1995 Top 20 Singles

[11] D’Angelo, ‘Brown Sugar’

To go with her shoulder rolls, Junior’s been learning a new dance move. It involves rocking her head from side to side, and got a good airing to D’Angelo. Dad was clicking his fingers on the snap of the beat. Junior could see it was apt comment on this crisp, cool-as-frozen-cubes-of-sweet-potato-baby-meals record.

‘Brown Sugar’ is as smooth as particularly unruffled silk. It’s sparse yet polished, with dashes of strings and tinkles of hammond, and it drifts by in a smoky haze. You’d fall asleep if it wasn’t so insidiously funky. D’Angelo was riding the crest of the “nu soul” wave, Maxwell, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott in his wake, but it all came to nothing in the end. None of them pressed the garish commercial buttons.

10 down, 10 to go. Gets a bit more obvious now. Robson & Jerome, Rednex and Celine Dion all still to come.

[12] Parliament Funkadelic & P-Funk Allstars, ‘Follow The Leader (D&S Remix)’

This is awash with da funk. A George Clinton cover of Eric B & Rakim’s last hurrah, that takes the scary hip-hop chiller and slows it down, slips in some Flavor cold lampin’ and grooves it up to the max. It’s not the lead single mix – which does all the above at a murkier level – but it’s the version with the closest mothership connection. If you haven’t heard it, I’ll do you a tape.

The first record of the day always has an advantage with Junior. She’s at her freshest (and flyest) and she hasn’t yet remembered her stacking cups. It’s a 12” single again, so it’s a chance to grin at Dad standing at the decks. 

It’s also a chance to get down p-funk stylee and scratch the sofa. Her feet don’t fail her now.

[13] Radiohead, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’

Now – forget your standard rock candidates – The Bends is The Best Air Guitar Album In The World… Ever! I could never be doing with all that angsty navel-gazing ‘Creep’ stuff, so imagine my surprise when ‘My Iron Lung’ turned up with its friends in tow, with all that melody, warmth, heart and biceps. There was no better album in 1995.

‘Fake Plastic Trees’ doesn’t call on your Aircaster. Junior sat back and listened to her dad’s early morning cracked voice singing along, only livening up with a few giggles and leg-slaps when the soothing keyboard line came in towards the end. It’s a soft, sleepy record about, erm, plastic surgery or something and the, er, fragility of the psyche, living up to modern ideals. Help me here. Ah, it’s beautiful and affecting, whatever.

The whole warmth and melody thing became a bit of a millstone for Radiohead, of course, so they set about excising it from their oeuvre. 

‘There There’ is the only song on Hail To The Thief that I ever play.

[15] Supergrass, ‘Alright’

This record is for the kids, isn’t it? Perfect. Junior practised sitting up in front of me, and we played an approximation of pat-a-cake to the jaunty tune. She became a little vexed at “keep our teeth nice and clean”, believing Coombes and co were being insensitive about her current toothless status, but otherwise it passed without mishap.

And a jaunty tune is what it amounts to. Even at the time, I wasn’t a huge fan of the song, but I loved Supergrass. Still do. A great live band too, and they’ve never enjoyed the acclaim that was their due. In It For The Money is a fiver in all good record shops. There’s no excuse. Failing that, the Best Of is almost fault-free.

Advert over. In the pub last night, a friend and regular reader tried to guess the rest of the singles in this chart. He managed to name the whole Top Four but, with cunning dissembling, I drew him off the scent. 

Ah.

[16] The Chemical Brothers, ‘Leave Home’

When this came out, I thought I was hearing the future of music. Now that the Lo-Fidelity Allstars bestride the globe, I see that I was correct. 

Oh, come on. Fatboy Slim was quite successful.

One of the loudest records I own, this. The 12” was jumping all over the shop this morning though, so I had to dig out the Greatest Hits CD where this track doesn’t have quite the same punch. The block rockin’ beats still had Junior leaping about (with assistance, natch). She could see a future where techno and hip-hop link arms and breakdance to a Special K-fuelled tomorrow.

I think Noel Gallagher ruined The Chemical Brothers too – “How does it feel like..?” The rap sheet extends.

[17] Oasis, ‘Some Might Say’

So we come to Oasis’ last good single (don’t give me that ‘Wonderwall’ rubbish). A great tune, some – gasp – modern audio effects, a stirring chorus, the usual Noel guff in the lyrics. I read an interview with him last year, where he spoke with wonder about the fans who “understand lyrics I don’t even know the meaning of. ‘Stand up beside the fireplace, take that look from off your face’, what’s that all about? Even I don’t know!” Of course you don’t, Noel. You just threw your magnetic poetry set up in the air again.

Junior insists on standing up on her mum’s lap for this. We already know she likes the rock, and in her bell-bottomed flowery denim dungarees she looks the part. Well, she looks like a Slade fan, but what’s the difference? She pats her thighs and bends her knees with the rhythm.

‘The Hindu Times’ was very sort of ok, I suppose, but really, that bird has flown.

[18] Tricky, ‘Black Steel’

“How long has it been they got me sittin’ in the state pen?” thought Junior as she stared up once more at the hanging bars of the Winnie the Pooh playmat. “I gotta get out, but that thought was thought before. I contemplated a plan on the cell floor. Turns out it’s just a few original AA Milne illustrations of Tigger, Eeyore et al. I’m not a fugitive on the run. I can barely sit up, let alone crawl away from this land that never gave a damn.

“I got a letter from the nursery the other day; opened it and read it, it said they were suckers. They wanted me for Happy Hippos or whatever – picture me givin’ a damn, I said never.”

Superb record, inspired cover. Tricky was at the top of his game in 1995, Maxinquaye an album that was so right for that very moment. It doesn’t happen often. 3 Feet High & Rising, Debut, Screamadelica. Throw me a bone here.

[19] Echobelly, ‘King Of The Kerb’

You remember the ’90s. Loads of mediocre indie bands with female singers, giving shy white boys wet dreams. I can only remember the staggeringly ordinary Sleeper now, and of course Echobelly. Echobelly were rubbish, but this song’s right catchy and Sonya Aurora Maden had a great, pure voice.

A great, pure voice that once again appears to be blaring out of the light fittings. I don’t quite know where Junior’s getting this idea from, except that she has a cousin who thinks that all music comes from the mobile hanging in his bedroom. Junior saw him at Christmas, so perhaps he fed her misinformation. It also gives her an opportunity to do a backward somersault off her dad’s lap – a proto-stagedive, if you will.

Not much more to say about Echobelly. The single sleeve features Sonya holding hands with her lesbian guitarist, which led to sneers in some quarters that she was going for a bit of gay cachet. Who cares?

[20] Michael Jackson, ‘Scream’

Straight back on the horse. Shockingly lazy record, this. The excuse is, the version in our chart is a decent Morales mix – even so, it’s not up to much. Extra points, though, for not even giving his sister a “featuring” credit. The “Duet with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson” is neither part of the artist billing nor the title; it’s just kind of there.

And then there’s the “most expensive video ever made”, which to these eyes seemed to feature a white room with a couple of hollow-eyed freaks in outmoded John Richmond spiky Destroy tops, and some space age special effects last seen in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Way to go, long-mac-in-the-swingpark boy.

Junior spent the song on her mat, not paying much attention but impressively moving clockwise through 90 degrees. You didn’t see Wacko Jacko trying THAT on the MTV Awards.

There’s a hook in this song that I sort of like. I think that’s what Janet brings to the party, but there’s nothing else to justify the hype that fanfared its release. I had the dubious honour of working at Sony Music at the time, and what a hullabaloo there was. Padlocked promo copies brought into the office by Ray-Banned man-mountains, reviewers shackled to chairs in the audio suites, that laughable polystyrene statue on the Thames. I wonder if they’re trying to recoup some costs now?