From the ages of seven to thirteen, I used to get up early Saturday morning after a (hardly hard) week of school to watch rage, specifically the Top 50, which as the name clearly states was a countdown of the top 50 songs in the charts that week. It’s how I’ve memorised the words to so many pop songs of the late nineties and why I love them still, and more importantly as to why I believe good pop music died in 2004, and manufactured-by-svengalis shite and hip-hop rubbish tramped the dirt on good pop’s grave. A silly yet strong belief I know, but bear with me.
The first single I ever bought was Happyland’s “Don’t You Know Who I Am”. Yes, at the age of seven I walked into HMV Erina and spent my pocket-money on unusual selections for a kid to have. I think “Polyester Girl” by Regurgitator came next, followed by the remix EP of Madonna’s “Ray of Light”. I spent so much on singles that I didn’t buy my first album until I was 14, though I’m pleased to say my discriminating tastes kicked in and I bought Massive Attack’s Blue Lines, after my dad played me “Unfinished Sympathy” for the first time (and apparently he used to listen to it a lot when I was a baby, so I’m hoping that 90’s anthem ingrained itself to me then).
My strongest memories of the Top 50 though were around 1997-2000, and I’d be up at the crack of dawn with Aqua (Aquarium was the first album I ever had), Kylie Minogue’s “Did It Again”, silverchair’s “Freak” and “Anthem for the Year 2000”, Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” and “Big Mistake”, Redzone and Joanne both doing covers of “Jackie” at the same time, Sash!’s “Stay”, S.O.A.P.’s “This Is How We Party”, Spice Girls “Wannabe” and “Stop”, Starlight’s “Music Sounds Better With You”, Eternal’s “I Wanna Be The Only One”, Backstreet Boys (who I hated then and still do now), Lighthouse Family’s “High” and “Raincloud”, Smash Mouth (Mum’s fave), The Mavis’s “Cry”, Kate Ceberano’s “Pash” (even Dad sang that one whilst driving down Mann Street, Gosford), T. Shirt’s “You Sexy Thing”, All Saints’ “Never Ever” and “I Know Where It’s At”, Madonna’s “Frozen” and “Ray of Light”, Fastball’s “The Way”, Pandora’s “A Little Bit”, Mr President’s “Coco Jambo”, Madison Avenue’s “Don’t Call Me Baby”, Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy“, Hole’s “Celebrity Skin“, Billie’s “Because We Want To“, Ann Lee’s “2 Times”– now, compare all that to what’s in the charts now. Depressing, isn’t it?
And the above-mentioned songs are the ones I remember vividly. I won’t include all the songs I can recall from then, even the really lame ones I can still sing – “Sister” by S2S, anyone? – and I wish I was born ten years earlier just so I could enjoy all the songs of the early 90’s, the songs that I was way too young to hear but I love now – the house and trance and Britpop, especially Suede and Pulp (if I could look like either Brett Anderson or Jarvis Cocker I would die happy).
Plus, how good was it to watch Recovery after the countdown, which was more “alternative” based but still great; mainly for introducing me to the cool weirdness of Dylan Lewis, The Avalanches, Oasis and how you could fax your homework in and they’d do it for you.
It was around 2001 that I noticed the rise of hip-hop as the in-thing. No more happy sing-a-longs around here, what with the “rap” of bitches, hoes and niggaz to go by – the stupidest hip-hop I’ve ever heard was when I was stuck in a guy’s car which was an ashtray on wheels, the floors a sea of empty Dunhill Blue packets, and he kept this one song on repeat, which the lyrics were already a repeat of ‘I’ll stick it in you, bitch” and “I’ll stick in you again, bitch” – there were still at least a few good things to tide over the feelings of despair that good pop music was coming to an end: No Doubt, even Bardot’s “Poison” was bearable against what really can only be described as “shite”. Of course this was also Britney and Christina and Pink’s heyday too. I didn’t mind Pink at first, and loved “Get The Party Started”, but I’ve never liked Spears or Aguleira. The Wamberal Public School 1999 Talent Show can attest to that, nearly every girl that entered did their own cover of “…Baby One More Time.” Imagine listening to that being murdered by young girls for three hours. Another vivid memory is of when Sea FM in Gosford first played “Genie In A Bottle”, and it didn’t click with me (aged nine) and the halfwit DJ afterwards said “It’s making an impact on the charts here” and with all the power of a moody pre-teen I shot back with, “It’s not on my chart”, with a snarl that Dad found hilarious but should have realised was a sign of the even moodier adolescence that was to come.
But back to 2001-2, I didn’t half mind Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, Nelly’s “Ride Wit’ Me” (when it came on in a club I went to with two diehard metal-heads I embarrassed them with glee by jumping around and flailing my arms to that tune. “MUST BE THE MONEY!”), and even “Teenage Dirtbag” until it got onto the charts and after what seemed like a decade JUST WOULDN’T DIE.
The last year of me actively listening to chart radio was 2003 – I was in Year 8, nearly 13 and discovering my love of acting and the heart-breaking bullshit of having your first crush. I can remember the songs I loved then the most: Kosheen’s “All In My Head”, Goldfrapp’s “Strict Machine”, R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix)” and “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne (for it was the favourite song of my crush, of course) and Outkast’s “Hey Ya” at the end of the year, my soundtrack to going overseas (to New Zealand, a cleaner, smaller and more progressive Australia) for the first time.
2004 was personally shit for a load of reasons: miserable at school and living in Mountain Creek but most of all the good pop was gone. Hip hop had edged it out of there and had become pop(ular) itself. The most crushing blow was Nickelback being taken seriously. Ugh! How many songs about getting a shag or not getting a shag can a gruff-voiced beard make? And so of course that’s when my musical tastes went insular and as alternative as I could – I started listening to Triple JJJ (my Dad’s advice has always been, “If you’re ever fixing a car, you must have Triple J on.” This was doubly true when he worked in a workshop that played lame Triple M instead, “They play U2 every hour! You could set your watch to it!”He’d fume). And of course that’s when I started to learn all the great songs that had been made before I was born, even before my parents were born. At the start of 2004 I was still clinging to pop music, by the end I was listening to T. Rex and Massive Attack’s first two albums, which I suppose is what everybody teenager does, finding songs that have gone before and picking them up like a magpie, stashing them away in your nest and believing you’re the only one who listens.
In closing, proper pop music died in 2004, after spending months on life support until an army of rappers pulled the plug, threw it out in a black bag on bin-night and pissed on good pop’s grave. And if everything old is new and cool again, then where’s the dance music of 1990 – 1995 buggered off to? When’s its comeback due? I would love nothing more than dancing to SNAP!, Culture Beat, Black Box, Haddaway and everyone else when it was “in”.
Remember in 2007 when “nu-rave” was going to be the next big thing and disappeared after a month? It’s taken five years for the “fashions” inspired by the short movement to finally change too – no more fluorescent t-shirts and primary-coloured tat. Now we’ve seemingly tried to re-do the Grunge look – if only with check flannelette shirts and boots.
I want a 90’s revival and I want it now.
The Josh Holley 