poptimists | The History Of Pop Part 26 aka My life is a cage but onstage I'm free (Reply)

Now 26 stakes a claim for 1993 as BEST YEAR EVAR - a line-up packed with heavyweights and it's a sad quirk of fate that only one can qualify. Compare if you will Now 25, which "All That She Wants" won at a canter from New Order, and then a chasing pack of relatively low scorers (including though a disgracefully high mark for "Everybody Hurts" of all things!).

But this - this is a different matter! Post-Soviet gay disco! Jacko-tweaked R'n'B! Will Smith! Mr Raider! And a wealth of brilliant bit players like Stakka Bo and Apache Indian too. Which will be the winner? I'm hoping for a play-off frankly. The overall impression here is of a thriving, bustling, multifaceted and multicultural pop landscape, a chart happy to gobble the best from the UK, US and Europe, a rich pop ecosystem which it will be instructive to compare with the soon-coming "Britpop years"...

[Poll #678617]