1994 - It's got nothing to do with Vorsprung durch technik you know

There were some momentous events happening around the world in 1994. Rwanda and Yugoslavia were experiencing horrendous civil wars, yet the IRA announced a cessation of hostilities and Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty. Nelson Mandela achieved the unthinkable by becoming President of South Africa but Labour’s new leader John Smith died of a heart attack, clearing the way for Tony Blair to mould the party in his image.

It wasn’t significant at the time but the first new number one of the year was D:Ream’s ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, used three years later as the signature tune for New Labour’s successful election campaign. D:Ream are now probably better known for boasting current science broadcaster extraordinaire Professor Brian Cox on occasional keyboards. Tough on Peter Cunnah, who pretty much did everything on the recordings.

John Major’s Tory government was spouting platitudes about getting ‘Back to Basics’ and that seemed to be what was happening in the charts, too. Suede toned down their rockier sound and introduced some sweet strings on ‘The Wild Ones’, performed live here - sans orchestra - on Jools Holland’s then groundbreaking BBC2 show ‘Later with…’. I thought it simply had to soar to the top three in the footsteps of the band’s ‘Stay Together’ but it stalled at eighteen. Never mind, Brett, it was the first (and only) cassette single I ever bought.

Around the same time, Madonna’s ‘Immaculate Collection’ became the first CD album I purchased, too, so my new flat at 30 Radford Court must by then have been adorned by a new-fangled CD player. Although I was busy hiring CDs from the library for selective taping, I felt the bachelor pad deserved the foundation of a proper music collection beyond my tapes of miscellaneous tracks largely nicked off the radio over the previous decade.

Earlier in the year I had bought a cassette of Erasure’s Greatest Hits compilation. Pop! However, it had been released before ‘Always’ gave them what felt like a comeback hit. It had a fresh sound, but nevertheless unmistakeably a Bell/Clarke synthpop production. Rather too many extraneous beeps and electronic twirly bits for my liking but definitely one of their best slow numbers.

An Eighties electro classic was re-mixed in ’94 to accompany another singles compilation, this time by New Order. I don’t think I bought it until the following year, but it did allow me to become better acquainted with ‘True Faith’. For some reason it didn’t leave an imprint in 1987 but in November its rise to the top ten catapulted it into my list of all-time faves. My arms still sprout goosebumps when listening to the melody and lush production. Forget the new video: the original is peerless!

One cassette album I did buy at Christmas was Blur’s 'Parklife'. I know the date because for some reason I still have the receipt from Billericay High Street’s claustrophoblic little ‘Slipped Discs’ shop. £8.49. Sounds quite a lot these days. I should have waited twenty years and paid a fiver in HMV. The band’s ‘Girls and Boys’ and title track (featuring Phil Daniels’ delicious delivery of those witty Damon Albarn lyrics) had wormed their wily way into my head, and I splashed out. It was, and remains, a wonderful album, totally different from anything else I’d heard. They were all terribly ‘cheeky chappy’ faux Londoners, accentuated by the Walthamstow greyhound stadium images on the album cover. There was other, less knees-up, material to enjoy, too, such as ‘To the End’ and ‘This is a Low’.

The whole Britpop rivalry with Oasis had yet to be manufactured. Back then, I don’t recall being particularly impressed by the latter’s singles from Definitely Maybe. Only the Christmas song ‘Forever I’ fared particularly well, but the song I remember most distinctly was ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’. Not totally in a good way. In particular, the message of nonchalantly-dipped fags as ‘cool’ has never chimed with me. I’ve never developed a taste for booze either, but that’s by the by! In spite of my lack of vices, I couldn’t help a sneaking admiration for this dollop of grunge guitar rock, but wouldn’t become a fan for another twelve months or so.

Talking of alcohol (!), Guinness ads were beginning to take on a marketing life of their own. They tended to mine the past for musical accompaniment and the 1994 ‘Pure Genius’ commercial had the winning idea of taking a minute-long excerpt from Louis Armstrong’s gorgeous Bond song ‘We Have All the Time in the World’. The ad propelled the original to number three in December. The following year saw Perez ‘Prez’ Prado’s Orchestra do even better with ‘Guaglione’ thanks to an engagingly quirky ad.

Levi ads had already spawned chart hits but in ’94 the jeans megabrand adopted a different approach of featuring music from new artists. As a result, Scottish grungesters Stiltskin stormed to number one with ‘Inside’, whose rocky intro formed the unexpected backing to this ad entitled ‘Creek’. The rest of the song was quite good, too!

Grunge was going especially strong at the time. Even The Cranberries, whose light, ethereal ‘Linger’ had lingered for months in the chart, ventured into the fuzzy guitar territory on the dark, brooding anti-terror anthem ‘Zombie’. However, when it came to grunge, there really was nothing to surpass Nirvana. I know many hold up Pearl Jam as kings of the genre but frankly I couldn’t name a single song of theirs. Mind you, at the start of the year, Kurt Cobain’s trio certainly wouldn’t have been my Mastermind specialist subject either but a single BBC2 broadcast was about to change all that.

In November 1993, Nirvana had followed the release of their third album In Utero with a performance on MTV’s Unplugged show. I didn’t record the date I watched it on TV here but it was probably early ’94. I recall Dad staying up to watch it with me and he also seemed to approve. Of course, his reaction may have been different had they had been fully electric and blasting out the boisterous ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. 

It wasn’t as if I knew most of the songs they played; I was familiar with only ‘Come As You Are’. However, it was heartwarming for me (and maybe John Major) to see a rock band going back to basics, and hearing something different in Cobain’s voice. From the raucous rock roar I knew from their singles, here was a cracked bluesy moan which worked really well. Not sure about his scruffy outsized jumper. My favourite track was ‘All Apologies’, the acoustic version trumping almost anything I had heard from the band.

‘Come As You Are’ features repetition of the line “I don’t have a gun”. Unfortunately, Kurt was lying. He did have a gun. And in April, having succumbed to heroin once more, he turned it on himself. I came home from work one night and Dad told me that some pop star had committed suicide. I had no hesitation in guessing the Nirvana frontman. Dad was impressed. I was just rather sad. To me, he wasn’t a rock god. I was no part of the Generation X for which he was supposed to speak so eloquently through his music. I just felt it was such a waste. The Unplugged gig was released as an album later in the year, and I bought it. I also picked up Nevermind, but I only really liked the first half. The rest sounded far too angry and discordant for me. Yes, I’d already turned into my dad!  

Or had I? After all, I don’t think Dad ever expressed any approval for dance, trance or disco. Apart from his Sixties impression of Tom Jones, I can’t even recollect seeing him actually dance. It may have been my last year in Rotaract but there were still some new anthems to get me going at village halls around the county. Identifying my three favourite dance singles of the year, by coincidence they all had ‘night; in the title. The Real Thing did well with ‘Another Night’ but surely one of the highlights was Corona’s eternally uplifting ‘Rhythm of the Night’. 

A song which divided opinion like few others was Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’. However irritating the song and cheesy the blonde Danish singer, it was undeniably catchy. It went straight in at number one in September and became the second biggest seller of the year. 

The song it displaced at the top had been there an interminable fifteen weeks so a change was overdue. Indeed, the song had been all around us for a few months longer. Back in May, I went to see the new hit film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ with Elaine from Rotaract. An excellent ‘date movie’, not that anything came of it. As for the film, it became huge, made a star of Hugh Grant and made it OK to say ‘Fuck fuck fuckity-fuck’ (but not at home). It also revived the career of Wet Wet Wet, whose cover of ‘Love is All Around’ dominated the soundtrack.

After hearing it back in the Seventies on the Savile show, I’d loved the Troggs original. It was a cute, sweet love song adorned with subtle guitar and strings. Fast forward 27 years and Reg Presley’s Summer of Love composition had been transformed into a Big Ballad for the Nineties multiplex generation. It was perfect for the romcom and, once released, it topped the charts throughout the summer, shifting almost 2 million copies and eclipsing even Bryan Adams’ effort two years earlier. It was not, as Robbie Williams proclaimed in his TOTP intro, the biggest seller of all-time but had the band not insisting on deleting the single while still number one, who knows what it could have achieved? 

There were other huge love songs, but most just sounded over-bombastic crap to sell cinema tickets and soundtrack albums. Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’ is a case in point. All-4-One’s R’n’B dirge ‘I Swear’ was pinned at number two for a record-breaking seven weeks by Marti Pellow and the boys, but a true legend went all the way in April.  

Amidst his infamous falling–out with Sony, Prince was no longer Prince. He wasn’t even officially ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’. No, he had reduced his brand to a ‘symbol’ which defied pronunciation. No matter. He still took his falsetto-laden ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ to the zenith. I couldn’t understand why. I daresay he wooed and bedded countless beauties with it but, unlike most of his stuff, it just sounded mind-numbingly boring. Another example of me missing the point, as it proved to be Prince’s only number one single in the UK. Well, not Prince exactly, but – er – the Artist/Symbol. Whatever. 

Mariah Carey never needed to resort to falsetto. Her destruction of ‘Without You’ also went all the way in February. Singer of the original, Harry Nilsson, had died only a month earlier, so he must have been spinning in the proverbial at what Mariah’s excesses were doing to his 1972 classic. 

Marcella Detroit’s soprano was similarly in the canine auditory scale but she seemed to know when to rein it in. Having been booted out of Shakespear’s Sister, she wrote and sang ‘I Believe’. Had it been used for ‘Four Weddings…’ instead of ‘Love is All Around’, I reckon it could have been almost as popular. However, it wasn’t, and it reached only eleven here. One of the better ‘big ballads’, in my book.

If anything I preferred Lisa Loeb’s ‘Stay’. No superfluous trills and runs, no grandiose production, no self-indulgent promo, just a simple romantic message, beautifully delivered. Apparently it was featured in a film but for me it was the young American’s own performance in the video that won me over. Sadly, Loeb became another ‘Outstanding Newcomer’ Brit winner who barely troubled the chart thereafter. 

Bruce Springsteen also showed his sensitive side in his ‘Streets of Philadelphia’. Appropriately sombre in mood, the song accompanied the groundbreaking AIDS movie Philadelphia. Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar but Bruce cleaned up in the Academy Awards, Grammys and everywhere else with this elegiac track, one of my Springsteen favourites.

Anther artist to re-appear in the top three was Kylie Minogue. ‘Confide in Me’ shared a basic trip-hop beat with Bruce’s hit but the rest was a smorgasbord of dance and Eastern rhythms. Her S/A/W days were long behind her, but somehow, like Madonna, she seemed to hook up with the right people at the right time, record the right song and be re-born. 

It was a good year for solo female singers. Gone were the days when the Brits nominee lists consistently consisted of Madonna, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, plus a few extras plucked from the inside pages of the music press. I enjoyed hearing Tori Amos performing ‘Cornflake Girl’ and at the end of the year, Sheryl Crow brought an agreeable brand of Country to the charts in the form of ‘All I Wanna Do’. She sang of a Los Angeles world I didn’t know, nor particularly wanted to know, but did so in such a way that even the Santa Monica Boulevard sounded exotic. And then there was Dawn Penn. Amongst another crop of reggae hits, her re-working of an old song ‘You Don’t Love Me (No, No No)’ stood out. The nine-beat tattoo intro suggested something more lively but it morphed into a summer slice of rock-steady, perfect for the June-July heatwave.

There was still space in the charts and my heart for the more offbeat. The Beautiful South had for several years been prize purveyors of light-hearted yet perceptive pop. Ready for the Christmas market, they released their first compilation album Carry On Up the Charts. In barely a month it became the second biggest seller of the year, and went on to be five-times platinum. The band was commonly described as everyone’s second favourites, and I succumbed to temptation the following year. 

Located further along the oddball scale were The Crash Test Dummies. My diary notes that I didn’t like their number two hit ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’ at first but it certainly grew on me. The strange baritone voice of Brad Roberts may well have grated with many, but it has a unique aura about it, an archetypal slow-burner. Strangely it wasn’t hugely popular in their native Canada, but trust the Aussies to celebrate the bizarre! 

Well, I’ve got this far into 1994 without mentioning Take That. Not that they weren’t successful. Far from it. They toured extensively, garnered more hits and, had ‘Love Ain’t Here Anymore’ not faltered at three, would have delivered an impressive sequence of eleven consecutive number ones. Their success was inevitably spawning competitors in the new ‘boy band’ market. 

Boyzone debuted with a limp version of the Osmonds’ ‘Love me For a Reason’ but Let Loose re-released the far superior ‘Crazy For You’. I had designs on Lois, the PA to the head of department at work. We had a few sort-of dates in London but we weren’t really suited. However, I do remember that she quite liked Let Loose (as well as Jimi Hendrix) but I didn’t need her to tell me that ‘Crazy For You’ was a cracking single. 

East 17 were a different beast. They were the Stones to Take That’s Beatles, the boys your parents wouldn’t really want you to consort with, unlike nice wholesome Gary, Mark et al. They weren’t dancers and to my untrained eye, they just looked ridiculous in back-to-front baseball caps. I know they cultivated a mean, moody image but I’d bet they were about as hard as jelly!  Their career hit a highpoint at Christmas when ‘Stay Another Day’ topped the chart. It wasn’t even a Christmas song but add a few bells and dress up the drongos at the back in white furry snow suits et voila! I was no fan but had to concede that Tony Mortimer could write some decent stuff.

Could the boy band era last, would synths take over the world or, just possibly, could guitars make a prolonged comeback? I may have reached my mid-thirties but there was still new music to entertain a dinosaur like me.

Iiiiit's Chriiiist-maaaaas!

Christmas is, of course, a time for music. It’s the season not only to be jolly but also to bathe in the warm, soapy waters of traditional songs. Yet what counts as tradition has changed markedly in my lifetime. 

As a child, Christmas music meant carols. That’s it. Pop songs come and go but the tunes and words of festive hymns stay with us for life. I think my favourite from primary school was ‘Away in a Manger’, with ‘Silent Night’ the best for atmosphere and ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ or ‘While Shepherds Watched’ for a bit of up-tempo Crimbo. 'O Come All Ye Faithful' was more for grown-ups and I still think you can keep the dreary ‘In the Deep Midwinter’.

Growing older, I have disassociated myself from the religious element of carols and just listen to them as pleasant memories of Christmases past. A few years ago, as a member of the Quantock Musical Theatre Company, I performed a range of carols and other songs at various events through November and December. It gave me a new perspective, learning harmonies and singing tenor parts which may or may not be the melody ingrained in my head for five decades or so!

I did discover the history behind some of them. The ‘Coventry Carol’ sounded enchanting, though I say it myself. They could write tunes in the sixteenth century after all, I also enjoyed singing ‘Gaudete’. When Steeleye Span took it into the charts in 1973, I hadn’t appreciated it was even a Christmas song, nor that it was sung in Latin. Once you know that ‘Gaudete’ means ‘Rejoice’, a slight knowledge of French or Spanish is enough to understand the following lines in the chorus, “Christus est natus, ex-Maria virgine, Gaudete!” translates as “Christ is born of the Virgin Mary, rejoice!” I don’t have a recording of any of the QMTC a capella performances but the link above features Maddy Prior and her folky fellows doing their stuff.

Yet, away from the school hall, shopping centres or railway stations, carols are rarely heard these days. Once November begins, you start to take note of the muzak in shops. As the Hallowe-en masks are whisked back into store, and the fireworks are flogged at a huge discount, suddenly the shops are filled with the sight of tinsel and Santas, and the sound of Jonah Lewie’s “Dum-a-lum-a-lum-lum”s and Roy Wood’s school choir. When did the Christmas pop song become the ‘new tradition’?

There were no such hits in the Sixties that I can recall. I since learned about Harry Belafonte’s ‘Mary Boy Child’ from 1957, which was the first UK million-selling single. That same year, not even Elvis could elevate ‘Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me’ above seven in the charts. I had to make do with endless repeats on Junior Choice of someone lithping hith way through ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth’.

It's just as well that carols were omnipresent because there were no other festive Christmas number ones to celebrate. From ‘Moon River’ to ‘Green Green Grass of Home’, they were always major hits, but nary a jingle bell to be heard. ‘Lily the Pink’, ‘Two Little Boys’, ‘Grandad’ and 'Ernie' introduced the formula of family-friendly novelty records before John Lennon, Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band released the bitter-sweet ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over)’ in 1972, hopefully bringing the Vietnam War’s demise closer. Sadly people preferred to buy Chuck Berry's 'My Ding-a-Ling'. Fortunately, the next year we had some home-grown fare to enjoy, with Slade, Wizzard and Elton John, besides some long-forgotten festive comedy songs.

Throughout the Seventies the big Christmas songs piled up (the unfairly-neglected 'We Wish You a Wombling Merry Christmas', Greg Lake, Johnny Mathis et al), before a short hiatus. That came to an end in 1984. When Bob Geldof assembled a ‘who’s who’ of British pop at Sarm West Studios on Sunday 25^th November to record a song he’s composed with Midge Ure, with the sole purpose of raising millions for the victims of the Ethiopian famine, the Christmas charity phenomenon was born. The massive free publicity for Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, including piles of the hastily-pressed  singles in all shops and a five-minute broadcast of the promo video on BBC1, generated sales of more than three million.  

Of course, it helped that the song itself was a cracker: it was simultaneously a catchy singalong festive number and a tear-jerking reminder of why we should sometimes think of others worse off than ourselves. OK, so some of the lyrics were lazy but the message reached its target. Most of those performers are still household names, too, which is more than can be said for most participating in Band Aid 2 and Band Aid 20. More importantly, we realised that music could genuinely change the world. 

‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’ even had the resilience to bring in more money for the Band Aid charity in three successive generations of pop royalty, although none could possibly match the punch packed by the original in ’84. Spare a thought for Wham, Gary Glitter and Queen. They all chose that winter to release their own Christmas classics. ‘Last Christmas’ sold a million without reaching number one but has proved to be one of the most popular, endearing seasonal songs and, following George Michael's Christmas death in 2016, could yet top the chart thanks to millions of streams in 2017.

The following year, the still-young ‘NOW’ brand released ‘The Christmas Album’, its first UK Christmas compilation. I know I bought it. With none of those dreadful Phil Spector productions, it was a great collection of British chart hits (but not Boney M’s ‘Mary’s Boy Child’) from Band Aid to Bing Crosby. Now the stores had something to play to get shoppers in the festive mood. They haven’t stopped since. 

Apart from the later versions of Band Aid, Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ and a couple of Cliff Richard crimes against music, there have been no true Christmas number ones in the intervening thirty years. I don’t count East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’ from 1994. Adding some chimes and sleighbells, and dressing the baseball-capped bad boy boy-band in white fur doesn’t really make it a Christmas song in my book. Nevertheless, if it’s one of Angie’s festive faves, clearly mine isn’t the only opinion. 

Topping the charts on 25^th December isn’t the only symbol of Christmas success. Jonah Lewie (‘Don’t Stop the Cavalry’), Greg Lake (I Believe in Father Christmas’), Mariah Carey (‘All I Want for Christmas is You’) and the extraordinary collaboration between Kirsty McColl and the Pogues (‘Fairytale of New York’) each fell agonisingly short of the top spot.  

Songs which tell a sentimental story at Christmas often do well. That’s probably why the bitter-sweet Irish-American ballad, Lewie’s wartime soldier’s thoughts and Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home for Christmas’, something we can all recognise, are arguably more popular now than they were when first released. 

In November 2013, Leona Lewis released a career-rescuing single, ‘One More Sleep’. I’m no fan of Lewis and her skin-crawling Carey-esque embellishments, but the song did seem to tick the right boxes when it comes to ingredients for a Christmas winner. Ironically it was blocked by the latest X Factor winner, Sam Bailey, an artist pretty much ignored ever since. I wonder if ‘One More Sleep’ becomes the ‘Fairytale of New York’ twenty years hence? Possibly, but probably not. 

In my humble opinion, ‘Pop Idol’ and ‘The X Factor’ have destroyed the whole excitement of The Christmas Number One’ in the past decade. Thanks so much, Simon Cowell! Apart from a few one-off charity records and an anti X Factor protest pipping the likes of Joe McElderry and James Arthur, ITV’s overblown ego and tear-fest has taken over, and the Christmas song has suffered in consequence. But there is a chink of light: the failures of the 2015 and 2016 winners has perhaps opened the door to a return. 

Probably everybody who wanted to buy the Christmas classics has already done so. However, the easy access to the tracks online and the changing chart rules in favour of streaming does seem to have given them a new lease of life. For the first time in years, Wham, Carey and The Pogues are all queuing up to depose Ed Sheeran and a potential flurry of charity efforts.

Just as long as there are no American Sixties re-runs, spacemen comin' a travellin', mistletoe or wine, I don't mind. For just a few weeks a year, even this Scrooge can cope with a cracking Christmas tune. I'll leave you with surely the best of them all. Take it away, Slade, and 'Merry Christmas Everybody'!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1992 – Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather

This was one of those marking-time kind of years. The first of many ‘restructurings’ at the BBC did at least benefit me but what of personal matters? Now, in my thirties, I was wondering where life was taking me. Still no girlfriend, but surely I was at an age where settling down should be, at the very least, on the horizon. Yet I was still living with the parents. It wasn’t just the Queen having a kind of ‘annus horribilis’. Meanwhile I was desperately, clinging on to the last vestiges of youth with Billericay Rotaract, grasping at those opportunities to dance, opportunities I’d always spurned as a teenager, refusing to countenance even the micro-thought of attending a school disco at the Mayflower.

I did revert to holidaying solo. In July I took a coach trip to what was then still Czechoslovakia, then in September embarked on the first of several rail-based B&B weeks around Britain, beginning with Edinburgh, my first traversing of the Anglo-Scottish border.

It was hardly a vintage twelve months for music so unsurprisingly. I don’t recall music playing much of a role in either vacation. Actually, there’s one exception. When walking around Prague, soaking up the sunshine and sights, I was diverted by the incongruous sound of rock music filling the Old Town Square. Surely it should be a Baroque string quartet? A Smetana symphony? Approaching the centre of the square I realised it was a bunch of youngsters from, of all places, Shrewsbury School! The song they played, which I remember to this day, was ‘Everything About You’, which Ugly Kid Joe had recently taken to the top three. I’d liked the song, and the boys were pretty good, too.

It’s a simple slice of Californian rock but for a cool vibe there wasn’t anything cooler than Arrested Development’s ‘People Everyday’. For some reason I’ve never fathomed, the title is flipped around from the phrase actually sung; that is, “everyday people”. Whatever. It shuffled effortlessly to number two in November. There was more to come with the snappier ‘Mr Wendal’ some months later but I don’t remember anything else from them at all.

There was plenty of long male hair floating around. Axl Rose mixed strutting around the stage and caressing the keyboards with a couple of very popular rock ballads. ‘November Rain’ definitely showed Guns ‘n’ Roses’ sensitive side, then they gave a Bob Dylan classic a heavy makeover. By ’92, the band were one of the biggest on the planet and pretty much top of the bill at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert at Wembley where this memorable performance of ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ was recorded

Curtis Stigers was touted as the new Michael Bolton; flowing brown locks rather than hideous mullet. A better soul voice, in my opinion, but I still wasn’t fussed on the songs ‘I Wonder Why’ and ‘You’re All That Matters to Me’. Then there was Charles, or was it Eddie? Whichever? As a pair, Charles and Eddie had one of the year’s biggest hits with their debut single, ‘Would I Lie to You?’. It had a pleasant Sixties soul sound, with a Smokey Robinson-like lead vocal by Eddie (or was it Charles?), an unfussy production and the benefit of being a much better song than anything by Stigers or Bolton. The world’s worst hairstyle in 1992 must have been that of Billy Ray Cyrus. Fittingly, perhaps, as his ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ just made me ache to break his neck.

Bono’s hair was less lank and mullet than in the Joshua Tree era but amongst the several singles from the Achtung Baby production line came what must be the finest ballad from U2, and maybe anyone, in the Nineties. ‘One’ was the track which determined that I bought the album. On first hearing, I thought it was an instant classic, destined to be the biggest seller for years. And yet it peaked at a disappointing seven in March. It puzzled me then, and it puzzles me still. The album version is much longer than that featured in the Anton Corbijn video and frankly, could easily drift on for another three minutes without boring me – and, believe me, I have a low boredom threshold.

At the same time, the chart was dominated by another slowie, by Shakespear’s Sister. ‘Stay’ was number one for eight long weeks, a melodramatic two-hander performed by ex-Bananarama Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit. The latter’s pure soprano sang the main melody and chorus while a scarily Goth-ified Fahey did the low register bits, and the formula certainly worked. For all Stay’s longevity, one of its follow-ups, ‘Hello (Turn On Your Radio On)’ also worked its spell on me. For both songs, I was also encouraged by the pair’s readiness to sing live on shows such as TOTP, even though Stay’s Goth video was played to death. Fahey’s witch-like image was apparently not restricted to her make-up and clothes. The following year she sacked Detroit without actually telling her.

One of my favourites from 1992 was another creepy song, this time ‘Hazard’ from American Richard Marx. The creepiness stems not from the singer’s visage but the mysterious lyrics. It’s a gorgeous lilting melody but the subject-matter begs you to listen to the words. Did the boy kill Mary? If innocent, why was he hounded out of town? The video added to the suspense, but the lyrics do rather suggest Marx’s protagonist was the victim of mistaken identity:-

                                    “I swear I left her by the river.

                                    I swear I left her safe and sound”

We are left to make up our own minds. Whatever the verdict, it’s refreshing to hear a hit record which makes you think and not just listen ambiently or dance.

Another surprise hit with intriguing lyrics was Marc Almond’s cover of an old Sixties song, ‘The Days of Pearly Spencer’. The sudden crashing transition from string-driven rhythm to melancholy minor chord finale seems unnecessarily blunt but I’ve always been a fan of Almond’s voice. Stripped of the Soft Cell New Romantic baggage, he has always been a brilliant pop soul singer, capable of sounding modern yet breathing new theatrical life into older material like Jacques Brel’s ‘Jacky’, ‘Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart’ and, for that matter, ‘The Days of Pearly Spencer’ itself.

Another unexpected chart-topper which I enjoyed was Tamsin Archer’s ‘Sleeping Satellite’. Promoted from backing vocalist status, the Yorkshire-born singer really shone with this paeon to astronauts and the moon. Her 1993 Brit award recognised her as breakthrough act but unfortunately it didn’t lead to greater things.

By way of contrast, a decade after their demise, Abba were back! Sort of. In June, Erasure went straight in at the top with their 4-track EP ‘Abba-esque’. Not only did it bring them their only number one single, but it also kept Mariah Carey and Nick Berry off the top. Yesss! Double whammy! The Essex duo’s hilarious homage to the Swedes’ ‘Take a Chance on Me’ helped keep them at the summit for five weeks. Not their best record, but undoubtedly entertaining. And who knew that Vince Clarke would make such a convincing Agnetha?! And what did Sweden think of these cover versions? Well, their shoppers kept the EP at number one for six weeks, so who says they don’t have a sense of humour? 

Not to be outdone, the Australian Abba tribute group, Bjorn Again had their cheeky revenge by releasing their own EP, entitled ‘Erasure-ish’. Sadly, it only reached 25 over here, but it gave the likes of ‘Stop’ and ‘Give a Little Respect’ a Seventies mini-skirt and platforms makeover. I saw Bjorn Again in concert at Shepherds Bush Empire some years later and have to say they were wonderful. I never got the chance to see the originals on stage. However, when the audience are in on the joke, the tongue-in-cheek but genuinely fond impressions of the legendary Swedes were hugely enjoyable, and they are more than useful singers and musicians, too.

Whether all this fun and games whetted the appetite for the real thing, I’m not sure, but Abba released their definitive greatest hits compilation Gold in September, it sold well but not spectacularly. Nevertheless, It now ranks as the second biggest selling album in UK history. Abba will never go out of style. 

Jimmy Nail’s stock was also riding high. Keen to avoid typecasting as the rugged Geordie, thick but with a heart of gold, he had transformed himself into the rugged Geordie, intelligent with a heart of gold, in the title role of BBC1’s detective series Spender. He became a bit of a sex symbol, so inevitably he chose this point to revive his dormant singing career. Perfect timing! ‘Ain’t No Doubt’ followed ‘Abbaesque’ to number one. I confess it wasn’t for me, unlike Spender, which at the time set a high standard for all future moody, flawed but brilliant detective TV series to aspire to.

’92 was also the year when Crowded House stamped their mark on me. I’d known ‘Don’t Dream it’s Over’, of course, but when ‘Weather With You’ broke into the top ten, I recognised their true talent. It wasn’t just the lilting melody and the uplifting chorus; I also loved the intriguing lyrics like

                        “There’s a small boat made of china

                        It’s going nowhere on the mantelpiece”

I didn’t buy the Woodface CD (shame!) but did hire it from the library, to discover more great tracks like ‘Fall at Your Feet’ and ‘Four Seasons in One Day’. Neil and Tim Finn certainly had a way with words, harmonies and memorable ballads, wrapped up in unfussy production. Mere OBEs don’t do them justice.

In contrast, there were some truly awful records being played constantly that year. I’ve mentioned the ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ abomination, but I also detested the re-release of the Freddie Mercury/Monserrat Caballe operatic epic ‘Barcelona’. The BBC’s coverage of the Olympics from that city meant it was on air ad infinitum. I described Madonna’s ‘This Used to be my Playground’ as a “dreadfully boring ballad” and Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’ and Michael Jackson’s vomit-inducing Christmas hit ‘Heal the World’ were so coated in sugar, there was nothing worth listening to in the centre.

Yet none of these compared to the year’s biggest-seller. It wasn’t that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ was a dreadful song. It wasn’t. And, of course, Whitney’s interpretation of Dolly Parton’s composition was stunning. It’s just that the whole romance of the thing, the ‘Bodyguard’ brand marketing, turned my stomach. Even now I find it a tough listen. When I went to see the West End musical version of The Bodyguard’, starring the brilliant Beverly Knight, I was probably the only one on the audience not to be crying buckets when Beverly belted out the big number.

Moving hastily back to the good stuff, as The B-52s would have it in 1992. My 1991 obituary for the passing of decent dance music turned out to be a tad premature. For starters, Dr Alban’s ‘It’s My Life’ was a huge Euro disco hit, and for obvious reasons. I’d never heard of him before but the Nigerian-born Swedish DJ/producer had already become successful on the continent. After ‘It’s My Life’, that success continued, but not over here. I thought Snap! would be pretty much a one-hit wonder but that had been just an appetiser for ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’.

The words weren’t important, of course. Nor, in truth, were the vocals – perfectly adequate though they were – of Thea Austin and rapper Turbo B. It was all about the synthesizer riff. As an intro, it was reminiscent of a bugle call to arms, only this time hailing the hordes on to the dance floor. It worked. Unlike many big Euro dance tracks, ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ had the structure of any good pop record: a proper start, middle and finish, although this didn’t necessarily work for DJs trying to incorporate the ‘boof, boof’ finale while segue-ing into the next record. Anyway, only Whitney’s hit outsold it that year in the UK.

It wasn’t just about Swedish and German electronica, though. Britain was producing some great Euro-sounding dance music, too. Once pigeonholed as rave acts, some were really crossing over into the pop world without really compromising their dance reputations.

For years, I imagined Felix to be some anonymous figure toiling from a soundproofed chalet studio deep in the Westphalian forest but apparently he hailed from Chelmsford! His enduring anthem ‘Don’t You Want Me’ has been remixed at frequent intervals but why mess with the original in the first place?

The Utah Saints created some top tunes with the help of creative sampling of well-known voices. The best example was ‘Something Good’, which flew to four in the summer. So smart was the sample of the ”I knew that something good was going to happen” line that I didn’t realise it came from Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’, hence the ghostly images of Kate’s 1987 video amidst the Saints’ own promo. The band was unusual in that they could actually perform live rather than just twiddle a few knobs on a synth and wave their arms around.

And then there were The Shamen. For starters, they had the – for me - attractive propensity to sing live on TOTP. This was pretty much unheard of for a techno-dance act, either before or since, and first surfaced on the previous autumn’s top fiver, ‘Move Any Mountain’. They originated in Scotland, but the rapper Mr C brought a touch of London street ‘bantah’ and a DJ-land credibility to their sound. Everything came together in September, when ‘Ebenezer Goode’ leapt to the top of the singles chart.

It wasn’t merely a cracking track to dance to. It had a unique quality to it, perhaps best illustrated by Mr C’s opening lines:-

                        “Naughty, naughty, very naughty

                        Ha ha ha ha ha”

It was indeed very naughty. The “Es are good, Es are good” chorus obviously extolled the virtues of the drug du jour, Ecstasy, which did result in the single being banned temporarily by the Beeb. However, as I imagined The Beatles did a quarter of a century earlier over ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, The Shamen and their record company must have had their fingers tightly crossed behind their backs when insisting that the song was really about a shady club underworld character! See what I mean?

“He takes you to the top, shakes you all around
Then back down, you know as he gets mellow”

Anyway, there was sufficient lyrical ambiguity to let them off the hook, and ‘Ebenezer Goode’ proceeded to sell almost 300,000 copies before being prematurely deleted after about six weeks! It stayed in the clubs much longer.

Dance still wasn’t dead by the following year but, thanks to a male vocal quintet from the North West, the UK pop music axis was swiftly shifting.

1991 – All bound for Mu-Mu land

Strife was still bubbling around the world in 1991. The break-up of Communist Eastern Europe hadn’t settled revolutionary fervour. In June, Slovenia and Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia, laying the foundations for the appalling war there in the following few years. President Gorbachev survived a coup in the Soviet Union but, understandably fearing for his life and opting for a quieter (and more lucrative) retirement, finally jacked it in at Christmas. But the worst violence was the preserve of a UK-US alliance.

Operation Desert Storm began on 16^th January, heralding six weeks of carnage as our forces blitzed Iraq to rubble in retaliation for the invasion of Kuwait. Talking of slaughter, Iron Maiden made the cunning and cheeky calculated move of releasing ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’ at the perfect time to displace holier-than-thou Cliff Richard from the number one spot in the New Year. While they didn’t stay at the top for the Iraq War, the hostilities were instead accompanied by the rise of Enigma’s contrasting ‘Sadness Part 1’!

Metal tracks rarely registered with me, but several monsters did register in the upper echelons of the chart. In January, Queen channelled their inner Led Zep in their six-minute single ‘Innuendo’, crashing straight in at number one. At the time, I described it as “such a slovenly mish-mash of HM posturing, flamenco guitar (!) and sub-Bohemian Rhapsody effects”. In many ways my contemporaneous opinion still holds water, but I might now replace the word ‘slovenly’ with ‘oddly appealing’! 

It certainly wasn’t the best year for the band, but then Freddie Mercury’s health, like their music, was in rapid decline. I was shocked to see Freddie’s skeletal appearance in the video for the awful ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’, and so the news of his death in November from “an AIDS-related illness” came as no surprise. Neither did the consequent surge to the Christmas number one slot of a re-released ‘Bo-Rhap’, twinned with the new and grossly inferior ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’. When the following Easter, Mercury’s life and music were celebrated in a Wembley fundraising mega-concert, it was only fitting that ‘Innuendo’ was sung by Led Zep’s Robert Plant.

Metallica also featured heavily in that show but at the time their brand of chugging guitar rock in hits like ‘Enter Sandman’ wasn’t to my taste. The same went for Nirvana, whose sensational ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ assaulted the top ten in November. It was another year or two before I came to appreciate Kurt Cobain et al and buy not one, but two Nirvana albums – and then he went and shot himself…. I like to think the two events are unconnected.

U2 went ‘Rock’ in the autumn, too. Releasing ‘The Fly’, they announced it would be available for three weeks only. Would it have topped the chart otherwise? Maybe, but it ranks as one of my favourite U2 tracks of all time, from one of my favourite albums by any artist, Achtung Baby. This also kicked off the band’s predilection for extravagantly-staged multimedia event shows, beginning with the ZooTV tour in 1992-93. I just wish I’d grabbed the opportunity to see it for myself instead of just on video. 

It was another good year for the rock ballad. Guns ‘n’ Roses seemed more appropriate interpreters of ‘Live and Let Die’ than Paul McCartney ever did, while Extreme temporarily went acoustic for the memorable romantic number two song ‘More Than Words’.  1991 also saw German behemoth band The Scorpions go global with the stirring power ballad ‘Wind of Change’.

Of course, I had never heard of them, but this record was to become one of the world’s biggest-selling singles in history, not just in Germany. Forever associated with the country’s reunification – and a million times better than David Hasselhoff’s crass, but for some reason hugely popular ‘Freedom’ – it was actually written about the fragile political situation in the Soviet Union. Yet the precise political inspiration behind the song is unimportant; it just works wonders as a glorious emotional ode to the human spirit.

However, where sales are concerned, it paled into insignificance compared with the UK’s biggest seller of 1991. Following the previous year’s Ghost supremacy, it was the turn of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves to attract hordes into cinemas and enjoy Kevin Costner and his Merrie Men fight in the forest and ultimately kill Alan Rickman’s gloriously over-the-top Sheriff. From the film came Bryan Adams’ even more all-conquering track ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’. It was number one for an unbelievable sixteen weeks, spanning July to October. For all its irritating longevity, it remains one of the all-time best movie love songs, perfectly structured with its piano intro, climactic crescendo then final breakdown. I wasn’t aware at the time, but the incessantly-broadcast Julien Temple video was mostly filmed not in glamorous California but in little ol’ West Somerset. Take a bow, Kilve beach.

In the days before she sold her songs to some of the biggest stars on the planet, Norwich’s Cathy Dennis enjoyed a modest solo career of her own. Her dance tunes were instantly forgettable but I have fond memories of the less successful ballad ‘Too Many Walls’. Terry Wogan seemed impressed, too! 

I’ve never liked Spandau Ballet’s over-rated ‘True’, but I have to admit the simple guitar motif sounds much better on PM Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift on Memory Bliss’. Another American hip-hop single which effortlessly evokes the emotions of West Coast sultry dog days was ‘Summertime’ by Jazzie Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I never watched the latter’s Bel Air sitcom but Will Smith was a rapper I could listen to. Occasionally. 

From hip-hop to trip-hop. I suppose it got its name from mixing hip-hop and Acid House beats and 1991 gave us one of the best examples in the form of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’. With its sumptuous strings, minor synth chords, Shara Nelson’s soulful vocals and the ‘heyyy hey-hey heyyy’s, together with the groundbreaking single-shot video in non-descript LA, it all felt so American; yet it was a very British, ney Bristolian, production. Seal was another domestic star with a transatlantic sound. His biggest hit ‘Crazy’ went silver early in the year, making him more than just ‘that bloke with the facial scars who sings on Adamski’s ‘Killer’’. Like ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, it possesses a smooth, chilled, almost ambient style. Not quite a ballad, not quite pure dance, not quite a political statement, it nonetheless successfully fused elements of all three, and it was one of my favourites of ’91. 

Trip-hop was also to the fore in the work of the most successful, possibly the weirdest and definitely the most controversial singles artists of the year. The KLF wasn’t the first project created by thirty-somethings Jimmy Cauty and A&R man Bill Drummond. They had already topped the chart as The Timelords but in 1991 they blew us away with something very different.

The coming together of hip-hop, trance, soul and a punkish attitude was altogether too much for me at the time. When ‘3am Eternal’ went to number one in February, I described it as “awful claptrap”. Kind of Snap! meets The Prodigy meets The Clash. What was all this nonsense about The Justified Ancients? MuMu Land? I never understood it then and I still don’t. ‘Last Train to Trancentral’ was more of the same but, when they flew to number two in December, I began to appreciate their music a bit more. ‘Justified and Ancient’ must go down as one of the most bizarre collaborations in pop history, marrying Drummond’s offbeat take on music with the country legend Tammy Wynette!  How did that happen? Well, according to the lyric: 

“They called me up in Tennessee
They said "Tammy, stand by The Jams"
But if you don't like what they're going to do,
You better not stop them 'cause they're coming through” 

Apparently Drummond was a Country fan. Whatever. It was a chart-topper in eighteen countries and refreshed the career of Wynette, introducing her to a whole new generation of listeners and rave-goers for whom breakbeats and wacky lyrics (“They’re justified and they’re ancient And they drive an ice cream van”. I mean, really?!). And that proved to be their final single. Their outlandish thrash metal performance of ‘3am Eternal’, climaxing with Drummond firing a machine gun at the incredulous audience of suited and booted record industry execs at the 1992 Brit Award ceremony, proved to be a dramatic suicide note for the duo’s musical life.  

Many artists have proclaimed they are the people to revolutionise the music business, overthrow the status quo and go out on a high. The KLF are the only ones who succeeded, if only for one year. They proceeded to delete their entire back catalogue and move into arthouse territory, culminating in the public burning of a million pounds. Did they make a statement? Oh yes. That Drummond and Cauty were a couple of obnoxious mad numpties with more money than sense.  Mind you, I believe their subversive anarchistic attitude hasn’t extended to a boycott of Spotify, and 2017 saw them dip a toe back into the public eye..

Speaking as I was of The Clash, the veteran punk rockers finally hit the top with Mick Jones’ ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’, thanks to Levi’s latest TV ad campaign. Not, in my view, their finest musical moment. I much preferred the rawer Strummer sound of ‘Rock the Casbah’, the re-release of which peaked at a mere fifteen. Not quite ‘London Calling’, but in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, it had an apt contemporary political comment to make. 

The Sixties were re-born in the guise of Cher’s monotonous ‘Shoop Shoop Song’ (aka ‘It’s In His Kiss’), a massive hit from the ‘Mermaids’ soundtrack. The comedian Vic Reeves later teamed up with the ubiquitous folk/alt rock outfit The Wonder Stuff to update Tommy Roe’s ‘Dizzy’ while The Doors’ brooding ‘Light My Fire’ blazed into the charts on the coat-tails of Oliver Stone’s biopic of the original stoner band. I have never understood why this had failed to light up the UK charts back in ’67 but for all the media obsession with recreational drugs, the sound didn’t quite chime with the early Nineties scene. Good, though! 

I couldn’t say the same about other songs prominent that year. I really detested Crystal Waters’ ‘Gypsy Woman’, Kiri Te Kanawa’s ‘World in Union’ (part of ITV’s commercial blitz surrounding the Rugby World Cup) and The Simpsons’ ‘Do the Bartman’. Back then, Sky TV was in its infancy, with an audience still largely comprised of white van men’s families keen to adorn their terraced homes and flats with the latest hideous satellite dishes. Was I just being a snob? Most definitely. I therefore tarred the unfamiliar cartoon comedy with the same contemptuous brush. Consequently, any associated single never stood a chance with me. After The Simpsons appeared on BBC2, bringing it within my reach, I realised that instead of being brash American trash it was in fact rather brilliant, probably the funniest sitcom I’ve ever seen.

Strangely enough, it later transpired that Bart’s anthem was written by superfan Michael Jackson! He had kept it quiet so as not to interfere with the promotion of his new album Dangerous. I didn’t particularly like his number one single ‘Black or White’. I considered it ironic given that Wacko Jacko had by this time become more white than black. 

Jackson could no longer guarantee outselling everyone else; not in the UK anyway. His latest effort was easily eclipsed by an act I found it hard to like.  Simply Red’s fourth album Stars was released in September and took a grip on the album chart for well over a year, eventually selling well over 3 million copies. I wasn’t one of the buyers. Mick Hucknall may have boasted ginger hair and left-leaning politics but his brand of pop/soul wasn’t my thing at all. For me, Stars was the ultimate dinner party record. Too slow to dance to, too boring to listen to, it was fit only to play in the background while you ate and nattered, twinkling gently and inoffensively overhead while more interesting things were happening on the ground. ‘Something Got Me Started’ did at least have a bit of drive to it but the title track epitomised everything that was wrong – yet also right – about Simply Red. It was inescapable throughout December. Searching desperately for positives, I must admit it was preferable to ‘Fairground’, the group’s only number one from 1996. I hated that one! Maybe it was because I wasn’t really a dinner party person either.

MoR was beginning to grow, while Dance was starting to take itself less seriously, and not in a good way. However, there were some enjoyable tracks around. Candi Staton’s ‘You Got the Love’ was given a toe-tapping trancey update by British DJ/producer The Source. Florence and the Machine’s more recent high octane version is perhaps better known over here, and there have been other dance remixes but I still love The Source’s bubbly synths.

K-Klass went to number three with ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’, probably forgotten by everyone except me. I shamefully recall having it as an answer in a Rotaract pop quiz at the time, with only one team knowing it. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering what a ridiculously difficult quiz I devised. Lessons were learnt, of course. They never let me fly solo writing all the questions again, and rightly so.

Now for the sillier songs. Oceanic’s ‘Insanity’ sold surprisingly well, its House piano bed and catchy chorus making it a popular party anthem before the term was ever used. It also helped to have your act name beginning with the number two. 2 in a Room’s ‘Wiggle It’ and 2 Unlimited’s ‘Get Ready For This’ were great for Rotaract discos – and were indeed played at quite a few! - but not much else.

I tend to think of Erasure as an Eighties band, but they probably enjoyed more success in the Nineties than they did in the previous ten years. In ’91, ‘Chorus’ was the biggest hit but the more memorable one was ‘Love to Hate You’. Not so keen on the echoes of ‘I Will Survive’ but otherwise definitely one for dancing to. REM first appeared on my radar, too. Not their utterly brilliant ‘Losing My Religion’, but the top-tenner ‘Shiny Happy People’. Back then, Michael Stipe could actually pass for being of a sunny disposition!

Later I would ponder on the likelihood of the song being about something far more miserable and depressing. Yet the lyrics are simply full of ‘happy’s. Lots of them. Speaking of misery, Morrissey’s fave Manchester band (apparently) and one-time ‘baggies’, James, took ‘Sit Down' to number two, with a gloriously upbeat rhythm and vocal. Yet its theme was supposedly that of mental illness. In the words of Kurt Cobain: oh, well, whatever, never mind! It became a song we could enjoy at discos while, well, sitting down. Also Tim Booth was to become one of my favourite singers.

Some front men and women have truly amazing voices. I’m thinking Freddie Mercury, Karen Carpenter, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison. Others are memorable for being uniquely bizarre: I give you Kate Bush, Noddy Holder, Rod Stewart. However, Booth comes into the category of just sounding wonderful for no apparent reason whatsoever. James didn’t quite repeat the success of ‘Sit Down’ but the follow-ups and his occasional appearances on 'Later… with Jools Holland' cemented Tim Booth’s as one of my all-time top voices.

There was plenty of sex in the charts and on TOTP. Color Me Badd wanted to sex me up while Salt n’ Pepa insisted: ‘Let’s Talk about Sex’. No, let’s not! However, one of the most entertaining three minutes of music came courtesy of a camp couple of Putney gym club owners with little hair but a twinkle in the eye. Richard Fairbrass had you from the unaccompanied baritone monotone opening lines:-

“I'm too sexy for my love
Too sexy for my love
Love's going to leave me”

And just kept going! Even the band’s name, Right Said Fred, possessed just the right sense of fun and comedic nostalgia, while ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was one of the rare tracks you could jig along to with a stupid grin on your face. Bryan Adams kept it at number two for a record-equalling six weeks but it outsold all but three singles in the UK and even scooped an Ivor Novello songwriting award. I suspect that was merited by one of the finest finales of any song ever. It simply ends with:

“I’m too sexy for this song”.

That’s all, folks! It had ‘one-hit wonder’ stamped all over it and yet for all its novelty value, ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was not the beginning and end of RSF’s musical career. I actually preferred the Christmas follow-up, ‘Don’t Talk, Let’s Kiss’ while the following Spring, ‘Deeply Dippy’ presented them with a number one success, and a second Ivor Novello. But it was the first single which remains unforgettable. Let’s face it, we’ve all strutted around the living room singing “I’m too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts”, haven’t we. Haven’t we? Oh, maybe it’s just me then, but I don’t care.