Countdown To 40: A Song A Year - 20 Is The New Teenage

The first ten years...

The troublesome teens...

And now, part 3 of my Countdown to...

21 (1993) Aimee Mann - I Should've Known

If I were being retroactive, I'd pick something like OU or Razzmatazz from the Pulp: Intro album, but sadly I didn't discover Jarvis till the following year. I did discover Aimee Mann in '93 though and even chose her debut solo record, Whatever, as my album of the year. Mr. Harris is probably my favourite track from that disc now, but this is the one that made me love Aimee at the time.

Meanwhile, the singles chart had fallen off a cliff. Number One as I got the key to the door? Oh Carolina by Shaggy.

22 (1994) Morrissey - Now My Heart Is Full

And I just can't explain so I won't even try to

Jarvis almost made it home once again, I could have gone with just about anything from His 'n' Hers. But then there's Vauxhall & I. Could this be Morrissey's finest 39 minutes as a solo artist?

I told you the birthday number ones just get worse and worse. March 19th, 1994? Doop. By Doop. Sadly, not this one...

23 (1995) Pulp - Common People

All hail Britpop, and its greatest hero finally makes it home. I could have chosen Sorted For E's & Whizz, but I'd just be being contrary.

Meanwhile in the charts... Love Can Build A Bridge by Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton. Who all should have known better.

24 (1996) Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

At last, proof that my favourite singles don't always come from my favourite albums. This was the year of Everything Must Go, Beautiful Freak and Murder Ballads... yet the song that most reminds me of my second stab at being a teenager is this exuberant blast of sunshiny retro-pop from Ocean Colour Scene. Hard to believe they were the first band I ever saw live.

Meanwhile, back in the charts... How Deep Is Your Love? Shallow, when it comes to the Take That version. Not so shallow they couldn't drown a few Gibb brothers in it.

25 (1997) Blur - Song 2

Blur were a great singles band and this was their greatest moment. Two minutes of noisy power pop that never fail to make me go "Woo hoo!" While Radiohead, The Verve and Gene were darkening my long player collection, Damon and the lads kept me smiling. This year's runner-up was a hymn to optimism from James: Tomorrow.

And in an alternate reality to my own, The Spice Girls were having their 4th Number One as I reached my mid-20s. I can't even remember the title.

26 (1998) The New Radicals - You Get What You Give

Another song that stands out by not belonging to one of the year's best albums. 1998 gave us my favourite record of the 90s, Pulp's public breakdown on This Is Hardcore. But the single of the year belongs to Gregg Alexander, a man who hated being a rock star so much he went off and wrote songs for Ronan Keating.

Sadly, I can't find my other favourite single of 1998 on youtube. Child Psychology by Black Box Recorder must be too dark for the video collective.

March 19th 1998, the Number One was It's Like That by Run DMC vs. Jason Nevins. Which is a damn sight better than we've managed throughout the rest of this decade so far.

27 (1999) Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

I thought long and hard about this one. It would have been so much cooler to pick something by The Magnetic Fields (69, my favourite album of '99), The Flaming Lips or even Ooberman, but as much as Fran Healey has damaged his limited rep by writing MOR-pap for the last 10+ years, this is still a perfect gloomy-pop song that captures a snapshot of my life in 1999. I remember watching them play it live at a festival just before they went big, in the rain. Perfect.

Besides, it could have been worse. I could have chosen my last birthday Number One of the 20th Century. Boyzone murdering Billy Ocean. When The Going Gets Tough... the tough put their hands over their ears and go lalalalalalalala.

28 (2000) Everclear - Wonderful

Neither of my two favourite singles of 2000 meant much to the public at large. I've written about Black Box Recorder's The Facts Of Life before, but Wonderful by Everclear is a curio. An American band who have never bothered the British charts, this is their greatest moment. More upbeat power-pop packed with smiley hooks, handclaps and a 'na-na-na' chorus... masking a dark lyrical undertow.

Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now

Far less Wonderful, my first birthday chart-topper of the 21st Century: Bag It Up by Geri Halliwell. WTF? Is that Geri singing about her shopping? I'm not sure I've ever even heard that record. I am sure I never want to.

29 (2001) Eels - Souljacker Part 1

Ben Folds came close with Rockin' The Suburbs, but this rocks harder.

And on my birthday? Pure And Simple by Hear'Say. The charts are officially dead.

30 (2002) The Flaming Lips - Do You Realise?

The song I want playing at my funeral. Kind of apt for my 30th birthday?

But as I actually turned 30, Will Young was at Number One, marking the funeral of the singles chart as we knew it. Simon Cowell slaughtered the damned thing before our very eyes.

Ten more years to go...

Top Ten Songs About The 90s

50s...

60s...

70s...

80s...

And finally...

The 90s is just as maligned as the 80s, if not more so. But I'll defend it with equal fervour. Though it was something of a rollercoaster personally, musically it was my time. Britpop gets a lot of negative press, but so many of my favourite bands came from that era that I can forgive it the thuggish excesses of Oasis.

Pulp, Blur, Suede, the Manics, Radiohead, The Verve, the Divine Comedy, Ash, Gene, My Life Story, Catatonia, Supergrass - even Ocean Colour Scene and Shed Seven had their moments. In many ways, these bands represent my teenage revolution - even though I had to wait till I was in my 20s to properly embrace sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Well, ill-advised relationships, Jack Daniels and Britpop, anyway.

As with the other lists, this is NOT a Top Ten Songs FROM The 90s... only a Top Ten Songs ABOUT The 90s...

10. Travis - Tied To The 90s

Let's start with the obvious one (though not quite as obvious as the one we'll end with). Travis began life as a cute, knockabout indie band. On their second album, they discovered big ballads. On their third, they discovered pandering to the lowest common denominator and trying to beat the upstarts Coldplay at the game the stole from Travis in the first place. On their fourth album, they lost. What went wrong, eh?

9. Seahorses - 1999

I always thought the Seahorses had more potential than their one album and final unrelated single showed. John Squire got bored too easily and went off to paint pictures of dolphin. He could have been a contender...

16 sweet Chablis sham kisses
17 nothings whispered in her ear
18 attempts on her best pair of knickers
1999 was a hell of a year

8. Moxy Fruvous - Stuck In The 90s

Weird Canadian comedy hipsters from the early 90s who released one classic album (Video Bargainville) and then decided to try and become proper, serious musicians... which was much less entertaining.

7. Eminem - '97 Bonnie & Clyde

In which Em tries to prove himself a suitable father to Hailey by singing Will Smith lullabies and trying to murder her mum. Again.

What can I say? It appeals to my warped sense of humour.

6. Picture Centre - Fireworks October 1990

A band so fey and ephemeral they make Belle & Sebastian sound butch, this is wonderful 3am chill-out stuff. A band so forgotten, they don't even rate a Wikipedia entry. But I remember them.

Just.

5. Blur - End Of A Century

See, I was going to select 1992 , which is all very well, but not really a patch on the song above. So that's what you get.

End of a century?
It's nothing special...

4. Carter USM - The 90s Revival / 1993

Ah, Carter. How I wish I could claim to have been a huge fan of your under-appreciated oeuvre "back in the day". Sadly, it passed me by. Only now, in the 21st Century, am I finally coming to appreciate your greatness. Just in time for your forthcoming reunion tour. That'll be a true 90s revival.

3. Fountains Of Wayne - '92 Subaru

Most car songs celebrate classic '57 Chevvies and their ilk. The FOWs can only afford a late model Subaru, second hand from some old ladies out of state. Ah, but they love it like a Caddy.

2. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Instant Repeater '99

Often when you see a year on the end of a song title it's only there to show you when the song was recorded - or, more frequently in the 90s, remixed. Tonight though, Swedish serial guitar abusers TSOOL will actually sing '99 like it's... well, erm, the next record in our countdown. (Even though the song itself was released in '96.)

1. Prince - 1999

Like it was ever going to be anything else. Originally released in 1983, a much bigger hit in 1985, reissued for no reason I can figure in the final year of the millennium (unless you're one of those people who believes the final year of the millennium was 2000)... a song that created its own idiom.

Somebody once told me that come the 21st Century you'd never hear this record again. "Why would anybody play it once it's out of date?" Um... because its sentiment is timeless? There's no reason not to party like it's 1999 even in 2011 if you want to.

As for my own millennium memories... I had the flu so I spent the turn of the century in bed. (It really was 'nothing special'.) Was it as good as everybody thought it would be...?



And so we end our countdown of songs about decades. I won't be compiling a Top Ten Songs About The Noughties because it's all still too close and there aren't yet enough decent ones to go round. Maybe one day...

In the meantime, do you have a favourite song about the 90s? If so, you know what to do with it.

Next week, something completely different...

Rubbish!