Completing the countdown to Popageddon...
20 - "Alright," Supergrass
The first of two #2s for this Oxford band is this piano-driven slice of summer rock sunshine. A pop classic in any country. Just fantastic.
19 - "Come and Get Your Love," Real McCoy
German dance group covers Redbone's 1974 hit, adds superfluous rapping. Yeah, sure.
18 - "Boom Boom Boom," The Outhere Brothers
The Chicago dance duo of Keith Mayberry and Lamar Malone picked up two U.K. Number Ones, the second and most famous being this house-rap track. Dumb fun background party music. Everybody say way-oh (way-oh).
17 - "So Good," Boyzone
The third #1 for these Irish boys was this "we're made for each other" dance pop bit o'business. Boy band product epitomized.
16 - "I'm Only Sleeping/Off on Holiday," Suggs
The A side of the Madness frontman's first solo hit was a jaunty ska cover of a track from the Beatles' Revolver LP. I like that it's different, but the peppiness kind of negates the lyric. The B is a calypsoish portratit of a family vacation that reminds me a bit of "Our House" in tone. I definitely like the B better.
15 - "Happy Just to Be With You," Michelle Gayle
Londoner Gayle first found fame acting on the popular soap EastEnders in the early 90s, then left to return to her original passion, music. She scored seven Top 40 singles, the fifth being this bit of hip-hop soul featuring samples from Chic's "Good Times." Fairly decent.
14 - "Move Your Body," Xpansions '95
The dance duo of Phil Drummond and Sally Ann Marsh with a remix of their 1990 hit. House stuff for, um, body moving. Functional.
13 - "On the Bible," Deuce
Third of four hits for two guys and two girls. A dance-pop love pledge, with a video appropriately set at a wedding. The hard rock guitar opening catches attention, but otherwise it's just more plastic pop.
12 - "Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over," The Charlatans
Tenth Top 40 for the West Midlands outfit. Danceable rock about returning to an old flame. I appreciate them more now then I did then when I would hear them occasionally on CFNY.
11 - "Shy Guy," Diana King
Biggest international hit for this Jamaican reggae singer. Dancehall about the appeal of quiet men. Don't understand all the patois lyrics, but still, a very good radio single.
10 - "Try Me Out," Corona
Third and last Top Ten for an Italian dance group. A bleepy house come-on. Better than most.
9 - "Kiss From a Rose," Seal
The biggest hit from Heidi Klum's ex was this big ballad that had flopped when released a year earlier but then became a smash when it was used in Batman Forever. Kind of like "Every Breath You Take," in that the lyrics aren't as romantic as people think. Which makes sense, because a kiss from a rose would probably result in painful thorn punctures, you would think. It's a song that annoyed the hell out of me when it was huge, but I can hear goodness in it now. It's no "Crazy," though.
8 - "Human Nature," Madonna
I counted 78 U.K. Top 40s for Madge, and this was #38. It's funky pop on which she rails against media criticism of her speaking her mind. "I'm not your bitch, don't hang your shit on me," she declares. It's one of her more underrated hits, as far as I'm concerned.
7 - "Son of a Gun," JX
First of three hits for Brighton DJ Jake Williams. Thumpa-thumpa woah woah dance music. I'm not saying this stuff is bad or doesn't require any craft, but it just all blurs together in my mind. There are standout songs, but I don't find this to be one of them.
6 - "Everybody,"Clock
Third Top Ten from a group referred to as the British equivalent of 2 Unlimited. It stands out a little, in that the groove is hypnotic and the soulful singing is male. But I'm not intrigued enough to look up more, like, say, their cover of "Whoomp! There it Is." I'm just puzzled that a cover of "Whoomp! There it Is" actually exists. And was a hit.
5 - "Waterfalls," TLC
The Atlanta trio's first of two U.K. Top Fives was this cautionary tale about the dangers of drug dealing and unprotected sex. Social messages delivered in a pop song, but not in an awkward way. A fine achievement in hitcraft.
4 - "Never Forget," Take That
Although Robbie Williams had departed the band over drug issues two months earlier, the decade's dominant British boy band was still riding high, scoring their seventh Number One with this midtempo number about the fleeting nature of success and fame ("Someday this will all be someone else's dream"). Pretty good as fluff-pop goes.
3 - "I Luv U Baby," The Original
The only major hit by this American dance group was this house track. Some good singing, which distinguishes it from the massive cluster of Eurodance. Forgive me if I sound like a closed-minded old man when I talk about these 90s dance tracks, but I just feel like so many of them are interchangeable. Maybe it's just harder to make the same machines sound distinct, I don't know. All I can say is how I feel. If you disagree, that's great. I'm not going to deny anyone their pleasure.
And so we have arrived at the battleground. Two bands at the forefront of a growing movement called "Britpop," who were very different from each other. On one side were Oasis, the boys from Manchester led by brawling brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, who were portrayed as Beatles-worshipping, working-class blokes who loved beer and football, and who had broken through the previous year with the fastest-selling British debut album to date, Definitely Maybe. On the other were Blur, a group formed at a London university, who were seen as more literate and posh and Kinks-influenced, and who had seen their own 1994 breakthrough with their third album Parklife, which led to them dominating the subsequent Brit Awards. In early 1995, both bands seemed to see each other as their main obstacle to being Britain's biggest band, and a rivalry developed to the point where both bands released singles from their forthcoming albums on the same day, creating a sort of unofficial referendum on which of them really was the top group in the U.K. The "Battle of Britpop" became a media sensation, and the act of going to buy a particular cassette or CD was portrayed as being as monumental as casting a vote in a national election. So who won? Well, since we count down here, we'll start by revealing the runner-up, which was...
2 - "Roll With It," Oasis
The band sold 216,000 copies of this track on that week, but it wasn't enough. The song is an energetic rocker about being yourself and perservering. Not their greatest song, but a fine distillation of what the band was: upfront, all out, take-us-or-leave-us-but-we're-gonna-party-either-way rock n' roll.
So that means, of course, that the battle was won by...
1 - "Country House," Blur
The song that prevailed with sales of 272,000 was this jaunty tune about a man who escapes to the countryside to avoid the pressures of modern urban life. It's catchy and pointed, with lyrics about analysts, herbal baths, and Prozac. Certainly the more stereotypically British (down to the Benny Hill homages in the video) of the two songs, and to my ears the better one. But the war, as it turned out, would be won by Oasis, whose What's the Story, Morning Glory would sell five times as many copies as Blur's The Great Escape, and would also go multiplatinum in America while Blur's album barely charted there. But both bands are still well-remembered as lynchpins of an exciting era in British music, and the hysteria their "battle" created will likely never be replicated.
So that's that. Next one will come in time. See ya then.
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