The History Of Pop Part 26 aka My life is a cage but onstage I'm free

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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]

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have a norful feeling that SWV are going to face Gabrielle-style poptimist ignominy :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Not as much as Dina Carroll or Lena Fiagbe!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Or Eternal :o

Go the whole hog, be bigger than god

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've not heard "Open Up" for *years* - does it stand up? Can anyone YSI it?

Re: Go the whole hog, be bigger than god

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Predictably I says yes

Burn Hollywood Burn

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Take down Tinsel Town!

Yes it is ace. Can YSI this evening.

Re: Go the whole hog, be bigger than god

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

it stands up to my ears - i love this tune too too much, it was the soundtrack of my gay indie clubbing years. i haven't got the original on me, tho i have an odd chem bros remix of it that goes on a bit

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

ha! i knew thenipper would say hymn from a village, though slightly more surprised at jauntyalang...

i'd say this was a really mixed bag, the good ones are AMAZING, but there's a fair old bit of filler and second single ignominy...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There's a traditional final-third fall-off but I still found much ticky boxy.

I like the position of THE LOAF, bringing the BIG TUNE at the end of the indie section.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I KNEW there was Lenny K on this cd but it was not the one I was thinking of (as predicted in the pub to hoshuteki last night).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I like the idea that Now polls are eagerly anticipated across the hostelries of London Town.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

James are really really awful. I have liked a few of their singles in my time (my fave was probably 'Born Of Frustration') but there's no denying the simple troof.

I loved 'Two Princes' At The Time. I loved 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite' At The Time. I even liked the Lenny Kravitz one At The Time. 1993 really was a mental year for me in which all kinds of toss slipped through the stevem taste net.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I should probably have ticked "The Sidewinder", of course as triffidfarm is happy to remind everyone I rated this era REM very highly indeed for a couple of months, "Sidewinder" at least has a few hooks.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

SHOUT IT UP (http://base58.com/trax/shoutitup.mp3) (Louchie Lou & Michie One vs The Goodmen)

Michie One and The Mad Stuntman should've got married.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

HUZZAH

also WIENERITE amirite?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

a carmodian nation needs to know:

Re: also WIENERITE amirite?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

We will be able to track the Wienerite tendency minutely over the upcoming weeks.

POINTS OF ORDER from someone who listened to this album non stop in 1993

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

- Is this the only Now to feature an artist that is also a song title (GO WESSS)?
- This version of Disco Inferno is ACE on a STICK
- Relax 93 = indistinguishable from original Relax
- Stakka Bo = Brilliant and could someone YSI pls
- Ditto The Goodmen
- How many appearances have the Tlimited had now?
- UB40 song in actually bearable shockah (but not worth a tick)
- Sping Doktors = NOT REAL DOKTORS!!!

Re: POINTS OF ORDER from someone who listened to this album non stop in 1993

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

- Is this the only Now to feature an artist that is also a song title (GO WESSS)?

excellent spot

Relax 93 = indistinguishable from original Relax

yes although there were proper dance remixes big in the clubs that were quite different...if anyone has the main one that would be a welcome and worthy YSI (for me Ultramix 93 innit)

Stakka Bo = Brilliant and could someone YSI pls

think i have it at home, but what i would really love is a YSI of the follow up 'Down The Drain' which is nearly just as good!

Also

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

People not ticking Eternal will henceforth be ignored by me forever.

Re: Also

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to tick it given a YSI inducement.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Bjork really is amazing, isn't she? All this awesomeness and still she comes top.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

one of her 'weaker' singles tho!

Pah!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"a rich pop ecosystem" 'e says. I eagerly click on the link and what are the first two names I see? UB40 and the bluddy Pet Shop Boys AGANE!

OK, I shall read the rest of the list now. I can only hope it gets better...

Re: Pah!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

OK, it does, a bit. But as carsmile says, Tom = guilty of overhype as per.

Top 3 picks at present OTM.

Love the title of the Belinda Carlisle. Does the song live up? I can't recall it.

[tommymack.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've become aware of this poll, which is fitting as it just about coincides with the time I became aware of pop music as a current, living, breathing thing. This was my first year of high school and Now 26 was the first Now I got (a copy of a copy of a copy, just about audible through the hiss). I remember particularly Go West blasting out of our car stereo on the way to school. I also remember Meatloaf's IWDATFL(BIWDT) being one of the first singles I ever bought (on vynil from Nantwich Woolies), Dave Cross saying Meatloaf was shit and giving me a copied tape of Nevermind (which I turned off after a couple of minutes, genuinely upset by Kurt Cobain's voice and the untamed brutality of the music - I had never heard punk or metal or much of anything before then - not to return to it it for about a year and a half, shortly before Cobain's untimely death.) It was, ironically, the Now... series that lead to decent pop and I parting company for several years, by introducing me to Blur and Oasis (and before that Primal Scream) a change in taste that saw me selling all my Meatloaf records (I got well into him for a few years) and Now...s and treading me down a blinkered and po-faced Dadrock path that I think many also walked for a few years and many still trudge along to this day.

I seem to have succumbed to nostalgia. It's all downhill from here...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The great thing about the Now polls is their inexorable forward march into the present.

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

My hand slipped and I hit the submit button before I meant to, but I cannot stress enough how Two Princes is absolutely the WORST. It's in the running with "Everybody Hurts" and "What's Up" for the worst song of the decade, definitely. I'm sorry I messed up my chance to vote on this little piece of hell.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

HI. MORE LOVE FOR DINA CARROLL AND HER LAVISHLY ARRANGED ORCHESTRAL POWER BALLAD PLEASE.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I bought it on cassingle!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

it may look like downhill but it feesl like uphill :(>

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Er, Tom... Haven't you left off the Radioheads and their Creep song?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA have I??? Nobody will believe me if I say it's unintentional, but honestly, the source I've been using for tracklists doesn't mention it. I will defer to people who actually have the album of course.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Is this the first time EVERY song has got at least one vote?!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No, it happened on some of the early ones.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Meatloaf rules!

[dorsalstop.livejournal.com]

I'm now listening to the Cappella - Capt Hollywood sequence (9 songs). Best run so far!