Popular '96

@2 That list really shows how little was going on outside the charts, doesn’t it! All the best records there made number one or two.

Otherwise it’s Britpop Championship and League 1 acts, the last flashes before the dying of the light from REM and Suede, minor 2Pac, Bunnied Welsh Band, who are one of my blind spots, and a few entertaining oddities like Third Eye Foundation and DJ Shadow. And I love England’s Irie. Oh, and there’s bloody Beck…..

The most interesting record there is Blackstreet down at #41: harbinger of the R&B explosion to come.

@3 & 4: I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t like Beck at that point – I listened to Odelay and found it indigestible. I did buy Mutations later which I enjoyed.
I remember 1996 as the year that Patti Smith returned to music – I saw her play a great set at at a crowded Shepherds Bush Empire that year. At one point I looked over to see Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann watching intently

And now the Billboard Hot 100 list of number ones in 1996. Note the complete lack of overlap between the UK and US lists (although “Wannabe” would hit #1 in 1997). Also, fans of US alt-rock, prepare to be disappointed: Due to the “singles only” rule again, there was hardly any alt-rock in the US Top 10 in 1996, let at #1.

One Sweet Day – Mariah & Boyz II Men
– And so the record 16 weeks come to an end in March. It wouldn’t be the top single of the year though….

Because You Loved Me – Celine Dion
– This song always screamed out “middle-aged feminine friendship song” to me. I have no idea whether this was ever performed on Oprah, but it seems like it would be been.

Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey
– Typical Mariah up-tempo song. For some reason, this one sticks in my memory better than most of her others.

Tha Crossroads – Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
– Gangsta rap group shows their softer side. Isn’t there a bunnied cover of this at some point?

How Do U Want It/California Love – 2Pac featuring a bunch of other people
– His only #1. The second track is much more familiar to me than the first. Still moving down the chart when he was gunned down in September.

You’re Makin’ Me High/Let It Flow – Toni Braxton
– This time the first track was the hit while I don’t remember the second track at all. Quickly overshadowed by its immediate successor at #1 and later by her much bigger followup hit.

Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix) – Los Del Rio
– 14 weeks at #1. It wasn’t the biggest US seller of the decade (that would be in 1997), but it was arguably the biggest cultural phenomenon to come from the Hot 100 in the 90’s. At least four different versions charted in 1996: the megasmash Bayside Boys remix, the original Spanish-only Los Del Rio version, a cover version by a group called Los Del Mar, and yes, the inevitable Christmas version. I guess it was my American-colored glasses that made me think that only Spicemania kept this from taking over the UK as well. In fact, Wikipedia shows there were a bunch of Western countries where this didn’t hit #1. So I suppose it was “just another #2 record” in the UK. I’ll leave it up to the rest of this forum to decide if this was a bug or a feature 🙂

No Diggity – Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre
– Not much to say here. R&B smash apparently big enough to top Hot 100 as well.

Un-Break My Heart – Toni Braxton
– 11 weeks at #1 that lasted into 1997. Based on other threads’ comments, this missing the UK#1 slot was definitely a bug for some. It was interesting that the Dunblane record officially kept it out of #1, but if that record hadn’t existed, it would’ve been steamrolled by the Spice Girls release week instead.

And there you have it…onward to 1997. My first official 10 in five years is soon to come!

What an unexpectedly strong year: 13 votes from me (Spice Girls x 3, Prodigy x 2, Chemical Bros, Fugees x 2, Oasis, Mark Morrison, Lightning Seeds et al., Babylon Zoo, and George Michael for “Jesus to a Child”), two of them 10s (Prodigy). A few I gave 5, as well. And unexpectedly dire at the weaker end: four 2s (Peter Andre x 2, Boyzone’s “A Different Beat”, Robson and Jerome) and a 1 (Gary Barlow – that was shocking). Great fun to read and comment on it all. Loving the revitalised posting schedule – tearing through three a week is terrific, and makes the weaker tracks far less painful to endure.

My Top 25 tracks of 1996 as compiled at the end of that year:

1. Todd Terry – Jumpin’ (Rhythm Masters Remix)
– Colossal banger, this mix closer to the original ‘unreleased edit’ by Todd from a few years before rather than the hit version which features more of Jocelyn Brown and Martha Wash.
2. Underworld – Born Slippy: Nuxx
– inescapable monster
3. Faithless – Insomnia
– re-release of Trade club anthem from the previous year, genuinely odd and thrilling at that time then somehow became a massive hit all over Europe
4. The Prodigy – Firestarter
– it grew on me after initial disappointment but I put this far too high
5. Oasis – Champagne Supernova
– hardest song to still like out of all these and indeed I don’t
6. Tori Amos – Professional Widow (Armand’s Star Trunk Funk Remix)
– probably the biggest track of its kind of that Summer from what I could see…perhaps also the most radical (more soon)
7. Faithless – Salva Mea
– early debut for Dido on the intro, just as powerful as Insomnia, much fondness for Maxi Jazz’s bouncing-ball rap
8. Way Out West – Domination
– a halfway point between Sasha and Sash
9. Stretch N’ Vern – I’m Alive
– fun foolaround with ‘Boogie Wonderland’
10. Subliminal Cuts – Le Voie Le Soleil
– re-release of lovely piano house hug-athon from ’92
11. Alcatraz – Giv Me Luv
– big epic/deep/whatever house from Washington DC – one for Monica L…
12. Gat Décor – Passion
– another re-release – not sure why I listed it tho as I didn’t really like the mash-up version with the ‘Do You Want It Right Now?’ vocal
13. Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger
14. Everything But The Girl – Walking Wounded
– sad Tracey is sad! a bold move to go ‘artcore’ after the success of ‘Missing’ but it paid off
15. Underworld – Pearl’s Girl
– DAVE IS FLOATING. Probably my favourite single of theirs all in all.
16. Alex Reece – Feel The Sunshine
– hangover from the end of the previous year, the pony-tailed Ealingite showing a lighter side after moody anthem ‘Pulp Fiction’ (or ‘Pulp Friction’ as it was retitled for the album)
17. Robert Miles – Children
18. Lisa May – The Curse Of Voodoo Ray
– fun remix of the Guy Called Gerald original plus a spooky downtempo version by Justin Robertson
19. Wildchild – Jump To My Beat (Todd Edwards Remix)
– my favourite remix by Todd from this time although the one of St. Germain’s ‘Alabama Blues’ might be more popular out there
20. Goldie – State Of Mind
– one of the slowies from ‘Timeless’ but probably the least exciting or interesting thing on that entire album so a daft inclusion really I think it just calmed me down a lot during pre-A-Level anxious episodes
21. Nikita Warren – I Need U (Basement Jaxx Remix)
22. Lil Mo Yin Yang – Reach (Basement Jaxx Remix)
– Basement Jaxx ended the year as my favourite new thing along with Armand Van Helden
23. NuYorican Soul – Mind Fluid
– trip-house from Masters At Work’s ‘bit of everything we fancy’ side-project
24. DJ Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World
– one of the highlights from either my 1st or 2nd favourite 90s album
25. BT – Tripping The Light Fantastic
– another epic-house heavy-hitter

#2&3 reminds me vividly of that time, and afraid I’m going to have to disagree with Ed in the most vehement terms – 96/97 could well be my favourite years for music, and there’s plenty of note in that list.

Supergrass – Going Out / The Divine Comedy – Something For The Weekend / SFA – Hometown Unicorn = three standout singles from three excellent, very different bands, not deserving of the b-league Britpop label at all.

Bis / Tiger – Genuinely excited by these at the time. The bullying they suffered at the hands of Swells actually stopped me buying the NME for a while. Meanwhile John Harris had taken over Select and seemed to have a policy of Oasis / Weller on the cover every month, and a general feeling of pro-rock/anti-weird pervading the whole thing, and I only really bought it for the listings in the back. Melody Maker was at this point the only holdout for the art-school element, and they sort of blew it with the whole ‘Romo’ thing, though I have never been able to fathom what the objection was to curating a movement – Tom’s article in the Guardian about genre-mongers was spot on about this, and it’s sad that Plastic Fantastic didn’t get a fair hearing.

Mogwai – Summer – The mainstream indie scene might’ve been in a sad decline, but by this point the Glasgow scene was taking a good chunk of my attention anyway. I naively assumed that because the music had such variety and quality, because it all excited me so much, that it would be just a matter of time before it broke through into the charts, but obviously that didn’t happen. Anyway, Mogwai’s 1996 singles are all excellent, I’d like to go on at length here about Arab Strap, The Yummy Fur, Delgados, Ganger, Urusei Yatsura, Lungleg and the rest but I’m not sure where to start or how long it would take me, perhaps it needs a blog of its own.

Also notable: Busta Rhymes, Dose ft MES, Backstreet, Black Grape, plenty more too in the John Peel list I’m about to post.

Reading back over this I seem to have just listed a load of superlatives rather than added anything halfway constructive, sorry about that, but point made anyway.

I ticked the first 30 seconds of Babylon Zoo, obv.

I suppose this is a good as place as any to briefly mention Tupac, since we won’t otherwise have the opportunity to do so on this blog. In a way it’s a bit sad that his first and only #1 US Billboard hit before he died was “California Love,” given how much more entertaining singles like “I Get Around” and even “All About U” were.

Despite his lyrical subject matter, his political ties, his troubles with the law, etc., he had all the makings of a successful crossover hip hop star (flow, charisma, even his particular vocal timbre), which I think he instinctively understood. For all the ‘thug life’ trappings, had he lived a few years his career may well have followed the successful template of Puff Daddy and others.

#18 I didn’t even know about that! Reminds me of this Dave Chappelle classic.

Chems, Oasis, Three Lions, Gina G and both George Michaels were my choices. Completely missing the top 4 of Firestarter and the three Spices, none of them that good enough for me with perhaps ‘2 Become 1’ the best out the lot.

Otherwise this was an incredibly good year for music, particularly on the dance side of things – this beats 1991 as my favourite year of the 1990s so far, although my ultimate favourite year of the decade (and, indeed, of all time) is yet to come.

These are all unbelievably brilliant and would for the most part see me giving out tens by the shedload had they climbed just a couple of places higher:

Underworld – Born Slippy
Josh Wink – Higher State of Consciousness (Dexy & Jones remix)
Technohead – I Wanna Be A Hippy
Suggs – Cecilia
Suede – Trash/Beautiful Ones
Stretch & Vern – I’m Alive
Robert Miles – One & One
Pulp – Something Changed
Pet Shop Boys – Se A Vide E
Pianoman – Blurred
OMD – Walking On The Milky Way
OMC – How Bizarre
Ocean Colour Scene – The Day We Caught The Train
Manic Street Preachers – A Design For Life
Lighthouse Family – Ocean Drive
Hysteric Ego – Want Love
Faithless – Insomnia/Salva Mea
Donna Lewis – I Love You Always Forever
Dodgy – Good Enough
DJ Misjah & DJ Tim – Access
CJ Bolland – Sugar is Sweeter
Chicane – Offshore
Cast – Sandstorm
Blur – Charmless Man
The Bluetones – Slight Return
The Beautiful South – Rotterdam/Don’t Marry Her

…and that’s just the ones I’ve found on a quick iTunes check. Utterly, utterly astonishing year, and along with 1991, one I’d give a 10 to overall.

Some twelve years ago, a particularly dumb and ignorant me compiled a personal Top 200 Evar for discussion on a Buffy forum. (Long story.) Ten from 1996 managed to bother the charts:

Lightning Seeds etc – Three Lions
Sneaker Pimps – 6 Underground (rereleased in ’97, but it got to #15 first go)
Mansun – Wide Open Space
Space – Neighbourhood
Suede – Trash
Grace – Not Over Yet (might have been wrong about this one – I still can’t figure out if the version I love is the ’95 Patti Low or the ’96 Dominique Atkins. Oh, and screw the Klaxons)
The Divine Comedy – Something For The Weekend
The Bluetones – Marblehead Johnson
Pet Shop Boys – Se A Vida É (That’s The Way Life Is)
Blur – Charmless Man

In other words, in 2001 I was an indie obsessive who should have known better; I’d only consider two of these nailed-on 10s now (Three Lions and Not Over Yet; *maybe* 6 Underground), while others were “I don’t care if they suck, I love it”-types (most of the rest).

Notable non-singles from that Big List: Oasis – Champagne Supernova (a single everywhere but here); Beth Orton – I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine; REM – Leave (too weird to ever be single material – so was most of New Adventures – but goddam it’s good).

Ticked 6 of the Popular list here; Firestarter, two Spices (Wannabe missed the cut), Don’t Talk Back You Wanker, Gina G and the Lions.

#13: Interesting that your take on Select was that John Harris was pro-Weller and Oasis. The Last Party is massively anti-Oasis and certainly only pro-Weller before he fell in with the Gallaghers (or vice versa); the prevailing line being Oasis came in and ruined the whole bloody thing, Blur and Pulp were amazing and Suede were a missed opportunity. I suppose having them on the cover a lot is bowing to commercial imperative in some senses though – he might have been holding his nose all the while.

I also bristle at the the idea that Supergrass and Super Furry Animals were B-League, if such a thing exists. Supergrass were gearing up to release their best album (I Should Coco has higher highs but drifts in the later half, when the sugar rush wears off, whereas In It For The Money is consistent all the way through). I loved Going Out and I return to their albums more than any other Britpop act with the exception of SFA. The definitive version of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck (the live 20 minute version with Cian’s techno section) was still someway off but even the original is rightly, in my view, high up there in the NME list and whilst they were not quite ready to make the big leap (Radiator being a subtle move on from Fuzzy Logic), in retrospect, you can see that there’s more to them than many of their peers too.

Looking at some of the other lists that have been stuck up though, I feel like the #1s are actually pretty representative in at least one respect – there is some terrible dross in there, along with some stuff that is just wonderful (though was it ever thus? Possibly). No Diggity in particular is tremendous – possibly the stand out record for me of all the stuff that has been mentioned thus far. DJ Shadow’s stuff from this year is also really good – but I can’t help but feel that he trapped lightning in a bottle, as his follow up albums are nowhere near the same standard.

Re: Beck – more catchy when being an annoying hipster, when being a more reflective “real” person, incredibly boring. I struggled with his records manfully for years on and off, always thinking “maybe I’ll get it this time”. I’ve long since given up, I’m afraid.

Kinitawowi, I don’t think you need to feel defensive about the tracks on your list at all – or at least the ones I know (Lightning Seeds, Mansun, Space, Suede, DC, Bluetones, Blur). Great tracks all; “Three Lions” would be my least favourite of them, and I gave it 6.

This is an odd Popular year for me in that I’ve rated so many tracks as good or better, but only a few of them are things I was actually listening to in 1996 or thereabouts and would listen to much today. (The ratio may change, though, as I’ve finally ordered a 1p used copy of Spice from Amazon…) The stuff I really loved that year was the sort of stuff you and others have mentioned, especially Suede’s Coming Up and Ash’s 1977 – solid 10s for me, and still my favourite albums by each band.

If nobody else will defend Beck here, I will. My old English Ride/Cure/indie-fan friend, who sent me my first tape of Definitely Maybe a couple of years earlier, by 1996 was raving about Odelay, and I remember Rolling Stone rating it highly too. I didn’t quite get it at the time – as critically-acclaimed albums after popular breakthrough hits went, it was no The Bends – but didn’t mind it, and I picked up his next one. That’s when he clicked for me, and I still rate Mutations, Midnite Vultures and Sea Change highly. The last, in particular, was an amazing album, though I suppose it’s the one Cumbrian is calling “incredibly boring”, as I know many find it to be. Nopety nopety nope. Not boring. Amazing.

I’ve stuck with him through later albums as a result, even though they’ve been patchy; I wanted to like Guero and Modern Guilt more than I did (I liked “Chemtrails”, at least). The Information is still pretty good. I was excited on the weekend to see that he has a new album out soon, after a long gap, though I’ll probably wait a while before picking it up. Hang on, no I won’t: Wikipedia says it’s a “companion piece” to Sea Change. Ordered.

Ah yes, but did anyone here, even Mark or Marcello, get Beck’s 2012 album Song Reader, the one that was issued only as sheet music (i.e., to explore whether there was anything to be gained by temporarily, locally re-inhabiting the pre-recorded music era)?

Re 27: As I hinted, I don’t think John’s personal views on Oasis came into it.
On the subject of which, this is an interesting piece by Roy Wilkinson, who wrote the infamous Select five-star review of Be Here Now (I found it via either Tom or Wichita on Twitter, but I don’t think anyone’s linked to it here):
http://thequietus.com/articles/04434-pop-will-eat-itself-oasis-time-flies-as-a-catering-line

@28 It *is* a sweeping statement, and I can’t really make a strong case for it. It was just my perception as a moderately engaged consumer at the time. As with the music itself, I am sure there was a lot of great writing I missed.

I should also confess that I am writing here as someone who discovered this really interesting new thing called The Internet in about 1998.

#31: I was able to read it. Bad Chick Corea would be a charitable description. Sc**nt*l*gy – don’t, don’t do it.

#31: The Song Reader website is worth a visit, because it (now) has a good selection of listeners’ interpretations of the songs. If you “sort by most loved” you get a reasonable bunch of them.

Alternatively, YouTube has some live versions by the man himself: Sorry and Heaven’s Ladder, or ten tracks played by Beck and friends live at the Barbican last July.

@Rory, 39. Thanks for that link, I’ll check it out.
@punctum, 37. Excellent, I’m impressed. I believe that both Corea and Beck are scientologists, although B’s connection to it seems weaker (apparently it’s something his family did rather than something he’s been won over to). That said, knowing about the Scien. connection, you never hear ‘In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey’ the same way again.

#36: Rory, thanks very much for this post. Very good, very convincing. I, perhaps obviously, don’t hold the same associations with it as you do – for me, it is a straight break up album – though you present a cogent argument for looking at it through a post 9/11 lense, it might be something that I have to have (yet another) listen to and think of it in those terms.

Up until now, I have regarded it purely as a relationship/break up album and, in that respect, whilst it does a good job of establishing a mood of melancholy, it all feels a bit one note. Compared to stuff like Springsteen’s Tunnel Of Love or Graham Coxon’s Love Travels At Illegal Speeds, there’s just nothing that grabs my ears, with everything just drifting past – like a mumble-core Sundance movie, invoking the right mood, reflecting the right feelings but difficult for me to engage with. Some of this is also, perhaps, my reaction to his persona around Odelay and Midnite Vultures (annoying hipster I said earlier – perhaps more charitable, would be Puckish) with the artifice making it difficult to take this stuff at face value from him. This is doubtless my fault to an extent.

Maybe I have never been in the right mood for it when I have listened to it and just not got it. My fault too, I guess. Might be an album I need to return to when I am in the mood for watching something like Blue Valentine, as well as giving it a listen in a more considered light.

Scottish/UK chart no 1 differences
No 1 in Scotland but not UK :
1) Robert Miles – Children
2) Mark Snow – The X Files
3) Robbie Williams – Freedom
4) Charlatans – One To Another
5) Robert Miles & Maria Nayler – One & One

No 1 in UK but not Scotland
1) Prodigy – Firestarter
2) Mark Morrison – Return Of The Mack
3) George Michael – Fastlove
4) Baddiel, Skinner & Lightning Seeds – 3 Lions
5) Gary Barlow – Forever Love
6) Fugees – Ready Or Not
7) Chemical Brothers – Setting Sun
8) Peter Andre – I Feel You

Pleased to see both of the Robert Miles tracks (but especially the latter) get a no 1 place in Scotland (not least as “One & One” kept the execrable “I Feel You” off) . Interesting to see Robbie favoured over Gary in Scotland, too (as will also be the case in 1997), while slightly bemusing to see that Gina G somehow got an eight-week run at the top in Scotland with her Eurovision number.

Our Alice reckons it sounds like Robbie.