An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 2, 1982 -

[Greg Torso]

Cat Power - Nude As The News



"Cat Power" was originally the name of a band which featured Chan Marshall along with Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley and $2 Guitar's Tim Foljahn for the first three albums (What Would The Community Think from which this song is taken being the last of the three) before becoming the name Marshall would perform solo under starting with 1998's Moon Pix (backed by members of Dirty Three).
Nude As The News (also released as a single, which is the artwork I put up because I think the LP cover art is "sux") is a deceptive song, a slightly rough and simple indie rock tune with a sad lyrical undercurrent (supposedly about an abortion Chan Marshall had in her early twenties).

Chan Marshall's voice is amazingly emotive, perhaps the vocal equivalent of Lorren Mazzacane Connors desolate lap steel guitar keening, but I find her records to be wildly inconsistent (ignoring the various things I've read about her personal life and problems), and while I love her voice none of them (except 1998's Moon Pix) really hold me for the full length of them. Her songs often sound more like sketches, which is fine if you work with your limitations to make them part of your aesthetic (Smog/GBV etc), but with pipes like her's you need to be filling cathedral halls rather than loft spaces. I don't really know her later stuff, maybe she went full on philharmonic orchestra and belted it out like great sonic turbines, I was probably listening to recordings of steam trains and grain silos at that point, stroking my auditory cortex and pretending to hate harmonies.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

This thread is amazing, thank you.

Almost makes up for the unfathomable Erasure-love here

It's the best thread on CaB by a country mile. A constant source of comfort and joy.

Also, Erasure are ace.

[Brundle-Fly]

Tracy Hide - Wondermints   Released on Toy's Factory in 1996.





From Austin Powers and Brian Wilson's backing band comes this cover version of their own song. I think I put this in the sad songs thread as it always makes me well up. Well up? Surfs Up more like.

Wondermints are an American power pop band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1992. Members include: Darian Sahanaja, and Mike d'Amico. Other contributors have included: Probyn Gregory, Brian Kassan, David Nolte, and Jim Mills. Founding member Nick Walusko (aka Nicky Wonder) sadly passed away in August 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ8arOESWag

[Astronaut Omens]

Belle & Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePAg7nJyurw

Our great curator, Jamie, has already nominated the opening track from Belle & Sebastian's debut album, Tigermilk, but just a few months later they released If You're Feeling Sinister. Which is one of the greatest albums of all time. I think so, anyway.

Stuart Murdoch was mostly housebound throughout the early to mid-1990s. He suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome. During that time he wrote a plethora of songs, hence why Belle & Sebastian were so prolific in their earliest days. A burst of creativity, finally given some shape and sound. A vision fully formed after years of dreaming.

I could've chosen any song from Sinister, really, but I think this one captures what was so magical about them. I just wish that piano and xylophone outro went on for at least a minute longer.

I think one of my favourite things about pop songs is when lyricists manage to shoehorn a commonplace phrase from everyday speech into a song that no other songwriter's ever done before, especially when the songwriter juxtaposes it with some more crafted or poetic lines. And for that reason, for the absolutely masterful deployment of "It's not as if they're paying you", my pick from If You're Feeling Sinister would be Fox in the Snow.

Belle and Sebastian- Fox In The Snow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKSI1idOUzM

[jobotic]

That would be my pick too.

[Better Midlands]

Nu Birth - Anytime



Can't have 1996 without some UK Garage, this is possibly my favourite, easily one of the first - funky and uplifting at the same time.
Anytime started off life as an amazing dub remix of some Richard Darbyshire (Living In A Box) drivel by Julian Jonah in 1994, which he then remade with Danny Harrison as Anytime in 1996. On re-release in 1998 it just missed out on the top 40 reaching #41 - probably because it had sold so many copies in the proceeding two years. The pair went on to have chart success as 187 Lockdown.

[Brundle-Fly]

Une Very Stylish Fille - Dimitri From Paris.  Released on Yellow Productions.





Might seem as corny as hell now because this sort of downtempo lounge café music began to get plastered all over adverts and sound beds for daytime TV shows and the like. It was cool while it lasted, wasn't it, Sir Michael Caine?

Dimitri from Paris (born Dimitrios Yerasimos, 27 October 1963) is a French music producer and DJ of Greek descent. His musical influences are rooted in 1970s funk and disco sounds that spawned contemporary house music, as well as original soundtracks from 1950s and 1960s movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, La Dolce Vita and The Party, which were sampled in his album Sacrebleu. Dimitri fused these sounds with electro and block party hip hop he discovered in the 1980s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehf1DMVcr9M&t

[Brundle-Fly]

Swampfire - Los Straitjackets. Released on Upstart in 1996.





Nothing groundbreaking to see here, just lovingly created surf rock.

Los Straitjackets is a Nashville-based band known primarily for performing instrumental surf music. Members include guitarists Eddie Angel and Danny Amis, bassist Pete Curry, and drummer Jason Smay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP5HJMJm1lA&t

[daf]

Cartoon ‎– Fade Away



Released in 1996 on the 'twisted ep' - did not chart

Cartoon were formed in 1996 in Cardigan, West Wales, by ex-Jess guitarist Chris Lewis and drummer Owen Thomas. Other members included bassist Richard Llewelyn and . . . another bloke - who I don't know the name of [soz mate!].



Their first EP was released at the end of 1996, and caught the ear of Radio 1 DJ's Kevin Greening and Mark Radcliffe - who made the lead track, Fade Away, his "single of the week" in early 1997 on the first week of the doomed Mark and Lard Breakfast Show.

[daf]

Komeda ‎– Disko



Featured on the album 'The Genius of Komeda' - released in September 1996

Komeda were a Swedish pop/indie band from Umeå, formed by schoolfriends Lena Karlsson (vocals), Henrik Andersson (guitar), Marcus Holmberg (bass), and Holmberg's brother Jonas (drums). The band started in the mid-1980s as post-punk band influenced by bands such as Can, Devo, and The Velvet Underground, and by film soundtracks. They were initially called Cosma Komeda, named in honour of composer Vladimir Cosma and jazz musician and composer Krzysztof Komeda. Their first public appearance was in 1991 as a pit band for a Buster Keaton festival in their home town of Umeå.

They released their first album, 'Pop På Svenska' in 1993, followed by an EP 'Plan 714 till Komeda' in 1995. This was the first release following the departure of guitarist Henrik Andersson, who left in 1994, and the arrival of his replacement Mattias Norlander, from the band Blithe. 



Their second full-length studio album, 'The Genius of Komeda', released in 1996, was the first Komeda release sung in English. The album was packaged as if it were a compilation with a (mainly) fake back catalogue illustrated in the fold out insert.

[Johnny Yesno]

Komeda ‎– Disko



Featured on the album 'The Genius of Komeda' - released in September 1996

Oh, was this from 1996? I'm glad you remembered. It's a great album and Disko is a great track. I would nominate

New New No: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9SelA63_5M

The rhythms are wonderfully deranged.

Edit: wait a minute, according to a comment under that video and the youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_le87EMcV0fsycY_qrE0BeeIKChRqUBro0), New New No is no longer on the album. What the fuck? Did the rhythms break some brains?

[Astronaut Omens]

Bahamadia (featuring K-Swift and Mecca Starr)- 3 The Hard Way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIxNPJqKGS4


A slightly tougher-than-usual track by the usually mellow and jazzy Philadelphia MC Bahamadia. The production by DJ Premier features his trademark way of making a chorus hook by scratching in lyrics from another record, in this case an LL Cool J track. Of the two guest MCs Mecca Starr seems to have done nothing else in the music industry except this track, but K-Swift went on to become a popular radio DJ in Baltimore.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Pierre Bastien - L'Orchestre Thermo-Dynamique



On Boîte N°3 released on Éditions Cactus in 1996.

[Astronaut Omens]

 

Pierre Bastien - L'Orchestre Thermo-Dynamique



On Boîte N°3 released on Éditions Cactus in 1996

I went in expecting avant-garde intellectual prankster tomfoolery and got smoky, wistful, earnest jazziness instead. By chance I was just about to post this, which kind of segues in:

Darko Rundek- Señor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqAtqsbyaYw

I had to post this at night because this tune, a jazz ballad by Croatian singer, actor and poet Darko Rundek only really works during hours of darkness, it might come across as a bit obvious during office hours. But I have been been playing a lot last thing lately. Darko had been a member of Yugoslav band Haustor in the 80's , but he emigrated to France when the Yugoslavian wars started in 1991.

[Smeraldina Rima]

It's light now but I think it still works.

I regret not choosing something from Pierre Bastien's 1996 album, Eggs Air Sister Steel, for the title, the artist's artwork and least of all the tomfoolery of the music.

Aiguise l'aire de cette île

[daf]

Edit: wait a minute, according to a comment under that video and the youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_le87EMcV0fsycY_qrE0BeeIKChRqUBro0), New New No is no longer on the album. What the fuck? Did the rhythms break some brains?

Just checked on Discogs - there's only been one issue of the album on CD in the UK, back in 1996 - so it's still on that, (though it's out of print, you can find copies for a few quid on ebay). The 2013 vinyl re-issue also list it on the back cover - so no change there.

The only release it's not on is the 1996 Japanese release, which has tracks from the the 'Plan 714 Till Komeda' EP added to the end in it's place - so the commenter might have that version?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Air - Casanova 70



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZyN5OezGqQ

Their second single. It failed to chart anywhere. In 1997 it appeared on Premiers Symptomes, an EP compilation of their earliest recordings.

Air are a French music duo from Versailles, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel. Their critically acclaimed debut album Moon Safari, including the track Sexy Boy, was an international success in 1998. Its follow-up, The Virgin Suicides, was the score to Sofia Coppola's film of the same name.

The band have since released the albums 10 000 Hz Legend, Talkie Walkie, Pocket Symphony, Love 2, Le voyage dans la lune and Music for Museum. They're presumably still going in theory, although that last album was released in 2014.

[Brundle-Fly]

Debase (Soft Palate) - TheMikeFlowersPopsmeets_TheAphexTwin    Released on Lo-Recordings in 1996.





I nearly plumped for MFP's glorious cover of Bjork's Venus As A Boy but I thought this unexpected collaborative oddity was more diverting.  Novelty novelty pop?

The Mike Flowers Pops were a British group inspired by 1960s easy listening, fronted by Mike Roberts, p.k.a. Mike Flowers. Active in the 1990s. We've covered Aphex Twin before in his various guises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0JNfql4oCA&t

[Brundle-Fly]

You've all done very well!!  As Young Mr. Grace would say. Great noms everyone.

[Johnny Yesno]

Just checked on Discogs - there's only been one issue of the album on CD in the UK, back in 1996 - so it's still on that, (though it's out of print, you can find copies for a few quid on ebay). The 2013 vinyl re-issue also list it on the back cover - so no change there.

The only release it's not on is the 1996 Japanese release, which has tracks from the the 'Plan 714 Till Komeda' EP added to the end in it's place - so the commenter might have that version?

Oh, cool, thanks for checking. It would have been a strange one to arbitrarily drop from the album and I don't know why it's missing from that YouTube playlist since that doesn't have the EP tracks either. Guess it's just an error in the automation.

[jamiefairlie]

You've all done very well!!  As Young Mr. Grace would say. Great noms everyone.

Before seeing his nurse's knickers and hyper-ventilating.

[daf]

Octopus – Saved



Released in September 1996 - reached #40 in the UK chart

Octopus' first (and only) album, 'From a to b', was released in September 1996, and featured all three of the singles released to date. Cameron Miller joined the group on bass guitar, replacing Steven McSeveney, after the recording of the album.



A fourth single, "Jealousy", reached number 59, and proved to be Octopus' final release, the band splitting up in 1997. Miller would later join Andrew Blick in Blowpipe, and play with both Ben Christophers and Adem. Original bass player Steven McSeveney went on to play with The Secret Goldfish.

[Brundle-Fly]

Solid State - Combustible Edison. Released on Bungalow in 1996,





More exotic nineties Nu-Lounge for your delectation. Mine's a Singapore Sling, go easy on the bitters.

Combustible Edison were founded in the early 1990s in Providence, Rhode Island. They were was one of several lounge acts that led to a brief resurgence of interest in the genre during the mid-1990s. Unlike other bands with a more ironic take on the lounge scene, Combustible Edison took the music seriously and strove to add to what its members saw as a canon of works by Esquivel, Henry Mancini and Martin Denny.  The band ended in 1999.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SamphZCRIU

[jamiefairlie]

Low - Turning Over

https://youtu.be/-g8oIu0mH_k



Another beautiful slow burner, this time taken from their "Finally... " EP.

[daf]

You've all done very well!!  As Young Mr. Grace would say. Great noms everyone.

Menswear! . . .

Grace Brothers ‎– Are You Being Served?



Reached #51 in the UK chart in April 1996

Are You Being Served? was created and written by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd. Set in London, the show follows the misadventures and mishaps of the staff of the retail ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments in the flagship department store of a fictional chain called Grace Brothers.

The theme song, written by Croft and composer Ronnie Hazlehurst, consists of a lift girl (whose voice was provided by Stephanie Gathercole) announcing each floor over the musique concrète sounds of a cash register. The pilot episode was broadcast in November 1972, a few months before a suspiciously similar rhythm track was featured on Pink Floyd's 1973 song 'Money' - the thieving bastards!!



A remix of the theme was released in 1996 by a dance act calling itself "Grace Brothers", and featured vocal samples of John Inman and Frank Thornton.

[Brundle-Fly]

Spy Market - Let's Go Bowling.   Released on Moon Ska in 1996.





Before Grand Theft Auto IV character Roman Bellic's catchphrase there were this mob. I know this sort of stuff is kryptonite to some posters on Oscillations so apologies in advance, but all styles go into the soup on this thread.

Let's Go Bowling were a third wave ska band from Fresno, California, formed in 1986.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVMxXVOYteM

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Lemonheads - The Outdoor Type



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WoxO5Nw0e0

"What if something's on TV and it's never shown again?"

An anthem of sorts for people who balk at the very idea of camping, kayaking and - God forbid - free swimming. One of the most charming Lemonheads songs, but it wasn't actually written by yer man Dando. It's a Tom Morgan composition. Morgan is an Australian songwriter who has fronted various indie power pop-type groups.

[Brundle-Fly]

Windscale 2 - Squarepusher. Released on Rephlex in 1996.





Still sounds like the music of the future a quarter of a century later. To me, anyway.

Squarepusher AKA Thomas Jenkinson is a British electronic artist, born 17 January 1975 in Chelmsford, Essex, England, UK. Older brother of Ceephax Acid Crew. He specialises in the electronic music genres of drum & bass and acid with a significant jazz influence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGRO9clV84

[daf]

Denim ‎– Snake Bite



B-side of "It Fell Off the Back of a Lorry" released in February 1996 - reached #79 in the UK chart in April 1996

Snake Bite was originally written by Peter Skellern, and featured on his fifth album, 'Hard Times', released in 1975 on the Island Records label. Despite much radio airplay, "Hard Times" failed as a single and the LP slipped into decades of obscurity.

Skellern's version of Snake Bite was also used as the theme tune for Dave Lee Travis', BBC World Service radio show - which might have been where Lawrence first heard it.



Peter Skellern was born in Bury, Lancashire, and studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After graduating with honours in 1968, Skellern struggled to make headway in a career as a concert pianist and instead focused on pursuing popular music. Answering a Melody Maker advert, Skellern joined the band The March Hare as keyboardist. This gave the classically-trained musician experience in rock and pop. The March Hare became Harlan County in 1970, but failed to achieve any success and disbanded. Skellern continued to pursue a career in pop, represented by the band's manager Johnny Stirling. This led to a record deal with Decca for recording and Warner Music for publishing, signed on 5 May 1972.

[Brundle-Fly]

The Planet Plan - United Future Organisation. Released on Talkin' Loud in 1996.



It's only now looking back at most of my mid-nineties entries, I've hit my thirties and retreating more and more into an imagined past (but with electronic knobs on).

United Future Organisation are a Japanese jazz and funk project, founded in 1990 by 3 members (Raphael Sebbag, Toshio Matsuura & Tadashi Yabe).
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2Xv5OvJ3Q&t