Jim's Gems 1995: Stone Roses, Oasis, Coldcut among the albums marking 30 years
Whipping Boy's Heartworm and Oasis' What's The Story Morning Glory are among Jim Comet's 1995 selections
Where do I start with 1995? A great year for music in Cork. The club scene, especially Sir Henrys, was thriving. The greatest ever Féile line up came to town, with the Stone Roses, Blur, Massive Attack, and Paul Weller among the headliners. Meanwhile, our neighbours gave us Britpop, which was either the greatest musical movement ever or the last sting of a dying wasp.
In other news, divorce was finally legalised, England football fans rioted in Dublin, and rugby turned professional. As for the best 10 albums…
While the Britpoparratti were busy smooching and sniffing in Downing Street, it was an Irish album that was quietly blowing everything else out of the water. The Whipping Boy were different. Rooted firmly in old-skool post-punk, they made music on their own terms, creating their own unique sound. Fearghal McKee sang unashamedly in his own accent which gave the music a Celtic spirituality I hadn’t heard since early Virgin Prunes.
This is their second album, and they really seem to have settled into a groove with this one. Its wall-to-wall anthems, which was a very 90s thing, bookended by Twinkle and those beautiful introductory strings , and my own personal favourite, Morning Rise, which always brings a lump to my throat. The influence of this album and band cannot be understated. The torch they bore so gracefully has been passed on to acts like Fontaines DC.
It was never going to be easy following up THAT debut, and it must be said that the Roses didn’t exactly make life easier for themselves. While the most anticipated record in years was actually a good album it seriously suffered by comparison. A lot had happened in six years. The market was now awash with Aldi versions of the Stone Roses, so they had to do something a bit different.
The 1960s vibe remained but the songs were longer and more self-indulgent. They felt more like jam sessions. Something might sound amazing in the studio at 4am when you’re off your trolly, but when it’s transferred to record it doesn’t work as well. At times, it felt more like a record made by four individuals as opposed to a band. The group obviously felt the same way, disbanding a year after its release.
The first of the British DJ/producers to test the waters and make their own album, Leftfield had a lot more in their arsenal than repetitive 4/4 beats. Their attitude and mindset was deeply rooted in punk and in UK reggae sound-system culture. And it showed. The albums opener, the classic Release The Pressure, a vastly superior version to the original 12”, is absolutely drenched in reggae, while the closing Open Up features former Pistol John Lydon and his immortal line “Burn Hollywood Burn”.
The album is carefully synched in a way that alters the tempo and mood so the listener is never bored. Twenty years later, this listener still isn’t bored as, unlike the majority of albums from this particular era, this album has aged gracefully.
Born from a melting pot of rave, hip hop and reggae, the jungle genre was a truly original British musical invention. While originally lacking huge commercial appeal it certainly appealed to the underground, disaffected youths and those who were becoming increasingly disillusioned with the direction dance music was heading in.
While the music flourished on pirate radio, it needed a messiah to bring it to the masses. Goldie was the chosen one. Taking the original formula, softening it out with familiar soul samples and adding some female vocals, the man born Clifford Joseph Price created an album that would bring the genre from room 2 to room 1. To be fair it worked for a while, Inner City Life is still a tune.
Big Beat, a much derided and best forgotten genre was actually ok when it first emerged in the former half of the 1990s. Created from a mixture of 1970s funk, hip hop, electronica, clever sampling and the ever changing ’90s production techniques it had its five minutes of fame in 95 but continued to linger like that unwanted guest at the house party.
The Chemical Brothers were the earliest pioneers and this, their debut, is cleverly done and avoids the cliches that would plague their later work. Leave Home, with its famous Willie Hutch sample, was a killer tune to drop back in the day. It sounds rather dated now.
The chill out album was an absolute essential in the 1990s. One had to have the right music to bring you back down to earth (and reality) after a night or three of serious clubbing. DJ Shadow, Portishead, or The Orb usually did the trick. The more adventurous listeners often opted for this classic.
George Evelyn from Leeds, better known as Nightmares On Wax crafted a record that was so steeped in mellow soul and jazzy 70s cinematic grooves that it could (and often was) be mistaken for the real thing. The opening track, which samples Summer In The City by Quincy Jones, got more rotation from DJs in Cork than Quincy’s original.
Cinematic funk is a favourite genre of mine and I have to single out the track Pipes Honour which could be lifted straight from an early ’70s B-movie. The album quickly moved from the dancefloors to the coffee tables, where it remains to this day.
The MTV Unplugged series was a huge franchise in the 1990s, and while Nirvana are credited with stealing the show, for me the ultimate performance was Bob Dylan. It was quite a coup for the show to get him as he wasn’t in a great place, musically or personally, at the time. Backed by a mostly acoustic band he delivered a blistering set that spanned four decades with lots of hits thrown in, which is very unusual for Dylan.
had a poignant anti-war message, while he breathed new life into the outtake The success of this album let to a Woodstock appearance, followed by the recording of which kickstarted that incredible run of albums that continues to this day.
This is a tough one. I’m a huge Bowie fan, but I’ve never been able to get my head around this record. A lot of the new fans who came late to the party consider this to be his best record, but us oldies know better. While Bowie literally owned the 1970s and was always a few steps ahead of everybody else he spent a lot of the ’90s catching up. This, for me, is him trying too hard to make a weird record.
But some of the songs are brilliant. and spring to mind but there’s a lot of filler. On a more positive note, it was better than his 80s albums and at least he was going in the right direction.
By the mid-90s the mixtape had morphed into the mix CD, and had become a huge and highly lucrative cottage industry largely monopolised by big brands like Cream, Ministry Of Sound and Renaissance. The underground still got a look in with the series. The idea being the DJ would take you on an exciting musical journey.
The majority of the journeys were as exciting as a trip to Mallow, but the eclectic guys really used this to push the boat out, take risks and seriously mix it up, something every DJ should do. The two standout mixes are from Norman Jay and this excellent effort from Coldcut. It’s literally a journey into sound. A skilled mix of seventy minutes of funk, punk, reggae, techno, electronica, and whatever else was handy.
I thought hard about this but I had to include it. Forget the melodramas and the soap opera. Focus on the time and the impact this record had. Seen by many as rock’n’roll’s last stand, it was the record that drew many people away from the dancefloors and got them listening to bands again.
While Oasis were lumped in with the Britpop brigade they were on a different level musically. Noel Gallagher hit his purple patch of songwriting, and Liam was the ideal frontman. The album was perfect from start to finish, dripping with beautifully crafted songs that jumped out of you. and featured among the singles. It was never going to last, but for one summer they were the band that mattered.
- A guilty pleasure recommended to me by the late Brendan Butler of LMNO Pelican.
- The slightly weirder but superior second album that includes Hyper Ballad.
- The third and very fine solo album from the former Virgin Prune.
