Pre-millennial Popular.
It’s Popular with a Latin flavour.
Racing around the world with Popular.
The Popular thread on Britney Spears’ first UK number one wandered into some depressing territory, thanks to the song’s controversial video. Here are some of my comments from it.
Popular has been continuing steadily through 1998 and into 1999. More of the tracks are new to me now, so my comments have been getting briefer, but here are a few of the longer ones, edited and adapted.
1998 is the end of a rich few years of Popular number ones for yours truly, and the beginning of a far less familiar time: for some years that lie ahead I know maybe a dozen of the UK number ones, for others four or five, and for a few of them only one. And that’s just whether I’ve heard them, not whether I like them. I’ll have to find some creative ways to preface every comment there with “I’ve never heard this before”. Here are some on the songs leading up to the edge of that veil of ignorance.
Popular galloped through 1997 in just over two months, which is some sort of track record. I wasn’t expecting to like as many of the year’s UK number ones as I did—over half of them, in the end. Here are my more substantial comments on the year’s closing hits.
Some of my weightier musical thoughts from meaty Popular threads, as its canter through 1997 continued.
Mulholland Drive-By
Even if you’ve already seen Matt Mulholland’s captivating cover of “My Heart Will Go On” (via here if nowhere else), you owe it to yourself to dig deeper into his YouTube channel, which is a feast of musical delicacies.
An unrelated Popular thread prompted some reflections on my favourite Beck album (although judging by the stream of Morning Phase, it could have a challenger).
Your disco needs you too: more 1997 UK number ones at Popular.
Popular enters 1997 in a blur of good-to-great tracks.
1996 was an unexpectedly strong year for UK number ones, with thirteen votes from me in Popular’s end-of-year poll of songs worth six or more out of ten. Only a few were songs I was actually listening to then and would listen to much today; what I really loved that year were Suede’s Coming Up and Ash’s 1977, still my favourite albums by each band. But one or two became favourites not long afterwards...
A second instalment of my Popular comments on late 1996, indirectly featuring one of my favourite bands of a few years later, and directly featuring one of my favourite bands of the decade after that.
Tom Ewing has been on a roll at Popular since Christmas, moving quickly through the second half of 1996 and on into 1997. Here’s a first instalment of my comments on the period in question.