1999 the final year of the 20th Century. The Year I sat my GCSEs and started working at the co-op for the princely sum of £2.10 an hour. Here’s some music from it.
The 9
Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg – Next episode
I once described myself as the whitest guy alive. Given that I’m 50% Chinese this was somewhat inaccurate. The point I was trying to make was around my music taste which is heavily skewed towards indie (and female pop). That said I like about 30 rap/hip hop songs. This is one of them. Maybe it’s the liberal use of the word motherfucker.
All Saints – Pure Shores
Aka that one from The Beach, a good novel turned into a bastardised mediocre film released during Leo DiCaprio mania, but before he started resurrecting his reputation amongst film critics by appearing in all of Martin Scorsese’s films. I insisted on playing this when I visited Ko Phi Phi (where the film was made). Film might have been average, but this song is another pop gem.
Blur – Tender
Blur or Oasis was the question of the Britpop era. The correct answer is Pulp, but that’s another story. The answer I usually give is oasis on record, blur live. Although I think it’s telling that oasis released four albums this century and yet blur make an appearance before them in the list. Last saw Blur headlining Glastonbury in 2009. The entire crowd singing the oh my baby refrain well after blur had stopped was pretty special. Have made a conscious decision not to see blur live again on the basis that it won’t be as good. Haven’t been back to Glastonbury since on the basis that my tolerance of hangovers and drunk teenagers diminishes with every passing day. Maybe I’ll change my mind on both some day
Super Furry Animals – Wherever I lay My Phone Thats My Home
I still don’t know what to make of Guerilla, the third super furry animals album. It was a conscious to make a pop album and it contains their highest charting single (the excellent calypso tinged Northern Lites), but at the same time there’s some weird tracks on there. This ode to mobile phones, in the days before they were ubiquitous is one of the weird ones. Never used to like it, but I’ve grown to appreciate its bonkers charm.
Supergrass – Moving
Supergrass have been described as everyones fourth favourite band, which is a bit of a back handed compliment. They were one of the more successful and longer lasting Britpop bands. Their self titled third album was released in 1999. This is in my view the highlight from it.
The Flaming Lips – Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
Saw Flaming lips live at a festival without having heard any of their songs and was blown away. The use of glove puppets, fake blood, balloons and audiovisuals from the Wizard of Oz was mind blowing. As you may have gathered from the preceding description the Flaming Lips are pretty weird. They surprisingly hit the big time a couple of years later with Do you Realize. Nowadays I think they’ve gone for the more weird than good angle: A twenty four hour long song released on a flash drive embedded in a human skull for $3000+ a pop. That’s just unnecessary, stop being try hards. Anyway this is a beautiful song from the period when they were actually a good band.
The Dismemberment Plan – You are Invited
With some bands the name tells you a lot about the style. You know that when you listen to Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse or Fleshgore it’s going to be loud, abrasive and generally unpleasant (had to check the last one, I was correct). There’s other bands where the name is deceptive. The Thrills being the least exciting bands in existence is such an example. On name alone The Dismemberment Plan would appear to fall in to the former category. Pleasingly they’re in the latter and so well worth a listen.
Crashland – Standard love affair
Gone deliberately obscure with this one. My friend at uni really liked this band, but even by 2002 they’d disappeared. In a desperate move he asked teletext what had happened to them. This was in the days before Wikipedia. Not sure whether teletext answered the question but the internet now says that the lead singer moved to America and formed a new band Troup. Mystery solved internet 1 Teletext 0. Anyway here’s a pleasant indie pop song, not on Spotify.
Pavement – Carrot rope
In 1997 Pavement played V97. I decided to go and watch Embrace on the other stage. It was probably the right idea at the time, all the 13 year old me knew about them was that Blur liked them. It would take 13 years for me to rectify this decision taken in the folly of childhood and finally see them live. This was their last release before the split and their most successful UK single. Brilliantly, despite the fact pavement are totally American, lead singer Stephen Malkmus supports Hull City and enjoys cricket. The lyric “the wicketkeeper is down” is lifted from cricketing terminology, inspired by the band watching the game whilst on tour. More American bands should reference cricket.
The Best Sellers
9/9 again. Some truly awful crap in there. I’ll go with ATB as the least worst from that
The gigs
No signed gigs this year that I recall. I probably saw my mate’s band a few times at the Army and Navy.
nine songs per year 