Ultimate 90s Pop Collection (2021) PDF

!
W
NE
U LT I M AT E
90s
POPCOLLECTION NGS & SOUNDS
CELEBRATING THE SO ADE IN MUSIC
OF THE GREATEST DEC
SINGLES
PLUS! 90
BEST
90
E 90S
SONGS
TH
HA
T DEFINED
T
Edition
Digital
EDITION
GIRL POWER • BRITPOP • SOUNDTRACKS • BOY BANDS

FIRST
PRESS
REWIND elcome to the Ultimate 90s Pop

Collection! When it comes to music, the
W ’90s was a decade like no other. Not only

were fresh, new sounds being created,
but decades-old music was being refined,
with influences being heard in songs by even the most
unlikely bands and artists throughout the ’90s.
Step back in time as we celebrate the songs, artists and
moments of the greatest decade in music. Check out 90
songs that defined the ’90s, revisit the ups and downs of
icons such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and Britney
Spears, and reminisce about the greatest musical moments
of the decade. From boy bands to girl power, Britpop to
Europop, we also look at the very best film and TV
soundtracks, as well as the most iconic albums. So stick
your headphones in, turn the page, and indulge in 132 pages
of nostalgic goodness!
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U LT I M AT E
90s POP C O L L E C T IO N
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CON TENTS
90 SONGS THAT
8DEFINED THE 90s

From Eurodance to Britpop, these
were the songs of the decade
26
THE REBIRTH
OF MADONNA
How the Material Girl evolved after
conquering the world in the ’80s 102
ALL POWER
32 TO THE GIRLS
Was the ’90s when women
finally took control?
48 BRITPOP
Revisit the days of lad culture,
football, and Oasis versus Blur
80
WHEN SOUNDTRACKS
56 RULED THE 90s

Take a look at some of the best film
and TV soundtracks of the decade
HERE COME
66 THE BOYS
From boy bands to male divas,
it was time for the handsome man
32 26
6
CONTENTS
NEXT PAGE
- 90
BEST
T H AT D E
90
SONGS
SONGS
IN E
D THE 90
S
F
PLUS! S
19 ALBUM
THAT
DEFINESD 116
THE 90
48 96
80
Redferns/Getty Images (Oasis), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Vengaboys), Bob Berg/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys), George Rose/Getty Images (Michael Jackson), Photoshot/Getty Images (Jarvis Cocker, Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Celine Dion)
Images L. Busacca/WireImage/Getty Images (Britney Spears), Impressions/Getty Images (Donovan/Minogue), Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images (Spice Girls & Prince Charles), Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect/Getty Images (Madonna), Michel Linssen/
THE AUSSIES RULE
Popular Australian music stretched
far beyond Kylie in the ’90s
90
THE THRILL
IS GONE
Look back at Michael Jackson’s
ultimate fall from grace
66
96
IN EUROPE
WE TRUST
The decade when Eurodance and
Europop ruled the world
102
THE RISE AND FALL
OF BRITNEY
What happened to the late ’90s’ most
promising pop phenomenon?
90 108
GREATEST MUSICAL
108 MOMENTS OF THE 90s

Remember the wonderful, crazy, tragic,
bizarre and hilarious stuff that took place
19 ALBUMS THAT
56
116 DEFINED THE 90s
From reinventions to breakthrough albums,
these are the essential records of the decade
7
9
SON
0
G
THAT
SDEFINED THE
8
90 FROM RAP AND HIP-HO
EURODANCE AND BRIT
P TO
POP, THESE ARE
THE SONGS OF THE DECA
DE
S
Images AA Film Archive/Alamy/Spice Productions (Spice Girls), Paul Natkin/Wire Image/Getty Images (MC Hammer), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (Coolio), Steve Azzara/Corbis via Getty Images (Hanson), Larry Busacca/WireImage/Getty Images (Bon Jovi, Britney Spears), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Warner Bros/Alamy. (Whitney Houston), Paul Natkin/WireImage/Getty Images (Vanilla Ice), Ron Galella/
Getty Images (Boyz II Men), David Keeler/Online USA/Getty Images (Christina Aguilera), Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images (Oasis), Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy (No Doubt), SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin), Roberta Parkin/Redferns/Getty Images (Seal), Catherine McGann/Getty Images (Ace of Base), Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives (Will Smith/Jazzy Jeff)
hen it comes to new music, the ’90s biggest hits of their career. These songs grew in popularity
W
were as exciting and eclectic as it gets. by being featured in Hollywood films or TV advert campaigns
The genres and artists fluctuated so or requested by listeners to radio stations, or they could
much across the decade that there’s have gained traction from their creative and iconic music
a clear difference between the music videos being shown on TV channels such as MTV.
of the early ’90s and the music that closed the decade. Out of the countless songs we had to pick from, we
What made it exciting was just how diverse the charts scoured over the choices until we landed on these 90. The
were in terms of genres: girl groups, boy bands, Eurodance, following picks aren’t the songs that sold the most singles
R&B, Britpop, indie rock and hip-hop either emerged during throughout the years or won the most awards, but are
this time or hit what many claim to be their apex. It wasn’t what we felt best defined the decade. It makes one hell of
uncommon for acts to come along and blend these genres a playlist. We could have selected numerous entries from
either. There were a plethora of one-hit wonders, as well as certain bands and musicians but we have chosen to pick
veteran artists reinventing themselves and earning the only one song per artist. So let’s get started.
9
ULTIMATE 90s POP COLLECTION
NOTHING
COMPARES 2U
Sinéad O’Connor
Chrysalis Records,
1990
2
Never did
a music video
so perfectly fit
a song like this one.
It put Sinéad front
and centre so the
I WANT IT THAT WAY only thing you focus
Backstreet Boys on is her incredible
Jive Records, 1999 performance. The
they
Just when it seemed that Backstreet Boys couldn’t get any bigger,
1
performance comes
’90s’
ended the decade with their biggest hit and a sound that would define across as raw, covering
boy bands’ pop. The music video of the group singing in front of a plane every emotion as she
became iconic and would be parodied by other artists. sings about a lost love.
SMOOTH TORN BABY GOT BACK

Santana ft. Natalie Imbruglia Sir Mix-a-Lot
Rob Thomas RCA Records, 1997 Def American,
1992
4
Arista Records, You may be
1999
5
surprised to Some saw Sir
Mix-a-Lot’s single
3
Who knew that learn that
a collaboration Natalie Imbruglia’s as comedic,
between Latin some found it vulgar,
guitarist Carlos
break-up anthem
and to others it was
IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE
wasn’t the original Roxette
Santana and Matchbox version of the song. In a celebration of
EMI Records, 1990
Twenty’s Rob Thomas fact, there were many unconventional beauty.
Originally released as a Christmas
would be this good?
The cool, soaring
guitar mixed with
the energetic Latin
releases by various
artists, but what
those versions didn’t
have was Imbruglia’s
This controversy meant
the video was briefly
banned on MTV. Still,
the attention-grabbing
6 song in 1987, it was edited and
re-released in the summer of 1990
to be used in the soundtrack for the Julia
Roberts /Richard Gere film Pretty Woman.
accompaniment and gentle voice and a intro and catchy
The reworked song remained largely the
Thomas’s harsh vocals brilliant music video to rhythm made it hard to
same but the boost from the film brought
made a perfect mix. complement the song. get out of your head. it to a much wider audience.
10
90 SONGS THAT DEFINED THE 90s
7 SECONDS LOVEFOOL KISS ME

Youssou N’Dour and The Cardigans Sixpence None
Neneh Cherry Stockholm The Richer
Records, 1996
Columbia Records, Squint
8
1994 The Cardigans Entertainment,
took ’70s disco 1998
7
Its slow drum
WONDERWALL
10
beat along with and added a This cute
Oasis pop track’s
the hypnotic touch of pop to bring
Creation Records, 1995
synth give the song it into the ’90s. The jangling riff
9
Its guitar riff has been strummed
an otherworldly feel, waviness of the synth set a romantic tone.
by every beginner guitarist inspired
like you’re floating and guitars create a It was featured in the
by its simplicity, and ‘Wonderwall’
through the air. The dreamlike sensation soundtrack to romantic
has only gotten better over time. The
contrasting vocals before Nina Persson comedy She’s All That
song debuted during a backstage excerpt
from N’Dour and sings a chorus so and, after the film’s
of the Channel 4 TV broadcast 4 Goes to
Cherry mix nicely with catchy you’ll be singing release, the song got a
Glastonbury and it immediately caught
each other and it was it for weeks. It was public’s attention with the sweeping reworked music video
unlike anything else used in Romeo + Juliet vocals that built throughout. featuring clips from
around at the time. and Cruel Intentions. the film.
Images SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys), Michel Linssen/Redferns/Getty Images (Roxette), Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
UNBELIEVABLE
EMF
(Oasis), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Whigfield). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (Smooth, Baby Got Back, Lovefool)
Parlophone
Records, 1990
11
The first single
from EMF,
‘Unbelievable’ SATURDAY NIGHT
mixed dance music Whigfield
and indie rock to Systematic, 1992
capture audiences in
12
Released in 1992 in Italy and
both the US and UK. 1993 in Spain, the song grew in
EMF would release popularity with British tourists who
more singles but, after heard the song and would request it when
the Madchester scene they got back home. It received a worldwide
of the late ’80s went release in 1994. No one knows how the
away, later releases associated dance came to be paired with
couldn’t match the the song, but after Whigfield’s Top of the
success of their debut. Pops appearance, everyone was doing it.
11
I’LL BE
MISSING YOU
Puff Daddy and
Faith Evans ft. 112
Bad Boy, 1997
13
Take a song
that’s already
been huge
(‘Every Breath You
Take’) and add Puff
DON’T SPEAK
Daddy’s slick vocals,
No Doubt
and it’s hard not to have
Interscope Records, 1996
another hit. The song
Originally written as a love song, early
was a tribute to Puff’s
mentor and Evans’
husband, The Notorious
B.I.G, who had been
14 live versions of the song were upbeat,
but after bassist Tony Kanal ended his
relationship with singer Gwen Stefani the song was
rewritten to one about heartbreak, with simple lyrics
killed earlier in the year.
that listeners could relate to.
LOVE IS
ALL AROUND
Wet Wet Wet
London Recordings,
1994
15
When film
director
Richard THE RHYTHM LIFTED WAKE UP BOO!
Curtis approached OF THE NIGHT Lighthouse Family The Boo Radleys
Wet Wet Wet to Corona Polydor Records, Creation Records,
1995 1995
record a song for ZYX Records, 1993
17 18
Tunde With its
16
The key
Images Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images (Wet Wet Wet), Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy (No Doubt), Catherine
his new film

McGann/Getty Images (Ace of Base). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (Lifted, Spaceman)
to a good Baiyewu, optimistic

Four Weddings
Eurodance determined to outlook and
and a Funeral,
track is a repetitive write something that drum beat, it was the
they chose to
cover ‘Love is All yet catchy chorus and would help people get perfect song for radio
Around’, making it ‘The Rhythm of the through difficult times, stations to play in the
their own to appeal Night’ has one of the worked endlessly on morning. BBC Radio
to a new generation best. It kicks in in the ‘Lifted’. Despite its 1’s breakfast show
of listeners as very beginning of the summer evening vibes used part of the song
well as those who song to let everyone and positive message, as a jingle, so every
loved the Troggs in the clubs know that it wasn’t an immediate day millions of people
original. now is the time to get hit, but jumped up the around Britain would
on the dancefloor, charts when released be waking up and
and it succeeded. again in January 1996. hearing the song.
12
ALL THAT SHE WANTS

Ace of Base
Mega Records, 1992
Ace of Base mixed dance-pop with the mellow feel
19 of dub-reggae to create a track that almost forces

you into head-bobbing. What also made the song
stand out was that it offered a unique perspective on female I WANNA BE
sexuality, presenting a woman who enjoys being promiscuous. THE ONLY ONE
Eternal
EMI Records, 1997
20
What
starts as
a standard
upbeat gospel and
R&B song turns into
a wonderful back-
and-forth number
once BeBe Winans
joins in after the first
minute. It seems like
all the singers are
trying to ‘one up’ each
other, but the winners
are us, the listeners.
SPACEMAN
Babylon Zoo
EMI Records, 1996
21
After being
featured in
an advert
for Levi’s in the UK,
the song climbed up
the charts. There was
nothing else like it
when the song broke.
The heavily fuzzy
guitars, Jes Mann’s
otherworldly vocals
and the whole sci-fi-
esque aesthetic to the
song really made it
stand out.
13
GOOD VIBRATIONS FROZEN KEEP ON MOVIN’

Marky Mark and Madonna 5ive
the Funky Bunch Warner Bros., 1998 RCA Records, 1999
ft. Loleatta Holloway
24 25
Shocking Boy band
Interscope, 1991 at first 5ive’s first
23
The due to Number 1
KISS FROM A ROSE success how different it single wasn’t a ballad
Seal of this one- was to Madonna’s or flamboyant hip-hop-
Warner Bros., 1994 hit wonder could be previous releases, esque track. Instead,
22
Originally released in 1994, down to its energetic ‘Frozen’ captured the song has simple
‘Kiss from a Rose’ saw modest beat and slick rhymes. audiences with its vocals and an easy
success, but it wasn’t until it Or maybe it’s the unique atmosphere. groove that flows
was re-released in 1995 as part of the music video, with The strings and throughout that never
soundtrack for Batman Forever that the song a bare-chested synth combined with gets too bombastic
topped the charts. With a romantic piano 20-year-old Marky Madonna’s sweeping and makes repeated
and orchestral accompaniment backing Mark showing off his vocals create a listening easy. Just as
Seal’s powerful vocals, it’s a mystery as muscles. Hey, maybe calming yet dark and well, as it was on the
to why it didn’t chart higher on its debut. it’s a mix of both. mysterious vibe. radio constantly.
ALWAYS
Bon Jovi
Mercury Records, 1994
28
ZOMBIE NO LIMIT Originally written
The Cranberries 2 Unlimited and recorded to be

Island Records, ZYX, 1993 used in the crime-
1994 thriller film Romeo is Bleeding,
27
With its
26
’Zombie’ irresistible, Bon Jovi shelved the song
was written aggressive after being disappointed in the
in tribute to beat that gets the film. ‘Always’ was re-recorded
the victims of the 1993 adrenaline pumping, for release on the 1994 album
Warrington bombings, 2 Unlimited filled Cross Road and its soaring
carried out by the IRA. dancefloors in clubs orchestra and chorus that
Dolores O’Riordan, all across Europe. fans could belt out made it
who was Irish herself The UK single omitted an immediate staple of
and angered by the Ray Slijngaard’s rap, live performances.
attacks, gave the lyrics and the British version
the aggression and of the album also
grittiness that the replaced most of
song needed given the raps with
the subject matter. instrumental parts.
14
STAY
Shakespears Sister
London
Recordings, 1992
30
If the
song had
stayed on
the same path all
the way through, it
may not have been
LOSING MY RELIGION remembered, but the
R.E.M. way the dynamics
Warner Bros., 1991 built throughout to
the climactic chorus
29
R.E.M’s alt-rock masterpiece had a timeless feel, like you could pop
it into any decade and it would be a stand-out song and do well. at the end made it an
‘Losing My Religion’ feels personal and relatable and it creates extraordinary ballad
a closeness that’s hard to replicate. The song took the group from underground among a sea of
cult following to mainstream success. power ballads.
…BABY ONE
MORE TIME
Britney Spears
Jive Records, 1998
(EVERYTHING BLACK OR WHITE
Images Roberta Parkin/Redferns/Getty Images (Seal), Larry Busacca/WireImage/Getty Images (Bon Jovi, Britney Spears), Rick Maiman/
I DO) I DO IT
31
Perhaps the biggest debut Michael Jackson
single from any artist ever, FOR YOU Epic Records, 1991
the video immediately Bryan Adams
Sygma via Getty Images (R.E.M.). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (Good Vibrations, Black or White)
33
After
grabbed audiences’ attention with A&M Records, 1991 dominating
the iconic opening three notes and
32
The song’s the music
Spears dressed as a schoolgirl, success world in the ’70s and
a look that has become could have ’80s, Michael Jackson’s
synonymous with the singer. come from it being pop-rock hit burst into
It was the last song played used in the blockbuster the charts and showed
on BBC’s Top of the Robin Hood: Prince of us he wasn’t going
Pop in the ’90s. Thieves, or it could be anywhere. Premiering
down to it being a well- on MTV, VH1, BET,
constructed power Fox and BBC on the
ballad that’s fun to sing same day, the song
along to. Either way, it drew a combined
spent 16 weeks as the audience of 500
UK Number 1. million viewers.
15
TRULY MADLY
DEEPLY
Savage Garden
Columbia Records,
1997
34
The chorus
to this
song is so
synonymous with ’90s
ballads that it’s hard
to believe it almost
didn’t happen. Darren
Hayes came up with
the section the night
before he was due to
record it, and replaced
the original chorus with
the one we all know.
GIRLS & BOYS

Blur
Food Records,
1994
35
While it
features
a drum
machine, disco bassline
and ’80s-sounding
synth – elements you
wouldn’t expect of a
ICE ICE BABY
Blur song – it also has
Vanilla Ice
elements that make SBK Records, 1990
it undoubtedly theirs. While it might be looked at differently today, when
The playful nature
and roundabout lyrics
made it hard to get out
36 it was released, ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was a huge hit,
becoming the first hip-hop song ever to reach
Number 1 on the Billboard 100. Vanilla Ice rapping over a
of your head. sample of Queen and David Bowie’s ’Under Pressure’ became
a dancefloor filler around the world.
16
BACK FOR GOOD I DON’T WANT MYSTERIOUS

Take That TO MISS A THING GIRL
RCA Records, 1995 Aerosmith Peter Andre
37
Debuted at Columbia Records, Melodian Records,
1998 1995
1995’s BRIT
39 40
awards, Aerosmith This cool,
‘Back for Good’ was were no swaying
so popular that the strangers reggae
single’s release had to MOVING ON UP to power ballads in the track was released
be brought forward. M People ’90s with songs like in August, ideal for
The ballad sounds like Deconstruction Records, 1993 ‘Crazy’ and ‘Cryin’’, but relaxing to in the sun.
this was their biggest With guest vocals
38
it was made to be in Blending disco, funk, R&B and
Hollywood movies, Soul, M People wrote a feel-good hit by far, no doubt from rapper Bubbler
it’s been used in dancefloor filler that gets better because the song Ranx and the chorus’s
various TV shows, and the more you listen to it. It’s impossible not was featured in the infectious ‘woahs’,
covered by countless to get sucked in by Heather Small’s vocals. movie Armageddon, it was the perfect
other artists including Break-up songs don’t come more uplifting the highest-grossing summer hit. Andre’s
Boyz II Men and JLS. than this number. movie of 1998. abs didn’t hurt either.
BARBIE GIRL
Images Paul Natkin/WireImage/Getty Images (Vanilla Ice), Ke.Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Jennifer Lopez), Niels van Iperen/Getty Images
Aqua
(M People), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Shaggy). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (Mysterious Girl, Barbie Girl)
Universal, 1997
42
Relentlessly upbeat
and cartoony, the
song reflects Barbie BOOMBASTIC
WAITING FOR TONIGHT and Ken’s bright and Shaggy
Jennifer Lopez poppy world. Aqua’s Virgin Records, 1995
Epic Records, 1999
43
Eurodance track will Oddly hypnotic with the drum
41
The right song released at the right time: just
stick in your head beat playing in what feels like
as hype was building for the new millennium,
whether you love it or slow-motion along to Shaggy’s
Lopez’s dance-pop came along to add to the
loathe it, and people toasting, the song gives the impression that
anticipation. The soundtrack to many New Year’s Eve
must love it as it’s sold it’s being improvised as you’re listening.
parties around the world, ‘Waiting for Tonight’ added
more than eight million Released in June of ’95, it was the perfect
a Latin flair to the usual dance hits on the radio.
copies worldwide. soundtrack to summer drives.
17
GANGSTA’S PARADISE
Coolio
Warner Bros., 1995
44
After hearing the beat, Coolio wrote this classic
’90s track in one afternoon. The song, about
a young man trying to find a way out of his
gangster lifestyle, used samples from Stevie Wonder’s
‘Pastime Paradise’, on the condition that no profanity was used.
WEATHER WATERFALLS
WITH YOU TLC
Crowded House Arista Records,
1995
Capitol Records,
46
1992 The song’s
narrative
45
This track
takes of the
you on a drugs and AIDS of the
journey up to the two- club scene may have
minute mark and then passed by the average
it becomes the group radio listener, but the
singing, “Everywhere message was clearly
you go, always take expressed in its video
the weather with you” on MTV. The video
repeatedly, reminding was a hit, topping
you that you carry MTV’s Video Monitor
your positivity or chart and winning
negativity at all times. Video of the Year.
TO BE WITH YOU IRONIC MAN! I FEEL

Mr. Big Alanis Morissette LIKE A WOMAN!
Atlantic Records, Maverick, 1996 Shania Twain
1991
48
While the Mercury Nashville,
47
Eric Martin 1999
critical
wrote this
49
reception Full of
song when to the song was mixed attitude
he was a teenager – in part due to the and END OF THE ROAD
about a girl he fell in playfulness, this Boyz II Men
incorrect use of the
love with, but forgot country-rock hit had LaFace Records, 1992
word ‘ironic’ – that
This swaying ballad
about it until he found
an old cassette copy.
With only handclaps,
an acoustic guitar,
didn’t stop listeners
enjoying the soft
acoustic guitars of the
verses juxtaposed with
everything it needed
to be a radio hit: a
catchy opening guitar
riff, a drum beat that
50 launched the group from
small R&B group to stars.
The song was so popular that Boyz II
Men re-released their debut album,
tambourine and vocals, the shouting and rock gets you stompin‘,
Cooleyhighharmony, after the single’s
‘To Be with You’ guitar chorus. It went and a chorus that you
success to include the track. It spent
sounds like a timeless gold in six countries, simply can’t help but
13 weeks at the top of the Billboard
campfire singalong. and platinum in the UK. sing along to.
100, a record at the time.
18
RETURN OF GROOVE IS IN ALL I WANT

THE MACK THE HEART FOR CHRISTMAS
Mark Morrison Deee-Lite IS YOU
WEA, 1996 Elektra Records, Mariah Carey
1990
The cool
51
Columbia Records,
1994
53
drum Fusing
elements
54
beat that Few songs
immediately gets your FREE from capture the
head nodding along Ultra Naté various genres and excitement
and Mark Morrison’s Strictly Rhythm, 1997 decades, this song of Christmas like
is unapologetically Mariah Carey’s 1994
52
distinctive vocals that The calming guitar at the
made him stand out beginning lures you in before upbeat and made to fill smash hit. Christmas
amongst the other the drums kick in and it dancefloors. Boosted chimes, a swaying
R&B artists at the time becomes a house anthem. It’s impossible by its playtime on radio beat and a stunning
combined to make this not to sing along to the chorus, which and MTV, it became vocal performance,
a song that you could made it a huge hit in the clubs, especially an immediate hit of it was an immediate
recognise the second with the gay community, who saw the the summer in clubs success, topping the
it started. song as empowering. around the world. charts in 26 countries.
Images Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (Coolio), Ron Galella/Getty Images (Boyz II Men), Alain Benainous/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (Ultra Nate), Barry King/WireImage/
Getty Images (Cher). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (To Be With You, Man! I Feel Like A Woman!, Return of the Mack, Groove is in the Heart, Common People)
COMMON PEOPLE
Pulp
Island Records,
1995
56
Jarvis
Cocker
claimed he
BELIEVE wrote the lyrics to this

Cher song the night before
Warner Bros., 1998 the band were due to
The first major release to use play at Reading Festival
55 Auto-tune to distort the vocals

(which has gone on to be
called the ‘Cher effect’), this song has
in August 1994. Pulp’s
Britpop masterpiece
builds for two minutes
been parodied by various artists since its before unleashing
release. Cher managed to reinvent herself an anthemic chorus
with ‘Believe’ and in doing so brought that is impossible not
about her most successful single to date. to dance to.
19
WANNABE
Spice Girls
Virgin Records, 1996
Spice Girls were all about girl power and no song
DREAMS
59 showed that more than ‘Wannabe’. Their debut
single had everything it needed to launch the group
immediately into superstardom: great hooks, catchy lyrics and
an iconic music video that established each member’s persona.
Gabrielle
Go! Beat Records,
1993
57
After being
told singing
at clubs is
the best she would
do, Gabrielle wrote the
lyrics to what would
be her debut single.
‘Dreams’ is uplifting
and optimistic, with
elements of hip-hop
and dance-pop, and
it encapsulated the
hopefulness of the
early ’90s.
Images AA Film Archive/Alamy/Spice Productions (Spice Girls), Jeff Christensen/Reuters/Alamy (The Fugees), Paul Natkin/Wire Image/Getty Images (MC Hammer).
TUBTHUMPING
Chumbawamba
Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (Tubthumping, I’D Do Anything for Love, Flying Without Wings, Two Princes)
EMI Records, 1997
58
While the
political
references
may have gone over
the heads of most
listeners, that didn’t
stop the song from
being a worldwide
hit. More commonly
known as ‘I Get
Knocked Down’,
once the football
chant-like chorus is
in your head, it will
never, ever leave.
20
I’D DO ANYTHING FLYING WITHOUT WHAT IS LOVE

FOR LOVE (BUT I WINGS Haddaway
WON’T DO THAT) Westlife Coconut Records,
KILLING ME SOFTLY Meat Loaf BMG, 1999
1993
63
The Fugees MCA Records, 1993 Once the
62
With two
Ruffhouse Records, 1996 rhythm
61
Meat Loaf’s Number 1
The key to kicks in,
60
five-minute hits already
recording a good rock opera under their belts, it’s hard not to move
cover song is was a surprise hit. Westlife wanted to or sing along. It was
to make it recognisable to The performance cement themselves a Number 1 hit in 13
those who know the original from Meat Loaf, as the boy band ballad countries, and in 1996
but different enough that it instrumentation that kings. This song didn’t the song saw a brief
justifies being a cover. The sounds like it is being do anything new, but comeback in the US
Fugees mastered this with played by an orchestra it mastered the key after it was featured in
their cover of Roberta Flack’s of hundreds, and elements, and the a sketch on Saturday
original, giving it a ’90s hip- the mystery of what soaring vocals and key Night Live featuring
hop beat and beautiful lead “that” is made it an change at the end were Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks
vocals from Lauryn Hill. instant success. all present and correct. and Will Ferrell.
CANDLE IN THE TWO PRINCES U CAN’T TOUCH THIS

WIND 1997 Spin Doctors MC Hammer
Elton John Epic Records, 1993 Capitol Records, 1990
65 66
The Rocket Record A catchy An inescapable
Company, 1997
chorus beat, slick rhymes,
64
Originally can make a memorable
composed a song, but ‘Two music video with a signature
in 1973 Princes’ can feel look and dances that fans
in tribute to Marilyn like one long four- would want to copy – it’s
Monroe, Elton John minute chorus with the formula for an
reworked the lyrics instrumentals thrown instant pop culture
after the passing of in between and it sensation. Despite
Princess Diana. He has somehow works. being released
only ever performed Complementing this in 1990, the song
the song once, at is the funky guitar actually debuted
Diana’s funeral, and it’s riff and lively drums, in 1989 on The
never been released which give the song Arsenio Hall Show.
on any of his albums. its bounciness.
21
THIS IS HOW
WE DO IT
Montell Jordan
Def Jam
Recordings, 1995
67
Montell
Jordan’s
one-hit
wonder was the full
’90s hip-hop single
package: it had the
swaying rhythms, slick SAY MY NAME
vocals and a beat that Destiny’s Child
hooks you in, but also Columbia Records, 1999
an infectious, chanting
68
What made this track stand out from the rest of the offerings from
chorus. It’s impossible girl groups at the time was the dynamic of the song. The constant
to even read the song switching and changes keep you hooked and the hypnotic phrasing
title without singing it! of “Say my name” sticks in your head.
LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA

FREED FROM GOOD ENOUGH Ricky Martin
DESIRE Dodgy Columbia Records, 1999
Gala A&M Records, 1996
71
The Latin pop song
70
ZYX Music, 1996 Dodgy’s of the decade, you
69
Gala’s song can’t hear ‘Livin la
vocals reached Vida Loca’ and not strut some
are full Number 4 in the UK moves! The surf-rock guitar
of attitude and but it didn’t make it far licks, brass accompaniment
confidence, and the in charts elsewhere. and rhythmic drumming
pre-chorus builds It found success in created a sexy
brilliantly into an other ways, though dancefloor hit that has
infectious chorus that – the song became been a staple of parties
filled dancefloors in a regular on radio since its release.
clubs all across Europe. stations, being one of
When the chorus does the most-played songs
kick in, it’s hard not to in the country, and it
sing along to the “nah was used frequently
nah nah nah nah…”. in TV adverts.
22
WOULD I LIE SAVE TONIGHT THE BOY IS MINE

TO YOU? Eagle-Eye Cherry Brandy & Monica
Charles & Eddie Polydor Records, Atlantic Records,
1997 1998
Capitol Records,
73 74
1992 Swedish To have
rocker Brandy and
72
Charles
& Eddie Eagle-Eye Monica
blended Cherry composed working on a song
soul with pop and not just a song with together was exciting BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY
created a song that a catchy hook and enough, but the twist The Verve
could easily fit into the soulful delivery, but was this duet didn’t Hut Records, 1997
heyday of Motown. one with a story that sing to each other but
75
Perhaps the Britpop song of
The video showed people could relate against each other. the ’90s, the accompanying
the duo around New to. ‘Save Tonight’ This dynamic earned music video of Richard Ashcroft
York City as they sang would go on to feature them the Grammy walking through a busy Hoxton Street in
in between shots in many TV shows, Award for Best R&B East London is as memorable as the song
of women walking including an episode of Vocal Performance by itself. Rolling Stone and NME both voted it
around the city. Dawson’s Creek. a Duo or Group. their single of the year – high praise indeed.
Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (The Verve). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (This Is How We Do It, Never Ever, Sunshine After the Rain), Wiki Commons (Save Tonight)
Images Fred Duval/FilmMagic/Getty Images (Destiny’s Child), SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images (Ricky Martin), David Keeler/Online USA/Getty Images (Christina Aguilera),
GENIE IN A BOTTLE
Christina Aguilera NEVER EVER SUNSHINE AFTER
RCA Records, 1999 All Saints THE RAIN
London Berri
76
The song caused
Recordings, 1997
controversy when FFRR Records,
1994
77
To set
it was released,
78
themselves Berri’s
as some felt that the then-
apart from Eurodance
18-year-old Aguilera was
other girl groups of the cover took
too young to be singing
’90s,All Saints opted the ’60s hit, used the
about sex. But to others, it
for a more mellow melody from Donna
made her different from her
vibe and ‘Never Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’
contemporaries, and it didn’t
Ever’ displayed this and added a ton of
stop the track from being
perfectly. If you feel energy to it. It didn’t
frequently requested on
like you’ve heard the get much attention on
channels like MTV and VH1.
chorus elsewhere, it’s its original release in
because the melody ’94, but was more
was based on the successful when re-
hymn ‘Amazing Grace’. released the next year.
23
I’M TOO SEXY

Right Said Fred
TUG, 1991
80
When you
hear the
opening of
this track, you have
to smile. Right Said
Fred’s song mocking
NO MATTER WHAT narcissistic people
Boyzone they would see in the
Polydor Records, 1998
gym, ‘I’m Too Sexy’
79
Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim is cheesy and catchy.
Steinman, the song was featured in the When this came on
hugely successful film Notting Hill, which in the clubs, people
helped get the group its first hit in the US. Boyzone’s
would imitate the video
fourth Number 1 in the UK, it would earn the guys
and pretend to strut
their longest stay at the top of the charts.
down a catwalk.
Images Mike Prior/Getty Images (Boyzone), Steve Azzara/Corbis via Getty Images (Hanson), Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives (Will Smith/Jazzy Jeff), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Warner
Bros/Alamy. (Whitney Houston). Single Images all Amazon except Discogs.com (I’m Too Sexy, Don’t Let Go (Love), My Heart Will Go On, I Love You Always Forever, Stay Another Day)
SEMI-CHARMED DON’T LET IT’S OH SO QUIET

LIFE GO (LOVE) Björk
Third Eye Blind En Vogue One Little Indian
Records, 1995
Elektra Records, East West Records,
84
1997 1996 Bjork’s
cover
81 82
While it may Produced
come across for the of Betty
like a poppy crime Hutton’s 1951 song
acoustic radio-friendly thriller Set It Off, this MMMBOP was a huge hit, partly
rock song with its was the film’s lead Hanson due to the incredible
“do do do”s, to those song. The ballad is Mercury Records, 1997 video directed by
who listen to its lyrics relaxing and bluesy to Spike Jonze.
83
The Hanson brothers took doo-
there is a dark story begin with, but as it wop then added pop and rock Broadway-style dance
of substance abuse reaches its climax flavouring to create one of the numbers to go with
and the effects it can En Vogue hit you catchiest songs of the decade. It doesn’t the big-band-sounding
have on a person. The with their harmonies, matter that the lyrics in the verses are chorus, followed by
song was a Top 40 hit attitude and powerful inaudible jumbles of sounds – the chorus is slow-mo shots for the
in six countries. vocal performances. just too damn infectious not to sing along to. quieter moments.
24
MY HEART RHYTHM IS I LOVE YOU

WILL GO ON A DANCER ALWAYS FOREVER
Celine Dion Snap! Donna Lewis
Columbia Records, Arista Records, Atlantic Records,
1997 1992 1996
85 86 88
Being tied Arguably An
to Titanic, the break-
SUMMERTIME unexpected
the highest- out hit for
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince hit for
Jive Records, 1991
grossing movie ever Eurodance, ‘Rhythm Donna Lewis, this
87
Uplifting, smooth and with an
at the time, was Is a Dancer’ perfectly song spread not
infectious singalong chorus,
probably enough to demonstrated every because it was in a
‘Summertime’ became the,
get this track to sell element of the genre. movie or TV advert,
well, summer anthem of ’91. DJ Jazzy
well, but it helped that With Thea Austin but due to requests
Jeff & The Fresh Prince (before he was
it was a great song. vocals, Turbo B’s rap on radio stations.
Will Smith) showed they had matured as
The ballad builds to and a catchy hook, it It’s no wonder either
musicians with smart wordplay and clever
a climax that karaoke was the UK’s second- – Lewis’s soft and
hooks to the lyrics all set to samples of
singers everywhere biggest single of 1992, boppy vocals will keep
‘Summer Madness’ by Kool & the Gang.
have tried to emulate. second to Whitney. you humming.
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU

Whitney Houston
Arista Records, 1992
Whitney Houston
89 transformed Dolly Parton’s

country ballad into
a soulful smash hit. Houston’s vocal
STAY ANOTHER
DAY
East 17
ability is on full display, building and London
building until the fantastic crescendo. Recordings, 1994
Houston would win the 1994
90
East 17
Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal showed
Performance and Record of the Year. a more
vulnerable side in this
ballad about the loss of
a loved one. It was so
good that despite not
being about Christmas,
it secured the
Christmas Number 1
spot and was featured
in various Christmas
compilation albums.
25
R
THEE BIRTH
M
OF AD ONN
HAVI
ANG CO NQ UE RE D TH E WORLD IN THE ‘80S,
W DI D TH E M AT ER IA L GIRL EVOLVE IN THE
HO
FOLLOWING DECADE?
26
THE REBIRTH OF MADONNA
ou couldn’t escape Madonna Louise TOP Madonna
Y
Ciccone for most of the 1980s, even if you in her iconic
cone bra corset
wanted to. The run of singles that she
designed by Jean
released in the early years of her career – let’s Paul Gaultier
say from ‘Holiday’ in 1983 all the way through
to ‘Express Yourself’ in ’89 – was and remains the finest MIDDLE LEFT A copy
unbroken sequence of pop songs by any artist that we of Madonna’s
book Sex
can think of (and we think about this a lot). Then again,
her sparkly, sassy style suited the day-glo ‘80s down to MIDDLE RIGHT
the ground. How would her in-your-face approach suit Erotica was
the more sophisticated ‘90s, the era of Kurt Cobain, Tori released in
Amos, Björk and Damon Albarn? October 1992
You can pinpoint the moment when Madonna executed
BOTTOM Pop
her first pivot into the new decade to 1992, the year when power pair:
she founded her own record company, Maverick, which Michael Jackson
incorporated publishing, TV, film production and and Madonna
merchandise divisions. Nowadays such owner-operated
organisations are commonplace, and in fact essential,
among musicians, who license rights in their products and
likenesses to labels, studios and so on – but in ’92, it’s fair
to say that Madonna was somewhat ahead of the curve in
this regard.
Where most of today’s artist-owned labels differ from
Madonna’s Maverick was that she was handed an advance
cheque for a whopping $60 million, plus an unheard-of
royalty rate of 20%, by her business partner Time Warner.
In today’s streaming economy, where no one has any
money apart from a tiny plutocracy at the top of the food Camilla Zenz/ZUMA Press/Alamy (Sex book), Records/Alamy (Erotica), Ron Galella/Getty Images (w/ Michael Jackson)
chain, these numbers would be unthinkable. As all this

business manoeuvring took place a good 10 years before
Images Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect/Getty Images (main), Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (cone bra corset),
file-sharing and iTunes started to take a serious bite out of

the music business, a couple of billion of us were regularly
paying £15 or $20 for a CD, so forward-thinking people like
Madonna could do pretty much whatever they wanted.
What Madonna wanted, it turned out, was to push the
artistic envelope and provoke a lot of people by singing
about sex – a reliable way to annoy the establishment and
get people talking back then. This new approach
manifested itself more or less immediately with her fifth
studio album, Erotica, and a large-format book, simply
titled Sex, both released in late ’92.
Of these, the book inspired the most debate. It was a
deluxe, limited-edition collection of explicit photos of
Madonna and friends in various poses and states of
undress, accompanied by poetry and prose of a
27
generally sexual nature, with asides into associated TOP Madonna

themes such as power and dominance. Very little of the performing
during The Girlie
content, visual or written, was particularly extreme by
Show Tour at
today’s standards. Instead, it was essentially an art Madison Square
project, as well as a chance for Madonna to exercise her Garden in 1993
cerebral talents in a way that her fans had rarely seen back
in the 1980s. LEFT The singer
with Warren
What’s interesting is that neither public nor critics
Beatty on the
particularly liked Erotica or Sex, even though they inspired set of the film
widespread debate. The former sold in average quantities Dick Tracy
by Madonna’s usual standards, and although the book sold
out in days – quite an achievement for a 1.5 million-copy MIDDLE LEFT
‘Vogue’ payed
print run, sold at $50 (equivalent to $100 now) each – it
tribute to various
wasn’t exactly hailed as a significant work. aspects of the
With the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, the differences ’20s and ’30s
between the impact of this move in ’92 and the way it
Alamy (Vogue), Glenn A. Baker Archives/Shooting Star/Sipa USA/Alamy (Bedtime Stories), TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy/MGM (Body of Evidence)
Images Robin Platzer/Images Press/Getty Images (The Girlie Show Tour), Herb Ritts/Touchstone Pictures/Alamy (Dick Tracy), Records/
would be received now are vast. Did anyone really bat an MIDDLE RIGHT
Madonna’s
eyelid when Kim Kardashian appeared naked on the cover
1994 album
of Paper magazine in 2014, or when Cardi B released her Bedtime Stories
explicit song ‘WAP’ six years later? Three decades ago, was critically
however, attitudes were different: while most people acclaimed
thought that the Erotica album was only mildly racy, the
BOTTOM Madonna
Sex book was regarded as genuinely controversial – and
on the set of
Madonna’s accompanying Girlie Show Tour was received the 1993 erotic
with abject horror, at least in conservative territories. thriller Body
By late 1993, the themes of Madonna and sex, or at of Evidence
least physical nudity, were fully connected in the public
consciousness. She acted in a fairly grim thriller called
Body of Evidence, whose scenes of sadomasochism
and bondage caused yet more hot air among the chattering
classes, but the real controversy arose when the
aforementioned world tour kicked off. Most audiences
could handle the sight of Madonna cracking a whip while
surrounded by topless dancers, but passing the flag of
Puerto Rico between her legs on stage annoyed
concert-goers in that country, as well as its government.
28
A sweary appearance on the Late Show with David

Letterman during which she asked the bemused host to
smell her underwear also spooked more than a few
American TV-watchers, and the idea began to spread that
perhaps Madonna had gone too far, or at least as far as
people were comfortable, with all this sex stuff.
Madonna seemed to get the message, backpedalling
over the next year or two for personal as well as
professional reasons. To her credit, she has never
expressed any significant regrets about the graphic
approach she applied to her music and concerts in 1992
and ’93. The Sex book was merely an outlet for her
personal and artistic development, she has plausibly
claimed, although her then-boyfriend Vanilla Ice and the
actress Isabella Rossellini, both of whom also appeared in
it, begged to differ. “When the book came out, I was so
embarrassed and ashamed… She threw me in like I was a
product off a shelf, and I didn’t appreciate it,” frothed the
former in 2011, while the latter remarked more
diplomatically, “I thought the book didn’t really work.”
After the Girlie Show Tour dates wound up at the end of
1993, Madonna worked on a new, less confrontational
record, Bedtime Stories, for release alongside a ballad, ‘I’ll
Remember’, the following year. Her TV appearances now
dispensed with the former edginess, and by the time a
fairly unchallenging collection of love songs called
Something to Remember was released in November 1995,
it seemed that Madonna’s sexually-themed incarnation
was done and dusted for good.
ID-’90S
THERE WAS MORE TO HER M
V EN T IO N – O R R E- R EI N V EN TION? –
REIN
HER ACT
THAN SIMPLY CLEANING UP
However, there was more to her mid-’90s reinvention –
or re-reinvention? – than simply cleaning up her act, so to
speak. Two major life and career stages approached in
1996, first when she became pregnant with her first child,
Lourdes, and then with the release of the film Evita, in
Images Collection Christophel/Alamy (Evita), Dave Benett/Getty Images (1995 Brit Awards), Stephane Cardinale/
which she played the role of the late Argentine activist,

Eva Perón. Although the movie received mixed reviews,
Sygma via Getty Images (w/ Jean Paul Gaultier), Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images (Thanksgiving)
her performance – an emotive, technically challenging

sung and acted role – impressed both critics and
audiences, many of whom had formerly dismissed
Madonna as an actor thanks to the parade of dismal films
on her resume.
As a mother and a serious actor, Madonna’s perceived
profile had now changed radically from that of the
sexually charged agitator of just three years before. She
took this newly mature image several steps further by
getting deeply into alternate belief systems, specifically TOP Madonna was cast in Evita after writing a four-page letter to the film’s
Eastern mysticism and the Kabbalah. While some critics director, Alan Parker
snickered at this classic Hollywood and music-industry MIDDLE LEFT The singer performing during the 1995 Brit Awards
trajectory into an elite, semi-occult religious position, MIDDLE RIGHT Designer Jean Paul Gaultier with Madonna at Paris Fashion Week
others claimed that this new worldview was a necessary BOTTOM Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with daughter Lourdes
29
For evidence of this new, sophisticated approach, listen

to the first two singles – ‘Frozen’ and the title cut, the latter
one of Madonna’s all-time signature songs. The former,
whose Middle Eastern vibe and instantly identifiable vocal
hook made it a sultry hit, showcases Madonna’s new,
spiritual side; the latter is an all-out dancefloor banger with
an iconic video. Watch them both, and witness how the
1998 Madonna is summed up in all her glory.
Although the mostly electronic track ‘Ray of Light’
sounds and feels very much of its time – conceived with
the new millennium around the corner – its genesis lay in a
very different time and place. It’s difficult to imagine a
more opposite musical environment to Orbit’s state-of-the-
art studio, packed with bleeping digital gadgets, than the
acoustic English folk scene of the 1970s, but that’s exactly
where ‘Ray of Light’ was born.
It’s based on a song by the obscure folk duo Curtiss
Maldoon called ‘Sepheryn’, with a large portion of its
melody and lyrics finding their way to Orbit and Madonna
over a pretty circuitous route. It’s been said, although this
has not been confirmed, that 15% of the massive income
from ‘Ray of Light’ – a US Number 5 and UK Number 2 hit
– was awarded to Dave Muldoon, Curtiss Muldoon’s
surviving member, which would presumably have
brightened up the old boy’s retirement no end.
The critics and listeners were more or less universally in
favour of the Ray of Light album, with four Grammy wins,
chart-topping positions in multiple territories and an
astounding 16 million sales before everyone switched from
CD to downloads and then streaming. ‘Frozen’ was also
Madonna’s first single to enter the UK charts at Number 1.
Clearly people were buying into the new, less aggressive
but more cerebral version of the bestselling female
musician of modern times, and 30 years after this high
point, her phenomenon continues relatively undimmed.
Not that Madonna took her foot off the gas any time
soon after the Ray of Light album. She founded the
charitable Ray of Light Foundation, which worked to raise
TOP Curtiss
awareness of gender equality and global development, and
Maldoon’s
‘Sepheryn’ she bridged the gap between the spaced-out techno of the
inspired ‘Ray William Orbit sessions and her next, more R&B-influenced
of Light’ album Music with two huge singles, ‘Beautiful Stranger’
and a cover of Don McLean’s 1971 song ‘American Pie’.
MIDDLE LEFT
Not a bad way to wind up the ‘90s and enter the new
Madonna
received the millennium with all cylinders firing, you’ll agree. Marriage
Commitment to to film director Guy Ritchie, and the birth of a son, Rocco,
Life Award from lay just around the corner – but that, as they say, is for
Aids Project Los
another book.
Angeles in 1998
part of her growth as a thinker. Either way, it got people The big picture here is that Madonna had an astonishing
talking. This all coalesced with the outstanding Ray of MIDDLE RIGHT On decade in the 1990s – even more so, arguably, than her
Light album, released in 1998 and light-years more stage in New ‘80s, when she stamped her mark on the face of popular
creatively advanced than the slightly silly posturings of York City culture with utter conviction. Between two pivotal high
albums such as Erotica. Like Prince and other points – 1992 and ’98 – she completely changed her
BOTTOM LEFT ‘Ray
megastars, Madonna was seven or eight years late to of Light’ was approach to her art, addressed issues that affect us all, and
the dance-music party, but when she got there, she the title track ended this period of reinvention as a completely different
completely made that sound her own. Her chief from Madonna’s artist to the one we knew back in the ‘Express Yourself’
seventh studio
collaborator was the British producer William Orbit, days. It wasn’t all easy, and she certainly made some
album
whose signature sound – a soft, luscious, widescreen wrong moves here and there – but like any true artist, she
synth sound anchored by wispy techno beats – suited BOTTOM RIGHT emerged at the other end stronger and better at what she
her new songs perfectly. William Orbit did. There’s a lesson there for all of us.
30
Madonna four
MAIN The album
Grammy Awards
Ray of Light won
husband, Guy
met her future
INSET Madonna
Ritchie, in 1999
31
Images Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images (Curtiss Maldoon), Ron Galella/Getty Images (Aids Project), KMazur/WireImage/Getty Images (performing, Grammys),
Records/Alamy (Ray of Light), David Livingston/Getty Images (William Orbit), Gregg DeGuire/WireImage (w/ Guy Ritchie)
ALL
POWER
32
TO
THE GIRLS
WAS THE ’90S THE DECA
WHEN WOMEN FINALL
DE
Y TOOK
CONTROL? WE FIND OU
T…
Image Tim Roney/Getty Images
33
34
ALL POWER TO THE GIRLS
OPPOSITE
Diana Ross
playing Billie
Holiday in the
1972 film Lady
Sings the Blues
FAR LEFT TOP

Nina Simone
had enormous
success in
the 1950s
FAR LEFT BOTTOM

Cher has been
an iconic female
singer since
the ’60s
LEFT
Cyndi Lauper’s
1983 hit ‘Girls
Just Wanna Have
Fun’ was a pro-
equality message
C IN D U ST RY, D O M IN AT ED BY MALE
THE MUSI
AGE R S A N D EX EC U T IV ES , HAS NEVER BEEN
MAN
ORTUNITIES
KNOWN FOR ITS EQUAL OPP
e often consider the phrase ‘girl power’ just as often as their male counterparts, but ask yourself
W
to have been coined in the ’90s, but who is making money from their hard work. Had you
Images AA Film Archive/Alamy/Paramount (Diana Ross), David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images (Nina Simone),
when we dig a little deeper into its asked the biggest-selling female artists in the ’60s and
meaning and origins, we come up with ’70s such as Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Carole King,
more than a few contradictions. After all, Diana Ross, Cher and Tina Turner, they’d no doubt have had
women had been setting and breaking sales records in a pretty sharp response for you.
Harry Langdon/Getty Images (Cher), Randy Bachman/Getty Images (Cyndi Lauper)
the music business for decades before this point, going Even in the ’80s, when Madonna and Whitney Houston
as far back as the jazz artists Ella Fitzgerald and Billie came along, the idea of female autonomy was pretty
Holiday in the pre-World War II years and Nina Simone novel, and confined to a few mid-level artists such as Cyndi
in the ’50s – but if you’d suggested that ‘girl’ was an Lauper, whose 1983 hit ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ was
appropriate term for any of these phenomenal singers an early, pro-equality message. A couple of groups, such
and songwriters, you’d have deserved an icy reception. as the mostly all-female punk band The Slits and all-female
As for the ‘power’ part of the phrase, we have to ask metal band Girlschool, made it perfectly clear that women
ourselves how much actual power these musicians really could handle music-making without male patronage. But if
enjoyed. The music industry, then as now dominated by serious change was ever going to come, it would need to
male managers, songwriters, producers and record- be in the pop world, where most attention was focused.
company executives, has never been known for its equal It’s important to understand this background, because
opportunities: female artists may appear on TV screens the ’90s was the decade when female artists first
35
ABOVE The Spice occupied most of the limelight in the music business. In
Girls with doing so, did they really gain any significant power over
Prince Charles
their own destinies? Let’s look at the evidence.
RIGHT Kathleen Inspired by female punk and rock performers of the ’70s
Hanna of Bikini Kill and mid-’80s, the Riot Grrrl subculture began in the early
’90s. A movement that combined feminism, punk and
BELOW LEFT Spice politics, it was led by the American punk band Bikini Kill
Girls fans in
and later featured the more well-known L7 and Babes In
Hollywood at the
premiere of the Toyland. Loud and uncompromising, their music perfectly
group’s movie, suited the ‘girl power’ phrase, the title of a zine that Bikini
Spice World Kill self-published in 1991. How the expression, originating
in the American punk-rock scene, ended up associated
BELOW MIDDLE
with the Spice Girls five years later is hard to fathom at
Spice Girls’ Geri
this point, but it’s commonly thought that the British
Images Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images (Spice Girls & Prince Charles), Lindsay Brice/Getty Images (Kathleen Hanna), Brenda Chase/Getty
Halliwell, aka
Images (Spice World premiere), Dave Benett/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Geri Halliwell), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Inc/Getty Images (Destiny’s Child)
Ginger Spice quintet’s most vocal member, Geri Halliwell, suggested it.
The ‘girl power’ phrase was endlessly used in the group’s
BELOW RIGHT marketing for years, not least by their (male) manager, but
R&B girl group
Destiny’s Child
36
in spite of the Spice Girls’ song lyrics about sisterhood and

self-reliance, it remains debatable that it was anything
other than a handy marketing slogan.
TOP LEFT
Artificial or not, the commercial success of the concept R&B group TLC
led to the formation of a sizeable number of all-female pop
groups, all of whom were more or less indebted to the TOP RIGHT Irish
Spice Girls. In the UK, the most successful of these new folk-rock group
The Corrs
bands were All Saints, contemporaries of the Spice Girls
who became successful a year after them in 1997; ABOVE LEFT
Sugababes, who pursued a darker, more graphic direction; Eternal
and Atomic Kitten, whose music was aimed at a younger,
pre-teen demographic. ABOVE RIGHT
Atomic Kitten
An Irish girl-band, B*Witched, then met with some
success by mixing pop with the lightweight Celtic tropes RIGHT
made popular by the folk-pop group The Corrs and the All Saints
Riverdance phenomenon. The singer Enya also enjoyed
worldwide acclaim for her similarly Celt-infused, although
rather more sophisticated, sound. Images Paul Natkin/WireImage/Getty Images (TLC), Jeremy Bembaron/Sygma/Getty Images (The Corrs), Trinity Mirror/
Meanwhile, R&B – the dominant music of the decade

along with hip-hop – was the primary sound of all-female
Mirrorpix/Alamy (Eternal), David Tonge/Getty Images (Atomic Kitten), Tim Roney/Getty Images) (All Saints)
groups such as Eternal and Cleopatra, although their

American equivalents such as Destiny’s Child, TLC and
En Vogue generally outclassed and outperformed them.
In fact, the truly big-hitters among the women’s music
movement of the ’90s were more or less all American, the
Spice Girls excepted – and although all-female bands did
meet with a degree of success on both sides of the
Atlantic, the real million-sellers were all solo artists.
The queen of them all, commercially speaking, was
Madonna, who completely reinvented herself not once
but twice in the ’90s – a process that you can read about
elsewhere in this bookazine. Where she differed from
most of the artists listed here is that she had already
dominated most of the ’80s, and was well into her stride
as a world-class force. Among male or female artists of
37
ST A M PE D HER PR ES EN CE ON THE ’90S

WHITNEY
BEYO N D W IT H A PL A N ET-STRADDLING
AND
VE YOU’
COVER OF ‘I WILL ALWAYS LO
ABOVE
all genres and decades, she is one of a very short list of
Whitney Houston
practically immortal creative entities.
While we’re on the subject of musicians who made their MIDDLE LEFT
name before the ’90s but continued to operate during that Houston made
decade, let’s salute the Irish songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, her film debut in
The Bodyguard
who built on her earlier successes before losing her way
Images AF archive/Warner Bros./Alamy (Whitney Houston), Carolyn Jenkins/Alamy (The Bodyguard soundtrack),
somewhat, and the unique Kate Bush, who – supremely MIDDLE RIGHT
unconcerned with commercial profile, it emerged – issued Kate Bush
just one ’90s album, 1993’s outstanding The Red Shoes.
Phil Dent/Redferns/Getty Images (Kate Bush), Michel Linssen/Redferns (Sinead O’Connor)
Closest to Madonna in terms of sheer commercial BOTTOM

Sinéad O’Connor
impact, if not perhaps in artistic range, was a small coterie
of early-to-mid-’90s singers often described as ‘divas’.
While this isn’t a particularly complimentary label to stick
on anyone, in their case it had some merit, evoking their
wealth, presence and awareness of their own status. The
late Whitney Houston, already a serious presence in the
’80s thanks to an unprecedented run of US Number 1 hits
from ’85 to ’88, was first and foremost among them.
While Houston had been doing just fine in commercial
terms as the ’90s began, she really stamped her presence
on the ’90s and beyond with a planet-straddling cover of
Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, a mega-hit from the
38
BELOW soundtrack of the 1992 movie The Bodyguard, in which 1996, sexualising her image and moving in more of a hip-
Mariah Carey she starred as, you guessed it, a diva. Houston’s dramatic, hop direction. It’s notable that while she enjoyed several
elastic vocal on this operatic song, which made Parton huge hits in the ’90s – ‘Hero’ and ‘Without You’ (both
RIGHT TOP
Mariah Carey’s
a vast sum of money, was solely responsible for the 1993), among them – the song for which she will forever
hit ‘All I Want For overdose of melisma – in other words, wobbly showing- be best known is ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ from ’94,
Christmas Is You’ off – in many later popular vocal performances, from which you now have playing in your head after reading the
modern R&B to The X Factor. That’s how ubiquitous it title. Everybody knows this song, and everybody professes
RIGHT MIDDLE
was. Love it or hate it, none of us will ever escape ‘I Will to hate it, but you watch people sing it with their hands in
Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate
Always Love You’, especially as some years of misfortune the air after a few Christmas cocktails.
Winslet on the set and poor health led to Houston’s premature death in 2012 With a more serious image thanks to her poker face
of the film Titanic at the age of only 48. and dramatic performance style, there was also the
Perhaps closest in commercial stature to Whitney Canadian singer Celine Dion, whose 1997 song ‘My Heart
RIGHT BOTTOM
Houston was Mariah Carey, whose slick love ballads Will Go On’ soundtracked one of the most successful
Celine Dion
attracted a vast audience. Also a fan of swooping, over- films of all time, Titanic. It’s a honeyed, sentimental
the-top vocal expression, Carey underwent a marketing composition, but the massive orchestral leaps as it reaches
change – somewhat in parallel with Madonna – around its climax will surely stir the soul of even the most cynical
Images Frank Micelotta/Getty Images (Mariah Carey), Stephen R. Johnson/Alamy (Mariah Carey CD),
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy (Titanic), Ke.Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Celine Dion)
39
music consumer – probably the reason why Dion received

diamond and multi-platinum sales awards for a couple of
her mid-’90s albums.
Dion’s countrywoman Shania Twain also led the charge
from the Great White North, although in her case she
specialised in super-catchy – and super-successful –
country-pop. The modern country market is immense in
North America, but rather less so elsewhere, which makes
it all the more remarkable that Twain experienced a great
degree of acceptance in the UK and Europe. Her songs,
simple and attractive with a certain edgy attitude, were the
secret – in particular ‘You’re Still the One’ (1998), a staple
of weddings everywhere, and the slightly tougher ‘Man!
I Feel Like A Woman!’ (’99).
The American singer Jewel also experienced vast
levels of success in the country-pop field, scoring
a phenomenally huge hit in 1995 with her debut album
‘Pieces of You’, which went 12 times platinum. Another
countrified success was Faith Hill, whose highly popular
’90s albums led to continued success in the ’00s.
The women who hit big in the ’90s weren’t all pop
singers by any means, but those who did tread the pop
D IN
SHANIA TWAIN SPECIALISE
ESSFUL
SUPER-CATCHY, SUPER-SUCC
COUNTRY-POP SONGS
music path were often the ones who received the most
attention – after all, ‘pop’ means ‘popular’. If Madonna was
the queen of pop, then the obvious princess-in-waiting
was none other than Britney Spears, although her career
didn’t get rolling until 1998. When she did burst into the
public arena, though, at the age of 16, it was with such
force that we should definitely mention her here, and in
particular her debut hit, ‘...Baby One More Time’. The single
was enormous thanks to its earworm chorus (which
refused to shift from your brain once you’d heard it), the
accompanying video, in which Spears and dancers
performed in schoolwear, and Spears’ curious vocal style,
a cross between a squeak and a groan. The 2000s were
her real arena, though, so we’ll leave Spears for now – but
as debuting artists go, she would be very hard to equal.
A competing artist, Christina Aguilera, was often
compared to Spears, largely because both were young and
blonde, and emerged into huge fame at the tail end of the
’90s: Aguilera’s ‘Genie In A Bottle’ and ‘What a Girl Wants’
were among the last pop hits to break big before the non-
event that was Y2K. You could arguably add the Colombian
singer Shakira into the Spears-Aguilera axis, even though
she didn’t become well-known until the 2000s: however,
she had had several medium-sized hits in the Spanish
language since the early ’90s, so she merits a mention.
TOP Pop-rock singer Jewel If this article makes it sound that the ’90s were a breeze
MIDDLE Country singer Faith Hill for female pop artists, that’s not the case: quite a few big
ABOVE LEFT Teen pop sensation Britney Spears names found the decade hard to traverse. For example,
ABOVE RIGHT Pop powerhouse Christina Aguilera the Australian star Kylie Minogue tried and failed to find
40
Shania Twain
Awards in 1999
performing at the
41st Annual Grammy
41
Images KMazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Jewel, Shania Twain), Aaron Rapoport/Corbis via Getty Images (Faith Hill),
James Devaney/WireImage (Britney Spears), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Alamy (Christina Aguilera),
a commercial niche for most of the decade, after moving ABOVE Alt-rock
on from the cheesy ’80s pop she had made with the band 4 Non
Blondes
producers Stock Aitken Waterman. A flirtation with
a Britpop sound failed, and she spent the back end of the RIGHT The 1998
decade on the verge of quitting music: however, she was Lilith Fair at
saved in the early 2000s by a sequence of dance-pop hits, the Shoreline
and remains active today. Amphitheatre in
Mountain View,
La Toya Jackson also had a hard time in the ’90s. While
California
Janet and Michael Jackson’s careers saw huge commercial
success, their big sister’s struggled. La Toya released five BELOW RIGHT
albums in the ’90s across the pop, dance and country Joan Osborne
Images Paul Natkin/Getty Images (4 Non Blondes), Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images (Lilith Fair),
genres, but they all failed to make a dent in the charts.

Janet, meanwhile, had 13 US Top 5 singles in the ’90s, and
Billboard named her the second-most successful recording
artist of the decade (the top spot went to Mariah Carey).
Some promising female singers hit big once but then
Steve Eichner/WireImage/Getty Images (Joan Osborne)
fell back into a position, if not of obscurity, then not exactly

fame. One of these was Natalie Imbruglia, like Kylie
Minogue an export from the Australian soap-opera scene:
her 1997 hit ‘Torn’, a cover of a little-known Danish song
from ’93, was widely acclaimed, but while her albums
sold well and she received several awards, she failed to
match its success with her later singles. You could also
include Tasmin Archer (‘Sleeping Satellite’, 1992), Lisa Loeb
42
ABOVE ‘(Stay (I Missed You)’, 1994), the mostly female 4 Non

Australian Blondes (‘What’s Up?’, 1993), Joan Osborne (‘One Of Us’,
singer-songwriter
1995) and Meredith Brooks (‘Bitch’, 1997) in this group of
Natalie Imbruglia
talented performers for whom the stars never fully aligned.
TOP LEFT Let’s not forget that the ’90s weren’t all about pop,
La Toya Jackson either. Women strapped on guitars in greater numbers
than they had since the singer-songwriter movement of
TOP RIGHT
the ’70s, following in the footsteps of the folk singer Tracy
Janet Jackson
Chapman, who built on her ’80s hits with a reasonably
FAR RIGHT successful ’90s. The same was true of Suzanne Vega, who
Images Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Natalie Imbruglia), Barry King/WireImage/Getty Images (LaToya Jackson), Jo Hale/Redferns/
Scottish singer maintained a profile built in the previous decade with the Getty Images (Janet Jackson), Dave Benett/Getty Images (Annie Lennox), Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy (Minogue/Hutchence)
Annie Lennox adoption of newer sounds, and the remarkable Annie

Lennox, who had been formerly known for her hits with
RIGHT Kylie
Minogue in
the Eurythmics but who transitioned to immense solo
1990 with then- success with her 1992 album, ‘Diva’. Beth Orton also
boyfriend Michael made a successful niche out of expert, folk-influenced
Hutchence songwriting later in the decade.
As the number of female American folk-rock musicians
rose, often releasing music of a political nature, events
such as Lilith Fair began to gain widespread attention.
This travelling show ran from 1997 to 1999 and, as well
as raising funds for relevant charities, showcased a new
and confrontational type of musician. The event’s founder
Sarah McLachlan, a Canadian musician with more than
40 million album sales to her name, recruited a wide
range of performers to Lilith Fair, most relevantly to this
article Paula Cole, Fiona Apple, Shawn Colvin, former
10,000 Maniacs singer Natalie Merchant, Juliana Hatfield,
43
TOP sometime Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs and many, many

Alt-rock group other noted musicians.
Garbage
Rock was now no longer a male preserve, thanks to
MIDDLE
this and other movements such as the aforementioned
Irish rockers Riot Grrrl and grunge, from which the band Hole had
The Cranberries emerged, fronted by the frequently abrasive Courtney
Love. Strong political voices came from the singer-
BOTTOM
songwriters Meshell Ndegeocello and Ani DiFranco,
Left to right:
Gwen Stefani,
too, while the massive success of Alanis Morissette in
Hole bassist 1995 with her double-diamond-selling album Jagged
Melissa Auf Little Pill gave real impetus to the rise of the outspoken
der Maur and female singer-songwriter.
Courtney Love
It was also common for guitar-based bands to feature
a woman at the front, although this wasn’t a ’90s innovation
– think back to Blondie and the Pretenders in the ’70s and
’80s. The American quartet No Doubt played raucous ska-
punk with most of their charisma in the form of vocalist
Gwen Stefani; the UK-US band Garbage achieved major
success, fronted by sometime Goodbye Mr Mackenzie
singer Shirley Manson; and Manson’s fellow Scot Sharleen
Spiteri delivered the rockin’ goods with Texas, whose name
and sound belied their British origins. An Irish act, The
Cranberries, found crossover success in the USA with
politically tinged anthems such as 1994’s ‘Zombie’, with
the plaintive wails of the sadly now-deceased singer
Dolores O’Riordan finding a place in American affections.
British music was particularly good at nurturing female
talent throughout the decade, whether with pop acts
such as Alisha’s Attic, dance-rock outfits like Republica or
Images Maryanne Bilham Photography/Redferns/Getty Images (Garbage), Bob Berg/Getty Images

(The Cranberries), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Inc (Stefani/Auf der Maur/Love)
44
LEFT
Left to right:
Wyclef Jean,
Lauryn Hill
and Praz of
the Fugees
TOP RIGHT Saffron

of Republica
TOP FAR RIGHT

Skin from Skunk
Anansie
RIGHT
Fans of Alanis
Morissette
BELOW
Alanis
Morissette
THE SUCCESS OF ALANIS

GAVE IMPETUS TO THE RISE
OF THE OUTSPOKEN FEMALE
SINGER-SONGWRITER
– most prominently – Britpop. Sure, this latter scene was
male-dominated, appallingly so by most reasonable
standards, but women found a welcome home when
fronting the bands Sleeper, Elastica and Echobelly. Britrock
similarly had very few female faces, but special mention
must go to the incredible Skin from Skunk Anansie, who’s
still a force to be reckoned with today. A parallel – and very
British – sound, trip-hop, included ethereal vocals from
Skye Edwards of Morcheeba and the unique Beth Gibbons
of Portishead. Fellow trip-hoppers Massive Attack also
featured the otherworldly vocals of Liz Fraser of the
Cocteau Twins on two mid-’90s albums.
As we’ve already seen, though, the biggest commercial
force in the ’90s – just as it is now – was American hip-hop
and R&B, and so those genres were where we witnessed
Images Paul Natkin/Getty Images (The Fugees, Republica), Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (Skunk Anansie),
most female-driven innovation back then. Lauryn Hill,

leader of the Fugees, encountered enormous success
both in and out of that band, while Missy Elliott and Queen
Wayne Wilson/Getty Images (fans), Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Alanis Morissette)
Latifah busted out the rhymes to world-class standards.

An expert, Latino-tinted version of the R&B sound came
from Jennifer Lopez, a bona fide film star who has proven
that she can perform at the very highest level in both the
movie and music worlds.
Again, none of this was necessarily easy. The profile of
the actor and singer Brandy Norwood, known simply as
Brandy, rose and fell throughout the ’90s, although her
future has been long assured since her resurgence in the
2000s. The British R&B singer Dina Carroll saw her career
come close to vanishing after one too many lovelorn
ballads, although a reinvention as a dance artist saved
45
The ‘Princess of
R&B’ Aaliyah
46
the day, as the same stratagem did for Toni Braxton. And TOP LEFT
Icelandic
then there was poor Aaliyah, the ‘Princess of R&B’, a huge
singer Björk
presence in US R&B throughout the decade, who lost her
life in a 2001 plane crash at the age of only 22. ABOVE
It wasn’t all pop, rock and rhymes, either. A rootsy, Top to bottom:
retro-looking neo soul movement made its presence felt Macy Gray,
Sheryl Crow
towards the end of the ’90s, spearheaded by three major
and Tori Amos
talents: Macy Gray, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. Of these,
Chris Carroll/Corbis via Getty Images (Tori Amos), Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images (Erykah Badu), Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images (Jennifer Lopez)
Badu has made the longest-lasting impact, although Gray’s
Images Barry King/WireImage/Getty Images (Aaliyah), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Björk, Macy Gray), Paul Natkin/WireImage (Sheryl Crow),
LEFT
remarkable 1999 hit ‘I Try’ won Best Female Pop Vocal Neo soul singer
Performance at the Grammys, and was nominated for both Erykah Badu
Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

BELOW
Let’s finish by celebrating three uncategorisable but Latin-pop singer
brilliant talents who are still going strong today: Björk, Lavigne, Amy Winehouse and Dido, and then on to today’s Jennifer Lopez
Sheryl Crow and Tori Amos. The first of these came from stars – Adele, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Taylor
the Icelandic avant-garde punk scene – a bit different from Swift, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna.
Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, then – and made Our original question was whether the
a splendid impact with a series of artistic dance-music and ‘girl power’ phrase really reflected genuine
experimental albums. Crow is a former backing singer and power moving to female control. At the
multi-instrumentalist who took her career into her own very top level, this is absolutely the case
hands with a sequence of irresistible pop-rock hits. Amos, – no male svengali could ever tell Madonna
the most intellectually profound artist on this page by some or Alanis Morissette what to do back then,
distance, makes piano-driven music that ranges from the as is the case for Adele or Lady Gaga
delightful to the disturbing. Pigeonhole her at your peril. today. The real question is whether the
The ’90s, then, were significantly defined by female hundreds, or even thousands, of unknown
musicians. Grunge, hip-hop and Britpop may have been women musicians who perform today
largely male-driven movements, but aside from a few really control their own futures. Let us
major acts from those genres – really, only Nirvana, hope that is the case – after all, they have
Eminem and Oasis – the real money went to the women. a long list of successful forebears to
The path was paved for stars of the 00s such as Avril show them the way.
47
BRIT
48
WENT MAD IN THE MID
-199
SA
OASIS VERSUS BLUR: DO LL
LAD CULTURE, FOOTBA YOU
REMEMBER WHEN BRIT 0S?

LL AND
TPOP
49
Images Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Images (Liam Gallagher), Aleksandr Faustov/Alamy (Cool Britannia), Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images (Elastica), Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (The Bluetones, Gaz Coombes), Daily Record/Mirrorpix/Getty Images (Jarvis Cocker), Martyn
Goodacre/Getty Images (fans), Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images (Blur), Pete Still/Redferns/Getty Images (Glastonbury), Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Louise Wener), Roberta Parkin/Redferns/Getty Images (Gallagher/Albarn), Simon Ritter/Redferns/Getty Images (Suede)
ith the benefit of hindsight, Britpop
W
was a moment – a snapshot in British
musical history – that lasted half a
decade or thereabouts. It started with a
single band, then expanded to many
bands, and after a series of key setbacks, it lost the
battle to survive and collapsed. It was essentially a
five-year period of hysteria, in which the influence of
the bands concerned spread far outside the core scene
– as far as the highest levels of British culture. But
what a vivid five years that was. Let’s see if we can
figure out what happened…
British guitar music was in a bit of a rut in 1991 and ’92,
now we think of it. There was a lot of dance music around,
for sure, and we had a seriously impressive homegrown
roster of DJs, as well as club nights for them to play in –
but who was writing rock songs? Iron Maiden, Motörhead
and Thunder were around, and they’re great heavy rock
and metal bands, for sure, but those styles of music aren’t
for everyone.
The closest that the Brits had to a vibrant guitar sound
came from Manchester, stylised as Madchester, but even ABOVE Slowly, though, the focus of British music fans started to
that movement was on its way out by ’91. The leaders, the The Stone turn inward again. Let’s hold Blur responsible for getting
Roses paved the
Stone Roses, had gone on a career break, and the Happy this new, as-yet-unnamed sound off the ground, as they
way for Britpop
Mondays were plateauing. There was a B-league of lesser did when they were looking for inspiration for their second
bands – the Inspiral Carpets, James and so on – but even BELOW LEFT album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. Their single, ‘Popscene’,
they were heavily influenced by dance music. Punk rock Seattle grunge along with a song called ‘The Drowners’ by fellow Brits
was long gone. Indie music as we knew it in the ‘80s, with band Nirvana Suede, both appeared in early 1992, and were nuggets of
connected with
the Smiths leading the pack, was pretty much dormant. pop cleverness compared to the swathes of grunge riffs
mainstream
In 1991, guitar music was all about America. Nirvana, audiences in the from the other side of the Atlantic, mainstream radio’s
Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers all released key early ’90s usual fodder at the time.
albums and singles, launching grunge, modern metal and Once those two bands had found a tenuous foothold,
funk-rock into the public consciousness. This new, BELOW RIGHT things started to move quickly. So much of the impetus of
Ex-Suede
emotional but heavy music sounded fresh and interesting, the new music came from music papers such as Select,
band members
and we subscribed to it all the way into ’92. Justine NME and Melody Maker, that it seems faintly comical
Frischmann and
Justin Welch
formed Elastica
in 1992
BOTTOM LEFT
A selection of
Blur’s albums
BOTTOM RIGHT
Brett Anderson
of Suede
50
BRITPOP
RIGHT
Damon Albarn
of Blur, who
kickstarted
Britpop
BELOW
Saint Etienne’s
style of Indie was
influenced by
’60s pop and ’90s
club culture
Images Brian Rasic/Getty Images (The Stone Roses), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images (Nirvana), PjrStudio/Alamy (CDs), Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (Elastica),
Paul Bergen/Redferns/Getty Images (Interpol), Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Images (Saint Etienne), Kieran Doherty/Redferns/Getty Images (Damon Albarn)
from today’s internet news-based world – so when the “If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting
first of these ran a cover in April ’93 showing Suede singer rid of grunge.” His partner, former Suede and then Elastica
Brett Anderson with a Union Jack flag and the faintly silly singer Justine Frischmann, was of like mind, and when her
headline ‘Yanks go home!’, people took notice. Suede’s band became famous too, the pair became the first couple
self-titled debut album went on to become the fastest- of the new musical movement, whether they liked it or not.
selling first album in almost a decade. Records were being So far, so London-centric and metropolitan. The little
broken – and the scent of innovation was in the air. New Camden Town music scene, focused on a small number
bands like Saint Etienne and Pulp gained coverage, while of bands and a large amount of cocaine, might well have
Blur – the kings of the new sound – found a home at imploded before long – had it not been for a planet-sized
London’s Syndrome club, a hub of like-minded musicians. injection of arrogant optimism from Manchester, the
By 1993 Modern Life Is Rubbish was out, accompanied northern city whose late-1980s’ music scene had
by statements from Blur frontman Damon Albarn such as: been so influential.
51
ABOVE This came, of course, from Oasis. Formed by singer

Oasis Liam Gallagher and completely transformed when his
songwriter brother Noel joined the band, this working-class
MIDDLE LEFT
Definitely Maybe, group of musicians were the polar opposite to the cultured
Oasis’ debut members of Blur. Spotted by Creation Records owner Alan
album McGee and signed to his influential label, Oasis were
about to take 1994 by the throat.
MIDDLE RIGHT
Talk about a perfect storm. The media were poised to
Creation Records
co-owner cover the new scene as much as they could, bored with
Alan McGee the current American music trends; Blur were clever
songwriters who were just coming to the peak of their
BOTTOM powers; Oasis were the invading opposition from the
Jarvis Cocker,
north. On paper, the battle should have gone to Blur, the
singer of Pulp
Images Michel Linssen/Redferns/Getty Images (Oasis), CBW/Alamy (Definitely Maybe), Arnold Slater/
more experienced and better resourced band – but they

hadn’t reckoned with Oasis’ secret weapon.
That asset was Noel Gallagher’s advanced grasp of
Mirrorpix/Getty Images (Alan McGee), Michael Putland/Getty Images (Jarvis Cocker)
uplifting, resolutely backward-looking songwriting. When

the first four Oasis singles were released in 1994 –
‘Supersonic’, ‘Shakermaker’, ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Cigarettes
& Alcohol’ – they sounded totally fresh, and at the same
time utterly familiar. The primary influences were the
Beatles and the Kinks, for sure, but as Noel made it clear, a
big dollop of Madchester and Smiths went into the songs
as well, whereas Liam Gallagher’s nasal sneer (“Sun-shee-
iinnne!”) was pure Johnny Rotten.
The public fell in love with the brash, uncultured Oasis at
first sight, and when their debut album Definitely Maybe
was released, it broke Suede’s record, going on to earn
BRITPOP
seven platinum awards. However, it had to fight for the

public’s attention with Blur’s third album, Parklife, on which
the Albarn-led band had changed their spots somewhat.
With their new album, Blur were also playing ’60s-indebted
songs, but with a kind of pointed British sarcasm that
made them totally convincing.
The final nail in the coffin of grunge, at least when it
came to British audiences, was self-inflicted: the suicide of
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in April ’94. Liam Gallagher
dismissed him – somewhat cruelly, in retrospect – as a
“sad c*** who couldn’t handle the fame” – and it seemed
that the rock music-consuming masses of the UK agreed.
All the new music needed now was a name. It seems
most likely that the word ‘Britpop’ was coined by one of
two journalists – Stuart Maconie in 1993, or John Robb as
far back as the late ‘80s. In either case, the word would
probably have been inspired by the term ‘Britart’ – itself a
word for the recent new wave of opinionated British fine
artists, Damien Hirst among them – and was intended to
flag up Great Britain as a forward-thinking place to be
young and creative.
When the Britpop term spread, it spread fast. Britpop
was something to believe in: a home-grown, exciting new
sound that somehow tied in with the rise of a new Labour
Party leader in Tony Blair; the incoming wave of
communications technology that was supposed to free us
all from traditional lifestyles; and perhaps even the
impending millennium, a greater source of background
inspiration than many people realise.
– NEW
MANY – ALTHOUGH NOT ALL
NSIDER
BANDS WERE HAPPY TO CO
S
THEMSELVES BRITPOP ACT
TOP By ’95 the term was in widespread use, and many –

Noel Gallagher although not all – new bands were happy to consider
of Oasis
themselves Britpop acts. New groups sprang up every
ABOVE LEFT
week, it seemed, tracked and promoted by NME and
Menswear Melody Maker. Among the new breed of 1995 were the
Bluetones, Sleeper, Supergrass and Menswear, and
LEFT shortly after them came the Boo Radleys, Ocean Colour
Ocean Colour
Images Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images (Noel Gallagher), Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images
Scene, Cast and Pulp, the last of whom scored a

Scene
Number 1 with their album Different Class. Sometimes it
felt as if you couldn’t walk down Camden High Street
without tripping over an award-winning guitar player.
(Menswear), Des Willie/Redferns/Getty Images (Ocean Colour Scene)
What was it that these disparate bands had in common?

Certainly a respect for the past. Whether it was the music,
the style or the forthright attitude, it was the ’60s that
reigned in these songwriters’ creative minds. Vintage
guitars and winklepicker shoes were in. Baggy jeans and
the hippie accoutrements of Madchester were out –
although Stone Roses-style guitar sounds were definitely
allowed. Punk from the ’70s was cool. Progressive rock
from the same decade was not, even if Blur did nod
towards Pink Floyd on occasion. If Britpop had ever
53
Y THING,
DRUG USE WAS AN EVERYDA
AT THE
OR AT LEAST THAT WAS WH
INK
PAPERS WANTED YOU TO TH
worshipped deities, their names would have been TOP LEFT
McCartney, Morrissey and Rotten. Oasis’ (What’s
the Story)
It didn’t take long before the cockiness of the musicians
Morning Glory
percolated into the wider society. Regional accents – by and Blur’s The
which we mean northern ones – became more frequently Great Escape
heard on TV. Union Jacks were painted on guitars. Being both released
working-class was cool, as laid out in Pulp’s huge and still- in 1995
amazing hit ‘Common People’. Drug use was an everyday

TOP MIDDLE
thing, or at least that was what the papers wanted you to Union Jacks
bumper day for UK singles sales, both bands effectively
think – but not sad drugs like heroin, which had been appeared won, and so did their record companies’ finance
mostly responsible for the suicide of Kurt Cobain; coke and everywhere departments. Of course, the sarcasm afterwards was pure
speed were the way to happiness, we were informed. gold, with Blur bassist Alex James wearing an Oasis T-shirt
TOP RIGHT
Does this sound excessive? It was. A new magazine, on that week’s Top of the Pops.
The ‘Lad Mags’
Loaded, epitomised the hedonism of the times. Men and of the ’90s
The jubilation in the Blur camp was relatively short-lived,
women – the new ‘lads’ and ‘ladettes’ – drank, partied and however. When Oasis released their second studio album,
made the tabloids. The Americans, left cold by the ABOVE RIGHT 1995’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, it elevated the
relentless Britishness of it all, only understood it much later, Oasis and Blur’s Mancunian band to the position not only of the biggest
rivalry wasn’t
once the hysteria had died down, as it finally had to do. Britpop act but to one of the biggest bands in the world.
confined to
But not just yet: the peak of all this craziness was to the charts
Gallagher Senior had upped his songwriting game, and
come in 1995, when ‘The Battle of Britpop’ signalled the faced with global hits such as ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Some Might
logical conclusion to the movement. Blur and Oasis, who BELOW Say’ and ‘Champagne Supernova’, the arch, sometimes
had gradually become at odds thanks to the media and British prime esoteric songs that Blur wrote simply seemed small and
minister at
their own coke-fuelled antics, both ‘coincidentally’ unambitious in comparison.
the time, Tony
scheduled singles for release on 14th August. One of Blair, with Noel
As NME put it, by 1995 “it became clear that while Blur
them would hit Number 1, we knew that – but which one? Gallagher had won the battle, Oasis were winning the war” – a
The week before the releases, NME’s cover read roundabout way of saying that the Oasis album sold four
‘British Heavyweight Championship’, while the two bands million copies while Blur’s next effort, The Great Escape,
exchanged barbs: Oasis labelled Blur “chimney sweep sold a mere one million. The following year, Oasis won
music”, while Blur retorted with the rather more Best British Album at the Brit Awards, with the
sophisticated “Oasis Quo”. Northerners not above some payback for the Alex James
This wasn’t just a regular battle of the bands: this was, in shirt incident by singing the chorus of ‘Parklife’ and
effect, North versus South and middle class against changing the lyrics to ‘shite life’. Classy, eh?
working class. The BBC sensed this and got on It has been speculated that the end of Britpop
board, making the contest everybody’s problem, came about after the 1996 Euros, the football
not just the concern of a few Melody Maker tournament in which England lost their final game
readers. Who would win, we asked? on penalties. This is not as far-fetched as it might
It was Blur who triumphed, when their song sound. As lad culture raged and the British
‘Country House’ sold 274,000 copies against establishment bought into the Britpop
the 216,000 sold by Oasis’ ‘Roll with It’. In a message of debauchery and arrogance,
54
BRITPOP
the kitchen sink thrown at it, musically speaking. Faced

with this overfed behemoth of an album, even devoted
Oasis fans began to feel that Britpop’s time might be
coming to an end. New music was in the charts, and new
music always feels exciting, especially – as in this case –
when the new band on the block was the Spice Girls,
whose image and sound was vibrant, confrontational and,
above all, memorable.
The final straw came when the incoming Prime Minister
Tony Blair invited Noel Gallagher, Alan McGee and other
representatives of the pop culture of the day to tea at
10 Downing Street. Quaffing champagne and engaging in
laddish banter with the PM, the prime cultural movers of
the day climbed into metaphorical bed with the man who
took the UK into Iraq, in search of weapons of mass
destruction that weren’t there. It wasn’t Gallagher or
McGee’s fault, but both men came to regret their hubris.
Other bands such as Radiohead, the Verve, Travis,
Feeder and Stereophonics took the heavy rock ball from
Oasis and ran with it, while cocky individuals like Robbie
Williams were also making a mark. The majority of these
Images Stephen Frost/Alamy (CDs), Ryan Jorgensen/Alamy (guitars), David Sandison/Independent/Alamy (‘lads mags’), Matthew Chattle/
bands had at least some emotional and intellectual content
in their songs, making Oasis seem unsophisticated, and it
wasn’t long before the Camden Town Britpop scene began Alamy (other magazines), PA Images/Alamy (Gallagher/Blair, Brtis ’95 x2), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Knebworth)
to seem, well, outmoded.

Oasis continued to be successful for four more albums
before finally splitting up in 2009, although Noel and Liam
have both gone on to some success as solo artists. Blur,
meanwhile, are still going – so who won the war in the end?
Perhaps neither of them. We, the listeners, are the
somehow football had become conflated with the whole TOP winners: we had the benefit of the music, some of which
slightly deranged spirit of the music, along with Loaded Oasis playing to endures to this day. Many of us who remember those
125,000 fans at
magazine and other symbols of the era. England’s football heady times will take songs such as ‘Champagne
Knebworth
team hadn’t won a major tournament in 30 years at that Supernova’ and ‘Popscene’ and ‘Common People’ to the
point, and when they failed to do so yet again that year, MIDDLE grave. At the same time, it’s for the best that Britpop
some of the scales fell from the viewing public’s eyes. Blur won Album ended when it did. It had run its course, and by 1998 it was
This was compounded in 1997 by the overinflated of the Year at time for people to start behaving themselves again.
the ’95 Brits
dimensions of Oasis studio album number three, Be Here In any case, Britpop will return one day. Oasis made a
Now. While the record has its strengths, not least in the ABOVE
decent living out of rehashing ‘60s songs, after all – and
songs ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘All Around the World’, it’s highly Oasis at the ’95 who’s to say there won’t be a revival of that same sound
overproduced, with the equivalent of everything including Brit Awards 30 years from now? You read it here first…
55
WHEN
SOUNDTRACKS
ED
WE CELEBRATE THE
R U L DECADE WHEN FILM

AND TV SOUNDTRACKS
SOUNDED AS GOOD AS
90s
ANYTHING BY YOUR
THE FAVOURITE BAND…
56
hat’s worse than a hit song without a killer video?
W
A hit movie without a hit song. In the zero-
attention-span, here-today, gone-later-today world
of mass entertainment, the only way to make
a production stay in a viewer’s mind longer than it
takes to eat a massive box of popcorn is to combine music and
visuals. If a film makes you hum a song, and that song makes you
imagine scenes from that film, then the film-maker has achieved
their goal: long-term impact.
Images Danil Roudenko/Alamy (cinema), Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Celine Dion)
Now, although there was no internet, no YouTube and no social

media for the movie and music industries to compete with in the
’90s, getting an audience’s attention was still no walk in the park.
Films and TV series were made in such huge numbers, with such
high budgets, that the average TV-watcher or cinema-goer was
inundated with high-quality viewing options. In order to make
a show or movie stand out from the pack, producers needed
a hit song to promote them, which is why soundtracks were so
important in that decade.
Let’s take a look at some of the most notable, in chronological
order, although we can only hope to skim a few of the best off the
top. There was just so much good – or at least entertainingly bad
– music back then. Why can’t we have that nowadays?
57
TOP Julia Roberts

in Pretty Woman
1990
At the start of the decade, film studios were taking
advantage of a wave of nostalgia among viewing
audiences towards the ’60s and ’70s. Who knows why we
RIGHT Demi Moore
were all so retro-looking at the time? Maybe the Gulf War
and Patrick
Swayze in Ghost was worrying us, or perhaps the idea of the ’90s being the
last decade before the millennium was getting under our
BELOW RIGHT collective skins. Either way, Britpop and Austin Powers
The Righteous were going to be massive in a few years, both of which
Brothers made
were thoroughly backward in focus – and in 1990, so were
fame three
decades later Ghost and Pretty Woman, both of which relied on ancient
thanks to Ghost songs for their key scenes.
You’ll remember the pottery and smooching moment
BOTTOM Will Smith from the former, in which Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore
starred in The
diligently worked on their ceramic skills to the sound of the
Fresh Prince
of Bel-Air Righteous Brothers’ 1965 ballad, ‘Unchained Melody’.
Meanwhile, Roy Orbison’s ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ from 1964
Images Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Touchstone Pictures/Alamy (Pretty Woman), Pictorial Press Ltd/Paramount Pictures/
accompanied Julia Roberts while she got chummy with

Alamy (Ghost), Pictorial Press Ltd/NBC/Alamy (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), Getty Images (The Righteous Brothers)
Richard Gere around Hollywood in the latter blockbuster.
If TV was your thing in 1990 – and it almost certainly

was because there was little else to do – you might have
enjoyed the amazing theme tune from The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air, rapped by the youthful Will Smith and his chum
Jazzy Jeff.
58
WHEN SOUNDTRACKS RULED THE 90s
1991
More nostalgic thinking was behind
the use of The Temptations’ classic
1964 love song ‘My Girl’ in the
Macaulay Culkin vehicle of the
same time, and although Bryan Adams wasn’t thinking
nostalgically with his ungrammatically titled mega-hit
‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’, when Robin Hood:
Prince of Thieves arrived, the song sounded as if it had
been around forever. In fact, it did stick around for an
unfeasibly long time, becoming the UK’s longest-ever
Number 1 hit, with 16 consecutive weeks at the top.
Baywatch had an epic theme in the form of ‘I’m Always
Here’, sung by Jimi Jamison of the rock band Survivor –
who had previous form, you may recall, with the themes
to Rocky III (1982) and IV (’85).
At opposite ends of the thematic spectrum, cinema-
goers enjoyed Beauty and the Beast, a fabulous concoction
of traditional animation and computer-generated art, and
the most successful of the new wave of ‘hood movies’,
Boyz n the Hood and New Jack City. Like all Disney films,
Beauty’s soundtrack was stuffed full of songs that wormed
their way into your head and never left; the rather more
brutal Ice Cube and Ice-T movies mostly relied on the
outstanding hip-hop and new jack swing movements of the
day for their musical content. In addition, veteran soul and
jazz artists Quincy Jones and Stanley Clarke appeared on
the former, while the slick R&B crew Color Me Badd added
a touch of smoothness to the latter.
The year’s big cinematic hit, though, was Terminator 2:
TOP Morris
Judgment Day, whose lead-off single was ‘You Could Be
Chestnut, Cuba
Gooding Jr. and Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses. Heavy metal was big news in film
Ice Cube starred world in the early ’90s: check out the most excellent Bill &
Images Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Columbia/Alamy (Boyz N The Hood), AF archive/NBC/Alamy (Baywatch), Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Guns N’ Roses), BFA/TriStar Pictures/
in 1991’s Boyz Ted’s Bogus Journey for more unsociably loud tunes from
n the Hood Kiss, Faith No More, Primus and Megadeth.
RIGHT The cast
Alamy (Terminator 2), Collection Christophel/Warner Bros/Morgan Creek Productions/Alamy (Robin Hood), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Bryan Adams)
of Baywatch
BELOW RIGHT The

Guns N’ Roses
song ‘You Could
Be Mine’ featured
in Terminator 2:
Judgment Day
FAR RIGHT Bryan

Adams’ song was
a Number 1 hit in
19 countries
59
1992
One of the biggest film soundtrack hits
ever came out in 1992, courtesy of the late
Whitney Houston and her huge-lunged
version of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always
Love You’. Its source, The Bodyguard,
featured Houston in a clinch with keen
mullet-wearer Kevin Costner – an example
of a song that is better known than the
film for which it was recorded.
Elsewhere in ’92, we were treated to
more hip-hop movie fare with Trespass
and Juice, the first of which featured
experimental music from Ry Cooder,
and the latter a more predictable urban
soundtrack. And who could forget
Wayne’s World? You’re headbanging to
Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ already.
1993
TOP The
Bodyguard
starring Whitney
Houston and
Kevin Costner
Bruce Springsteen and his title track to the Tom Hanks LEFT Tim Burton,
director of
Images AA Film Archive/Warner Bros./Alamy (The Bodyguard), ScreenProd/Photononstop/Alamy (Burton/Elfman), Anna Luken/
movie Philadelphia were inescapable in 1993 (which was

The Nightmare
a good thing, as both helped bring public attention to the
Before Christmas,
Fotos International/Getty Images (Bruce Springsteen), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Tristar Pictures/Alamy (Philadelphia)
AIDS public health crisis), and the remarkably beautiful with composer
score by composer Michael Nyman for The Piano was Danny Elfman
a rare classical hit. Rock’n’roll ruled the airwaves thanks to
Dazed And Confused, specifically songs by ZZ Top, Deep BELOW LEFT Bruce
Springsteen’s
Purple and Ted Nugent, and more hip-hop came to our
‘Streets of
screens with Judgment Night. This film’s soundtrack, also Philadelphia’
better known – and just plain better – than its parent film, won four
was innovative, pairing musicians of the rock and metal Grammy Awards
persuasion with rap artists, so we had Pearl Jam playing
with Cypress Hill, Slayer with Ice-T and so on.
One of the year’s biggest films, Jurassic Park, featured
a soundtrack by John Williams, the classical composer best
known for Star Wars. Like that much earlier soundtrack, music for Mrs Doubtfire, and
it was all orchestral soundscapes and dramatic dynamics, Danny Elfman’s wonderfully creepy The Nightmare
so while it didn’t score chart hits as such, it was an Before Christmas. As for the Al Pacino gangster movie
outstanding musical achievement by any standard. You Carlito’s Way, there has rarely – if ever – been a more
could say the same of Howard Shore’s deft, lightweight convincing combination of Latino soul and ’70s disco.
60
1994
It’s hard to remember a world where the TV series Friends didn’t sign up until ’95. Until they did, the theme tune by TOP The
wasn’t a cultural phenomenon, but that was very much the the one-hit wonders The Rembrants was confined to a key Rembrandts and
their Friends
case until the show’s first season in 1994, and even slightly few thousand viewers. The song, titled ‘I’ll Be There For
AF archive/Walt Disney/Alamy (John/Rice), Kay Roxby/Alamy (Wet Wet Wet), AA Film Archive/Working Title Films/Alamy (Four Weddings and a Funeral)
beyond that point. That first run of episodes was amusing, You’ – like you didn’t know that already – was accompanied ABOVE Tom Hanks
but the writers hadn’t quite got the pace right yet – not to by a slightly odd video, in which the six future mega-stars as Forrest Gump
mention Joey and Rachel’s haircuts – and huge audiences were shown playing tambourines and fooling about.
Images Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (The Rembrandts), Collection Christophel/Paramount Pictures/Alamy (Forrest Gump),
Talking of one-hit wonders, the rather sweet ‘Stay LEFT Elton John
and Tim Rice
(I Missed You)’ by Lisa Loeb could be heard in 1994 on the
wrote the music
soundtrack for Reality Bites, and whoever licensed the for The Lion King
massive, two-CD accompaniment for Forrest Gump was
evidently equipped with a huge budget. Songs by Elvis BOTTOM LEFT Wet
Presley, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Wet Wet’s chart-
smashing hit
Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, the Supremes, Fleetwood Mac
featured in Four
and more iconic artists soundtracked Forrest’s erratic Weddings and a
progress, a sign that Hollywood really does open doors Funeral, starring
to the corridors of power. Hugh Grant and
Equally impressively, Elton John scored the hit of his Andie MacDowell
(pictured)
long career with ‘Circle of Life’ from The Lion King, and
Wet Wet Wet covered The Troggs’ 1967 song ‘Love Is
All Around’ for the hugely popular Four Weddings and
a Funeral – scooping 15 weeks at the top of the UK charts
in doing so. The song’s writer, Troggs leader Reg Presley,
is said to have used his huge royalty payments from the
Wets’ version to fund research into crop circles and other
arcane subjects. And why not?
61
1995
Before director Joel Schumacher steered the formerly
profitable Batman film franchise into disaster in 1997
with his awful Batman & Robin, he gave us the more or
less decent Batman Forever, whose soundtrack remains
a mid-decade highlight. U2’s excellent ‘Hold Me, Thrill
Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me’ and Seal’s ‘Kiss from a Rose’ are
standouts, but more esoteric artists such as PJ Harvey,
the Flaming Lips and Mazzy Star give it some edge too.
The same goes for the much-loved comedy Clueless, for
which ska-punks No Doubt performed ‘Just A Girl’, and
the James Bond movie GoldenEye, where Tina Turner
could be heard belting out the title cut.
The ‘hood film’ genre had evolved beyond the New Jack
City days by this point, and when Michelle Pfeiffer played
the part of a butt-kicking schoolteacher in Dangerous
1996
Minds, it seemed appropriate that Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s
Paradise’ struck a major chord with audiences. Hip-hop
was one of the biggest-selling genres of music in the
world by 1995, and when rapper Ice Cube moved into
comedy with the first of the Friday films, he accompanied
it with a monster soundtrack that topped the US charts Hollywood did its usual thing in ’96, with Independence ABOVE Claire
for two weeks. Featuring Ice Cube himself, Bernie Worrell, Day accompanied by a massively patriotic-sounding set of Danes and
Leonardo
Bootsy Collins, Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Rick James, Rose themes. Ironically, these were composed by a Brit, David
DiCaprio in
Royce, The Isley Brothers and more, it was an exemplar of Arnold – a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by critics. Then there Romeo + Juliet
the new kind of movie soundtrack – one that fans wanted was the first of the new Mission: Impossible series, for
to own as much as a regular, original album. which Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr of U2 recorded BELOW LEFT Val
an anodyne version of the original ’60s TV theme. Kilmer and Chris
O’Donnell as
However, certain movies from lesser-known, up-and-
Batman and Robin
coming directors were arguably more interesting: see Baz
Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, a sharp-as-a-blade take on the BELOW
Trainspottting
highlighted
alt-rock and
electronic music
Images 20th Century Fox/Getty Images (Romeo + Juliet), AA Film Archive/Warner Bros./Alamy
(Batman Forever), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Channel Four Films/Alamy (Trainspotting)
62
Shakespearean tragedy, including songs by The Cardigans

and Radiohead. Trainspotting, too, was among the first
TOP My Heart
Will Go On is
one of the best-
1997
movies to incorporate EDM into its soundtrack, with the
selling singles
famous ‘Born Slippy .NUXX’ by Underworld jolting cinema of all time
audiences from their seats.
As for the inescapable ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ from the RIGHT Rowan
animated movie Space Jam, it may have been a huge hit, Atkinson as
Mr Bean
but its creator, R. Kelly, hardly enjoys a positive public
profile these days. Whether the song will still be as popular FAR RIGHT Tommy
after his downfall remains to be seen. Lee Jones and
Will Smith in
Men in Black
LEFT
Independence
Images United Archives GmbH/20th Century Fox/Alamy (Independence Day), United Archives GmbH/Warner Bros./Alamy (Space Jam),
How can we have come this far into the ’90s without
René van den Berg/Alamy (CD), AA Film Archive/Working Title Films/Alamy (Bean), Photo 12/Columbia Pictures/Alamy (Men in Black)
Day was the
highest-grossing mentioning a boy band? Let us rectify that immediately
film of 1996 by mentioning ‘Picture of You’ from the Irish act Boyzone,
which was an integral part of the soundtrack of Bean:
BELOW LEFT
Space Jam The Movie. A British comic creation that has successfully
starring baller crossed the Atlantic for American success, Mr Bean is
Michael Jordan a genuinely global brand, much like James Bond, whose
1997 Tomorrow Never Dies theme tune came from
Sheryl Crow.
Although Will Smith consolidated his crown in ’97
as the de facto King of America with the compelling title
track from Men in Black, the real winner in soundtrack-land
in ’97 was the Canadian warbler Celine Dion. Her standing-
on-the-prow, hair-blown-by-storm performance in the
video for ‘My Heart Will Go On’ – the best-known song
from James Cameron’s enormously successful Titanic
– is associated with that movie now and forever. In today’s
streaming era, the idea of a non-Marvel film making
anything like the impact of Titanic is increasingly far-
fetched. Only in the ’90s, eh?
63
1998
This year, essentially the calm before the creative storm
that was 1999, was all about Aerosmith and their fantastic
power ballad, ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’. The key
song from Armageddon, in which a team of doomed
miners and astronauts were obliged to blow up an
incoming asteroid to avoid paying income taxes, or
something, the tune was and remains a party-piece for
anyone over the age of 35. A much lower-key – but still
charming – film was Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sliding Doors,
TOP Aerosmith’s
with its soundtrack headed up by the plaintive ‘Turn
song ‘I Don’t Want
to Miss a Thing’ Back Time’ by the Danish pop band Aqua, previously
was featured in best-known for ‘Barbie Girl’. Yes, that Aqua.
Armageddon
1999
ABOVE RIGHT
Images Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (Aerosmith), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Touchstone/Alamy (Armageddon),
Gwyneth Paltrow
Michael Ochs Archives/Miramax/Getty Images (Sliding Doors), Photo 12/New Line Cinema/Alamy (Austin Powers)
in Sliding Doors
RIGHT Mike Myers

as Austin Powers
In a way, 1999 was both the peak and end of the big-
selling movie soundtrack phenomenon, as we’ll see in
a moment. Things were initially ticking along very nicely
for record-company staff who licensed their songs to
film studios, with Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’ the
most prominent element of Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me. The same went for the Verve, whose
‘Bittersweet Symphony’ appeared in Cruel Intentions,
although due to a licensing struggle between the band
and the song’s partial composers the Rolling Stones, very
little of that income made it to the Verve themselves.
Still, Placebo did well in the same film, contributing
‘Every You Every Me’ to its soundtrack, and Garbage
64
added spectacularly to the James Bond theme-tune canon ABOVE LEFT Pierce
by composing the title track of The World Is Not Enough. Brosnan as
James Bond 007
We all nodded along to ‘When You Say Nothing at All’,
a cover by Boyzone singer Ronan Keating of a song by ABOVE The
Keith Whitley, when it appeared on the soundtrack of Sopranos used
Notting Hill. Meanwhile, Sixpence None The Richer’s a variety of songs
appealing ‘Kiss Me’ added a touch of zest to She’s All That, and artists
and metal fans were pleased with the addition of ‘Wake
LEFT ‘Kiss Me’
Up’ by Rage Against The Machine to the final scene of the was the main
huge cinematic event The Matrix. theme to the film
In retrospect, time was called on the ‘big soundtrack She’s All That
hit’ phenomenon in ’99 because it was the year when
MIDDLE FAR LEFT
television first matched cinema for creative depth and
Garbage singer
intellectual rigour. One particular series caused this to
Images MARKA/United Artists/Alamy (James Bond), Everett Collection, Inc./Miramax/Alamy (She’s All That), Lisa Lake/Getty Images (Shirley Manson), In Pictures Ltd./
Shirley Manson
happen, although other TV phenomena helped the process
along considerably. This series was, of course, The MIDDLE LEFT Sarah
Corbis via Getty Images (Ronan Keating), AA Film Archive/Columbia/Alamy (Cruel Intentions), Zuma Press, Inc/HBO/Globe Photos/Alamy (The Sopranos)
Sopranos, introduced each week by those effortlessly Michelle Gellar,
Ryan Phillippe
cool opening credits, accompanied by the thudding bass
and Reese
and understated whispered vocals of Alabama 3 and their Witherspoon from
song ‘Woke Up This Morning’. Cruel Intentions
Although we’re huge fans of The Sopranos, we’re not
saying here that it is the best television series ever made, BOTTOM LEFT
Ronan Keating
although that’s certainly arguable – and as a relevant side
provided a hit
note, its musical licensing was masterful, featuring songs song for the film
by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra Notting Hill
and many more icons. What the series did do was redirect
critical attention away from the cinema screen, where
it had always been assumed that ‘real’ drama resided,
towards the idea that seasons of short- or medium-length
TV episodes could provide as much intelligent
entertainment as cinema, or even more so in some cases.
In the years since then, cerebral TV shows such as
Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under and
even Rick & Morty have supported this theory. Fortunately,
these have all come with superb theme tunes and
musical accompaniment – so if soundtracks are your
thing, you don’t have to be stuck in the ’90s after all.
Pass the remote control.
65
COME
HERE
66
THE BOYS ALE DIVAS,
FROM BOY BANDS TO M CADE OF
THE ’90s WAS THE DE
THE HANDSOME MAN
Image Tim Roney/Getty Images
67
, B3 and P9 may sound like forms
A1 you have to fill out to qualify for

government benefits, but no,
they’re just three of dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of boy bands who
entertained us in the ’90s, the decade when men
finally started taking an interest in their appearance.
Sure, pretty fellows had been populating the pop music
charts for decades before 1990. Look no further than Elvis,
who had set hearts a-fluttering in the ’50s with his eyeliner
and splendid quiff. In the ’60s, the Beatles looked all right
if you didn’t look too hard at the drummer, and in the ’70s,
plenty of male singers evidently benefited from skincare
regimes and anti-dandruff shampoo for the first time. Mind,
there were still lots of unkempt beards and sideburns
around, and none of these guys seemed to have grasped
that lifting a few weights is actually good for your physique.
It wasn’t until the ’80s that male bands such as Wham!,
A-ha and Duran Duran started to take advantage of the
then-new personal training, nutritionist and stylist
industries, which leads us neatly into the ’90s, a decade
stuffed with handsome chaps who were unafraid of sit-ups
and waxing salons. The boy band era was upon us, and
although – as we’ll see later – there were many older, less
68
HERE COME THE BOYS
IE W IL LI A M S QU IC K LY D O MINATED THE
ROBB PE CTED TO
BA R LO W H A D BE EN EX
SPACE THAT -BOY IMAGE
CA PI TA LI SI N G O N H IS BA D
ENTER,
TOP LEFT English clean-cut male singers and musicians on our screens and been afflicted by hair loss or weight gain, twin curses of
group East 17 radios (remember them?), when it comes to the concept the middle-aged chap.
went for a ‘bad
of young male performers in the ’90s, the boy band Against almost all the odds, not one but two members
boy’ approach
with their image
format is the one that many of us remember most often. of Take That went on to enormous solo success, to the
Let’s take a look at a few of them. point where they are no longer regarded as ‘former boy
Mirrorpix/Getty Images (Take That), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Robbie Williams)
LEFT Take That’s In the UK, quite a few boy bands would claim as the band singers’ but simply as male artists, at the very
Images Tim Roney/Getty Images (East 17), RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images (fans),
original line-up years passed that they had successfully transitioned into highest level. The first, the aforementioned Gary Barlow,
a more mature incarnation of their younger selves – a is the primary songwriter in Take That and the one most
ABOVE RIGHT
Robbie Williams,
‘man band’, if you will. In reality, only one of these acts expected to do well when the group broke up in ’96.
who began his actually pulled off this tricky task, the Manchester quintet Instead, his former colleague Robbie Williams quickly
solo career in Take That. After a successful three-album run between dominated the space that Barlow had been expected to
1996 1992 and ’95, the band returned in 2006 and have gone enter, capitalising on his bad-boy image and helping things
on to release no fewer than five further studio albums along nicely by initiating a war of words in the press.
and three live albums, a sign of the public’s continued Barlow eventually recovered his muse and started writing
investment in them. Their current line-up – Gary Barlow, hit songs again, in and out of the reconvened Take That,
Howard Donald and Mark Owen – can safely attribute at and the two former enemies reconciled.
least part of their success as men in their late 40s and The silver medal in the British and Irish boy band stakes
early 50s to their audience-friendly genes: none have is probably shared between three acts: East 17, Boyzone
69
ABOVE UK boy and Westlife. The first of these had a tough-guy hip-hop
band 5ive were image that belied their tender love ballads, although they
popular in the
deserved more credit than they got because they wrote
late ’90s
most of their own songs. However, their singer, Brian
RIGHT Dance-pop Harvey, didn’t help matters with his tabloid-friendly antics,
group Right including running himself over while driving a car (it’s
Said Fred had difficult, but it can be done if you work at it).
Number 1 hits in
Boyzone and Westlife were less confrontational and
70 countries
more parent-friendly in appearance, perhaps due to the
BELOW RIGHT PJ stricter social mores of their home country, Ireland. Both
& Duncan or groups issued a long and consistent string of hit singles
as they’re now and albums, although when their reigns ended, solo
better known,
success didn’t follow for most of the band members.
Ant and Dec
Boyzone singer Ronan Keating had a run of Top 10 hits,
BOTTOM The although his bandmate Stephen Gately was denied that
Hanson brothers opportunity, succumbing to a heart condition in 2009 at
– Zac, Isaac the age of only 33.
and Taylor – are
Below these four major boy bands there was a whole
best known
for their catchy
raft of lesser-knowns, although Blue, Another Level, MN8
‘MMMBop’ single and 5ive each enjoyed a few years of reasonable success.
Of their catalogues, 5ive’s ‘Keep On Movin’’ from 1999 is
probably the song that stands up best, with its adrenalised
chorus and snappy beats. Some long-forgotten groups only
managed a single hit, while still others only attracted
attention because of their ludicrous names, such as And

Why Not? and the unpronounceable 2wo Third3.
It wasn’t all dreamy guys crooning on barstools and
performing choreographed dance routines, of course. Take
Right Said Fred for instance – a band formed around two
buff brothers whose digestible dance-pop disguised the
fact that they were serious musicians who’d played with
David Bowie and Bob Dylan. The same was true of Let
Loose, whose good looks made it hard for their fans to
believe that they were competent musicians, despite
evidence to the contrary.
70
HERE COME THE BOYS
George De Sota/Redferns/Getty Images (Hanson), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Westlife), Samir Hussein/Getty Images (Keating/Gately)
Images Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy (5ive), Mike Prior/Getty Images (Right Said Fred), Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images (PJ & Duncan),
In fact, the whole ‘you’re too handsome to be a good themselves – better known as Ant McPartlin and Declan MAIN Irish group
guitarist’ prejudice continues to this day, as bands such as Donnelly – have gone on to be the most visible British TV Westlife
Busted – who formed in 2000, just outside our timeframe presenters of their generation. Food for thought, eh?
INSET Ronan
– found out to their cost. An American group, Hanson, Over in the USA, the boy band phenomenon was even Keating and
formed of three musical brothers, faced the same obstacle, more popular, especially around the second half of the Stephen Gately
although they did hit hugely with 1997’s ‘MMMBop’. decade. The major difference between the North American of Boyzone
It’s also interesting to bear in mind that no matter movement and the British equivalent was that two parallel
how big boy bands such as Take That and East 17 were, strands co-existed in the USA. The first was made up of
a relatively little-known duo called PJ & Duncan can pop boy bands, with the familiar style and look; the second
arguably be regarded as the most successful of the lot. strand was made up of R&B-, soul- and hip-hop-influenced
Even though the band only lasted a few years, the singers bands who continued the heritage of African-American
71
ABOVE The music in a way that didn’t really apply over here, although
best-selling boy the British act Damage took a shot at it.
band to date,
This second bunch of bands generally enjoyed more
Images Bob Berg/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys), Chris Carroll/Corbis via Getty Images (Boyz II Men), Ron Galella/Getty Images (Ricky Martin), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Sean Maguire),
Backstreet Boys
critical respect than their pop equivalents, probably
Mike Prior/Getty Images (Damage), CK-Press/ullstein bild via Getty Images (fans), SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images (NSYNC), Christopher Polk/Getty Images (Justin Timberlake)
RIGHT Boyz II because the R&B style required them to be legitimately
Men produced excellent singers rather than simply looking good on the
emotional ballads dancefloor. See Blackstreet and ‘No Diggity’ from 1996 for
and a cappella
evidence, or indeed also-rans such as Az Yet, whose expert
harmonies
vocal layers and warbling melodies made them the male
MIDDLE RIGHT equivalent of, say, Mariah Carey.
Puerto Rican Still, the pop and R&B sub-genres overlapped significantly.
singer/songwriter Listen to any song by the biggest pop boy bands, Backstreet
Ricky Martin
Boys and NSYNC, and you’ll encounter many of the close
vocal harmonies and slick beats deployed by their R&B
MIDDLE FAR RIGHT
Sean Maguire is equivalents, Boyz II Men and Color Me Badd. All of these
better known for were influenced to some extent by the progenitors of the
his acting career boy band format in the ’80s, New Kids On The Block – the
than his relatively
equivalent of Bros in the UK – and like that band, a single
brief musical one
member often emerged to enjoy a profitable solo career
BOTTOM British after the main band ran its course.
R&B boy band In the case of New Kids On The Block, this was Donnie
Damage achieved Wahlberg, although he was quickly eclipsed, both
11 hit singles in
musically and as an actor, by his brother ‘Marky Mark’
the ’90s
Wahlberg. As for NSYNC, that band produced Justin
Timberlake, whose rise to superstardom in the 00s was
a genuine phenomenon.
We should spare a thought for the many male pop
singers who may not have been in boy bands any more,
but certainly looked as if they were. In North America,
the Puerto Rican Ricky Martin described an interesting
72
HERE COME THE BOYS
trajectory. He’d spent his teenage years in the Mexican ABOVE

boy band Menudo, quitting in 1989 and taking another 10 Backstreet Boys
fans outside
years to cross over to English-speaking audiences. When
a stadium in
he got there, with 1999’s ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’, he was Berlin, Germany
suddenly all over the media. Enrique Iglesias, son of the before a concert
Spanish singer Julio, had a similar journey ahead of him,
only breaking big in the English language market at the RIGHT NSYNC
at the first ever
end of the ’90s.
Teen Choice
Bless Peter Andre – after relocating from England to Awards
Australia as a child, he moved back to the UK when his
1995 hit ‘Mysterious Girl’ went stratospheric; he never BOTTOM
equalled that early triumph, although he found greater Justin
Timberlake’s
fame in later years when he teamed up with the model
solo career
Katie Price. Other British poppers who never really made it really took off in
out of the blocks included Kavana (‘I Can Make You Feel the 00s
Good’, 1996) and Sean Maguire (‘Good Day’, also ‘96).
It wasn’t long before major media corporations
caught on to the boy band trend. This took the
form either of a deliberate cash-in, such as NBC’s
Guys Next Door series, where the band of the
same name also acted out a fictionalised version
of their lives, or as an excellent parody, as in MTV’s
2gether. The latter was mercilessly sarcastic, building
its fake band around the ‘five essential characters’ of a
successful boy band – the ‘heartthrob’, the ‘shy one’, the
‘older brother’, the ‘cute one’ and, of course, the ‘bad boy’.
When a phenomenon gets so big that its parodies
become popular in their own right, that’s when you know
it’s run its course – and although the boy band movement
is still immense today, it’s more sophisticated and less
73
British singer-
songwriter Seal
won several
awards in the ’90s
74
HERE COME THE BOYS
cheesy than its forerunners from the ’90s. Fortunately, that

decade wasn’t all about the boys: if it was male singers
that interested you, and you’d had enough of groups like
Nirvana, Metallica and U2, there was a whole range of
non-boy, non-band solo artists to grip your attention.
Even though a lot of the ’60s’ and ’70s’ biggest artists
were somewhat past their prime, that didn’t mean they
weren’t doing good business two decades later. Take Paul
McCartney and Bob Dylan, for example, both of whom had
suffered a pretty uncool ’80s. If you’re not familiar with the
creative and fashion errors the two veterans committed in
that decade, let’s just say ‘Rupert Bear’ and ‘spandex’ and
leave it at that. But by 1990, these chaps were in their late
40s and mature enough to know that what the world
needed from them was well-crafted, singer-songwriter rock.
The same could be said for Tom Petty and Elton John,
slightly ageing gents who were maturing into reliable,
consistent hit-makers for a certain ‘vintage’ demographic.
An ’80s holdover with a similar audience, Bryan Adams,
scored hugely in 1991 with the theme to that year’s Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves.
On the other hand, some of the older chaps weren’t
about to mellow out just yet, and embraced the new,
widescreen awareness of the ’90s. One of these was
David Bowie, who ventured into drum’n’bass and got more
and more experimental as the years passed; another was
Prince, who spent too much time arguing with his record
company but still had a great first half of the decade.
OVEMENT
A WHOLE NEW NEO SOUL M
THE
EMERGED, SPEARHEADED BY
GOLDEN TONES OF SEAL
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson switched from slick soul
to taut pop with his massive Dangerous album in 1991,
Images Mike Prior/Getty Images (Seal), Simon Ritter/Redferns/Getty Images (Lenny Kravtiz), Rick Diamond/Getty Images (David Bowie),
although personal controversies dogged his progress
somewhat; George Michael took the pop world by storm,
with a smooth transition to balladry and dance music; and
even Black Sabbath’s bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne released
a couple of stonking solo albums in the ’90s, although he
Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Bob Dylan), Pete Still/Redferns/Getty Images (George Michael)
later transcended all expectations by starring in the MTV

series The Osbournes shortly after the end of the decade.
Serious rock music was where we were at, it seemed,
with even relatively new artists paying homage to the
music of previous generations. Lenny Kravitz played songs
that sounded as if they’d been recorded in 1976, receiving
massive acclaim in doing so, while a whole new neo soul
movement emerged in the middle of the decade,
spearheaded by the golden tones of Seal on his earlier TOP Lenny Kravitz, who had a chart-smashing hit with
hits. Senior neo soulers included D’Angelo, Maxwell, Keith ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’
Sweat and Usher, while Michael Bolton and Curtis Stigers MIDDLE LEFT David Bowie became more experimental in the ’90s
occupied a similar position, if more influenced by jazz and MIDDLE RIGHT Bob Dylan (pictured here with Sheryl Crow) won
Album of the Year in 1998 at the Grammy Awards for his
pop. Pure R&B was mostly the province of boy bands, but 1997 album Time Out of Mind
R Kelly made a decent stab at it too, despite a decline in ABOVE We heard more ballads and dance songs from
his popularity due to certain personal decisions, and George Michael in the ’90s
75
reggae entered the pop consciousness thanks to the

amusing antics of Shaggy.
Then there were the uncategorisables: male musicians
who pushed out boundaries without paying too much
allegiance to any particular earlier style. Beck was
definitely one of these artists, bringing us a blend of
experimental kitsch and grunge; Nick Cave, an Australian
with a pedigree going back to the ’70s, was another,
mashing up gothic ballads in 1995 with Kylie Minogue,
of all people. Dave Matthews, a South African who made
Americana his own, found a huge audience thanks to
his anthemic live performances.
Heavy metal’s most exciting new singer in years,
Marilyn Manson, outraged authorities from 1994 on, and
the sometime Smiths singer Morrissey built on a very
successful ’80s as he stepped into the new decade. Like
the aforementioned R Kelly, both of these artists have
subsequently blown it for various depressing reasons, but
in the ’90s, their music was absolutely vital.
Music that expressed emotion was important in the
’90s, a rarity among mainstream male singers until Nirvana
and other alternative bands made it the norm, and this was
reflected in the work of singer-songwriters such as Jeff
Buckley and Elliott Smith, both of whom broke their fans’
hearts with their early departures in 1997 and 2003
respectively. Taking the idea of the sensitive male even
further, there was a rise in popularity of country and
country-pop in the latter part of the decade, perhaps
because of an underlying fear of the impending millennium
and a resulting return to homegrown sentimentality.
This tendency peaked even further after the events of
9/11, of course, not long after this timeframe.
TOP Beck New country singers of the ’90s such as Tim McGraw
performing at were joined in their commercial success by old stagers
the 1997
such as Steve Earle, while the man who kickstarted the
V Festival
new wave was arguably Billy Ray ‘Miley’s Dad’ Cyrus,
ABOVE Metal whose massive 1992 hit ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ is now in your
singer Marilyn head. Still, the biggest seller of the lot was Garth Brooks,
Manson the emperor of the new country-rock sound, although even
he would defer to the great Johnny Cash, who scored
FAR LEFT MIDDLE
American
unexpected hits in his ’60s with the American Recordings
country star covers series, masterminded by producer Rick Rubin.
Garth Brooks Popular as guitar music was, the ’90s was also the
decade when electronica, dance music, EDM – or
LEFT MIDDLE
whatever label you prefer – really got up and running.
English DJ
Roni Size
Computing power had finally become fast and cheap
enough for studios to switch from tape to digital, and for
LEFT Moby took many former guitarists and drummers to abandon their
punk influences instruments altogether. This had profound implications
and brought
for a whole movement of bedroom songwriters and
them to the
world of
producers, some of whom became bona fide superstars.
dance music Moby was an early adopter of this new technology,
switching from hardcore punk to samples-based dance
music in time for his massive-selling Play album in 1999.
Goldie and Roni Size broke big around the same time with
the UK’s indigenous variant of hip-hop, drum’n’bass, while
techno and trance evolved out of Britain’s late-’80s and
early-’90s house and rave scenes, led off by the first star
DJs. These were producers, songwriters and often
76
drowning
who died in May
MAIN Jeff Buckley,
1997 by accidental
his hit single
‘Miss Misery’
rose to fame with
INSET Elliott Smith
HERE COME THE BOYS
77
Images Patrick Ford/Redferns/Getty Images (Beck), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Marilyn Manson), James Schnepf/Getty Images (Garth Brooks),
Bob Berg/Getty Images (Roni Size, Jeff Buckley), Brill/ullstein bild via Getty Images (Moby), Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Images (Elliott Smith)
RIGHT British DJ traditional musicians, although some people found that

Carl Cox became hard to believe, as their live show often consisted of
a household name
nothing more than a laptop. In the UK, DJs such as Carl
in the ’90s
Cox, Sasha, John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold and Pete Tong
MIDDLE RIGHT became household names, with more leftfield artists such
Pete Tong is as Aphex Twin injecting a rather darker tone into the
known for his otherwise uplifting music.
Essential Selection
At the same time, hip-hop – also largely electronic, also
radio show
largely samples-based – reached an enormous stature, and
MIDDLE FAR RIGHT unlike EDM it retains that market-leading position today.
In 1999, Paul The genre had always been personality-driven, with Ice-T
Oakenfold and Ice Cube emerging at the very end of the ’80s with
became the first
their own, confrontational music, but the new breed of
DJ to play on the
main stage at
rappers were nothing less than worldwide celebrities.
the Glastonbury By the middle of the decade, extra attention was
Festival focused on American hip-hop, where things had started to
get unpleasantly tense, with a supposed war between the
BOTTOM Eminem
East and West coasts brewing. This spilled over into actual
performing at The
Tramps in 1999
violence with the gangland murders of Tupac Shakur in
1996 and then The Notorious B.I.G. a year later. Second-tier
rappers such as DMX, Nas and LL Cool J also built
profitable careers, although their progress was, thankfully,
much smoother.
Standing to one side of the violence, and applying a keen
business awareness to the process of hip-hop, a few
IN N Y W H IT E K ID FR O M M ISSOURI TOOK
A SK JAY-Z AND
SM IT H , SE A N CO M B S A N D
ON WILL
M E T HE B IG GE ST R A P A R T IST IN HISTORY
BECA
78
HERE COME THE BOYS
Images Simon King/Redferns/Getty Images (Carl Cox), Michel Linssen/Redferns/Getty Images (Pete Tong, Eminem portrait), Naki/Redferns/Getty Images (Paul Oakenfold), Catherine McGann/Getty Images (Eminem 1999),
Vince Bucci/AFP via Getty Images (Will Smith), Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images (Sean Combs), Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G)
visionary hip-hop artists have elevated themselves to ABOVE Will Smith
billionaire status within a couple of decades of the early holding his
Grammy for
’90s. These include Jay-Z, whose marriage to the singer
best Rap Solo
Beyoncé Knowles has helped to make both partners two Performance
of the best-known people in the world; and Will Smith, in 1999
whose acting career has taken precedence but who
shifted several million albums in his time as a rap artist. ABOVE RIGHT X3
Sean Combs
The real elite in the male hip-hop world, though, are
(aka Puff
Sean Combs, better known to most of us as Puff Daddy, Daddy), Tupac
P-Diddy or just Diddy, as he’s changed his brand several Shakur and The
times over the years; Dr Dre, or simply Dre, who made Notorious B.I.G
his name as a producer, then as a rapper, and finally as
RIGHT Eminem
a business owner; and then Snoop Dogg, who emerged
became the
unscathed from a 1996 murder case and built a surprisingly biggest rap artist
family-friendly profile on the back of it. in history
One major name remains in ’90s hip-hop, perhaps the
biggest of them all. As the comedian Chris Rock once
quipped, “You know the world is going crazy when the
best rapper is a white guy, and the best golfer is a black
guy.” Here, he was referring to the golfer Tiger Woods – In a sense, Eminem’s unlikely story sums up the whole
and of course to Eminem, perhaps the most unlikely tale of male musicians in the ’90s. It was the decade when
success story in any genre of music. How a skinny white men’s roles evolved, when they began to see themselves
kid from Missouri took on Will Smith, Sean Combs and differently, and when their music expanded and morphed
Jay-Z and became the biggest rap artist in history is hard in different directions. In that sense, their story is very
to fathom, and definitely a bigger story than we have much of the ’90s – the decade when almost everything
space for here. changed, and not a moment too soon.
79
80
THE
AUSSIES
RULE
STREWTH! IT’S THE AU
STRALIAN INVASION!
WARNING: HIGH MULLE
T CONTENT…
here’s a very specific demographic of
T
American and British consumers of
popular culture, made up of people who
think that Australian music is all about
one word – the K-word. This is wholly
understandable, because Kylie Minogue, the
Neighbours soap star who made it big not once but
twice as a pop singer outside her home country,
enjoyed her first heyday from 1988 to 1992. If you were
between 12 and 16 years old at that point – in other
words, neither too young nor too old to enjoy the
super-lightweight pop music she was making at the
time – there was no other comparable Australian in
your viewfinder.
This is where we come in. Now, as we’ll see, popular
Australian music stretches far, far beyond Kylie, and the
Image Impressions/Getty Images
soap stars who followed her out of Melbourne and

Sydney’s TV studios and onto Top of the Pops.
81
Just as it was in the UK and USA, the Aussies had been TOP AC/DC released
listening to domestic and imported rock’n’roll as far back numerous hits in
the ’90s including
as the ‘50s, and by the ‘60s, the continent was enjoying
‘Thunderstruck’
a whole new wave of guitar music. By the following
decade, some seriously big guns had begun to emerge LEFT Nick Cave
out of the southern hemisphere, and the biggest of these, performing with his
ironically, was and remains a band that has had very few band, The Birthday
Party
Australians in its ranks.
This was, of course, AC/DC, the heavy rock group BELOW LEFT John
formed mostly of immigrants from Scotland and England Farnham’s ‘Chain
and co-founded by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. Reaction’ reached
They hit the big time with their second singer, the Number 1 in the
Australian charts
legendary Bon Scott, but tragically he died of acute alcohol
poisoning in 1980, after less than six years in the band.
The guys then recruited a Geordie by the name of Brian
Johnson to handle vocals, and AC/DC have been going
strong ever since. They’ve sold more than 200 million
records worldwide, and even released a worldwide
Number 1 album in 2020, pandemic or no pandemic.
AC/DC had contemporaries in the ‘80s, for sure, but they
tended to enjoy mostly domestic success rather than
making a lasting impact abroad – singers such as Jimmy
Barnes and John Farnham (both of whom had arrived in
Australia as kids) among them. It was tough to translate
that success overseas, and only Nick Cave really pulled it
off back then, largely because he moved to London in 1980
with his band The Birthday Party. An Australian punk band,
The Saints, were relatively obscure around the same time,
but like Cave they have since been credited as pioneers in
their niche. Amazingly, they’re also still in business today.
82
THE AUSSIES RULE
TOP INXS saw

international
success with their
1990 album X
FAR LEFT ‘Weather

with You’ was one
of many hits for
Crowded House
LEFT Singer
Michael
Hutchence of
INXS performing
at Wembley
Images Karl Walter/Getty Images (AC/DC), David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images (The Birthday Party), Peter Carrette Archive/Getty Images
Stadium
(John Farnham, INXS), Paul Natkin/WireImage/Getty Images (Crowded House), Dave Hogan/Getty Images (Michael Hutchence)
Two rock bands kept our awareness of Aussie talent know more Crowded House songs than you think you do’,
keen throughout the ‘80s. The first was INXS, whose and they were absolutely right.
frontman Michael Hutchence was a pin-up on many That extended history lesson brings us to the beginning
a bedroom wall throughout the decade and into the next: of the ‘90s, when Australian pop music being successful in
most people are surprised to learn that his band formed Britain and the USA basically meant dance-pop songs sung
way back in 1977, as the punk wars raged. This is because by imported soap opera stars. Most of us seemed to have
INXS didn’t really hit big until 1984, much longer than most temporarily forgotten the sterling rock heritage that Oz had
bands usually persevere before calling it a day. Like Bon given us, as detailed above, apart from the headbangers
Scott, Hutchence too was denied a long life, dying by who still flew the flag for AC/DC.
suicide in 1997. But we were wrong to be so shallow. Quite aside from
The other major Aussie rock band of the ‘80s was the the TV-stars-turned-musicians phenomenon, which we
amazing Crowded House, formed in ’85 and enjoying hit will come to momentarily, the ‘90s charts were infiltrated
after hit in the UK, with ‘90s songs such as ‘Weather with by a diverse range of other Aussie bands. And we really
You’ and ‘Fall at Your Feet’. In later years they issued do mean diverse – a huge amount of stylistic ground
a best-of compilation with the marketing tagline, ‘You was covered.
83
FOR
SILVERCHAIR WERE MOCKED
LOOKING AND SOUNDING
JUST LIKE NIRVANA
ABOVE Yothu Men At Work and Midnight Oil, who’d each made their
Yindi combined names with a big hit in the ’80s, continued to do good work
traditional
into the next decade, with the latter a little more prominent
Aboriginal music
because they diligently pursued an ecologically progressive
with pop and rock
agenda. Then there was the John Butler Trio, a group
RIGHT TOP John revolving on the celebrated folk-rock singer Butler, a self-
Butler Trio formed confessed hippie and activist whose profile has steadily
in ’98 and would
grown at home and abroad since those days. The absolutely
go on to find
mesmerising Dead Can Dance, an experimental duo who
audiences both at
home and abroad defy convention with their blend of folk and art-rock, also
commanded a small but loyal following through the decade.
RIGHT BOTTOM They split in 1998 but have reformed and are touring again.
Brendan Perry and
Two other groups really defined where Australian
Lisa Gerrard of
popular music was at in the ’90s. The first, Silverchair, were
Dead Can Dance
roundly mocked by the press worldwide for one simple
reason: they looked and sounded exactly like Nirvana.
If you could get past that considerable hurdle, though, their
brand of grunge was definitely enjoyable. American rock
music was hugely influential in Australia, just as it was in
the UK, so it was a little cruel of the members of the press
to dig in as hard as they did.
84
THE AUSSIES RULE
A more complex situation arose with the emergence

of Yothu Yindi, a part Caucasian, part Aboriginal group.
This band combined rock music with traditional native
Australian instrumentation and vocals, and while that
was fine on paper, more switched-on listeners asked
themselves if there was something a little exploitative
about diluting Aboriginal music for an audience that was
largely white.
At the same time, the very fact of Yothu Yindi’s existence
Images Steve Eichner/WireImage/Getty Images (Yothu Yindi), Martin Philbey/Redferns/Getty Images (John Butler Trio), Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images (Dead Can Dance),
brought the social and economic issues faced by the
Aboriginal community to light, which could only be a good
thing, although that too led to a few difficult discussions –
TOP Midnight Oil
Gie Knaeps/Getty Images (Midnight Oil), PA Images/Alamy (fans), dpa picture alliance/Alamy (Peter Andre), Peter Pakvis/Redferns/Getty Images (Silverchair)
largely to do with the complicated relationship that much
carried on their
of white Australia has with its indigenous population, just success from
as America does with its own. That conversation is too big the ’80s with
for the space we have here, and indeed most people who international hits
heard Yothu Yindi found the subject too difficult to discuss,
ABOVE LEFT Fans
which meant that the group never really achieved
gathering at a
significant success. record store with
Much less challenging material came from exported copies of Peter
Aussies to Britain such as Peter Andre, who had actually Andre’s single
been born in London but headed Down Under at the age
ABOVE RIGHT
of six. Having built a reasonably successful musical career
Silverchair
in Australia by the mid-’90s, Andre really broke big with the led Australia’s
release of a single, ‘Mysterious Girl’, in 1996. alternative and
As you’ll know from our boy bands feature elsewhere in grunge rock scene
this collection, handsome chaps with sculpted abdomens
LEFT Peter Andre
were all the rage among pop audiences by that point in the
burst onto the
’90s – did no one ever do crunches in the ’80s? – and the scene with his hit
accompanying video to ‘Mysterious Girl’ was, you could ‘Mysterious Girl’
reasonably argue, as responsible for his success as the
song itself. Andre’s six-pack, like those of the two dancers
who accompanied him, was frankly astounding, and
responsible for a whole wave of new and renewed gym
memberships throughout the Western world.
85
M E YEA R S, K YLI E A N D JASON MATCHED

FOR SO
CH O T H ER ’S PA CE TO FA M E AND FORTUNE
EA
ABOVE Kylie Slightly less reliant on doing a million sit-ups a day, the over the entire world, with a long and successful string of
Minogue and band Savage Garden enjoyed immense UK success single and album hits. Her biggest early single, ‘I Should
Jason Donovan throughout the ’90s. Like Crowded House before them, Be So Lucky’, predated the ’90s by a couple of years, but it
this Brisbane duo – Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones – established a recognisable template for her sound that only
ABOVE RIGHT Gina
G provided the issued a sequence of under-the-radar hits that people sang ceased when she broke away from SAW around 1993.
United Kingdom and whistled incessantly without realising they were doing Kylie’s other big ’90s hit – and remember, she returned
with its 1996 it. ‘To the Moon and Back’ and ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ set with even bigger hits in the 2000s, so her story doesn’t end
Eurovision entry out the Garden stall in 1996 and ’97, and for the next few here – introduces us neatly to our next Aussie hitmaker,
years, they were inescapable. Jason Donovan. Their duet, the immortal ‘Especially for
Remember ‘Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit’? No, this wasn’t You’ (1988), had launched Donovan to stardom in the UK,
a request for Vegemite, Australia’s other great cultural and for some years he and Kylie matched each other’s pace
export, to be spread on your toast. This was a mercilessly upwards into fame and fortune. However, Donovan soon
catchy chunk of dance-pop, sung by Melbourne DJ Gina G, lagged behind, lacking memorable songs, and eventually
or Gina Gardiner to her accountant, in 1996. Unusually found himself a regular in theatre and panto. All these
given her provenance, the song was Britain’s Eurovision years later, he’s still popular among British audiences,
Song Contest entry that year, and even more unusually, perhaps because we love nothing more than an underdog.
it did rather well, managing eighth place – an unthinkable On which note, if we’re talking about underachievers
result nowadays. Released after the contest, the song who failed to meet their theoretical potential, look no
became a major chart hit thanks to its eager-to-please further than the parade of Australian soap actors who tried
vocals and big beats: it remains the UK’s least-terrible and failed to emulate the British success of Kylie and
Eurovision entry in at least four decades. Jason. The two primary soap operas from which they
In a sense, Gina G’s hearty welcome in the UK – to the came – Neighbours and Home and Away – were massively
extent that Brits even sent her over the top to do battle in popular in Britain, enamoured as we were by their sunny
Europe – was predictable. Britain had been a popular weather and spiralling vocal intonation, but that didn’t
destination for Aussie exports since the arrival of – drum necessarily mean we wanted the actors themselves over
roll – the genuinely great Kylie Minogue, who we’ve here, taking up space on our Friday-evening talk shows.
already mentioned in this feature because she was One Aussie soap alumnus to fall at the first hurdle
absolutely central to this unique phenomenon. was Craig McLachlan, although he did at least score
As readers of a certain age will recall, songs by the a mid-sized hit before relative obscurity came calling.
production team Stock Aitken Waterman held sway over On paper, this musclebound mullet-wearer should have
the British pop charts for what felt like decades back then, hit big, as his TV character, Kylie’s on-screen brother
although they actually peaked commercially for a period of Henry Ramsay, was popular among viewing audiences.
10 years or so. They’d worked on Dead Or Alive’s ‘You Spin However, although his 1990 single ‘Mona’ was decent in
Me Round (Like A Record)’ in 1985, and Rick Astley’s big a forgettable way, that was it for McLachlan, who failed
hit in 1987 – yes, that one, but when they paired up with to repeat its success and returned to acting in television,
Kylie in 1987, it felt like a match that could potentially take film and musical theatre.
86
performing
at Melbourne
Savage Garden
Glasshouse in 1998
THE AUSSIES RULE
87
Images Tim Hall/Redferns/Getty Images (Kylie & Jason), Ian Vogler/Chris Grieve/Tim An/Mirrorpix/
Getty Images (Gina G), Martin Philbey/Redferns/Getty Images (Savage Garden)
MAIN Natalie INSET Dannii

Imbruglia’s cover Minogue saw
of ‘Torn’ has sold highs and lows
four million copies throughout the ’90s
88
THE AUSSIES RULE
ABOVE LEFT album, 1991’s Love and Kisses, Minogue Jr. lost her
Delta Goodrem commercial momentum and didn’t find her way again until
transitioned
six years later, when her album Girl found an audience who
from soap star
to singer enjoyed her reinvention as a dance artist. It’s interesting
to note that Kylie also experienced a mid-career plateau
ABOVE The before being reborn, also with an EDM direction, in the
Wiggles still early ‘00s. Something in the family genes, perhaps.
perform to
Just as the fad for Aussie TV stars turning to pop music
this day
seemed to be on the wane, Natalie Imbruglia emerged with
FAR LEFT Craig a huge hit in 1997. ‘Torn’ was a highly catchy slab of melodic
McLachlan’s rock, and had been a hit twice over in Europe for other
debut album, bands. Imbruglia’s version, with its slick production and
Craig McLachlan
emphasis on her plaintive vocals, found a ready audience,
& Check 1-2,
Mind you, he was a music megastar compared to the was a Top 10 hit and a star was effectively born. She went on to sell more
fate of his Neighbours comrade Stefan Dennis, who should than 10 million albums before returning to acting for a few
never, ever have been allowed into a recording studio. His LEFT Neighbours years, but released another album in September 2021.
sole single of note, ‘Don’t It Make You Feel Good’, had had actor Stefan Other ex-soap stars have had a go at music since the
Dennis returned
Images Paul Bergen/Redferns/Getty Images (Natalie Imbruglia), Mike Prior/Getty Images (Dannii Minogue), Robert Cianflone/Getty Images (Delta Goodrem),
the opposite effect in 1989, and although he continued to ’90s – Delta Goodrem among them – but none have
to acting
give music a go in the early ’90s, he soon got the message managed to hold on to their fame on a sustained basis.
Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Craig McLachlan), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Stefan Dennis), Matrix/GC Images/Getty Images (The Wiggles)
after a failed
and returned to acting. Dennis made the wise decision to music career Perhaps the stars aligned for the TV-to-charts conversion
return to Neighbours in the ‘00s, where he continues to back then in a way that particularly suited the times, before
play the same character, Paul Robinson, who’d surely been ‘date TV’ vanished and everything on television became
part of the reason why his music career failed. Robinson, less important because you could stream it whenever
a mean-spirited businessman, didn’t exactly translate to you liked. Still, the Australian Invasion was a very real
pop accessibility, as much as Dennis tried to distance phenomenon back then, and if you added up the airtime
himself from the character he played on screen. hours afforded to those imported musicians’ songs since
Then there was The Twins, another Stock Aitken those days, you’d end up with a very large number indeed.
Waterman project that didn’t exactly set the charts alight. All of the above notwithstanding, how about this
Two sisters, Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, had played twins amusing fact? The biggest band to come out of Australia
called Christina and Caroline Alessi in Neighbours before in the ’90s – even bigger than AC/DC, for heaven’s sake –
attempting to ‘do a Minogue’ and become pop stars. was a quartet called The Wiggles. You’re unlikely to have
A 1991 single, ‘All Mixed Up’, reached Number 74 on the heard of them unless you’re younger than 15, or you have
Aussie charts, followed by a couple more single releases in young kids. This slightly bizarre group, made up of four
the UK in 1993 and 1994… and that was that for The Twins, super-energetic adults in brightly coloured clothes, perform
although they continued to make the occasional TV and songs for pre-teens, have their own TV show and tour the
stage appearance throughout the ’90s. world, making millions upon millions of Aussie dollars.
As it turned out, the only other actress to really ‘do They’re one of their home country’s biggest commercial
a Minogue’ was a Minogue herself – Kylie’s younger sister exports – comparable in dollar value even to Aussie expats
Dannii, who had served time on Home and Away before like Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman – and show absolutely
packing her bags for Heathrow. After a successful debut no sign of going away. You couldn’t make it up, could you?
89
THE THRILL
IS
IN THE 19 90
GONE
S, M IC HA EL
ST
JA
IT
CKSO N’S FORTUNES WANED
S CHARM: WE LOOK BA
CK AT
AND HI S PR OF IL E LO
OM GRACE
THE ULTIMATE FALL FR
n the celebrity-obsessed age in which we live,
I
TOP The Jackson
it is possible to know almost everything there Family from left
is to know about a person. A given superstar’s to right: Jackie,
Tito, Marlon, their
every thought, word and deed is chronicled
father Joe, Randy,
permanently through social media, with the Jermaine and
result that we sometimes think we know them Michael
personally. In some cases, this is probably true, or
almost true. In other cases, what we think is the truth MIDDLE LEFT
Michael’s breakout
is far from it – and in still other cases, it’s virtually
solo album Off
impossible to know what is accurate and what is not. the Wall
The late Michael Jackson falls into this last category.
His career has been recorded, analysed and discussed MIDDLE RIGHT
in minuscule detail for several reasons, one being that Michael at the
opening of the
his talent was undoubtedly huge and another being
stage musical
that much of his music was spectacularly good. In the Dream Girls (1983)
mid-1980s, when he was in his late 20s, he could do
no wrong in the eyes of his public: we all thought BOTTOM
we knew the man behind the smile. A series of Joe Jackson,
Michael’s father
damaging revelations over the next two decades,
and manager
however, left his image tarnished at best and
irrevocably destroyed at worst – and when he died in
2009 at the age of only 50, his early death seemed to
be just another instance of melodrama in a long line of
similar, Jackson-related incidents.
Born in Gary, Indiana on 29 August 1958, Jackson
grew up with sisters Rebbie, La Toya and Janet, and
brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Randy. Their
father Joe Jackson, a musician, formed Jackie, Tito,
Jermaine, Marlon and Michael into the Jackson Brothers
in 1964, and as his sons later recalled, was an infamously
tough taskmaster, dishing out whippings to keep the
boys in line. The group soon became the Jackson 5 and
began touring the USA from 1966; by 1970, they were
scoring hits such as ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’ and ‘I’ll Be
There’. In the early ’70s, Jackson launched a solo career,
paving the way to his later solo stardom, although he
initially remained a member of the family group.
In 1979, Jackson’s fifth solo studio album, the 20 million-
selling Off the Wall, brought him major stardom,
90
Jackson performing
halftime show in 1993

THE THRILL IS GONE
91
during Super Bowl XXVII
Images Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (Jackson family, Joe Jackson), Blueee/Alamy (Off The Wall),
Frank Edwards/Fotos International/Getty Images (Dream Girls), George Rose/Getty Images (Super Bowl)
BELOW thanks to singles such as the still-gripping ‘Don’t Stop ’Til You Jackson’s nose also changed in shape and size due to
Throughout his Get Enough’. Awards began to pour in, but all this adulation several surgeries: when he was accused once more of
career, Michael
was nothing compared with the tsunami of fame and attempting to deny his African-American heritage, he
has had a range
of iconic outfits
fortune that followed 1982’s Thriller, the bestselling album of explained that a nose injury that caused breathing
all time, both in the USA and elsewhere. It sold 70 million problems had necessitated the operations.
MIDDLE TOP By the copies and was the first LP to launch seven Top 10 singles. He could well have been telling the truth about both the
mid-’90s, Michael You know the titles, because ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Beat It’ and skin colour and nose problems, but the problem as the
was barely
‘Thriller’ are now part of pop music’s DNA. The New York ‘90s began was that no one was taking him seriously
recognisable
Times accurately wrote, “In the world of pop music, there is anymore. The media had started labelling him ‘Wacko
MIDDLE BOTTOM Michael Jackson and there is everybody else.” Jacko’ after a series of stories that painted him in an odd
Thriller sold 32 You may well ask yourself how such a mighty career light – such as his ownership of a pet chimp named
million copies in could ever be derailed – and the answer is that it happened Bubbles, his habit of sleeping in an oxygen tent, the
its first year
in small, but relentless, increments. At first, a sequence of construction of his private fairground Neverland, and so on.
BOTTOM RIGHT
relatively minor decisions made Jackson look merely None of these things made Jackson a criminal, and
Michael’s pet eccentric rather than threatening: the most lasting of these indeed his 1991 album Dangerous was another huge
chimp, Bubbles was a perceived change in his skin colour, which grew success, along with the super-catchy single ‘Black or
noticeably paler between the Thriller years and the also White’. His charitable efforts were immense, too, with
very successful Bad album of 1987. The media speculated millions donated to various causes, and he might well have
that he was bleaching his skin in order to appear Caucasian; lived out his career simply as a successful musician with
Jackson denied this, explaining that he suffered from an unusual private life, had it not been for accusations of
vitiligo, in which areas of skin lose their pigment over time. the sexual abuse of a child in 1993.
“It is something I cannot help,” said Jackson at the time. This came from a Los Angeles-based dentist called Evan
“When people make up stories that I don’t want to be Chandler, who publicly stated that Jackson had abused his
who I am, it hurts me. It’s a problem for me. I can’t control 13-year-old son Jordy the previous year, the two having
it. But what about all the millions of people who sit in the met through the boy’s stepfather, who had rented a car to
sun to become darker, to become other than what they the singer. Chandler’s attorney cited the opinion of a
are? Nobody says nothing about that.” psychiatrist that there was ‘reasonable suspicion’ of sexual
abuse, and negotiations began for a settlement, after a
$350,000 offer from Jackson was rejected. A subsequent
lawsuit for a list of offences – sexual battery, seduction,
willful misconduct, intentional infliction of emotional
distress, fraud and negligence – was settled for an
undisclosed sum in January 1994; in the autumn of that
year, the criminal investigation was closed.
Terry Lott/Sony Music Archive via Getty Images (Thriller), Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images (Bubbles)
Images Luke Frazza/AFP/Getty Images (iconic outfits), Andrew Shawaf/Online USA/Getty Images (mid-’90s),
92
THE THRILL IS GONE
CKSO N BEGA N TO SE EM LI KE A SEVERELY

JA
RSON
TROUBLED, TRAUMATISED PE
Although Jackson’s guilt was never proven because it
was never tested in court, then as now a charge of child
sexual abuse is among the most damaging that any
individual can receive. His long-standing endorsement of
Pepsi was cancelled, followed by that of the Dangerous
World Tour as his health suffered in the wake of the lawsuit.
A lengthy interview with Oprah Winfrey had revealed in
1993 that Jackson suffered from extreme loneliness and
the mental consequences of abuse from his father, and in
tandem with the legal issues he was facing, Jackson began
to seem like a severely troubled, traumatised person.
He also suffered from various physical ailments, some of
which had led to cancelled performances. In 1993, two
shows in Thailand were called off because he was
dehydrated; one in Singapore because of a migraine; TOP Neverland
Ranch,
another in Chile because of a back problem; one in Peru
Michael’s home
because of a muscle tear; and yet more because of tooth and amusement
Images John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images (Nerverland Ranch), Olaf Selchow/Getty Images (Berlin),
abscesses. Given the excessive physical requirements of park from 1988

the dance routines in Jackson’s performances, plus the until 2005
Alain Benainous/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (w/ Jordy Chandler), Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy (Pepsi)
rigours of touring, any or all of these excuses could have

MIDDLE LEFT
been legitimate – but the public were definitely starting to
Michael holding
lose patience with the supposed King of Pop. eight-month-
Finally, Jackson announced in late 1993 that he was old son Prince
addicted to painkillers, the consequence of a severe scalp Michael II over
burn incurred while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984: a balcony in
Berlin
this statement triggered equal amounts of sympathy and
sarcasm. It was difficult to discount the story of his MIDDLE RIGHT
childhood abuse, especially as his unrepentant father Joe Jackson and
Jackson refused to apologise for the way he had treated Jordy Chandler
his youngest son.
RIGHT Pepsi’s
Marlon Jackson once stated that when Michael was a
promotional
child, Joe had held him upside-down by one leg and deal with the
“pummelled him over and over again with his hand, hitting Jacksons cost
him on his back and buttocks.” In addition, Joe was alleged $5 million
93
to have climbed into his son’s bedroom through the window, TOP Michael
wearing a mask and screaming, in order to teach his would host
charity events
children not to leave the window open at night. Jackson was
for children at
said to have suffered nightmares as a consequence, and he his Neverland
later talked of the nausea he felt in his father’s presence. Ranch
At the same time, Jackson himself had faced – and
essentially paid off – very serious charges of abuse RIGHT Lisa Marie
Presley married
himself, making it impossible to support him. By the
Michael in 1994
mid-’90s, he seemed to be a deeply damaged person who
didn’t quite inhabit the same plane as the rest of us. He BELOW RIGHT
underwent rehab for his painkillers addiction, but no one Debbie Rowe
knew if the treatment had worked: his early death would was Jackson’s
dermatologist
seem to indicate, in retrospect, that it had not.
before the two
All of the above was the background to Jackson’s later married in 1996
decisions to become a husband and father, developments
that hardly seemed sensible to any sane observers. His
first wife was none other than Lisa Marie Presley, the
Images Kim Kulish/AFP via Getty Images (Neverland Ranch), Marka/Alamy (Lisa Marie Presley),
daughter of the late Elvis, himself a tremendously troubled

character whose lifestyle had led him to a premature death
in 1977. Apparently friends for some years, the two mega-
celebrities married on 26 May 1994 and remained together
Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images (Debbie Rowe)
for two years, which is, perhaps, not a bad outcome for a
couple with circumstances as bizarre as theirs.
On 13 November 1996, Jackson married his
dermatologist Debbie Rowe, an apparently pragmatic
non-celebrity who had been treating his vitiligo for many
years. Two children, a son Michael ‘Prince’ Jackson, Jr. and
a daughter, Paris-Michael Jackson, were born in 1997 and
’98, while a second son, the similarly named Prince Michael
Jackson, came from an anonymous surrogate mother in
2002, after the marriage of Jackson and Rowe had ended.
94
THE THRILL IS GONE
It is a sign of the strange, catastrophic nature of

Jackson’s private life in the ‘90s that it obscured his
continued success as a singer. The 1995 compilation
HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I was a major
seller, leading to a massive, two-year world tour, and
although it was his last album of the decade, he remained
in the public eye, scooping awards, raising money for
charity and causing minor controversy here and there. A
falling-out with his record company and the laborious
ABOVE The singer
making of his final album, Invincible – not released until
claimed that
the various 2001 – occupied his final years of productivity.
operations on his Jackson’s last decade falls mostly outside the remit of
nose were to help this article: it can be summed up as a perfect storm of
with breathing more child molestation accusations, time spent in court, Images Los Angeles Times/AFP via Getty Images (operations), Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (touring), anta
battles with poverty and large-scale, largely hidden drug

Barbara County Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images (Police mugshot), Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images (children)
TOP RIGHT Michael

continued to tour abuse. His death in 2009, after an overdose of the pain-
through the ’90s reliever propofol by his personal physician Conrad Murray
despite all of the led to a cardiac arrest, took no one by surprise, although
events going on the grief felt by millions of still-loyal MJ followers was very
in his life
real. The list of celebrities who lined up to pay posthumous
INSET Police tribute to him was astonishing, although we say that from
mugshot after today’s point of view, when child abuse allegations against
the singer was Jackson are still active and his reputation is lower than it
arrested in 2003 has ever been.
It is impossible to wholly condemn or support Michael
RIGHT Michael’s
children: Paris, Jackson, because we simply do not know the truth about
Prince Michael what he did, or did not, do. He was a strange man, that’s
I and Prince for sure, and he was a master musician – we know that
Michael II too. Was he guilty of the accusations made against him?
It’s possible, but we will never know the truth. Sometimes
life is like that, unfair as that may be.
95
IN €UROPE
WE TRUST
THE ’90S WAS THE DECA
DE WHEN
POP RULED THE
EURODANCE AND EURO BUTTON!
WORLD. DJ, HIT THAT
he world has always had a slightly unusual Although ‘60s Euro-music pretty much meant terrible
T relationship with mainland Europe. We love

their food, weather and culture, but we mock
their politicians and their fashions. As for our
attitudes towards European music, that’s
perhaps the weirdest dynamic of all: we laugh at it, and
yet we love it. What’s that about?
crooners like the French Sacha Distel, the Spanish
Julio Iglesias and whatever drivel won Eurovision in a
given year, by the mid-’70s people were flocking to
Ibiza, where disco made the clubs of the ‘White
Island’ a desirable destination for the more culturally
switched-on music fan.
European pop and dance music was never nuttier than In 1974 we all fell in love with ABBA, the toothy
the ‘90s, when music fans worldwide welcomed in a Swedish quartet who scored no fewer than 20 Top
whole range of diverse Euro-tunes with open arms. A lot 10 hits and nine chart-topping albums in the UK
of it was great, but a lot of it was utterly cheesy, a alone. If you were less easily impressed, you
combination that pretty much sums up all of life in that might have preferred the stony-faced seriousness
curious decade, when we all thought dial-up internet and of Kraftwerk, the amazing German synth
the PlayStation 1 were as cool as you could get. pioneers, but everyone – and we mean
There was, of course, a long and entertaining tradition of everyone – shook a leg to the glorious sounds
European-made music finding an unlikely home overseas. of Donna Summer and her Italian producer
96
IN EUROPE WE TRUST
MAIN Danish
singer Whigfield
TOP The best-

selling Swedish
band, ABBA
MIDDLE Donna
Summer and
her producer
Giorgio Moroder
BOTTOM Neneh
Mariann Karlsson
aka Neneh Cherry
Giorgio Moroder when they

released ‘I Feel Love’ in 1977.
Echoes/Redferns/Getty Images (Summer/Moroder), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Neneh Cherry)
Still, the idea of credible music

Images dpa picture alliance/Alamy (Whigfield), Olle Lindeborg/AFP via Getty Images (Abba),
coming from somewhere that wasn’t

British or American – okay, maybe Australia too for
AC/DC fans – seemed novel, that is until the Norwegian
trio A-ha arrived in 1982 and had redefined the pop
landscape by ’85. Still, other mid-’80s hits from the Italian
Baltimora (‘Tarzan Boy’) and the Swedes Europe (‘The Final
Countdown’ – and yes, that is a pop song) were essentially
novelty songs. By 1987, more Swedes – this time a duo,
Roxette – kicked off a long run of catchy hit singles with
‘It Must Have Been Love’, which appeared on that year’s
Pretty Woman soundtrack.
Neneh Cherry – bet you never knew she was Swedish,
eh? – made some inroads into credibility in 1989,
97
although she was up against some serious commercial

competition that year thanks to ‘Ride On Time’ by the
Italian group Black Box. See also Technotronic, the only
Belgians in this article, who straddled the ‘80s to ‘90s
divide with a series of nifty dance hits, including ‘Pump Up
The Jam’ (1989), ‘This Beat Is Technotronic’ (1990) and
‘Move That Body’ (1991).
Given all the above, the scene was basically set for the
‘90s, when imported European music was a wholly bizarre
mixture of coolness and cheese, even though it was
incredibly popular. At first, the European invasion took the
form of house and dance music. A German band, Snap!,
had two monstrous hits in 1990 and 1992 with ‘The Power’
and ‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’ respectively. Next, yet another
Swede, Dr Alban, did his thing with ‘It’s My Life’ before
vanishing. After that, Ace of Base, who were – guess
what? – Swedish, scored their first UK hit with ‘All That She
Wants’, a strangely haunting pop-reggae confection.
It turned out that Ace of Base were assisted by a hit
factory in Stockholm called Cheiron Studios, run
by songwriters Denniz Pop (possibly not his real name)
and Max Martin, who went on to write and/or produce hits
for Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, NSync and Westlife.
Who knew?
C
IMPORTED EUROPEAN MUSI
WAS A WHOLLY BIZARRE
MIXTURE OF COOLNESS
AND CHEESE
A procession of super, super-lightweight dance hits
followed in 1993, the first ‘Great Year’ of Europop. A Dutch
act, 2 Unlimited, had enjoyed a hit two years before with
the adrenalised ‘Get Ready For This’, but they really hit big
in 1993 with ‘No Limit’, on which you may recall their
rapper Ray Slijngaard hilariously bellowing, “Techno techno
techno techno!”
Rather more affection was felt by the public for ‘Saturday
Night’ by Whigfield, a Danish/Italian collaboration, probably
because the song made no attempt to be sophisticated:
they simply wrote a song about Saturday nights called
Images Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images (Technotronic), XAMAX\ullstein bild via Getty Images
‘Saturday Night’ and shot a video of someone getting

(Dr Alban), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc (Ace of Base), Tim Roney/Getty Images (Robyn)
ready to go out on a Saturday night. Nice and simple, as

pop music should always be.
A deeper, more synth-based, generally more trippy
sound came out of Italy in ’93, with the swooshy, cosmic
sounds of USURA’s ‘Open Your Mind’ and Cappella’s ‘U
Got 2 Let the Music’ encouraging clubbers to have it large.
Swedish DJ Stakka Bo issued the funky ‘Here We Go’ the
same year, while the German project Culture Beat sang
about someone called ‘Mr Vain’.
TOP LEFT Ya Kid K and MC Eric of Technotronic The real hit of 1993 wasn’t some cheesy Eurodance act,
TOP RIGHT Hip-hop reggae artist Dr Alban although she was European and her music was definitely
MIDDLE Ace of Base danceable: this was the Icelandic songwriter Björk, whose
BOTTOM Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn phenomenal first album Debut wasn’t quite like anything
98
IN EUROPE WE TRUST
we’d heard before. In truth, we shouldn’t really be ABOVE Icelandic

mentioning Björk in the same context as 2 Unlimited, just singer-
songwriter Björk
as you wouldn’t mention David Bowie in the same breath
as New Kids on the Block. Still, her genius is such that RIGHT Turbo B
she reshaped our view of what intelligent popular music and Thea Austin
could be from the European outskirts, just as she of Snap!
continues to do today.
BELOW RIGHT
Björk or no Björk, the dancey, poppy Euro-wave
Rednex’s
continued apace, with two more Swedish acts delivering ‘Cotton Eye Joe’
radically different examples of Scandinavian songwriting to was the song
us. The first was Robyn, whose album Robyn Is Here we loved to hate
spawned two hits, ‘Do You Know (What It Takes)’ and in the ’90s
‘Show Me Love’, the latter nicely positioned to cause

BELOW Dutch act
confusion because a similarly-named singer, Robin S, had 2 Unlimited
had a hit with a song of the same title three years before.
The other was Rednex, a name that will send a shiver
down the spine of many a parent of young children. Their
1994 hit ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ was almost demonically catchy,
but even worse, it came with its own attached line-dance
that kids made their parents watch, and then do, for
hours on end.
(Snap!), dpa picture alliance/Alamy (2 Unlimited), LademannMedia/Alamy (Rednex)
Images Steve Eichner/WireImage/Getty Images (Björk), Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
The only other song released that year that came close
to the occult power of ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ was the painful-
to-type ‘Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)’, reissued by
an affable old cove called Scatman John, or John Paul
Larkin to his financial adviser. A stutterer since birth, he
was a Californian pianist and singer who found that
jazz-style scat singing was unaffected by his speech
impediment. Moving to Germany and encountering a
producer who thought that scat vocals and dance
music could combine profitably, he recorded the
‘Scatman’ song, adopted the Scatman John
persona, and became an unexpected star in 1995,
99
BELOW Swedish at the age of 53. He spent his final years enjoying music from Sweden, Norway and Finland had previously
rockers The recognition for his music, albeit music in a different form to been confined to heavy metal and its subgenres. The
Cardigans
that which he might have expected. Cardigans were the most successful of these, finding
BELOW LEFT Livin’
It’s arguable that the quality of Europop and Eurodance fame with their contribution of the song ‘Lovefool’ to the
Joy’s singer improved in the second half of the ‘90s, as EDM soundtrack of the 1996 movie Romeo + Juliet. The
Janice Robinson production techniques improved and diversified. Italy’s following year, Neneh Cherry’s younger brother Eagle-Eye
Livin’ Joy did a decent job with ‘Dreamer’, a UK Number 1 Cherry appeared out of nowhere, it seemed, with a huge
BELOW MIDDLE
in 1995, and within a couple of years superior music by the hit called ‘Save Tonight’.
Eagle-Eye Cherry,
half brother of
German act Sash! and the brand-new French group Daft Another 1997 hit, ‘Torn’, was a major success for Natalie
Neneh Cherry Punk could be heard. The latter went on to a very Imbruglia, an Australian singer, but what most of her fans
successful career, peaking many years after the glorious completely failed to appreciate was that the song had
‘90s with the ubiquitous ‘Get Lucky’ in 2013 and then already been released not once but three times, twice in
calling it quits eight years after that. mainland Europe. Written by an American and British
As the decade passed and tastes matured, generally songwriting team in 1993, ‘Torn’ was first recorded by the
speaking, a bunch of Scandinavian pop-rock acts found Danish singer Lis Sørensen and then the American rock
success overseas – an unexpected development, as guitar band Ednaswap, before the American-Norwegian
singer Trine Rein had a minor hit with it in ’96. That’s the
beauty of Europe, summed up right there.
Into 1997, we were all in thrall to ‘Barbie Girl’, the slightly
dodgy (“You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere”)
but insanely hummable song by Aqua, a Danish band
whose ballad ‘Turn Back Time’ became a rather more
sophisticated hit the following year. Also in ’97, the
Icelandic group Sigur Rós released some interesting early
music, although you had to be paying careful attention as
they didn’t get really big until 2005.
An unlikely comeback took us by surprise in 1998, when
the German band Modern Talking – initially active from 1983
to ’87 – returned with a slew of hit songs, among them a
remix of their old hit ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’. The
same year, we met the hipster French band Air, whose early
singles included the effortlessly cool ‘Sexy Boy’. We also
encountered the rather less likeable ‘Blue (Da-Ba-Dee’)’ from
Images Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Images (The Cardigans), Concert Photos/Alamy (Livin’ Joy), Stephane De Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images
(Eagle-Eye Cherry), Peter Timm\ullstein bild via Getty Images (Modern Talking), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Daft Punk)
ABOVE French dance duo Daft Punk

LEFT Modern Talking: Thomas Anders and Dieter Bohlen
100
IN EUROPE WE TRUST
S W O R LDW IDE LO V ED T HE SMOOTH

AUDIENCE
R ES A N D SU B -BA SS O F EU RODANCE
TEXTU
Beat’ by a French DJ, Quentin Dupieux, better known as TOP Danish dance-
Mr Oizo (pronounced oiseau, the word for ‘bird’). The latter pop band Aqua
song wouldn’t have made it to the charts had it not been

LEFT Dutch
for the cuddly toy of the title, a stalwart of a TV campaign Eurodance group
advertising the Sta-Prest brand. Thanks to Eric, the song Vengaboys
was a hit and Oizo a one-hit wonder, but what the heck, it
was a lot of fun. BOTTOM Quentin
Dupieux aka Mr
The success of some of these songs, many of them
Oizo and Flat Eric
simply a laptop recording by a bedroom producer, left its
mark on homegrown music, make no mistake. EDM had
been thriving since the late ‘80s, with house and rave music
Italians Eiffel 65, who did us all a favour by not having any leading to techno and trance, with drum’n’bass operating in
more Number 1 hits afterwards, in the UK anyway. parallel – and audiences worldwide apparently loved the
The same year, the Dutch dance-pop act Vengaboys did smooth textures and sub-bass of the Eurodance sound.
‘a Rednex’ and kicked off a sequence of hits that were Check out the early Steps hits if you need evidence of how
definitely fun to listen to while being absolutely the Euro sound transplanted itself into teenage British pop,
Images Michel Linssen/Redferns/Getty Images (Aqua), Tim Roney/
Getty Images (Vengaboys), Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy (Mr Oizo)
unchallenging to the brain. Their mission was clearly stated not to mention the hundreds of dance remixes that every
on the worldwide hit ‘We Like To Party! (The Vengabus)’, CD single had back then.
then on self-explanatory ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom’, and European dance music remained hugely popular after
finally with their 1999 magnum opus, ‘We’re Going To the ‘90s, too. Shortly after the millennium, the world was
Ibiza’. The last of these, a retitled cover of a 1975 pop hit by treated to the Finnish band Röyksopp, the
the novelty band Typically Tropical, was almost terminally Italian DB Boulevard, the Swedish DJ Avicii –
catchy, and the Vengaboys’ best-known collection, The and then, the absolute low point of the
Party Album, went gold as a result. movement: the Swedish Crazy Frog.
The decade of dance came to a close with ‘9PM (Till I Remember that terrifying melody?
Come)’ from the Italian DJ ATB and the persuasive ‘Flat You do now...
THE RISE
AND F ALL
OF BRITNEY
THE LATE
BRITNEY SPEARS WAS POP
’90s’ MOST PROMISING ?
PPENED
PHENOMENON. WHAT HA
102
THE RISE AND FALL OF BRITNEY
he early ’90s, when so many of us were
T
listening to miserable men in plaid shirts
complaining about their lives, was hardly
a fertile era for uplifting teenage pop. Sure,
there were a bunch of boy bands, both newly
hatched or hanging on from the ’80s, doing their thing,
and the Spice Girls had given British music a kick in
the behind by 1996 – but when it came to American
female idols, pop fans in that country didn’t have many
homegrown artists to choose from.
As always in showbiz, the wheel of fashion turns
inexorably, and all it took for American pop to undergo
a much-needed rejuvenation was a single, shining star
– a face and voice that transformed her genre of music.
On 28 September 1998, that turning-point occurred when
an infectiously catchy new single, ‘...Baby One More Time’,
was released to radio and TV. In homegrown American
music at least, its impact would be felt for years to come.
The singer, Britney Jean Spears, made an immediate
impact for three reasons. One, the video was startling
– a montage of dance routines in which the 16-year-old
and colleagues performed in school uniform. Not remotely
graphic, but still sensual enough to make it a slightly TOP Britney in the
iconic music video
uneasy watch, the video was an immediate sensation
for ‘...Baby One
worldwide. Two, the song was effortlessly catchy, with More Time’
piano and vocal hooks coming at the listener at every
moment. Finally, there was Spears’ unusual vocal style, MIDDLE LEFT The
a mixture of nasal ad-hoc emoting and sweet soprano. singer with her
mother, Lynne
The song was a monster hit, however you chose to
define it. The lead single from the album of the same MIDDLE RIGHT
name, it sold 500,000 copies on its first day of release, ‘...Baby One
and stayed at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two More Time’ sold
weeks. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies, 500,000 copies in
its first day on sale
which is more than many long-established bands sell in
their entire careers. The song was nominated for a Grammy BOTTOM Receiving
award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance – although the Silicon CD
it didn’t win, with the Academy perhaps spooked by award for having
Spears’ slightly odd vocal style – and became the fastest- one of the Top 10
albums played
selling single ever by a female artist in the UK, where she
on computers
also became the youngest female artist ever to release in 1999
a million-seller.
How Spears got to this point was a classic story of
‘ambitious parents plus talented child’. Born on 2 December
1981 in McComb, Mississippi, Spears grew up in
Getty Images (Lynne Spears), ART Collection/Alamy (cassette), Getty Images (Silicon CD award)
Images L. Busacca/WireImage/Getty Images (main), Album/Alamy (music video), Barry King/
Kentwood, Louisiana, where she attended dance lessons

at the age of three and was singing on local stages
a couple of years later. She also took singing lessons and
studied gymnastics, winning state-wide competitions in
various talent shows.
In 1990 she auditioned for Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club
TV show, and although she didn’t make it onto the cast
on that occasion, the casting director passed her name to
a New York City talent agent called Nancy Carson. On
Carson’s recommendation, Spears and her mother Lynne
moved to New York so that the aspiring star could enrol at
the Professional Performing Arts School.
The move paid off, with Spears playing a few stage, TV
and commercial roles, but her biggest break to date
103
ITN EY JOIN ED T HE M ICK EY MOUSE CLUB IN

BR AN GOSLING,
GS IDE FUT UR E CELE BS RY
’92 ALON
IN TIM BE RLA KE A ND CH RISTINA AGUILERA
JUST
came when she was accepted onto The Mickey Mouse ABOVE Britney
(bottom right)
Images Everett Collection Inc/Buena Vista Television/Alamy (The Mickey Mouse Club),
Club in 1992 alongside an astonishing line-up of future

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc, Getty Images (American Music Awards, Larry Rudolph)
on The Mickey
celebs – Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling and her future
Mouse Club with
rival, Christina Aguilera, among them. Christina Aguilera,
For anyone who has witnessed stage-school kids and Justin Timberlake
their pushy parents in action – the former desperate for and Ryan Gosling
fame, the latter keen to make up for the celebrity they
LEFT At the
missed themselves – two things become immediately
1999 American
obvious. One, Spears was always going to make it big, Music Awards
whether as a singer, an actor or as a dancer. No one with
that combination of ability, ambition and good looks remains
by the wayside for long. Two, mental instability in Spears’
future career was always a very real outcome. The decades-
long boot camp of exertion and rejection that is the way up
104
to fame and fortune has a way of extracting a heavy price,

once that much-desired success has been achieved.
After The Mickey Mouse Club ran its course in ’94,
Spears returned to McComb and took up the life of
a relatively normal teenager, generally finding school
tedious. She still wanted to be a singer, citing Madonna,
Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston as her favourite
performers, and singing along with their albums as
practice for the career that lay around the corner.
Behind the scenes, progress was being made. In 1997,
Spears very briefly joined a girl group, the now-defunct
Innosense. The group was managed by Lou Pearlman,
who looked after Backstreet Boys. In parallel, Lynne
Spears asked an entertainment lawyer by the name of
Larry Rudolph to listen to her daughter singing a song by
TOP The Spears
Whitney Houston, ‘I Have Nothing’. Rudolph then had
family: Jamie,
a professional demo made of Spears signing a Toni Braxton Bryan, Jamie
track, and he and Spears pitched it to four record labels in Lynn, Britney
New York. Three of them said no. and Lynne
Two weeks after that visit, Rudolph took a call from staff
RIGHT Larry
at the fourth record label, Jive, who wanted to see her sing
Rudolph
again. On doing so, they offered her a deal and sent her
off to work on further demos with the producer Eric Foster FAR RIGHT
White. The results impressed the Jive president Clive Songwriter
Calder, and a full album was scheduled. Max Martin
As you can read elsewhere in this bookazine, a popular

RIGHT The girl
studio for pop music in the late ’90s was Cheiron Studios in group Innosense
Stockholm, Sweden, where a songwriter called Max Martin
wrote ‘…Baby One More Time’ and other songs for the BOTTOM
new album. By April 1998, most of the debut LP was Performing at
the MTV Video
recorded, and on returning to the USA, Spears promoted
Music Awards
the upcoming album with, believe it or not, a shopping mall
promotional tour. Here she played a four-song set,
accompanied by backing dancers, and although this sounds
like a fundamentally depressing experience, it paved the
way for her next move: supporting NSync on tour that year.
While a lot of work had gone into Spears’ rise from
obscurity to the point where she could finally leap to fame,
none of it had been particularly high-profile, which explains
why the late-1998 single and early-’99 first album
campaign was so unexpected for most of the public. The
single dominated the charts and airwaves at the end of
’98; the follow-up releases, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘(You Drive
Me) Crazy’, kept momentum going into the following
summer, as did the album itself, which came out on 12
dpa picture alliance/Alamy (Innosense), Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images (MTV Video Music Awards)
Images KMazur/WireImage/Getty Images (family), TT News Agency/Jan Collsiöö/Alamy (Max Martin),
January 1999. Within a month it had gone double

platinum, and it was a Number 1 hit in the USA and 14
other countries.
...Baby One More Time (the album) sold more than 10
million copies by the end of 1999, and the staff of the
three record companies who had rejected Spears just two
years before must have been kicking themselves. Imagine
saying no to an artist whose first album went on to sell 25
million copies and became the best-selling debut album by
any solo artist, ever, anywhere. Your boss wouldn’t be best
pleased with your performance.
The press were keen to heap praise on Spears. Rolling
Stone wrote, accurately enough given what followed, that
she “helped to usher in a new era for the [pop] genre that
had gone dormant in the decade that followed New Kids
105
On The Block… Spears would lead an army of pop stars”, LEFT

and Glamour magazine stated, “Not since Madonna [has] Christina Aguilera
a female artist affected the genre so profoundly.”

MIDDLE LEFT
The rush by the music industry to sign ‘the next Britney’ Kevin Federline
mere weeks after the first Britney had broken big, was
both hilarious and undignified. A wave of blonde, or nearly MIDDLE RIGHT
blonde, women singers in their early 20s or younger Britney’s
father, Jamie
followed in her wake, the most prominent of whom were
Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore. BOTTOM The
In fairness to them and their handlers, all were said to infamous kiss with
have been working on music in 1998, and therefore they Madonna at the
weren’t completely manufactured after Spears’ success… 2003 MTV VMAs
but it’s reasonable to assume that market conditions for

young female pop artists improved radically in early ’99,
thus hastening their ascent.
The quickest off the blocks after Spears – and most
commercially successful in her own right – was Christina
Aguilera, who didn’t really look or sound like her, but whose
blonde hairdo was enough for most people to assume
a similarity. What they shared was a fairly exploitative air of
sexuality: on tour in 1999, Spears had begun to attract
criticism in right-wing quarters for this very reason, but her
allure was at least implied rather than stated. Aguilera, or
at least whoever was guiding her, decided that a more
explicitly sexual vibe was the way to go, stating as much
on her first single ‘Genie in a Bottle’. This was a huge hit,
and now America had two new blonde singers to gossip
about, with a rivalry stoked between the singers by the
occasional inflammatory comment in the press.
THE RUSH BY THE MUSIC

T
INDUSTRY TO SIGN ‘THE NEX
BRITNEY’ WAS HILARIOUS
AND UNDIGNIFIED
Images MediaPunch Inc/Alamy (Christina Aguilera), Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage for Ketchum Entertainment Marketing
As for Jessica Simpson, she went in the other direction,

presenting a wholesome country-gal image that was
(Kevin Federline), Chris Farina/Corbis via Getty Images (Jamie Spears), Reuters/Win McNamee/Alamy (Madonna)
less provocative for the Bible Belt consumers who found

pretty much everything offensive. Her autumn 1999 single
‘I Wanna Love You Forever’ and debut album Sweet Kisses
made it clear that her message would generally be of the
family-friendly type. Mandy Moore’s image and sound
were broadly similar, annoying hardly anyone – quite a feat
in this place and time – and selling respectable numbers, if
rather less than the other three pop princesses of the class
of ’99. In any case, she went on to an acting career that
eclipsed her musical endeavours.
In retrospect, all this was just the usual sexist marketing
nonsense. Whichever way their images were spun – as
the church-choir angel or the sultry siren – the singers’
messages were not deep or complex. The idea was to sell
some records and concert tickets, and to contribute some
catchy songs to the pop canon, all of which was achieved
106
ABOVE The Free

Britney rally at
Washington, DC
LEFT A screen
at the Paris Las
Vegas hotel
advertising
Britney’s show
RIGHT An online
auction for
Britney’s hair
BELOW Her
performance
at the 2001
without too much effort. America, and by extension the MTV VMAs was
criticised by the
rest of the world, was all too happy to support a bunch of
animal rights
good-looking young women along their trajectory, at least group PETA In 2008, the aforementioned mental health issues saw
until the next big things in that field came along – which him appointed as her legal guardian, although she
Images Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images (Free Britney), Reuters/Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun/Alamy
(Las Vegas), Bruno Vincent/Getty Images (hair), Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (snake)
they duly did in the form of Katy Perry, Meghan Trainor, continued to record and perform. She was involuntarily
Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga. admitted to a mental health unit in April of 2019, causing
The year 2000 was when it all got really huge for a fan-led #FreeBritney movement to emerge on the social
Spears, with her second album, Oops!… I Did media platform TikTok. Celebrities aplenty
It Again, breaking sales records and notching saw fit to comment, and a documentary
up more than 20 million copies worldwide to called Framing Britney Spears helped
date. In the new millennium, mixed blessings towards the termination of the conservatorship
awaited the gal from Mississippi: legal in September 2021.
issues, a failed marriage to a dancer called None of this was a surprise to anyone familiar
Kevin Federline, drug rehab and an infamous with the maxim that ‘pop music eats its young’,
moment when she shaved her head in although it’s been sad to witness Spears
a moment of instability, all took place before 2008. struggling with life’s challenges. Let us hope she returns
Most recently, a very public battle has taken place to full health before long, and in the meantime, ask
over the conservatorship of Spears by her father, Jamie. yourself this: would you want to be a pop star?
107
GRE AT E ST
M US IC AL
O
MHE M EN TS
OF T
90s R THE
HOW WILL WE REMEMBE ESE
’90S? PERHAPS WITH TH
MOMENTS OF MADNES
S…
ooking back at the ’90s with the benefit of
L
hindsight – as well as a sense of humour –
it’s apparent that things were crazier in the
music industry than they’ve been in any
decade before or since. Sure, in the ’60s
everybody was stoned all the time, in the ’70s
everybody was headbanging, and in the ’80s
everybody looked truly ridiculous – but they didn’t
have Take That battling it out with Mr Blobby for the
Christmas Number 1 in 1993, Milli Vanilli admitting to
lip-syncing in 1990, and Prince changing his name to
an unpronounceable symbol for most of the decade,
did they?
We’ve split the biggest moments of the most vivid
decade of all into handy categories, but believe us, we’ve
barely covered a fraction of the wonderful, crazy, tragic,
bizarre and hilarious stuff that took place back then…
108
GREATEST MUSICAL MOMENTS OF THE 90s
DRESSED SS
FOR SUCCE
WHO EARNED, AND SPENT, CASH
BY THE TRUCKLOAD IN THE ’90S?
Feeling rich? You’re penniless compared to the late Michael
Jackson, who signed a deal in 1991 with Sony worth one
billion dollars (read that in the voice of Dr Evil from Austin
Powers). Nirvana did all right too, knocking MJ’s
Dangerous album off the charts the following January,
kickstarting grunge with their Nevermind LP and becoming
legends for all time. Bryan Adams set records with a
16-week Number 1 residency in the UK charts in ’91, even
though you’d think everyone in the world had heard
‘Everything I Do (I Do It For You)’ far too many times after
even, say, a month at the top.
If general excess is our theme here, how about those
good ol’ boys Guns N’ Roses, whose plangent ballad
‘November Rain’ broke records in 1992 when the
accompanying video cost one and a half million
bucks? The song itself was the longest single
ever to reach the US Top 20, clocking in at an
eye-watering nine minutes in length. Other big
numbers that year accompanied
the soundtrack album of The Bodyguard, the
Whitney Houston-starring film, which went on to
hit 17 times platinum and sell 45 million copies
worldwide. Imagine that nowadays, eh?
The 1994 debut album, Dookie, from pop-punks Green
Day was much more exciting, nabbing itself a diamond
certification thanks to the dollars invested by a blue-haired
demographic of punk kids, while in the UK the same year,
similar hysteria took place around Oasis and Definitely
Maybe, the country’s fastest-selling debut album at the
time. It wasn’t the first Britpop album, as you can read
Photoshot/Getty Images (McCartney), Diamond/Getty Images (Bryan Adams), Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns.Getty Images (Green Day)
elsewhere, but it was certainly among the most famous of
the movement’s early releases.
Images Paul Natkin/Getty Images (Guns N’ Roses), Anwar Hussein/Getty Images (Elton John), Blueee/Alamy (Spice Girls),
In 1996 the Spice Girls hit a massive home run with
their debut single ‘Wannabe’, which went on to occupy the
top spot in 31 countries – yes, you read that right. In fact,
they went on to enjoy Christmas number ones that year, in
1997 and in 1998, a gobsmacking achievement only
outdone in later years when The X Factor basically took
over the end-of-year slot.
Sadly, the biggest-selling single of the decade came
about through tragedy. When Diana, Princess of Wales
died in August 1997, her friend Elton John rewrote and
re-recorded his 1973 hit ‘Candle in the Wind’, the new
version of which sold more than 33 million copies, the
second highest ever after Bing Crosby’s 1942 mega-hit
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Guns N’ Roses set the record for most ‘White Christmas’. Two years later he was knighted by the
expensive music video; Elton John performs at Princess Diana’s Queen for his efforts, joining Sir Paul McCartney, who had
funeral; The Spice Girls went global with their debut single; Paul received a knighthood of his own in ’97. Apparently the
McCartney receiving his knighthood; Bryan Adams had the
longest run atop the UK singles charts; Green Day, who debuted Palace staff announced him to the Queen as ‘Sir John
with the seminal album Dookie in 1994 Elton’, which is brilliant, now we come to think of it.
109
TIME TO SPLIT...!
MUSICIANS WHO WENT SOLO AND
FACED THE CONSEQUENCES. SEE YA…
BELOW LEFT What do you do when you can’t stand your bandmates famous such splits were connected with Take That and the
Geri Halliwell left the anymore? Is the answer a) seek a healthy dialogue to Spice Girls, the biggest UK pop groups of the decade.
Spice Girls in 1998
resolve your mutual issues and reach greater mutual The former fractured when Robbie Williams set off on his
BELOW MIDDLE
understanding, or b) quit the band in a rage, sue them to own in July 1995, embarking on a solo career that eclipsed
Robbie Williams death and go public about how your solo career is going to that of his former band, whereas Geri Halliwell deserting
outshone his former be, like, totally awesome? the other Spice Girls happened in 1998. By strange
band Take That You know the answer. The ’90s was packed with famous coincidence, she and Williams were rumoured to be dating
musicians leaving their former friends in the lurch to go solo around this time. Other pop partings took place when
BELOW RIGHT
Former Eternal
– and either being successful, or facing mass public apathy Louise Nurding quit Eternal in 1995 and John Squire left the
member Louise and returning to the parent band. For some reason, this Stone Roses a year later, although neither could really pull
Nurding seemed to happen in British pop music quite a lot: the most off a solo career past the first couple of hits.
W IL LI A M S EM BA R K ED O N A SOLO CAREER
ROBBIE
EC LI PSED T H AT O F H IS FO RMER BAND
THAT
110
…AND TIME TO GET

BACK TOGETHER!
BANDS THAT REFORMED FOR ONE LAST
PAYDAY… ER, BECAUSE THEY MISSED
EACH OTHER SO MUCH
Roberta Parkin/Redferns/Getty Images (The Eagles), George Rose/Getty Images (The Go-Gos), Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images (The Sex Pistols)
Images Tim Roney/Getty Images (Geri Halliwell, Louise Nurding), dpa picture alliance/Alamy (Robbie Williams), Paul Harris/Getty Images (The Monkees),
The ’90s, while a genuinely progressive decade in before his murder 14 years previously, coming up with a ABOVE LEFT
many ways, was also an era of slightly nauseating couple of hit singles in doing so. These in turn led to the The Monkees
played two sold-
nostalgia, hence the popularity of flared trousers and fully realised Beatles Anthology project in 1995, a boxset,
out shows at
music from the ’70s. This might explain the rash of book and TV series that drew a line pretty well under the
Wembley Arena
band reformations that took place, beginning with legacy of their old band.
the 1990 reunion of the Go-Go’s, formerly the home Admitting candidly that the sweet smell of cash was the TOP RIGHT
of Belinda Carlisle. A less likely reformation occurred prime motivator, The Sex Pistols came together in 1996 The Eagles were
four years later when country-rock legends The Eagles and performed the Filthy Lucre World Tour. Original bassist the first band to
charge $100 for
put their mutual hatred on ice for the aptly titled Hell Glen Matlock replaced his replacement Sid Vicious, so to
concert tickets
Freezes Over Tour of the USA: the stress of having to speak, and the money rolled predictably in, so much so
be in the same room as each other was no doubt that the band executed several more such tours in the MIDDLE RIGHT
soothed by the ticket prices, the first in history to cost following decade. The Go-Go’s
more than $100 – although that’s a bargain these days. Finally, it was the turn of The Monkees, the ’60s reunited in 1990
An even more unexpected return came from The stalwarts, their rationale probably being ‘If The Beatles can
BOTTOM RIGHT
Beatles, or the ‘Threetles’ as some journalistic wit do it, we can do it too’. The quartet strutted their stuff for
The original Sex
nicknamed them. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and two sold-out concerts at Wembley Arena, before wisely Pistols lineup
Ringo Starr reconvened in ’94 to work on some leftover hanging it up once more. There is such a thing as leaving reunited in 1996
demo tapes, recorded by their late colleague John Lennon the crowd wanting more, after all. for a world tour
111
LIVE FANTASTIC
THE GIGS OF THE DECADE –
WERE YOU THERE?
If you were into going to gigs in the ’90s, you were spoiled TOP
for choice, with a number of huge events competing for The tribute
concert
your money and attention. There was the Nelson Mandela:
to Freddie
An International Tribute For A Free South Africa event in Mercury held at
April 1990 at Wembley, and the Stone Roses playing the Wembley
legendary Spike Island event in Cheshire the same year,
for starters. ABOVE RIGHT
Queen frontman
Also in 1990, former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters
Images Phil Dent/Redferns/Getty Images (concert, Freddie Mercury), om Stoddart/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Freddie Mercury
staged a massive performance of his old band’s 1979
(Roger Waters), Steve Rapport/Getty Images (Nelson Mandela), James Boardman/Alamy (Spike Island)
concept album The Wall in Berlin, Germany, to celebrate MIDDLE LEFT

the fall of that city’s own Wall eight months previously. Roger Waters
In 1991, Tushino Airfield near Moscow, Russia, was the performed at the
site of the Berlin
site of a gig by AC/DC and Metallica that is said to have
Wall in 1990
attracted anywhere between 800,000 and 1.5 million
people. A year later, the late Queen singer Freddie MIDDLE RIGHT
Mercury was commemorated with a star-studded Tribute Nelson Mandela
Concert at Wembley. at his tribute
concert in 1990
The Spike Island event above reportedly inspired the
youthful Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis to form a band, RIGHT Spike
who themselves broke attendance records for their Island, the
Knebworth and Maine Road gigs in 1996. The following concert that
year, the first Lilith Fair tour took place in the USA, inspired Oasis
becoming a benchmark of alternative culture in doing so. If
you saw any of these gigs, we raise a glass to you.
112
HOW RUDE
FRANKLY BAD BEHAVIOUR THAT
MADE US SAY “TUT TUT!”
Aren’t these pop stars saucy? In 1990, our friend Madonna
was roundly criticised for the erotic nature of the video for
her song ‘Justify My Love’, although people were generally
more excitable back then: by today’s standards, the clip internet enabled large numbers of people to see Lee and
really isn’t that shocking. In any case, Maddy had bigger Anderson doing their thing. Again, nowadays this would
plans up her sleeve, as was evidenced by the Sex book barely raise an eyebrow. These were evidently more
she published the following year that depicted her and innocent times, right?
TOP friends ‘as nature intended’. Rather more amusing but equally controversial, Pulp
Michael Jackson Two years later, the American rapper Ice-T was obliged singer Jarvis Cocker’s decision in February ’96 to disrupt
performing at
to pull a song from his heavy metal band Body Count’s that year’s BRIT Awards ceremony has gone down in rock
the BRIT awards
in 1996
self-titled debut album. The song, ‘Cop Killer’, was a fairly history. While watching Michael Jackson preen his way
tasteless tale of the murder of a police officer, but the through an impossibly pretentious production of his hit
Images Kieran Doherty/Redferns/Getty Images (Michael Jackson), Photoshot/Getty Images (Jarvis Cocker),
MIDDLE LEFT storm of protest that it created was out of all proportion to ‘Earth Song’, Cocker ran on stage, lifted his shirt and
Pulp’s Jarvis its offensiveness. The furore worked wonders for Body pointed his behind in Jackson’s direction before being
Cocker who
Count: everybody knew their name after the actor Charlton pounced on by security personnel. Cocker later explained
Records/Alamy (Justify My Love), S. Granitz/WireImage/Getty Images (Anderson/Lee)

interrupted
Jackson’s
Heston, ironically a poster-boy for the National Rifle that he intended to deliver “a form of protest at the way
performance Association, complained about how mean and rude ‘Cop Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christ-like
Killer’ was. figure with the power of healing,” a reasonable contention
MIDDLE RIGHT The same year, Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor effectively given the laughably messianic message of ‘Earth Song’.
Madonna caused
killed her American career stone dead by pulling out a
controversy with
the erotic video for
picture of the Pope during a live performance on Saturday
her single ‘Justify Night Live and ripping it in half, in front of an aghast
My Love’ audience. Three decades later, the widespread abuses that
have taken place under the auspices of the Catholic
BOTTOM
Church are more widely known and understood, and public
Pamela Anderson
and Tommy Lee’s
sympathy might well have gone O’Connor’s way – but as
sex tape was we’ve seen, 1990 was a completely different time, in this
leaked on the and many other ways.
internet In 1995, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and his wife
Pamela Anderson, star of the popular TV show Baywatch,
were depicted in several intimate positions on a widely
distributed videotape. The footage, said to have been
stolen from a safe on the couple’s property, was not
radically different from any other given celebrity sex tape,
but the key difference in this case was that the brand-new
JAIL BIRDS
BANGED UP FOR BEING NAUGHTY
It seemed that every musician and his/her dog was doing
prison time in the ’90s, given the numbers of music-
industry types who were caught red-handed with drugs or
behaving in some unacceptable way or other. For example,
in 1990 alone, Ike Turner did time for cocaine possession,
Flea and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were
imprisoned – admittedly, for two days only – for abusing a
fan, the aforementioned Tommy Lee was arrested for
exposing his bottom in public, and Madonna was
cautioned by cops in Toronto for the supposedly lewd
content of that year’s stage show.
Certain musicians also escaped justice, or were at least
ABOVE
released from custody, in this decade. In 1991, the great
James Brown’s
soul singer James Brown – apparently not of sound mind 1988 mugshot
at the time – was released from prison, where he had
been serving time for the previous two years after a much- RIGHT
publicised high-speed car chase. The same year, Ozzy Ozzy Osbourne
was found
Osbourne was cleared of a wrongful death lawsuit after a
not guilty of
couple accused him of inspiring their son to kill himself inspiring suicide
with his lyrics; the heavy metal band Judas Priest had
been through a similar process not long before, with a FAR RIGHT
judge ruling that their music had not been a factor in a British singer On a more mundane level, New Kids on the Block’s
Billy Idol was
suicide pact between two teenagers. Both cases would Donnie ‘Brother of Marky Mark’ Wahlberg was arrested
sentenced to two
have established a worrying precedent, had the years’ probation in 1991 in Kentucky for setting his hotel room on fire.
defendants been found guilty as accused. Rapper Dr Dre and singer Billy Idol were both fined and/or
sentenced to probation for violence against women, and
BY
MADONNA WAS CAUTIONED
Housemartins drummer Hugh Whitaker went even further,
going down for six years after attacking a former associate
LEWD
COPS IN TORONTO FOR THE
with an axe.
The aggression continued, with hip-hop star Snoop
CONTENT OF HER LIVE SHOW

Dogg and his bodyguard charged in 1993 with the murder
of a gang-member in a drive-by shooting: they weren’t
cleared of the charges until three years later. Beastie Boy
Adam Horovitz found himself doing 200 hours of
LEFT community service in ’94 after he assaulted a television
Dave Gahan cameraman during the funeral of the departed actor River
died for two
Phoenix. In ’95, rapper Tupac Shakur was sentenced to up Snoop Dogg), Pete Still/Redferns/Getty Images (Dave Gahan), Andrew Shawaf/Hulton Archove/Getty Images (George Michael)
Images ARCHIVIO GBB/Alamy (James Brown), Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images (Ozzy Osbourne), Barry King/Alamy (Billy Idol,
minutes
to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse, although
BOTTOM LEFT he was released on appeal, and the sometime Guns N’
Snoop Dogg Roses drummer Steven Adler was busted for heroin, as
was cleared of was Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland.
a 1993 gang
Want some more? In 1996, Dave Gahan of Depeche
murder
Mode overdosed on a heroin and cocaine speedball and
BOTTOM RIGHT was clinically dead for two minutes: as he walked out of
George Michael the hospital in which he had recovered, he was arrested.
was arrested in The same year, Tori Amos was sued by a chap who crashed
a sting operation
his car after seeing an advertising billboard with her new
in 1998
album cover on it. The image was of Amos breastfeeding a
piglet, hence the surprised motorist’s confusion.
Finally, the late singer George Michael had to do
community service after being caught by an undercover
police officer while cruising for sexual partners in a public
toilet in Beverly Hills. In comparison, Puff Daddy being
arrested for weapons violations in Manhattan in 1999
seems positively mundane.
114
GONE TOO SOON

THOSE WHO DIED BEFORE THEIR
TIME: MAY THEY REST IN PEACE
Every decade has its share of premature deaths, and Sadly, we should also mention the Columbine High ABOVE LEFT
Images Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images (Kurt Cobain), Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy (Eric Clapton), NetPics/Alamy (Napster),
they’re all tragic. Just some of those that took place in the School massacre in Jefferson County, Colorado, which Kurt Cobain
committed
’90s included those of blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, took place in 1999. The perpetrators, two disaffected
suicide in 1994
killed in a 1990 helicopter crash in Wisconsin at the age of schoolboys, shot 12 students and a teacher dead before Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives (Eazy-E), Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Richey Edwards)
only 35, and of poor Conor Clapton, the four-year-old son of taking their own lives, and the relevance here is that in TOP
Eric Clapton, who fell from a high-rise apartment window. the aftermath, the band Marilyn Manson were accused Eric Clapton with
In 1991 the world mourned Queen singer Freddie of a certain amount of responsibility for the tragedy. his son, Conor
Mercury, who died on 24 November, a day after informing It’s still not clear why, other than Marilyn Manson have
MIDDLE
the public that he was suffering from AIDS: on the same a certain gothic image, as did the shooters, who also Online file-
day, former Kiss drummer Eric Carr succumbed to a rare enjoyed the music of the German industrial metal sharing service
heart cancer. Three years later, we were all profoundly bands Rammstein and KMFDM. Napster
shocked by the suicide by shotgun of Nirvana’s Kurt All that said, do you know which ’90s death affected the
BOTTOM LEFT
Cobain, who ended not only his own life but the entire music industry the most? Its own, as set in motion when
NWA member
grunge movement that he had started. the file-sharing network Napster was launched in June Eazy-E died
The following year, we lost NWA rapper Eazy-E to AIDS 1999. It didn’t matter that Napster was taken down soon in 1995
and Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon to a cocaine afterwards by aggrieved bands such as Metallica, irked by
overdose, while Richey Edwards of the Manic Street the wholesale theft of their property: the idea was firmly BOTTOM RIGHT
Richey Edwards
Preachers went missing, only being declared legally dead set in the public’s minds that music could and should be
of the Manic
in 2008. In 1997, INXS singer Michael Hutchence was made available for free, a process that has led directly to Street Preachers
found dead in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, having today’s virtually cash-free Spotify culture.
hanged himself for reasons that are still unclear. Goodbye, music business – it was nice knowing you.
115
Images Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys), Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Images (Lauryn Hill), JMEnternational/Redferns/Getty Images (Spice Girls), Jon Levy/AFP via Getty Images
(Celine Dion), Harry Herd/Redferns/Getty Images (Carlos Santana), Ke.Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Mariah Carey), Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (Alanis Morissette), Getty Images (main)
116
A L
THAT DE
MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS,
B FI
ESSENTIAL RECORDS OF
N
U E
BREAKTHROUGH ALBUM THE DECADE

D
S, THESE ARE THE

REINVENTIONS AND
T
M H
19
90
E
S
S
19 ALBUMS THAT DEFINED THE 90s
he ’90s music scene changed not only with
T new genres and artists, but in the way that

we as fans listened to albums. Cassette
tapes and vinyl were no longer the popular
choice of media – the CD had taken over as
the dominant format.
CDs, or compact discs, could hold more data than a
vinyl, were more reliable than a cassette tape, offered
great sound quality, and were small and easy to store.
They could also be played while on the go thanks to
devices like the Discman and – unlike a vinyl record or
cassette tape – with a CD, listeners could instantly skip a
track or go back and listen to one on repeat. Most
importantly, though, they were affordable.
If you look at lists of the best-selling albums of all time, a
lot of the entries are from the ’90s. In fact, in 1999 the music
industry reached its pinnacle in terms of global revenue when
it made around $39 billion from record sales. But it wasn’t
just one genre that dominated the charts: grunge, country,
Britpop, electronic, Eurodance, R&B, hip-hop and more all
became bestsellers. New artists came through with
revolutionary new sounds, while old artists reinvented their
existing sound. The phrase ‘something for everyone’ may
sound cliché, but when it comes to popular albums of the
’90s, that couldn’t be more true. Read on to discover our pick
of the 19 albums that defined the decade.
117
NEVERMIND II
Nirvana Boyz II Men
DGC Records, 1991 Motown Records,
1994
1
Before Nirvana
Confusingly
came out with
Nevermind,
mainstream rock radio
stations were flooded
3 called II
despite it being
the group’s third
album (the second
with power ballads
being Christmas
and over-produced
Interpretations in
hair metal. Nirvana
brought a rawness 1993), the album
and new attitude to had two Number
the rock scene that it 1 singles in the US

sorely needed. This is Billboard charts,
the album that brought ‘I’ll Make Love to
grunge to mainstream You’ and ‘On
audiences around the Bended Knee’. Fun
world, introducing a fact: ‘I’ll Make Love
new generation to to You’ was replaced
hard rock and punk in the Number 1
influences. Frontman spot of the Billboard
Kurt Cobain made a charts by Boyz II
conscious effort to Men’s own follow-
write songs that had Records decided not to renew their up ‘On Bended
simpler guitar riffs with deal with Santana, he set out on Knee’, making them
catchy hooks. ‘Smells a mission to make an album that only the third act in
Like Teen Spirit‘ was everyone could listen to and enjoy the chart’s history to
a prime example of – something more radio-friendly. To replace themselves
this, with its instantly do this, Sanatana took his signature in the top spot,
recognisable guitar riff Latin guitar sound and mixed it after Elvis and The
and the hypnotic pre- with new genres, collaborating Beatles. Unlike
Images Harry Herd/Redferns/Getty Images (Carlos Santana). Album Images Amazon (Nevermind, Supernatural, II)
chorus “hello”s. Back with contemporary artists such as other R&B or soul
then, nobody sang like Eagle-Eye Cherry, Rob Thomas and acts at the time,
Cobain; he murmured Lauryn Hill to create Supernatural. Boyz II Men
at times, was haunting SUPERNATURAL Sanata’s energetic rhythms and showcased unique
or apathetic at others, Santana slick licks are scattered throughout vocal harmonies
and aggressive when Arista Records, 1999 the album but this is most apparent that set them apart.
in its biggest hit ‘Smooth’ featuring If the ballads weren’t
2
he needed to be. Perhaps one of the most
Nirvana went from surprising hit albums of the Rob Thomas from Matchbox your thing, tracks
underground grunge ’90s, few expected Carlos Twenty. There are also more such as ‘Thank
band to mainstream Santana to produce an album laidback tracks such as ‘Maria You’ had a new jack
radio rockers while that would stand alongside the Maria’ that showcase the sexier swing sound while
staying faithful to their pop powerhouses of the time, side of Latin pop as it mixes in keeping those vocal
influences and the especially given that his fame elements from R&B with incredibly harmonies that gave
scene they came from. peaked in the ’70s. After Columbia smooth licks from Santana. it the Boyz’s sound.
118
Warner Bros/Alamy (Whitney Houston), Michael Putland/Getty Images (Lisa Stansfield), Carolyn Jenkins / Alamy (The Bodyguard Soundtrack image)
Images Dana Nalbandian/WireImage/Getty Images (Kenny G), Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Warner Bros/Alamy (Costner/Houston), AF archive/
It’s hard to imagine today a film the rest of the record is filled with an
4
’90s
with a soundtrack as successful
as The Bodyguard, but the
was the decade of the movie
assortment of other artists including
Kenny G, The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.
and Lisa Stansfield. Despite the lack
TOP LEFT Kenny G
contributed some
instrumentals to
the soundtrack
soundtrack. The 1992 romantic thriller of tracks featuring Whitney herself,
was one of the highest-grossing films The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack MIDDLE LEFT Whitney
at the time, and starred Whitney Album charted all around the world with her co-star
and smashed records; it was the first Kevin Costner
Houston in her acting debut. The
album is undoubtedly best known album to be verified as having sold
BOTTOM LEFT Lisa
for Whitney’s cover of Dolly Parton’s a million copies in a week. Today, it Stansfield sang the
‘I Will Always Love You’, which was has sold more than 45 million copies, track ‘Someday
(I'm Coming Back)’
THE BODYGUARD originally a wistful country ditty, but making it the best-selling soundtrack
SOUNDTRACK was rearranged as a powerful soul of all time. We think it’s a safe bet to ABOVE Whitney
Whitney Houston / Various ballad. Houston only appears on the say that record will stay with Whitney performing ‘Queen
forever. of the Night’ in
Arista Records, 1992 first six of the album’s 13 tracks while
a scene from
The Bodyguard
119
PARKLIFE
Blur
Food Records, 1994
6
For those who
weren’t Oasis
fans, this was
probably the defining
Britpop album. Blur
took everything
infectious combination that offered from Modern Life is
just what they were looking for. Rubbish and cranked
Baby, Ginger, Posh, Sporty and it up to 11. Parklife
Scary promoted a message of ‘Girl is an album full of
Power‘ – friendship, unity, being character and this is
yourself and having a good time no more apparent
were at the forefront of Spice and than in its opening
it resonated with young women track ‘Girls & Boys‘.
around the world. With their debut But that’s not to say
single ‘Wannabe’ being played that the album throws
across radio and music channels its best punches right
SPICE on TV, there was do doubt that the away. Parklife is a
Spice Girls album would be a huge success. well-thought-through
Virgin Records, 1996 ‘Say You’ll Be There’, ‘2 Become 1’ album. It doesn’t put
and ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ all of the big hits at the
5
With the rise of Britpop and
lad culture, young women were all Number 1 hits for the group, front, but sprinkles the
needed something they could thanks to their infectious choruses, singles throughout.
call their own. The Spice Girls‘ mix catchy melodies and the fact they Unlike typical acts
of pop, R&B and hip-hop was an were easy to sing along to. on the radio who
seemed to be out of
reach, Blur were the Images JMEnternational/Redferns/Getty Images (Spice Girls performing), Tim Roney/Getty Images (individual Spice Girl portraits),
everyman to their
core audience. They
wrote songs that the
Dave Hogan/Getty Images (Spice Girls with Brit Award). Album Images Amazon (Spice, Parklife, Falling)
average British lad at

the time could relate
to. The titular song
‘Parklife’ became an
instant anthem when
it was released as a
single. Sung at
football stadiums
across England, it
was even used in a
Nike advert featuring
several Premier
League players.
120
OPPOSITE In 1997
the Spice Girls
won the Brit
Award for Best
British Single
with ‘Wannabe’
TOP LEFT INSET

Falling into You
won Celine the
Grammy for Best
Pop Album
LOWER LEFT INSET

Celine pictured
with her husband
and manager,
René Angélil
LEFT Celine on
stage at Wembley
Arena during her
1996 Falling into
You Tour
On the rise after the success
7
iconic cover of Eric Carmen’s ballad
of her 1993 album The Colour ‘All By Myself’, while ‘Because You
of My Love, Celine’s follow-up Loved Me’ became a huge hit after it
would launch the singer to the peak featured in the 1996 romantic drama
of her popularity. The formula of Up Close & Personal starring Michelle
soft-rock ballads with more mid-tempo Pfeiffer and Robert Redford. What
and upbeat numbers interspersed made Celine’s ballads stand out from
Images Jon Levy/AFP via Getty Images (Grammy), Ponopresse/Gamma-Rapho
would be fine-tuned to what many her contemporaries‘ was her incredible

Image credits to be sorted
via Getty Images (w/ René Angélil), Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Wembley)
consider to be their pinnacle. The vocal expressiveness and range. Sure,

songs throughout the album feature some singers could hit high notes, but
a plethora of instrumentation from not with the same emotion that Dion
FALLING INTO YOU Spanish guitars, African chanting brought to hers. The success of the
Celine Dion and various orchestrations to create album would lead to Celine performing
Columbia Records, 1996 a sound different from anything she at the opening ceremony for the
had done before. Depending on the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, and
Images Getty Images
country, there were three to five if that’s not a good advertisement for
singles for the album. There was the one’s music, what is?
121
RAY OF LIGHT
Madonna
Maverick Records, 1998
8
The early ’90s were not kind
to Madonna. She released
the album Erotica, which
didn’t sell as well as her previous
albums; her book Sex caused
controversy with a portion of her
fanbase; and she had a few box
office flops. There were signs of a
decline in her popularity and with
newer, younger talent on the rise,
Madonna would have to change
with the times. While Bedtime
Stories in 1994 was a step in
the right direction, it was Ray of
Light that relaunched her career.
The album was a departure
for the singer; taking a more
introspective view after giving
birth to her child, Madonna
had embraced Kabbalah and
Hinduism, and wanted this to
IT WAS 1998‘S RAY OF LIGHT THAT

RELAUNCHED MADONNA'S CAREER
be incorporated in her music.
There was a greater influence of
eletronica, trip-hop and ambient
music throughout the record, and
Madonna’s vocals reflected her
newfound interest in mysticism.
This is showcased in the album’s
first single ‘Frozen’, while the title
track was a livelier, club-friendly
EDM hit. This experimentation
was unlike anything else in the
charts at the time, which helped
Madonna stand out amongst ’90s
boy bands, Britpop and R&B.
122
anthology film Moonwalker, which

was met with a mixed reception
and didn’t fare well at the box
office. Jackson felt he needed to
shake up his sound. He dropped
his longtime producer, Quincy
Jones, so he could have more
creative freedom. In Dangerous
he showed a more experimental AUTOMATIC FOR THE SIGN
approach, incorporating different THE PEOPLE Ace of Base
genres such as new jack swing, R.E.M. Arista Records,
1993
DANGEROUS which can be heard in songs Warner Bros., 1992
12
Swedish pop
Michael Jackson
11
like ‘Jam’ and ‘Why You Wanna When writing
group Ace of
Epic Records, 1991 Trip on Me’. The biggest hit of Automatic for
Base were in
the album was ‘Black or White’, the People,
9
When it came to pop in the
the process of writing
’80s it seemed that – in which showed off Jackson’s R.E.M. wanted songs
material for a second
terms of popularity and experimentation as he blended that didn’t sound like
what people would album when they
sales – Michael Jackson was in hip-hop with pop-rock. The music
expect from them, so received a record deal
a league of his own. Thriller was video for the single ‘Jam’ featured
they adopted a slower in the US. Rather than
the best-selling album of all time, basketball star Michael Jordan and
was used in various NBA adverts in tempo for most change their style for
and his follow-up, Bad, while not
the 1992 season. This ensured the tracks. Around 30 the US market, the
as successful financially, was still
an iconic album. However, after general public wouldn’t forget who songs were recorded group instead took
Bad, Jackson released the music- the King of Pop was. for the album, but the the few songs they
tracklist was whittled had been working on,
down to 12 incredibly incorporated them
thought-provoking into Happy Nation
tracks. Automatic and released it as
for the People was The Sign. While a lot
darker in tone than of electronic music
R.E.M.’s previous of the ’90s was in
records, with more your face, Ace of
instruments and Base offered a more
layers to back the relaxing take on the
guitar-led tracks. genre by adding
Songs such as reggae influences.
‘Everybody Hurts’ The easy-listening
Images Dave Hogan/Getty Images (Madonna), Brian Rasic/Getty Images (Backstreet Boys), Paul Bergen/Redferns/Getty Images (fans).
and ‘The Sidewinder nature of the record
Sleeps Tonite’ made it a constant
BACKSTREET BOYS sound, which earned them a loyal included strings on radio stations for
Backstreet Boys following in Europe, but the time arranged by former weeks and months
Album Images Amazon (Ray of Light, Dangerous, Backstreet Boys, Automatic for the People, The Sign)
Jive Records, 1996 came to break America. To reach the Led Zeppelin bassist after its release. ‘All
John Paul Jones. But That She Wants’ was
10
While the group may be US market, the group incorporated
known today for being R&B elements when putting it wasn’t all doom a huge success and
America’s biggest boy together the debut album. ‘Quit and gloom: ‘Man on the follow-up single
band, they actually made waves Playing Games (With My Heart)’ the Moon’ was an ‘The Sign’ was even
in Europe first. The debut singles showed this mixing of boy-band up-tempo acoustic bigger. In fact, ‘The
‘We’ve Got It Goin’ On’ and ‘I’ll pop with R&B instrumentation. The rock track with a hint Sign’ was such a huge
Never Break Your Heart’ were upbeat music, harmonising vocals of country. The album hit that it was featured
released long before the album and accompanying music videos took R.E.M. from heavily in an episode
Backstreet Boys was conceived, hooked audiences everywhere. The American alt-rock to of animated sitcom
and became hits in countries like group would go on to become the a mainstream band South Park, one of the
Germany and the UK. These songs best-selling boy band of all time, but played on global most-watched shows
established the group’s dance-pop it started with this album. radio stations. on TV at the time.
123
(WHAT’S
THE STORY)
MORNING GLORY
Oasis
Creation Records,
1995
Even if it’s
14 not your
favourite
Britpop album, or if
you preferred Blur, it’s
impossible to deny the
impact that this album
has had on the genre
– and British music
in general. While
Oasis’ debut album
Definitely Maybe felt
raw and spontaneous,
this follow-up felt
more considered,
melancholy and
insightful. Songwriter
Noel Gallagher
focused on grand
choruses with swelling
appeal of the album, Mariah chose string arrangements
to introduce R&B and pop elements. such as those in
The album hits you right away ‘Don’t Look Back in
with ‘Dream Lover’, showcasing Anger’. The record Images Ke.Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images (Mariah Carey in studio, singing), Ron Galella/Getty Images (w/ Tommy Mottola).
Carey’s vocal range as she does was heavily influenced

her trademark high-pitched note, by The Beatles, with
before going into an R&B beat to psychedelic guitar
Album Images Amazon (Music Box, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill)
show you that this isn’t like her licks. (What’s the
previous records. Fans hoping for Story) Morning Glory?
the trademark Mariah ballads have eases you in with
‘Hero’ and ‘Without You’, which do ‘Hello’ before hitting
MUSIC BOX not disappoint. ‘Anytime You Need you with the more
Mariah Carey a Friend’ showcases the singer's introspective tracks
Columbia Records, 1993 talents with the backing of a gospel such as ‘Wonderwall’
As her first two albums choir to make the whole thing seem and ‘Cast No Shadow‘.
13 were commercial
successes, Mariah Carey
was allowed to have more creative
larger than life. Music Box proved
that Mariah could write and perform
huge hits when given the freedom
It is one of those rare
albums where every
track could easily have
freedom when writing what would to do so, and the record remains her been released as a
become Music Box. To broaden the best-selling album to date. guaranteed hit single.
124
Hip-hop and rap in the ’80s motherhood, love, heartbreak and faith.
15 and ‘90s were typically

male-dominated genres,
then Lauryn Hill came along. The
The record was helped by the success
of the singles ‘Doo Woop (That Thing)’,
which was a global hit; ‘Everything is
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill brought Everything’, which was more hip-hop-
the female’s viewpoint to the forefront, inspired; and the more soul-oriented
while adding soul to the genre. Before ‘Ex-Factor’. The singles demonstrated
the album, Lauryn was best known that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
as a member of the Fugees, but this wasn’t a one-note affair, but instead
masterpiece of a debut put her firmly something full of depth. The album
in the spotlight as a solo artist. On the received ten Grammy nominations,
album, Lauryn wore her influences which at the time was a record for an
THE MISEDUCATION OF album by a female artist. Even more
LAURYN HILL clearly on her sleeve, but was never
restricted by them. The tracks spanned impressive was that Lauryn won five
Lauryn Hill
hip-hop, soul and gospel, and the of those awards, setting the record for
Ruffhouse Records, 1998
lyrics covered her experiences of most Grammy wins by a female artist.
OPPOSITE 1993
was a big year
for Mariah, with
the release of
Music Box and
her marriage to
Tommy Mottola
(pictured centre)
ABOVE Lauryn Hill

won R&B Album
of the Year at the
Images Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (Billboard Awards), David Corio/Redferns/
Billboard Awards
Getty Images (w/ Ziggy Marely), Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Images (Lauryn main)
in ’98
ABOVE RIGHT Lauryn

performing with
Ziggy Marley at
the One Love Bob
Marley Festival,
Jamaica ’99
RIGHT The
Miseducation
of Lauryn Hill is
regarded as one
of the greatest
albums of all time
125
When Jagged Little thanks to constant radio requests.

ABOVE Jagged
16 Pill came out, Alanis While a lot of female empowerment

Archive/Redferns/Getty Images (Navarro/Flea),
Little Pill won five

Morissette’s record label songs on the radio were more
Grammys in ’96
only expected it to be a modest upbeat and poppy, Alanis‘ songs
RIGHT TOP Dave
success. However, the first single had an aggression and angst in
Images (Glen Ballard)
Navarro (left)
‘You Oughta Know’ (featuring Dave the vocals that gave her an edge,
and Flea (right)
played on ‘You Navarro and Flea from the Red Hot while maintaining a sense of fun.
Oughta Know’ Chili Peppers ) gained traction on The album was co-written by Glen
Images Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images (Alanis main), Robert Knight
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images (singing), Ron Galella/Getty
alternative rock radio stations, and Ballard, who also helped to write and
RIGHT MIDDLE At just
21, Alanis was the the accompanying music video produce Michael Jackson’s Thriller
youngest winner was played regularly on MTV. The and Bad. Morissette and Ballard
of the Album of
album became a hit and rose to the would stay in the studio writing a
the Year Grammy JAGGED LITTLE PILL song a day, sometimes working
Alanis Morissette top of charts, but when the fourth
RIGHT BOTTOM single, ‘Ironic’, came out, Jagged for 16 hours straight. They would
Maverick Records, 1995
The album
Little Pill reached a whole new level also try to record in as few takes
was co-written
of success. The alt-rock song was as possible to make sure the songs
with producer
Glen Ballard impossible to avoid during car rides sounded really raw and honest.
126
SAVAGE GARDEN ...BABY ONE

Savage Garden MORE TIME
Columbia Records, Britney Spears
1997
Jive Records, 1999
17
To some,
19
With the
Savage
teen-pop
Garden was
craze in
simply an album of
full swing, people
two men expressing thought it couldn’t
their emotions for the get any bigger. Then
women they love. came Britney Spears.
But those who picked Nobody expected
up the record were this debut album
treated to a diverse to be a success,
music experience that since groups were
took influences from the hot thing at
the ’80s and brought the time. What‘s
them to the next more, with Britney
decade. While the being a former child
theme doesn’t change star as a Disney
much throughout the ‘Mouseketeer’,
album, what does Top 20 of the Billboard 200 for a expectations weren’t
vary is the style. record-breaking 99 weeks. One of high. But with her
There is soft rock, the reasons for this was that Come iconic music videos
ballads, dance-pop On Over was released in three and catchy songs,
and more covered versions: the Original version, the Britney became an
across the 11 tracks International version (which had instant pop icon.
(12 if you pick up the certain instrumentation removed to Her style blended
original Australian sound less country and more pop innocence and
release). Electronic to appeal to audiences outside of attitude, while her
drums, strings, guitars North America), and the Revised song lyrics resonated
and piano all help edition, which featured remixes of with teenage girls
to give the album a COME ON OVER some tracks. around the world.
lot of layers. There Shania Twain It also helped that Come On When the album was
Album Images Amazon (Jagged Little Pill, Savage Garden, Come On Over, ...Baby One More Time)
are hints of Michael Mercury Records, 1997 Over featured the empowering released, Britney
Jackson from vocalist anthem ‘Man! I Feel Like a made an appearance
18
The album took Shania
Darren Hayes in songs Twain from Canadian Woman’, which had an iconic on seemingly every
like ‘I Want You’ and country singer to global music video as well as being major TV show
‘Tears of Pearls’ as star. Come On Over was co- a damn good song. The single around the world to
Images Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images (Shania Twain).
well as Eurythmics written and produced by her then showed how Twain mixed her promote the album.
influences in spots husband, producer Mutt Lange. country sound with dance-pop. These efforts paid
throughout the It became the best-selling studio This is also shown in songs like off, as the record
record. His vocal style album by a female artist, a best- ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’. sold almost 2 million
changes throughout selling album of the ’90s, and one But Twain didn’t ditch her country copies in its first
the album to make of the ten best-selling albums of style altogether, as demonstrated two months in the
each song feel fresh. all time in the US. It stayed in the in ‘You’re Still the One’. US alone.
127
Chart the rise
of Queen, from
their early years
to international
stardom
Get to grips with

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have made the
Gibson name
immortal
Are you ready

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90 GREATEST HITS
U LT I M AT E From Eurodance to Britpop, we look

back at the very best songs of the ’90s
90s
POP
GIRLS VS BOYS
Step back into the decade that brought
us boy bands and girl power
COLLECTION NGS & SOUNDS

CELEBRATING THE SOCA DE IN MUSIC
9021
OF THE GREATEST DE
PRINCESS OF POP
Discover the rise and fall of one of the
most successful singers of all time
ICONIC MOMENTS
Wonderful, crazy, tragic, bizarre and
hilarious moments of the decade
9000
EUROPOP • AUSSIE ICONS • MUSICAL MOMENTS • TOP ALBUMS

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GIRL POWER • BRITPOP • SOUNDTRACKS • BOY BANDS

REWIND elcome to the Ultimate 90s Pop

W ’90s was a decade like no other. Not only

Images Getty Images

Future plc is a public Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne

8DEFINED THE 90s

56 RULED THE 90s

108 MOMENTS OF THE 90s

SMOOTH TORN BABY GOT BACK

7 SECONDS LOVEFOOL KISS ME

his new film

to a good Baiyewu, optimistic

ALL THAT SHE WANTS

19 of dub-reggae to create a track that almost forces

GOOD VIBRATIONS FROZEN KEEP ON MOVIN’

The Cranberries 2 Unlimited and recorded to be

GIRLS & BOYS

BACK FOR GOOD I DON’T WANT MYSTERIOUS

TO BE WITH YOU IRONIC MAN! I FEEL

RETURN OF GROOVE IS IN ALL I WANT

BELIEVE wrote the lyrics to this

55 Auto-tune to distort the vocals

EMI Records, 1997

I’D DO ANYTHING FLYING WITHOUT WHAT IS LOVE

CANDLE IN THE TWO PRINCES U CAN’T TOUCH THIS

LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA

WOULD I LIE SAVE TONIGHT THE BOY IS MINE

I’M TOO SEXY

SEMI-CHARMED DON’T LET IT’S OH SO QUIET

MY HEART RHYTHM IS I LOVE YOU

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU

89 transformed Dolly Parton’s

ou couldn’t escape Madonna Louise TOP Madonna

chain, these numbers would be unthinkable. As all this

file-sharing and iTunes started to take a serious bite out of

generally sexual nature, with asides into associated TOP Madonna

A sweary appearance on the Late Show with David

which she played the role of the late Argentine activist,

her performance – an emotive, technically challenging

For evidence of this new, sophisticated approach, listen

Image Tim Roney/Getty Images

FAR LEFT TOP

FAR LEFT BOTTOM

in spite of the Spice Girls’ song lyrics about sisterhood and

Meanwhile, R&B – the dominant music of the decade

groups such as Eternal and Cleopatra, although their

ST A M PE D HER PR ES EN CE ON THE ’90S

Closest to Madonna in terms of sheer commercial BOTTOM

music consumer – probably the reason why Dion received

genres, but they all failed to make a dent in the charts.

fell back into a position, if not of obscurity, then not exactly

ABOVE ‘(Stay (I Missed You)’, 1994), the mostly female 4 Non

Annie Lennox adoption of newer sounds, and the remarkable Annie

TOP sometime Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs and many, many

Images Maryanne Bilham Photography/Redferns/Getty Images (Garbage), Bob Berg/Getty Images

TOP RIGHT Saffron

TOP FAR RIGHT

THE SUCCESS OF ALANIS

most female-driven innovation back then. Lauryn Hill,

Latifah busted out the rhymes to world-class standards.

Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

REMEMBER WHEN BRIT 0S?