My Random Music

I've never lived through a better year than 1995 for both music and other things. I'll concede that Robson & Jerome were awful but nowhere near as bad as most pop music you get these days. The Outhere Brothers though were brilliant. Hearing them just makes me want to get a time machine back to 1995 and "Boom Boom Boom" was the soundtrack to that hot summer.

When I was younger I went through a phase of being a big Alisha's Attic fan and I recently made a blog post about why https://myrandommusicblog.blogspot.com/2025/08/why-alishas-attic.html Basically they were the first all female act I ever bought music by and they were in the unique position of making music I liked and being attractive.

I didn't put words in your mouth. I ask you to clarify whether that was what you were implying and you've more or less just confirmed that, My political views don't align with any of the main parties. They all have policies I'm completely against.

Let me get this straight, you think Tory voters are also evil or stupid? If so then combined with Reform voters that's 11 million voters, or nearly a quarter of all people eligible to vote. I can't see anywhere I have defended Reform themselves. I don't see how merely stating there are Reform voters who are decent human beings means my political opinions are screaming at you.

There's a difference between the Reform party and a Reform voter. Like I said you generally have a choice of 5 parties to vote for and for some none of those options are appealing. If you think Reform are evil then fine, but one may think all 5 options are evil and see Reform as picking their poison. Doesn't make them evil too. I've not once stated what my political opinions are. You're just making assumptions about me. To quote part of your previous post "The talking down of big infrastructure projects that Labour are doing or are considering, northern transport as above", I'm saying that there are transport projects where people have their homes destroyed to build a train line and it's quite possible somebody affected would vote for Reform for that reason alone.

I know very well the sort of money political parties put into their campaigns to get people to vote for them at the elections and yes there are obviously external factors that help us form our opinions. The issue I had in the example of the EU referendum was that those who wanted to remain would say everything about remaining is good and everything about leaving is bad, and vice versa. I never once heard anyone in the media say what the pros and cons were for both sides. A lot of what I'm reading on here is that Reform voters are stupid, deserve no respect, they're being conned, they don't know what they're voting for, they're racist and only want to stop immigration. I completely agree that you can't tar all immigrants with the same brush but at the same time you can't tar all Reform voters with the same brush either. On the subject of transport infrastructure projects, if there was a proposed project that meant demolishing my home to make way for a railway line and just 1 party proposed to scrap the project then that party would almost be guaranteed my vote regardless of who they are.

I recall it being widely assumed that we'd vote to stay in the EU prior to the referendum but we didn't. Assuming the statement that a comfortable majority now think leaving the EU was a terrible idea is true the fact is we've seen the exponential growth of a party born out of Brexit. Yes people do change their minds but that works in both directions and yes it may no longer be ones primary concern but are that many people really going to vote for a party who are going to do the complete opposite of what they'd previously voted for. I said over half the voters voted to leave and naturally that doesn't include those who were ineligible to vote or indeed those who chose not to vote. Yes the media do play their part and in the case of the EU referendum the issue was most sources were just telling you which way to vote rather than present the pros and cons of both sides. At the end of the day nobody is right or wrong to vote for any party. Yes I have my own views and opinions on things but nobody is going to tell me how to vote and I'm never going to tell anyone else how to vote and I'm certainly not going to judge somebody for voting for a party I'm not going to vote for.

A couple of quotes from recent posts - "I have zero respect for anyone who supports Reform in any way shape or form" and "I'm hoping there are enough non-stupid people to stop the madness". You're entitled to your opinion but you're not going to stop someone from voting for Reform by calling them stupid or saying you have zero respect for them. The fact is over half the voters voted to leave the EU. With those sorts of numbers you can't say every leave voter is a certain type of person. We all know people who voted out whether we know about it or not and not everybody has the same reasons. I even know people who originally come from EU countries who voted out. Then there's the general opinion that the Conservatives did a terrible job and Labour are doing no better so something needs to change. Aside from those 2 parties there's only 3 other options in many areas of the country. There's the Liberal Democrats and the Greens who say we will rejoin the EU if they get in which is hardly an incentive for those who wanted to leave. Then you're left with Reform. I'm not suggesting it's the only option but it's easy to see why one may think it's their only option. It doesn't make them a bad person.

I too am very fond of 1995 music. This is what I made from the Top 30 of that particular chart https://myrandommusicblog.blogspot.com/2023/08/top-30-in-1995-reviewed-week-34.html

There seems to be the assumption that the only reason someone votes for Reform is because they want to stop immigration and that they don't know what they're really voting for. Sure some people do fit that category but different people have different reasons for voting for a given party. You will also have those who know exactly what they're voting for and those who don't whether they vote Reform or someone else.

Well they say the grass is always greener on the other side. I've never known a newly elected government to be so unpopular and the Conservative government are still fresh in peoples minds. That alone is going to put a 3rd option in a strong position.

Yes they can. In my lifetime we've had multiple terms of Conservative, followed by multiple terms of Labour, followed by multiple terms of Conservative to Labour now. The common theme was that each party was hugely unpopular by the time they were voted out. The tactical voting you hear about a lot in recent years shows a lot of people vote based on who they don't want in rather than who they do want. Generally if you don't want Conservative you vote Labour and vice versa. What's changed now is that a number of people who voted Labour because they wanted to vote out Conservative are now thinking what was the point. There will also inevitably be people who wanted to vote for Reform last time but saw it as a wasted vote but will vote for them next time after seeing the number of votes they did get. If you think Labour and Conservative are just as bad as each other, which many people do, then you have nothing to lose by voting for an alternative party. I don't think that many Reform voters are fans of Nigel Farage. In-fact I would speculate most don't particularly like the man. It's more a case of pick your poison.

The 5 best: Roxy Music - The Same Old Scene Iron Maiden - Women In Uniform The Rah Band - Falcon Electric Light Orchestra - Don't Walk Away Dr Hook - Girls Can Get It The worst: St Winifred's School Choir - There's No-One Quite Like Grandma

My Top 5: Black Slate - Amigo Linx - You're Lying Coffee - Casanova The Sweet People - Et Les Oiseaux Chantaient (And The Birds Were Singing) Motörhead - Ace Of Spades Worst: The Nolans - Gotta Pull Myself Together

Only the 1972 issue was a double a-side. "Saturday Night At The Movies" was originally released in 1964 but failed to chart and had the b-side "Spanish Lace" https://www.discogs.com/release/4523926-The-Drifters-Saturday-Night-At-The-Movies "At The Club" was released in 1965 and did chart with the b-side being "Answer The Phone" https://www.discogs.com/release/16062731-The-Drifters-At-The-Club

I noticed you've crossed out The Drifters in your next batch presumably because "At the Club" previously made the Top 40 in 1965. This is however the first time "Saturday Night At The Movies" made the Top 40 so shouldn't that be included?

Tough narrowing it down to 5 but here goes: George Duke - Brazilian Love Affair Roxy Music - Oh Yeah (On The Radio) Electric Light Orchestra - All Over The World Skids - Circus Games Split Enz - I Got You Worst: Bow Wow Wow - C30, C60, C90, Go

Best: Electric Light Orchestra - I'm Alive The Korgis - Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart Change - A Lover's Holiday Surface Noise - The Scratch Tiebreak: The Cure - A Forest Worst: Rod Stewart - If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)

My 5 picks: The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin New Musik - This World Of Water Roxy Music - Over You The Specials - Rat Race Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Messages Looks like I'm going to be in the minority here but worst for me is "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. I find that song so irritating, especially the singing.

Just discovered this, great idea. Tough choice to narrow it down to 5 but here goes: The Brothers Johnson - Stomp Squeeze - Another Nail In My Heart Genesis - Turn It On Again B.A. Robertson - Kool In The Kaftan Dr Hook - Sexy Eyes Worst: Fern Kinney - Together We Are Beautiful

The Ramones cover of "Baby I Love You" is excellent in my opinion, but can understand why one may not be so keen. Just a small correction, it's not a Motown cover. It was originally by The Ronettes who were on Philles Records.

I would say Neneh Cherry is a different entity to the other Swedish acts because she'd been living in England for several years before she broke through and was part of the UK scene.

I did the same thing myself a few years ago. It worked too as I managed to identify a Flo Rida record at the quiz and we ended up winning. Long since forgot which record it was though.

Wow I can't believe how late most of these years are. For me it was 1987 when I remember Starship being number one with "Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now" on Top of the Pops. I stopped paying attention around 2005 when I got out the habit of watching Top of the Pops when it moved to Sunday and found the music to be mostly rubbish. Started following again around 2016 just after I'd started my blog and heard that Bryan Adams 16 week record at number one was under threat. I follow more for the chart stats these days because if anything the music's got even worse.

I agree with an earlier response that it's often a well known artist with a record that's not so well known. Some examples I can think of: Simple Minds - Belfast Child: they had several well known records, some of which didn't even make the Top 40 (e.g. Theme for Great Cities) but I think many would even struggle to hum this one Queen - Innuendo: I once put this in a music quiz and someone said that's the most obscure Queen record I could have put in there even though it was 1 of just 3 number ones they had in Freddie Mercury's lifetime U2 - The Fly: this was a recent Popmaster question, the contestant thought they were pretty clued up on U2 records but this one didn't ring any bells to them Wet Wet Wet - Goodnight Girl: an anomaly between their 80s heyday and "Love Is All Around" in that this topped the charts but the rest of their singles charted much lower Take That - Sure: they were so popular they would have topped the charts with any lead single off a new album but this was very much overshadowed later by "Back For Good" Also think the Toni Di Bart example above is a good one. When I looked at number ones of the 90s some point in the early 21st century this was the only one I didn't recognise. Once I found out what it was I remembered it but was surprised it topped the charts. I think I was on holiday the week it was number one.