Featuring Wiz Khalifa

Looking at the world around me, I fear that I'm the last man alive to have never done anything featuring Wiz Khalifa, Rita Ora or Pitbull.

How did I let his happen? Am I so far out of touch, out of the loop of modern pop culture?

I spoke to Wiz about it and he was horrified. He has agreed to do a guest rap just below.

Word on the street is bloggin' is the shit

'Bout hustlin' and talkin' shit

Bunch of pussy n*ggas gon' get clipped

Mark my man gon' kill this shit

Rita Ora will be appearing in my next post, looking sexy but not doing much else. I've had no contact with Pitbull. I'm sure he'd be up for something though if I asked him.

Lorde: "Pure Heroine"

Released: 2013

A girl who takes the same bus as me in the mornings looks a lot like Lorde. I think she does this on purpose to some degree as she has her hair the same, dresses in a similar style and tends to wear purple lipstick.

She's probably about the same age as Lorde too I would guess, at about 18. I don't know if Lorde is an inspirational figure to the young people or just this one. I'm not going to ask her (or speak to her at all) as she's half my age and that would be creepy. She does wear the same Doc Martens boots as me though, not that I'm suggesting that she's going to start copying my look next.

It's a pretty bold move to model your look on someone else. Everywhere she goes, people must say, "Ooh, you look a lot like Lorde." Intentional or not, it must get pretty annoying everyone mentioning/thinking it all the time.

Anyway, Lorde's album is pretty good, it has a strong first half, then sags a bit in the second half but picks up again right at the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

The £10 Music Challenge

Like all music lovers, I know more about music than everyone else. I am also a phenomenal shopper. That is why I dream of the day that someone asks me to recommend music for them to check out (I try to tell people what music they should be listening to but they're strangely resistant). What's better is I will recommend a bunch of classic albums for less than £10! Though they are all second hand from Amazon.

Pulp: "His 'n' Hers"

I've already written about my love of this album here, it is a must own for any fan of rock, indie or pop music. Just buy it already.

Price: £0.32 + £1.26 (postage) = £1.58 

Peaches: "Teaches of Peaches"

Electroclash! No, I'm not entirely sure what that is either, even after reading the description on Wikipedia. It seems like there's some new fashionable form of electronic music on a regular basis (EDM, Italo disco etc), often sounding not dissimilar to the previous cool thing. I know that this album is considered electroclash, and it's quite brilliant. If songs with titles like 'Fuck The Pain Away' and 'Lovertits' don't put you off, then check it out.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Subtotal: £2.85

Spinal Tap: "This Is Spinal Tap (OST)" 

Perhaps the funniest, and maybe greatest, movie ever made had an equally brilliant soundtrack album, made up with songs featured in the movie, though some of the songs vary slightly to the versions in the film itself. You should own the film on DVD or Blu-Ray anyway, so why not listen to classics such as 'Sex Farm' on your stereo or MP3 player whenever you want?

Price: £0.19 + £1.26 = £1.45

Subtotal: £4.30

Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On"

This timeless classic, which seems as relevant today as ever, should be a part of everyone's music collection, and for such a small price is a must-buy if you don't already own it.

Price: £0.97 + £1.26 = £2.23

Subtotal: £6.53

The Donnas: "Spend The Night"

I love The Donnas and their brash and youthful rock 'n' roll anthems, something few bands have managed to do well over the past 15 years or so. This is probably their best album, a seeming non-stop barrage of guitar riffs and sassy lyrics.

Price: £0.24 + £1.26 = £1.50

Subtotal: £8.03

William Shatner: "The Transformed Man"

This may well be the greatest album ever made. Or the worst. It's kind of hard to tell. Either way, it's the kind of thing everyone needs to experience at least once, a mix of spoken word poetry and pop songs, made in such an earnest way that just makes it sound even weirder.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Total: £9.30

There you go, for just £9.30 you can get 6 awesome albums. It was hard to choose just 6 as there's so many bargains available if you're willing to look around and buy CDs second hand. I went for Amazon over eBay as the postage costs are a lot less, and you can buy stuff outright rather than potentially having to wait for the auction to end (stuff on buy-it-now tends to cost more than on Amazon anyway). Try it out yourself! Or don't, I'm not that bothered really.

What's A "Love Shack"?

We have some new staff in our office. I've not really talked to them. Though, to be fair, I've not really talked to any of our existing staff for a while now either. They seem pretty young, around 22 I would guess. This means they were born after the release of Love Shack (1989).

Have they ever even heard of Love Shack? That is an interesting question, and one I am keen to know the answer to, though I am sure never to find out as I would have to talk to them to know.

Pretty much everything and everyone can easily (and should) be classified as pre-Love Shack or post-Love Shack, which makes the newbies our first post-Love Shack members of staff. End of days?

Best! Morrissey! Albums!

My main man Morrissey has a new album out this week called "World Peace Is None Of Your Business", which has gone in at number two in the album charts today (in the UK at least). I've listened to it a few times so far, but don't want to judge it just yet.

Morrissey is a special artist for me. The first single I ever bought was one of his ('The Last of the Famous International Playboys') and my love of music really developed from there. (Before you think I'm trying to show off my young cool hipster 10 year old self I would add that the first album I ever bought was by Bobby Brown. So there.)

But how do his other (solo) albums rank? Here, finally, for the first time ever anywhere in the world, especially in a blog on the internet, is the definitive list of Morrissey's albums, in order of quality.

1. Your Arsenal (1992)

2. Viva Hate (1988)

3. Vauxhall And I (1994)

4. Bona Drag (1990)

5. You Are The Quarry (2004)

6. Kill Uncle (1991)

7. Southpaw Grammar (1995)

8. Maladjusted (1997)

9. Years of Refusal (2009)

10. Ringleader of the Tormentors (2006)

I think Your Arsenal is clearly the best Moz album. Anyone who says otherwise is a lunatic. It was a close call between Viva Hate, Vauxhall And I and Bona Drag for number two, but I went with Viva Hate in the end as stays more consistently strong (especially lyrically) whereas the other two have one or two weaker moments.

Interestingly, or not, his five best albums contain four of his first five albums (only Kill Uncle of the first five makes the bottom half, and still makes it to six) and You Are The Quarry. His two worst albums are his two most recent, maybe not a good sign for his latest. Or maybe he'll turn it around?

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Note: I've based this on the albums as they were released, and not on the recent reissues which have changed some track listings, though I doubt it would have made much difference. I've not included live albums or compilation albums, though I have included Bona Drag, a sort of compilation of (then) recent singles and b-sides, which always felt like a proper album to me even if some people don't count it.

Glastonbury 2014

I won't be attending Glastonbury this weekend as a fan, but I will be playing there with my band. Not really, but I wish this was the case. I think playing in front of 200,000 people on the Pyramid Stage would have been the perfect comeback gig for us. Our previous biggest ever audience was one, if you count only humans, and three if you also include cats. And that one sole human was the younger brother of one of the band, and he was only allowed to hang around because we were using his instruments. And we were playing at his house. It might have been slightly unfair if we didn't let him stay.

I'm not sure where we would have been on the bill if the Eavis family had booked us. We wouldn't be as high as Dolly Parton obviously (no-one is), but we'd be above Metallica at least. The fact our band had no name might also cause problems as no-one would see us on the posters or anything, there'd just be a gap where a name should be.

Instead of us, the assembled throngs will have to put up with Arcade Fire, Robert Plant, Pixies, Warpaint, Blondie, St Vincent, Lykke Li, Gabrielle Aplin and Goldfrapp. It's your loss people.

Love Shack

It's the summertime now, which is a perfect excuse to listen to 'Love Shack', perhaps the defining cultural achievement of the 20th Century.

One time in High School, there was a drive to reduce the amount of lost property, so teachers would read out lists of lost property items at the start of classes to try to find their owners. One German lesson, Herr W (our teacher) read out a list of the usual items (gloves, scarves etc) with little response, until he mentioned a 'Love Shack' 12” picture disc single. After a brief silence, about 10 kids all put their hands up claiming it as their own. I think only 'Love Shack' could have had that kind of effect on a class of apothetic Generation Xers. And yes, I was one of those 10 kids.

2013 Favourites

Film

This is an easy one as I've only seen one film from last year, 'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa', which, fortunately, is as good as one might expect.

Games

2013 was a stellar year for games, the Wii U (woo hoo!) had its first full year and the PS4 (mild yay) and Xbone (boo!) were released. The stellar 'GTA V' ruled sales-wise, and though I haven't finished it yet, I would say it's a lot better than the disappointing 'GTA 4' and is a lot of fun. Another "AAA" title that was a lot of fun was 'Assassin's Creed IV'. At first, I thought it an improvement on 'ACIII', but I've since replayed 'ACIII' and I actually think that III is better than IV. The multiplayer on 'ACIV' is astoundingly good though, easily the best of the year for me. Talking multiplayer, that brings me to the very disappointing 'Call Of Duty: Ghosts', which had a piss poor single player campaign and quite a lame multiplayer, which ditched objective game modes in favour of pure killing, and improved the hit detection to the extent that as soon as you get hit you're dead (and vice versa). It plays into the hands of campers and is much the worse for it. 'Batman: Arkham Origins' was another fine (if more-of-the-same) entry to the series, and featured multiplayer for the first time, though that's quite hard to judge as it is virtually impossible to find a game when you go online. PS3 had 'The Last Of Us', which was very good, both in single player and multiplayer, though it's not quite the masterpiece some people make it out to be. Wii U had some of the best games of the year, the amazing 'Super Mario 3D World' being the best, featuring insanely brilliant and varied level design and probably the tightest controls of any game this year. 'Lego City Undercover' was another incredibly fun game, easily the best Lego game I've seen or played. Wii U also had the promising looking 'Wonderful 101' and reamkes of 'Legend Of Zelda:the Wind Waker' and 'Deau Ex: Human Revolution', though I haven't got around to playing them yet. The best game of the year though was unquestionably 'Animal Crossing: New Leaf' on 3DS. I've already put in over 200 hours playtime into the game and will undoubtedly put in lots more. The 3DS had a stellar year though I didn't get around to too many of the other great-looking games ('Fire Emblem: Awakening', 'Pokemon X and Y', 'Luigi's Mansion 2', 'Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins', 'Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D', 'The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds' to name but a few!) as I spent so much time as mayor in my town (called Hyrule) in 'Animal Crossing'.

Music

My favourite album of 2013 was "The Stand-In" by Caitlin Rose, a rockier effort than her brilliant debut album, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I also liked the latest Neko Case album (which goes without saying), the title of which is too long to type. The album I listened to the most last year was probably "True Romance" by Charli XCX, which still gets heavy rotation on my stereo, and is really very good. Laura Marling's fourth album "Once I was An Eagle" was another stellar effort and "Silence Yourself", the debut by Savages, was fantastic too. Of the hyped albums of the year, I enjoyed Haim's debut "Days Are Gone" quite a bit and Lorde's "Pure Heroine" too.

Podcasts

Greg Proops's "The Smartest Man In The World" is probably my favourite of 2013, a kind of improvised stand-up show full of anecdotes, rants, politics. Richard Herring produced some good work again this year, with a show from the Edinburgh Fringe featuring chats with other performers as well as some stand-up, and another from the Leicester Square Theatre, which is another chat-based show with (mainly) comedians. Also providing a conversation based podcast (I didn't want to use the words chat or talk again there) was Jeff Garlin, whose show "By The Way, In Conversation With Jeff Garlin" featured interviews with some of his friends and favourite performers. It doesn't always hit the mark, and it can get a bit awkward when he sucks up to the guests (though to be fair Jeff does address this and is unrepentant), but is very interesting nonetheless and he gets some big name guests and people you don't get long interviews with too often, such as Larry David. "The Bugle", with Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver, continued to be excellent into its fifth year as did Kevin Smith and his army of podcasts (in their seventh year!), of which "Hollywood Babble-On", a fairly bitchy review of the week in entertainment with Ralph Garman, is probably my favourite. Just lately I've got into "Call Chelsea Peretti", featuring the aforementioned Chelsea Peretti (I love saying that name), a comic and writer (on shows like "Parks and Recreation" and "The Sarah Silverman Program"). The podcast is kind of weird and surreal and features Chelsea taking calls from listeners and rambling on about various other surreal things. It might well be the most brilliant thing ever, I'm not really sure yet.

Radio
The ever excellent 'Sound Opinions' continued in fine form last year as ever, as did BBC 5live's 'Fighting Talk', though the show has taken a downturn since host Colin Murray left in the summer to be replaced by a revolving panel of hosts (when will the BBC learn thi is never a good idea?). Also on 5live is 'Daily Bacon', the channel's entertainment and interviews show, which relies on good guests and generally has someone of interest on the show, fortunately. As ever though, my favourite radio show is 'Hawksbee and Jacobs' on talkSPORT, a humorous weekdaily take on the world of sport (is weekdaily a word?) which is always excellent. And funny.

TV
Got to be honest, I didn't watch much TV in 2013, though I did see some good stuff. 'The Americans', strangely shown on primetime ITV, was a very enjoyable (American) cold war thriller, and showed where 'Homeland' went wrong when it started to focus on the Brody-Mathison romance and less on imminent terrorist threat. 'Arrested Development' was the main reason I started subscribing to Netflix last summer and was very good, if a little inconsistent (the shows needed a little editing I think), but Netflix was where I found the best show of the year, animated comedy 'Archer', an American parody of espionage movies (James Bond in particular), which focuses as much on office politics as it does on real politics and is much the better for it. I've only seen Season 1 of 'Breaking Bad' and up to Season 3 of 'Eastbound & Down' or I'm sure they would have joined the list too.

The Receipt Of Happiness

Looking through receipts makes me unashamedly nostalgic. It makes me think things like: remember the time I bought the Haim album (on day of release) and Season One of 'Girls' at the same time? Good times. Or even: remember how excited I was when I got the newly remastered 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 Beatles compilations (they sound slightly sharper than the previous CDs I had that cost a fraction of the price). Admittedly, most of the receipts I keep are from HMV so this is the kind of nostalgia I get. The receipts are generally chucked in the top drawer in the chest of drawers north-north-west in my room (you know the one) and get sorted through about once every six months, so I get a lot of this in a short space of time.

Occasionally, the memories are bad: like the time I bought the two disc special edition of the film 'Rust And Bone' and opened it (some months later – after the receipt would have expired) to find only one disc there (the bonus disc was nowhere to be found). I am still bitter about this. I could be positive and say at least I can still watch the film as I got the main disc. But no, I'm naturally negative and I really wanted to see those bonus features such as the exclusive BAFTA Q&A with Marion Cotillard, and to see if the director's comments are conducted in French with subtitles, over clips of the already subtitled film. I guess I'll never know now.

Sign Of The Times

Are we pre-disposed to take some musical genres or instruments more seriously? I only ask because I recently got "Sign O' The Times" by Prince. The title track is a serious song about the destructive influences of drugs and guns on communities. I find it quite hard to take it completely seriously though as it is a slightly chirpy-sounding synth pop song.

Introducing The Band

Towards the end of high school, before we all went our separate ways in life, my friends (who I shall call John, Paul, George and Ringo) and I decided that we needed to form a band.

The fact that none of us could play any instruments was going to hold us back. I had a guitar, and one of my friends had a younger brother who had three guitars and a drum kit, which worked out perfectly as there were five of us, although we were a bit guitar heavy. As Ringo was the member of our "gang" we always picked on and made him do the things no-one else wanted to do, we made him the drummer.

Much time we spent together as a band that summer, mainly arguing over what the band's name should be. I wanted the band to have no name, so that we could be the ultimate non-conformists. No-one agreed with me. John and Ringo wanted the band to be called "Meat and Four Veg", Paul wanted us to be called "The Ascent" and George wanted "The Hill Street Gang". Paul relented and backed me as he preferred no name to "Meat and Four Veg" but George refused to back down, leading to deadlock and the band officially having no name. Which is what I wanted anyway. John and Ringo still insisted on telling people we were called "Meat and Four Veg".

Our jam sessions consisted of us all being together, playing what we wanted, when and how we wanted. As none of could play, the usual constraints of music, like chords or melody, didn't apply to us, so we could create improvised, free-form rock epics. Or just all individually play what we wanted until we got bored.

And what happened to the rest of my band? Well, they only went onto become known as Oasis, you might have heard of them… not really, none of them ever picked up an instrument again and now have assorted middle class jobs that pay them too much money.

Britpop: The End

I've finally come to the end of my Britpop retrospective, after spending many pounds buying and several months listening to a whole bunch of albums, and many hours watching YouTube clips. I could have gone on forever really, but I really can't be bothered, and I think I covered all the important stuff really, but there were some artists I didn't cover, The Verve, Embrace, Kenickie and Catatonia probably being the main ones.

MP3s not pictured

The Verve pre-dated Britpop by several years and broke through as Britpop ended, so I didn't include them. Embrace and Catatonia I would consider as post-Britpop bands really, even though they are often included by some people. As for Kenickie, they were a band I loved at the time and will do a look back on them at a later date.

Overall, I enjoyed looking back at what was essentially the music of my youth. There were few surprises, most things were pretty much as I remembered them, good and bad.

If one thing was noticeable, it was that there were a lot of good singles, but most of the albums were fairly average.

Despite having reservations when I began, I would now conclude that Britpop was a good thing. No big cultural movement has really happened in Britain since then; the coverage Britpop got was fairly remarkable, and given what has happened to the media in Britain since then (few remaining independant radio stations, the decline of the music magazine industry, the lack of music coverage), one is unlikely to happen again. With all the coincidences involved with the rise of Britpop, such as the arrival of satellite TV, the move towards the mainstream of "alternative" comedy and the seeming return of British nationalistic pride, it makes it all the more amazing. If for no other reason, Britpop will probably be the last in the line of youth cultural movements (following things such as rock 'n' roll in the fifties, the swinging sixties, punk etc) to really sweep through Britain in such a big way, though I'll be happy to be proved wrong. The closest thing we have had recently I guess is the increasing obsession with celebrity culture and the rise of reality TV.

The Nearly Men

Before I finish my Britpop retrospective, I should mention some of the bands that didn't make it, or I just couldn't be bothered to buy any of their albums.

Dodgy were a poppier, summery sounding band, and were shit. They are regularly perceived as one the reasons Britpop was shit by haters of the period, and were seen as one of the dadrock-type bands that Chris Evans championed.

Like Dodgy, Reef were a band tainted by their Chris Evans associations, making their name when one of their songs was used regularly on "TFI Friday". Coming from the West Country, the band had a large regional fanbase, but seemed only to be liked by retro rock fans elsewhere in the country.

Sheffield's Longpigs were actually not that bad, having a couple of good singles and half-decent debut album. That said, I couldn't be bothered to buy the album again. The band are most notable today because they featured Richard Hawley on guitar, though when I was at school, it was rumoured that singer Crispin Hunt was originally from my home town of Leek (in Staffordshire), and formed the band when he went to university in Sheffield, though I've never been able to confirm if this is true or not.

Northern Uproar were one of the most hated of all Britpop bands. Seen as being a poor man's Oasis, due to kind of looking and sounding like a worse version of them, and the band were constantly mocked by music magazines and fans alike.

If one Britpop band were hated more than Northern Uproar, it was Shed Seven, though this was probably related to the fact that they were a lot more successful than Northen Uproar and a lot more people had heard of them. Singer Rick Witter's name became Britpop rhyming slang, and lots of stories went around about how the band got its name (because the singer was one of a family of seven that were born and lived in a shed, being my favourite). Like Northern Uproar, they were a crapper Oasis.

Scotland's The Supernaturals had a couple of poppy hit singles, then disappeared again. I can't really add any more than that.

Echobelly

Echobelly were a notable Britpop band. Having an Indian, female singer and a black, female guitarist made them stand out from the crowd of white indie boys.

The band would make five albums in total, though I'm only featuring the band's first two (successful) albums here.

Everyone's Got One (1994)

Echobelly's first album is a really rather good indie record, elevated by singer Sonya Madan's intriguing lyrics, referencing her tough upbringing, and with gender and sexuality as common themes.

This is consistently good from start to finish, though lacks a killer song or two to make it a five star album, but this is a very interesting album and still sounds good today.

Rating: 4/5

On (1995)

Echobelly came up with some of the killer songs their debut album lacked ('Great Things', 'King of the Kerb' and 'Dark Therapy') but lost the consistency that made it such a strong album.

The big songs here are bigger than on the first album, but there is a few more slower songs that don't really work, 'Dark Therapy' aside. Overall, this is still a pretty decent album but not as good as the first one.

Rating: 3/5

Marion: "This World And Body"

Released: 1996

Macclesfield's Marion were a hotly-tipped Britpop band who never achieved the predicted success many felt the band deserved.

Often compared to other north-west bands like Joy Divison and The Smiths, Marion's sound was dark and fesity, with some crunching guitars mixed with delicate slower songs, and it works really well on this album.

The first half of the album is excellent with not a single bad song, and highlights like 'Sleep' and 'I Stopped Dancing', the best song here.

The second half of the album is slightly messier. 'Toys For Boys', 'Time' and 'Your Body Lies' are all good, but the other three songs are quite poor and really slow the album down.

Overall though, this is a good album and show why the band attracted early hype. Rumoured drug problems and disagreements with their record label probably explain why the band made only one further studio album, in 1998. 

Rating: 4/5

Gene: "Olympian"

Released: 1995

There used to be a story told about Gene singer Martin Rossiter that he would ring up radio stations and pretend to be Morrissey. It's probably not true, but it says something about the perception that people had for Gene wanting to be like The Smiths.

That said, there are many worse bands you could want to be like, and Gene did a pretty good job on channeling The Smiths on their debut album, even having a Smiths-like cover picture.

Sounding more like latter-day rather than the earlier jingle-jangle Smiths, the comparisons are obvious, from the sound, look and lyrics. that said, this is a very good album, and rises above the comparisons to be a good album in its own right, rather than just a poor pastiche.

'Haunted By You', 'London, Can You Wait?' and 'Olympian' are the standout songs in a  consistently good album, let down only by a few of the slower songs that verge on the mediocre.

Even though Morrissey and The Smiths were a massive influence on Britpop, Gene were probably the only notable band of the time where the influence was so obvious, and it did mean that Gene carved out their own little niche in the Britpop era, and had a small, but committed following.

However, like a lot of Britpop bands, there was diminishing returns from the band after their debut album, with subsequent albums getting gradually worse, and not being worth a listen. This, though, is very good and is definitely worth checking out.

Rating: 4/5

Salad: "Drink Me"

Released: 1995

Salad were something of a devisive group in the Britpop era, at least amongst people who had heard of them, which sadly wasn't that many.

I remember reading one review of a Salad single in the NME or Melody Maker which was just one line along the lines of "I hate Salad".

As for the music itself, Salad are one of those indie groups whose music that words such as "angular" and "spiky" are commonly used. And to be fair, that would be a fair description of a lot of the songs on here, full of punchy guitar riffs and cool female vocals.

The weak points on the album are the slower songs, which don't really work at all. Fortunately, there's not too many of them. The lyrics are also particularly weak and pointless, but you don't notice them so much on the more uptempo songs.

The highlights are the first three songs on the album, 'Motorbike to Heaven', 'Drink the Elixir' and 'Granite Statue', though 'Your Ma' and 'A Man with a Box' are also pretty good.

Overall, this is a pretty good album, and is something of an undiscovered gem of the Britpop era. With a bit of editing (i.e. leaving off some of the weaker slower songs), it could have been even better, though it's worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5/5

P J Harvey: "To Bring You My Love"

Released: 1995

P J Harvey had already released three albums when this was released. The first album, "Dry", had a lo-fi alt-rock sound and was very erratic; her second album, "Rid of Me", expanded her sound and was better; her third album, "4-Track Demos" consisted of, you guessed it, 4-track demos, mainly of songs from "Rid of Me", and was actually pretty good.

For this album, the sound was expanded further, from grungy rockers ('Long Snake Moan') to Spanish-sounding jingle-jangle ('C'mon Billy'), and a hell of a lot inbetween.

Despite being all over the rock map, this album is consistently good from beginning to end, and holds together really well, despite the constant changes of pace and sound; there really isn't an dull or uninteresting song here.

The absolute best songs are 'Meet Ze Monsta', 'C'mon Billy', 'Long Snake Moan' and 'Down By The Water'; considering this album only contains ten songs, and I can instantly list five of them as brilliant says something about the quality here.

In my opinion, this is still one of the best albums of the 1990s, let alone the Britpop era, and still sounds great today, and hasn't aged at all. This is still the best album P J Harvey has made in a very good career, I think, though that's not to say anything bad about her albums that came after this. This is really an essential purchase for any rock music fan.

I actually bought this album in France in the summer of 1995, and my CD claims to be an "edition limitée", though as far as I can tell, the only extra thing in it is a second booklet inside the CD containing a massive 6 pictures (by Valérie Phillips).

Rating: 5/5

Britpop On TV

The success of Britpop benefitted not only from the shake-up at Radio 1, but also from the arrival of several TV programmes, and the emergence in Britain of satellite TV in the early 90s.

I've already mentioned 'Britpop Now' and 'TFI Friday', but the most important music show in Britain was, of course, 'Top of the Pops' [TOTP]. TOTP was obviously based around what was successful in the charts in the time, meaning that it only reflected Britpop as it became more successful. That said, in 1997, when Chris Cowey took over as producer of the show, he instigated a live performance policy for artists appearing in the studio. In 1994, the BBC also launched 'Top of the Pops 2' [TOTP2], which, as an archive show, allowed (in theory) more space for newer artists on the main TOTP.

A major addition to music TV in Britain was 'Later... with Jools Holland', which began in 1992. It's clear looking through the list of episodes that from Series 4 in late 1994 up until about the end of Series 8 in late 1996, there was at least one "Britpop" artist on just about every episode.

Channel 4 responded with their own short-lived live music TV show, 'The White Room', which ran for 3 series throughout 1995 and 1996. This show was even more Britpop-heavy than Jools Holland's, though is perhaps best remembered for Iggy Pop performing 'Lust For Life' in see-through trousers. Host Mark Radcliffe introduces Iggy by asking "Will he get his knob out?" Producer Chris Cowey then moved to TOTP in 1997.

BBC also had music magazine show 'The O-Zone', which had been running since 1989 (and ran until 2000). In 1995 however, the show got re-launched with Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss as hosts. The show was primarily pop-based, though it did feature Britpop bands much more from 1995 onwards.

In 1992, Sky acquired the rights to show the new Premier League football. This lead to a massive increase in Britain to the number of people getting satellite TV, which in turn lead to increased viewers for MTV and VH-1, the two available music channels at the time. I can certainly remember Britpop videos being played extensively at the time, especially Oasis and Blur. I do not need to see the video for 'Wonderwall' or 'Don't Look Back In Anger' ever again.

All of these things happening definitely contributed to the public awareness and success of Britpop. Some were already there of course, and some were created or changed to reflect the success of and public interest in Britpop. And if you compare this time with the lack of music programming on terrestrial TV today (only Jools Holland and the odd show on Channel 4 remain), it is an indicator that a movement like Britpop could possibly never happen again in Britain, which is kind of sad.

Ash: "1977"

Released: 1996

Northern Ireland's Ash built their name on a series of punky, exuberant, youthful - and sometimes verging on the novel(ty) - hit singles, and so by the time they released this, their first album proper, it was a pleasant surprise that they embraced a slightly more mature and expansive sound, especially given that two-thirds of the band were only 19 at the time of the album's release.

The album kicks off with 'Lose Control', the best song on the album, opening with the sound of a TIE fighter (from Star Wars), and a definite example of their maturing sound, followed by the excellent singles 'Goldfinger' and 'Girl From Mars'. The first half of the album continues solidly until track six, another really good hit single, 'Kung Fu'.

The second half of the album starts well with 'Oh Yeah', another good single, but then takes a distinct downturn in quality. The best song of the last five is the rather weak single 'Angel Interceptor'; the other four songs here are rather mediocre and mean the album goes out on something of a downer.

That said, this is a pretty good album, and is by some distance the best the band would make; their follow up albums are rather tepid, though each one contains a few hit singles meaning that their later singles collection ("Intergalactic Sonic 7"s") is very good. It's well worth a listen though and is certainly one of the better and more interesting albums of the Britpop era.

Rating: 3.5/5