My Random Music

I don't usually post about anything that's not related to music, but I had an interesting conversation today with someone in their 20s which is relevant to this topic. They told me they were at university during the last general election and neither they nor their friends had idea who to vote for so just ticked a random box. They say their better informed this time around. I suspect the younger you go, the more you get of that sort of thing. When I was at school we had mock elections at the time of a general election and it was always the novelty parties that won them. The oldest of those at school would have been 18 and old enough to vote in the real thing. I'm not going to give my own political opinions on here, but what I will say is that now I'm in my forties they've changed quite considerably in some respects compared to those I had when I was 18. It would be naive to think all the youngsters who strongly disagree with the views of older people aren't going to change their mind when they get older themselves. When I was young, people spoke of dinosaurs with outdated views who would be dead soon and the world would be a much better place once us youngsters took it over. Now we still have dinosaurs with outdated views, the only difference is these dinosaurs are now people my age.

I don't remember anything about the charts as a whole but there was a perception that successful chart acts were cheesy commercial rubbish and the lower reaches, or music that didn't make the charts at all was more credible. There was outrage in 1993 at Mr. Blobby getting Christmas number one ahead of Take That. We had an end of term school disco and the DJ gave a prize to the best dancer to a couple of songs, the prize being the Mr. Blobby single and the same was probably happening at school discos across the country.

Going back to that point in 1993 that I spoke of, The Bluebells was a re-issue of a 1984 single that was used on the Golf advert and the Queen record that knocked it off the top was George Michael singing "Somebody To Love" at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert was was a charity record, so yes very much so. In 1993 I was very much into music but I never bought any singles that year and most of my collection was copied tapes. The same could be said of many of my friends too. Nirvana were the most popular band at school but they never had a number one. At the same time the popular bands were at least in the Top 40 and there did seem to be something for everyone in there. These days there doesn't appear to be much rock music at all in the charts. Dance music wise in the 90s there were numerous records that gained a following in the raves/clubs which led to mainstream success but the record remained credible. These days it appears a dance records chart success is down to how popular the DJ is on Instagram or whatever the latest social media thing is and the record is the modern equivalent of 2 Unlimited who no genuine dance music fan liked in the 90s.

You're right that we do have the odd legacy act have chart success. I didn't think we'd see The Beatles and Rolling Stones in the Top 40 again let alone both have Top 40 hits in the same year but it happened last year. I thought neither were at their best but were better than the rest of the rubbish that was in the Top 40 last year. I would say the fact that Beyonce is at number one proves that record labels still have the power. She's the wife of a record label boss after all. By the time I was at university me and my friends had different music tastes but we could all agree on how much we hated Destiny's Child. I find it baffling how successful Beyonce has been as a solo artist but maybe the answer is starring at me right in my face. I know I'm too old to speak for the youth of today but the music in the charts these days doesn't strike me as the type of music teenage boys would listen to. I had a conversation with a work colleague in his early 20s about music recently and his music taste was in his own words "angry rappers". He named a few rappers he liked and I hadn't heard of any of them. I asked whether he liked Drake (I'm well aware of his chart success) and he was offended I even considered that a possibility. We had Eminem in my day, but he thought that Eminem was too old. I've known for many years that it's the lowest common denominator worm fodder that comes out on top. Maybe todays youngsters realise that earlier than I did.

I remember being sat in a school assembly in 1993. The headmaster was trying to think of something us students could relate to when making his point so he asked one of the younger teachers who was currently number one in the charts. The younger teacher said The Bluebells which sparked a big reaction from us students because we all knew that Queen had just knocked The Bluebells off the top of the charts. Now we're all in our 40s if you were to ask use all who is currently number one I would expect 99% of us wouldn't have a clue. I know it's Beyonce because I have my own chart spreadsheet that I update each week, but I've never knowingly heard the song and I'm happy with that fact given how dreadful Beyonce is. The point is that most of us 40 somethings were going to lose interest anyway given that in the good old days of 1993 our 50 something headmaster had no clue and the maybe 30 year old teacher had a vague idea. I also think the question of whether the charts reflect what's currently popular has always been questionable. Again going back to school in 1993, most of the boys were into Nirvana and some of the girls were too. The rest of the girls were divided between Take That and East 17 with a couple who liked Bad Boys Inc instead. On that basis you would expect Nirvana to be dominating the charts but they weren't. Their final single "Rape Me/All Apologies" only made number 32 that year. I do however thing something does need to change and I think a good starting point is only making singles eligible given it's supposed to be a singles chart. Also whilst it was tedious having Bryan Adams at number one for 16 weeks, the fact the rules mean there's little chance of that record being beaten makes it less interesting. Even from discussion I've read on here where people almost know how a records going to do in the charts before it's even released almost makes the chart seem pointless. For example there was an Ed Sheeran single recently that didn't chart very high at all, people on here predicted it wouldn't and I personally have no idea why because I would have thought the fact it was by Ed Sheeran would make it a contender for number one. Then there's artists from yesteryear who don't seem to have a hope in hell of making the Top 40 with their new record. In the 90s we still had the likes of Cliff Richard having hits, not my cup of tea but it made the charts more interesting.

I only really bought the singles if I didn't think I was likely to buy the album they were on. Last CD single was "I Am" by 3rd Wish in 2005 which never made the Top 40. They disappeared off the face of the earth after that and I don't think there was ever an album. Last cassette single I think was "Salva Mea" by Faithless. I no longer have my cassettes and did end up buying the Faithless album.

Cassius - Cassius Romeo - Romeo Dunn

I've been reading this with interest since you started it. Well done for getting this far. I tried something similar years ago but didn't get very far before I gave up. The "Everybody Knows" by Dave Clark Five in 1967 is a different song to the one in 1965.

One that hasn't been mentioned yet is Ultra High, Chakra, Space Brothers, Essence, Lustral, Oxygen For Klubbheads etc. you can also add Itty Bitty Boozy Woozy For Norman Cooke you can also add Mighty Dub Katz

The problem Top of the Pops is always going to have is the 18-25 age group grew up in a post-totp world so holds no nostalgia for them and those of use old enough to remember it as a weekly show have reached the modern music is rubbish age. My issue with the Christmas totps of recent years is the number of songs on the show that never got into the Top 40. To me totp is all about the Top 40, anything that didn't make the Top 40 shouldn't be on the show. Furthmore, the majority of acts on the show either seem to be an Ed Sheeran clone or a David Guetta clone which really doesn't put modern music in good light. It seems to be more artists that the BBC want to ram down our throats than ones doing well in the charts.

I do a post on my blog at the end of each month looking at the music I was enjoying that month 25 years ago, so this year has all been about 1998. At the start of the year I only really listened to music that was part of the rave scene but part way through the year I opened up to other genres. When I say rave I mean all the music you'd get at raves which was mainly happy hardcore and drum & bass, but included genres like techno, trance and garage. The scene had become fragmented by 1998, for example there was a rave called Hysteria who previously had happy hardcore and drum & bass in the same arena but by 1998 you wouldn't even get them both at the same event, they alternated between happy hardcore and techno nights and drum & bass and garage nights. For me happy hardcore was getting too cheesy and too many vocals and drum & bass was getting too commercial even if the music was still decent. Dream Magazine which was just about the last rave magazine standing ceased to exist in early 1998. I'd previously resisted house music because it was too slow and what I considered to be club music rather than rave, but I was probably listening to house music more than anything else by the end of the year. Speed garage was still at its peak at the start of 1998 and I loved all that. One great garage tune was "Don't Stop" by Ruff Driverz who were Chris Brown who had previously been a happy hardcore producer called Eruption and Bradley Carter who previously engineered loads of happy hardcore tunes. By the end of the year garage had died down somewhat and trance was getting bigger. Ruff Driverz themselves moved on to trance with "Dreaming". Of course trance would get massive in 1999 and garage would come back in a big way at the turn of the century. There were some great records of the summer such as "I Can't Help Myself" by Lucid, "Needin U" by David Morales and "Keep On Dancin' (Let's Go)" by Perpetual Motion. Also sadly in the summer there were a few deaths in a short space of time with Tony De Vit, Stevie Hyper D, GE Real and MC Ruff. Away from dance music, I think 1998 was the first time I started listening to female artists, most notably Alisha's Attic and The Honeyz. "The Incidentals" was a good tune, but aside from that Alisha's Attic were past their best really. The Honeyz were in their prime and this was really the start of me getting into R&B music. We also had "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" by Sweetbox and "Relax" by Dee-Tah which are quite possibly the only 2 records by female rappers that I like.

I did better than expected because I didn't come last. Think I'll give the other quizzes a miss unless I know it's more to do with older music, I'm clueless about anything since around 2005.

Always tough to pick one song from a list, but here goes: 1. Howard Jones - New Song 2. Joe Fagin - That's Livin' Alright 3. Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Don't Do It) 4. Giorgio Moroder with Phil Oakey - Together In Electric Dreams 5. Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy - Icing on the Cake 6. Simple Minds - Alive & Kicking 7. Aurra - You and Me Tonight 8. Paul Hardcastle - The Wizard 9. Steve 'Silk' Hurley - Jack Your Body 10. Jan Hammer - Crockett's Theme 11. Jack 'n' Chill - That Jack That House Built 12. The Timelords - Doctorin the Tardis 13. Inner City - Big Fun 14. Marc Almond ft Gene Pitney - Somethings Gotten Hold of my Heart 15. Queen - I Want It All 16. De La Soul - Eye Know 17. Orbital - Chime 18. The La's - There She Goes 19. INXS - Disappear 20. Erasure - Love To Hate You 21. The Temptations - My Girl 22. SL2 - On A Ragga Tip 23. INXS - Baby Don't Cry 24. Shaggy - Oh Carolina 25. Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La La La Long) 26. Leftfield Lydon - Open Up 27. Deep Forest - Sweet Lullaby 28. The Prodigy - No Good (Start the Dance) 29. M Beat ft General Levy - Incredible 30. N Trance - Set You Free 31. The Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom 32. Coolio ft LV - Gangsta's Paradise 33. Dreadzone - Little Britain 34. 2Pac ft Dr Dre - California Love 35. Wildchild - Jump to My Beat 36. BBE - Flash 37. Coolio ft 40 Thevz - CU When U Get There 38. Dario G - Synchyme 39. DK Quicksilver - Planet Love 40. David Morales presents The Face - Needin U 41. Fatboy Slim - Gangster Trippin 42. Blockster - You Should Be... 43. Masters At Work - To Be In Love 44. Liquid Child - Diving Faces If I was to do this again tomorrow the list might be different. Some have several strong candidates and some don't have any.

Had a go at a couple of them but had no idea about the others because they were too modern for me.

Roisin Murphy is a name I hadn't heard for around 20 years prior to recent events and I'm sure there's many others who hadn't. Now people who liked "Sing It Back" and "The Time Is Now" back in the day are aware the singer of those hits is making new music so therefore want to take a listen.

I would say all artists with a sizeable number of number ones have some questionable ones. I even include The Beatles in that, whilst all their number ones are pretty well known it would be silly to think "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (number 1) is better known than "Let It Be" (number 2).

This is my sort of radio station. As well as the variety of music I like the fact it doesn't go beyond the 20th century. I've read elsewhere that it includes every double a-side, remix and EP tracks which makes the figure of 15,275 too small. I keep a record of every Top 40 hit by the British Hit Singles definition (which excludes remixes) and if I add the double a-sides excluding any duplication of songs being released twice then the number I get is 15,373. That's before adding the EP tracks and remixes.

I like the physical format and still buy CDs but I've not bought a CD single since 2005. Generally speaking the reason I'd buy a CD single was because I couldn't see myself buying the album because it was just that song I'd like from a given artist and I didn't want to lose the opportunity to hear it again. I can listen to them all on YouTube now though. I've I'm just listening to one song then it's a lot easier that way. If I'm listening to a whole album though I'm still more inclined to listen to the CD.

I have to disagree with what's being said about Legs & Co. Most modern female singers wear far less to promote their music these days.

We were too young to remember the early 80s, but what you say sounds logical. The 1992 re-issue of "Temple of Love" was what got us into them but I don't think any of us realised it was an old song at the time. By the time we discovered how old they were plus they had a hit with "Under The Gun" which none of us liked they fell from favour. On reflection it wasn't really my cup of tea, I was just following the crowd like you do at that age.

I was going to music school on a Saturday morning by the time Live & Kicking started and by the time I stopped going to music school I was too old to be watching it so never really saw much of it. One memory I do have though from the Andi Peters era was them singing "Play up your jumper by calling this number 0891........" I did try looking that up a while back to see if I wasn't just imagining it but couldn't find anything about it.

In 1993 me and my friends were forever writing down our Top 10 which changed almost every week. My memory is a bit hazy now but my Top 10 earlier on in the year looked something like this: 1. Guns n Roses 2. INXS 3. Bon Jovi 4. Nirvana 5. Metallica 6. Faith No More 7. Lenny Kravitz (Based purely on "Are You Gonna Go My Way") 8. Sisters of Mercy 9. New Model Army 10. Spin Doctors (Based purely on "Two Princes") As the year went on we became more purists in alternative rock and metal and some of these fell out of favour. INXS didn't really fit the mold anymore, Bon Jovi became the enemy for being too namby pamby, Lenny Kravitz released a couple more songs that weren't rock at all, Sister of Mercy and New Model Army seemed too 80s (both did have hits in 1993 though) and Spin Doctors released a couple more songs that weren't that good. As a result the Top 10 by the end of the year looked something like this: 1. Guns n Roses 2. Nirvana 3. Metallica 4. The Almighty 5. Rage Against the Machine 6. Red Hot Chili Peppers 7. Therapy? 8. Alice In Chains 9. Megadeth 10. Lemonheads By the end of 1994 I'd got into rave music and stopped listening to all of those eventually. My Top 10 would have been along the lines of 10 DJs who were playing in the main arena at the next Dreamscape. On reflection I was never overly keen on Nirvana, Sisters of Mercy, New Model Army or Megadeth but think the rest are all decent. Not sure which of those would make my Top 20 though. A few more names you could throw into the mix based on some of my favourite albums are Massive Attack, Portishead, DJ Shadow, Air, Snoop Dogg, Jurassic 5, Propellerheads. I'd also say my favourite Underworld album is their 92-02 greatest hits as this captures all the best bits in my opinion.

I do think the 21st century was a turning point. Thinking back to conversations I used to have with my uncle in the 90s when he would have been in his 40s, he was very much of the opinion music was better in the 60s and 70s but at least knew what the current music was. Once the 21st century hit he didn't have a clue, yet just a few years later when I was in my mid-20s I was the same myself. I also recall around 2003 my friend who was in his mid-20s and had previously been president of the music society at university didn't know any of the big hits at the time. I found it baffling how he managed to avoid them, but he did. I would say I'm pretty clued up on early 21st century hits because I was in my prime of going out clubbing etc. Thinking back though there were plenty of places you could go where you were guaranteed to avoid modern music such as Flares and Reflex. Even my students union had a 70s and 80s night. There was also the rise of digital TV which meant many weren't restricted to just 4 channels and TV shows wouldn't get anywhere near the number of viewers they used to get. I watched all the big Saturday night TV shows in the 90s such as Noels House Party, but I've never watched an episode of Strictly Come Dancing or Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Likewise there's loads of retro radio stations to choose from these days. Songs from adverts is an interesting one. I remember the M&S advert with 'Rather Be' and had a bit of a 'Spaceman' moment when I heard the whole song with all the terrible singing. The point is do people know it's a clip from an actual song or just a 30 second jingle made for the advert. I've also just discovered that 'Rolling in the Deep' charted at the start of 2011, but I managed to avoid it until I went on holiday in the summer of 2012 when it was played everywhere.

I might of heard them all but they just haven't sunk in. I do think part of the reason there's far less well known songs from the last 15 years is because it's a lot easier to avoid them now. We no longer have shows like Top of the Pops and at the same time there's lots of retro footage out there to amuse ourselves with. Likewise we can listen to retro radio stations, go to 80s nights when going out etc. re Valerie, yes I was thinking of the original.

Thanks for the suggestions, some I agree with, some I don't and some I'm sat on the fence with. 'Rolling in the Deep' is a good shout, but I'd say the other Adele songs are too slow and boring to distinguish between. I'm aware of 'Someone Like You' but couldn't tell you how it goes, ditto with 'Easy on Me' 'I Gotta Feeling' is another good shout and one I considered. My only reservation is that I associate it with the bars I went to at the time which played it that I wouldn't be seen dead in now I'm older so my view is a bit more biased. Not sure about 'Uptown Funk', very borderline I think. 'Happy' is also one I considered on the basis of my parents questioning whether it was the same person I listened to back in the day with Nerd etc. because it didn't sound like the sort of thing I'd like, which it isn't. I do think 'Shape of You' is a difficult one to avoid, just conscious of people saying they'd never heard any Ed Sheeran songs. Disagree with 'Thinking Out Loud' and 'Perfect' though, the former was from a time I never knew any Ed Sheeran songs myself and I'm a bit hazy on the latter. I don't know 'Shut Up And Dance', 'Wake Me Up' or 'Let It Go' myself so disagree with them. 'Pokerface' is possibly one, but I'd say very borderline. I don't know 'Shallow', 'We Found Love', 'Work' or 'On the Floor' and I remember 'Despacito' being number one for ages but have forgotten how it goes so disagree with them. 'Call Me Maybe' is a good shout, I remember at the time someone played me it because they were amazed I'd never heard it at that point so maybe plenty of others were given the same torture. 'Valerie' is over 15 years old so doesn't count as is 'Shine'. 'Umbrella' is just over 15 years old and I see that 'Rule the World' is 15 years old today, so won't count tomorrow. It is the last Take That comeback song that people generally remember though. Not convinced 'Get Lucky' is that well known, probably is amongst people like myself who listened to Daft Punk in the 90s but not the wider public. I think people remember 'Gangnam Style' existing but not convinced the song itself is that well known. 'Sex on Fire' is a good shout and does feel like the last of the well know guitar records. I don't know 'Just The Way You Are', 'What Does The Fox Say' or 'Hold My Hand'. I remember 'Somebody That I Used To Know' existing and seeing the video but the song never sunk in. So disagree with all these. I also disagree with 'Rather Be' on the basis when I went to Radio 2 in the Park and Clean Bandit were on the line up my friends had never heard of them. I think I've covered all the suggestions so far.