top. It beats me how most got there in the first place. The sequence included possibly U2’s worst ever release ‘Discotheque’.  In the credit column was Blur’s ‘Beetlebum’. I remember watching them on TOTP while sitting in a Cleethorpes B&B thinking it was quite good, although the asymetrical drum beat during the verse jarred with my traditional sense of rhythm.

I later heard an interview with Damon Albarn in which he admitted the song was about heroin. He countered the criticism about the subject-matter by comparing with The Las’ ‘There She Goes’, another perennial pop radio favourite written about the killer drug. The Blur lyricist emphasised in his Mockney accent that the controversial theme of ‘There She Goes’ (and by association, his own hit) wasn’t important: “It doesn’t ma’er. It doesn’t ma’er. It’s still a great song”.

What was an even greater song was White Town’s ‘Your Woman’. By this time, White Town was essentially just Jyoti Mishra, born in India and raised in Derby. Made on a shoestring, it really shouldn’t have been a hit but it slowly gained respect in the clubs and on Radio 1.  Some favourite records are slow-burners; this one slammed me in the face on first listen. Starting with an ancient Al Bowlly muted trumpet solo, it veers into alien territory, albeit with standard drum beat, the vocals delivered as if over the telephone. Is it about a woman, a man? The video is even more pretentious but, as Damon Albarn might have put it, it doesn’t ma’er. It didn’t fit in the ’97 scene, and yet it did. It sounded complex yet at the same time absurdly simple. Let’s just call it a modern masterpiece, the most wonderful of one-hit wonders!

By way of contrast, Oasis were becoming victims of their own success. Their American tour had collapsed under the weight of sibling hatred, then the collection of Noel Gallagher’s third-string songs were combined in the dreadfully over-produced Be Here Now album. It didn’t really ma-er. After release on 21st August, it sold almost 700,000 copies in its first three days! The first single, ‘D’You Know What I Mean’ was Oasis turned up to eleven, a bloated eight minutes in length. ‘All Around the World’ was even longer. ‘Stand By Me’ included a glorious chorus but it took forever to get there.

Too many drugs, a lavishly indulgent Creation Records budget and Noel’s ego capable of swallowing even Robbie Williams whole were boosting sales but doing their legacy no good. Swanning around drinking Tony Blair’s champagne in Downing Street and holidaying in Mustique with Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, Noel was also losing touch with his working class roots. Oasis were undoubtedly past their best but that still left them way ahead of any other British rock band.

Another Britpop group with drug problems were The Verve. Wigan’s finest had split up once already but reconvened to record a new album. Good decision! The result was Urban Hymns which went on to top the album chart for twelve weeks and come close to out-selling Be Here Now in 1997. The first single, ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ undeniably owed much of its success to its striking strings intro, stripped from an orchestral version of the Stones’ ‘The Last Time’. However, Richard Ashcroft’s ‘heroin chic’ appearance gave him an unmistakeable image. And then there was that video. Ashcroft’s arrogant Hoxton street strut and the clever ‘realistic’ choreography elevated the record to cult classic status. Tremendous stuff!

A few months later, they edged up to the top spot with the sad, Country-ish ballad ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’, about Ashcroft’s own addiction, but perhaps the two best songs on the album are the other slow numbers ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘Sonnet’. Several years later, I was fortunate to watch him perform an acoustic ‘Sonnet’ close up at one of BBC 6 Music’s live ‘Hub’ sessions, close to the Radio 4 office where I worked at the time. My God, he really was so tall and painfully thin! I reckon Richard Ashcroft, either with The Verve or as a solo artist, would have been higher in the pantheon of great songwriters had he worked out how to end a song. Most seem to simply drift into inconclusive ‘fade out’ territory, which is a shame. Still, what do I know? The Wigan boy done pretty good without my advice….

Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan has also had some well documented problems with Class A junk. Yet his band was still producing some top quality music in the late Nineties. From the Ultra album, ‘No Good’ was a five-minute meal of moody Goth rock electronica, with Gahan’s voice as powerful as I’ve ever heard it. There was a touch of the Goth in the look of Brian Molko, too, but his group Placebo were more Britpop. ‘Nancy Boy’ was a fabulous burst of energy, Molko’s guitar hand a blur, his vocal a sneering snarl, while a pulsating bass drove the whole thing forward. This ‘Later…’ performance was a true tour de force.

The Seahorses were borne out of Madchester royalty. After leaving the Stone Roses, guitarist John Squire brought his musical style and effortless cool to form a new band. Their debut was the excellent ‘Love is the Law’, one of my Britpop faves. A few other, less popular, singles followed but they were destined to provide tour support to bigger acts like Oasis rather than make it big on their own.

One of the finest ballads of the year came from No Doubt. Predictably I’d not heard of them as a ska-punk combo but when they released the unforgettable ‘Don’t Speak’ I was one of the millions who sat up smartish to listen. The continuous resonant two-note guitar riff drew me in to Gwen Stefani’s cool verse vocals and the rock-y chorus. I’ve never quite worked out how someone who looks so pale and white can inject such colour into her songs, although in my opinion nothing has approached the potency of this platinum-seller.

There was nothing cool about liking Hanson. The trio of ludicrously lanky-haired Tulsa teenage brothers went to number one in the summer with the Marmite-ish pop anthem ‘Mmm Bop’. Well, as with ‘Barbie Girl’, I was living proof that you didn’t have to be a brain-dead twelve year-old girl to enjoy this particular single. On the other hand, it may help with my street cred that I don’t remember anything else they recorded.

Boyzone failed to add to their number one tally, and both Damage and 911 threatened their position as top boy band from this side of the ocean. However, the Backstreet Boys trumped the lot of ‘em, enjoying four top five singles over here, the best being the slow-tempo shufflers ‘Quit Playing Games (with my Heart)’ and ‘As Long as You Love Me’. The Floridans were massive in the States and apparently claim a career sales total of 130 million records. That is not a typo. Blimey, surely they weren’t that good? Britain’s soulful girl band Eternal also enjoyed a great year, but the cross-Atlantic foursome All Saints were poised to attack.

Sweden had a new band on the global music scene. Unlike Abba and Roxette, The Cardigans were firmly in the indie camp. Their name conjured images of safe, old-fashioned popsters but their music trod a subtle path between traditional melody, trendy, uncluttered production and contemporary glumrock. ‘Lovefool’ was a surprise Spring hit which bucked the trend by peaking in its third week on the chart, at a very creditable two. There was more to come (‘Favourite Game’, ‘Erase/Rewind’, etc) and Nina Persson made a very welcome addition to the pantheon of rock front women.

From sexy women to James Bond. A record which oozes testosterone and conjures up images of Aston Martins and speeding skidoos is The Propellerheads’ update of David Arnold’s theme to ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Perhaps this isn’t the most popular member of the 007 franchise. However, this is definitely my favourite Bond music, so thank you to the British dance production duo for taking the tune into the charts. The nine-minute album track is overegging the pudding somewhat, but the radio edit is a cracking listen.

1997 was the year when German rave producer Sash! boasted three top three singles, and they were all pretty darned good. ‘Encore Une Fois’ was old-school dance, followed by a more Latino sound in ‘Ecuador’. In my opinion, they were right up there with the most addictive club classics of the decade. ‘Stay’ had more vocals and therefore sounds less of a banging Balearic choon. The following year, Sash! and singer Tina Cousins had another near-miss at the top with ‘Mysterious Times’, making the DJ one of the most consistent dance acts of the late Nineties. I still tap my ageing toes.

Another excellent dance sound from the year was ‘Remember Me’. Without Googling it, I’d never have recalled that the act was Blue Boy, although the vocals are sampled from Marlena Shaw’s raw Seventies original. That bass groove is still incredibly infectious. Sorry Blue Boy. I promise to remember you in the future.

A very different kind of boogie wonderland was conjured up by the previously little-known anarchist collective known as Chumbawamba. ‘Crusties’ were big in ’97. Unconventional eco-protester Swampy was popular with anti-establishmentarians like me but not the Government and construction companies whose efforts to build new airport runways or by-passes were frequently frustrated by him and his mates. In the end, the little guy with spade, ropes and attitude will never beat big business and commercial development, and Swampy and his mates were no different. Fortunately he wasn’t persuaded to launch a recording career. Enter Chumbawamba. Instead of something to be enjoyed by morons stoned on Ecstasy in a big tent, ‘Tubthumping’ was an instant hit for anyone at a suburban New Year party. Fundamentally, it’s a modern drinking song with a raucous chorus. Nevertheless the cannily melodic verse elevates it to one of the more engaging pub sing-alongs. I am living proof you don’t have to be pissed - or “------“ according to the TOTP censors - to enjoy it. It also serves perfectly well as a song for anyone suffering one of life’s slings and arrows, needing a life-affirming confidence boost. 

            “I get knocked down, but I get up again.

               No-one’s ever gonna get me down”

Abso- ruddy- lutely!

Sadly, 1997 will be remembered less for happiness and euphoria (beyond the Blair election landslide) and more for one of the most chilling individual tragic deaths experienced in my lifetime so far. Since her separation and subsequent divorce from Prince Charles, Diana had become a divisive figure. Even in August she was stirring things up with her courageous stand against landmines in war zones around the world. My diary records the alternative headlines over her apparently burgeoning relationship with Dodi al Fayed, son of another scourge of those in political power. Good luck to her, I thought.

On 30^th August, I and the family attended the wedding of my cousin Emily and Chris at Glinton, with an enjoyable reception in Stamford. The only musical memory that lingers from that evening was five year-old Hannah’s entertaining whirling dervish of a dance to the Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’. Many of us were staying at a picturesque, honey stone village hotel nearby, and we sank into weary slumber late that night. Kim and I didn’t have a TV or radio in our room so it was in blissful ignorance that we came down to the breakfast room to find a disturbingly sombre atmosphere.

We were quickly informed that Diana, the ‘Queen of Hearts’, was dead, apparently the victim of typically over-zealous motorbike paparazzi in Paris. So began one of the most emotional weeks in UK history. The Queen and Charles were public enemies one and two. Even I took the opportunity to divert from my normal journey home from White City to witness for myself the rapidly-expanding sea of floral tributes outside Kensington Palace; the groups of grieving tourists seated around candles; the devastating air of despair, of not mere tragic death of one woman but an end to an era.

Blair had his finest moment by capturing the public mood and persuading Buckingham Palace to rip up ancient protocol and approve a state funeral just a week later. The BBC rose to the occasion in time-honoured style but amidst all the military claptrap and Earl Spencer’s coruscating speech in the Abbey, one piece of music shone out. Diana’s friend Elton John had re-worked ‘Candle in the Wind’ with new words from Bernie Taupin, recognising the similarities with the original subject, Marilyn Monroe and the need to endorse the sentiments much of the population felt towards the departed princess.

Kim and I chose not to watch the ceremony on TV. To this day I have done my darnedest to avoid hearing Elton’s one-off live performance and the subsequent fund-raising single. It sold 600,000 on the first day of release and racked up 4.86 million in just five weeks! Naturally this became, and remains to this day, the biggest-selling single in UK history. It will take something extraordinary to exceed that.

1996 - Step outside, summertime's in bloom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        That Beckham red card

                        Rooney stamping too hard

                        Seaman grasping thin air

And Iceland’s war chant….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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….?