LIST 170 - 02/12/15 (1995 special, part one)

Hello there,

It was 20 years ago today... just about :-)

Having plundered extensively from the archives to produce several 1985-themed Lists earlier in the year, attentions turn to a decade later this time around with what should be the first of several 1995 collections to feature over the next week or so.

I'll be honest - a lot of the recent reappraisals of this particular year in certain music media outlets (including those of ever fading significance - hello again, NME) have pulled my chain in no uncertain terms.  Were we all listening to Britpop as has frequently been inferred?  Were we all riding a Cool Britannia vibe? 

Um, no.  Musically ultra-conservative and in places depressingly jingoistic and laddish, the passing of two decades has done nothing to lessen my dislike for most of that scene's leading practitioners and what they stood for, much less has my guard dropped when letting them into my record collection then or since.  The only band in this opening selection even halfway occasionally referred to (incorrectly) as a Britpop act, The Boo Radleys, had zero truck with it as label.

In 1995 I wanted to listen to interesting indiepop/punk-pop acts from Glasgow and the East Midlands and South Wales.  To Peel-endorsed techno.  To Welsh whimsy.  To frightening Scottish man/tiny Leicester woman-fronted racket-mongers.  To unstoppable Marxist easy-listening/drone merchants.  To British Asian popsters and Anglo-Dutch speedfreaks.  To smoky-voiced Nottingham balladeers.  Some of the stuff on this list, basically.  And more besides.

Liam who?

J xx

 

SAFE DEPOSIT – You Can’t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHFGoYwYAgY

BIS – Plastik People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbK7r34JeZk

GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI – If Fingers Were Xylophones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5fkJ5Ppn-k

QUICKSPACE SUPERSPORT – Quickspace Happy Song #1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQv2Z3SEwhk

ST CHRISTOPHER – She Looks Like You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBLKmNUQdLA

LEFTFIELD HALLIDAY – Original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SILVQpqmH7U

DONKEY – Youth Spent Sniffing Ventolin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7QkTNHtlY

PROLAPSE – When Space Invaders Were Big
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-BYvdwXuQI

ASH – Kung Fu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWqY8qrBBSI

TINDERSTICKS – No More Affairs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZnYR8gc6bU

CORNERSHOP – Wog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgB_nWyJQXg

STEREOLAB – The Extension Trip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBHskH8EYfI

TRICKY – Black Steel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZJTM03UByU

THE JAZZ BUTCHER – President Chang (Evil Karel von Daemmerung Remix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pup24tHLakA

HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT – Sensitive Outsider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_La90JHQSes

HELEN LOVE - Beat Him Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAqWlqyjxWY

THE BOO RADLEYS - Find the Answer Within
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfquAEzgpGM

DQE - Dear Bobby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6rUB4js_EQ

CROWSDELL- Sugar Coated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G23-11lnlT0

THE MELONS - From Hell to Helsinki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWLoOl7-OE

WHIPPING BOY – Twinkle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLDXeiMoZe4