After the immaculate new pop and rock concepts of the eighties, the nineties came as a bit of a shock; a return to seventies values where pop was manufactured chart music for kids and housewives and ‘real’ music was everything else. I was never quite sure which was which but it didn’t matter a jot. As our senses were subsumed by a smorgasbord of fractured cultures, aspirations and impulses, the pop song became a lucky dip grab bag of insubstantial noise.
1990 was the last thrilling year before the culture shakedown really began. As everything turned Day-Glo, the charts were jammed with grebo and baggy chancers and a bunch of techno freako’s from Wiltshire. Classic Secret Pleasures all, they were the last blast before pop became a dirty word again, struggling for a new direction as groups with nothing to say made valiant attempts to keep up with the plethora of new genres, sub genres and micro genres dreamt up by ego wanking music journo’s and DJ’s.
All that kept the charts from drowning in a bucketful of lightweight slop was the occasional hit by the likes of Jesus Jones or The Soup Dragons. That’s how desperate the times truly were. And that’s how they would have stayed if Britpop hadn’t tumbled over Primrose Hill to lay karmic waste to pretty much everything. Of course, hidden amongst all the revivalist, jingoistic nonsense there was still a tiny treasure trove of great pop records, but it soon degenerated into nothingness when Neanderthal moron Noel Gallagher and his Dad rock cronies started flashing the cash and snorting the powder.
And so, as yet another new dawn faded, the nineties ended almost as insignificantly as they had begun. The only groups left standing were the flotsam and jetsam of Britpop and a glorious fucked up mess of never shoulda, woulda, coulda’s. While they bore absolutely no resemblance to the classic popsters of old, they did go some way to proving the theory that all groups have at least one good song in them. And if they could do it in the nasty nineties, anyone could!
01. THE BELOVED ‘Your Love Takes Me Higher’ (March 1990)
02. THE FARM ‘Stepping Stone’ [Ghost Dance Mix] (May 1990)
03. JESUS JONES ‘Right Here Right Now’ (September 1990)
04. SOUP DRAGONS ‘Mother Universe’ (October 1990)
05. POP WILL EAT ITSELF ‘X, Y & Zee’ (January 1991)
06. JESUS LOVES YOU ‘Bow Down Mister’ (February 1991)
07. THE SHAMEN ‘Hyperreal’ (April 1991)
08. MOCK TURTLES ‘Can You Dig It’ (March 1991)
09. EMF ‘Children’ (April 1991)
10. CARTER USM ‘The Only Living Boy In New Cross’ (April 1991)
11. BETTY BOO ‘Let Me Take You There’ (August 1992)
12. STEREO MC’S ‘Connected’ (September 1992)
13. EAST 17 ‘Deep’ [Breath Mix] (January 1993)
14. JAMES ‘Sometimes’ (August 1993)
15. ACE OF BASE ‘The Sign’ (February 1994)
16. MARCELLA DETROIT ‘I Believe’ (March 1994)
17. GENE ‘For The Dead‘ (April 1994)
18. LIGHTNING SEEDS ‘Change’ (January 1995)
19. NED’S ATOMIC DUSTBIN ‘All I Ask Myself’ (March 1995)
20. MCALMONT & BUTLER ‘Yes’ (May 1995)
21. DUBSTAR ‘Stars (July 1995)
22. STEPHEN DUFFY ‘London Girls’ (June 1995)
23. THE BLUETONES ‘Slight Return’ (January 1996)
24. ECHOBELLY ‘Dark Therapy’ (February 1996)
25. SPACE ‘Female Of The Species’ (May 1996)
26. THE CARDIGANS ‘Love Fool’ (September 1996)
27. FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS ‘The Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ (November 1996)
28. BABYBIRD ‘Candy Girl’ (January 1997)
29. KULA SHAKER ‘Hush’ (February 1997)
30. MONACO ‘What Do You Want From Me’ (March 1997)
31. SEAHORSES ‘Love Is The Law’ (May 1997)
32. REPUBLICA ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ (May 1997)
33. EDWYN COLLINS ‘The Magic Piper Of Love’ (August 1997)
34. NATALIE IMBRUGLIA ‘Torn’ (November 1997)
35. ALL SAINTS ‘Never Ever’ (November 1997)
36. PLACEBO ‘You Don’t Care About Us’ (October 1998)
37. TRAVIS ‘Writing To Reach You’ (March 1999)
38. CATATONIA ‘Dead From The Waist Down’ (April 1999)
39. SIXPENCE NONE THE RICHER ‘Kiss Me’ (May 1999)
40. GAY DAD ‘Joy’ (June 1999)