UncoolTwo50

What's the best year for music?

Whenever you're 14 according to the joke, though for me it seems that I'm a bit late and it's actually 16.

One of the reasons I decided to do this (having failed to do the '54-'76 version; I started but it quickly dawned on me that I was just filleting my Motown Chartbusters CDs) is that the period closely corresponds to my childhood - I was born at the tail end of '77 and turned 22 at the close of the millenium having moved to London to get a job.

It's been interesting to revisit stuff I've not heard for a time and consider what I might have thought of stuff I love now had I heard it when it came out (though pretty much all the 90s tracks are things I was into at the time).

My top 50 tracks tend to cluster around my mid-late teenage years...

Though 11 and 13 were both big too

1970s

I was born. We moved from Bristol (where my parents vinyl collection had been stolen) to Wales. I have no memory of the 70's bar some hazy images of late '79 when my sister was born.

1. Donna Summer - I Feel Love (1977)

A resolutely future facing bassline which feels like it must always have existed, just waiting to be unearthed, meshed with a vocal line equal parts controlled and sensuous. A turn towards minimalism at the end of a decade associated with excess,everything is essential and no more, nothing out of place.

I guess that this will be a popular pick.

2. Machine - There But for the Grace of God Go I (1978)

Don’t move to the suburbs, you may get your kids into a ‘better’ school but no good will come of it!

1980s

3. Dolly Parton - 9 to 5 (1980)

The first song my daughter was REALLY into, when she was about 4/5. I liked it before but this massively increased my affection for it.

4. Blondie - Atomic (1980)

First heard Blondie via Maria in the 90s, a weird way in and it means I’m very much a greatest-hits fan even though they’re one of my favourite bands. Last minute switch from Denis.

5. New Order - Temptation (1982)

The New Order track that’s gradually crept up on me over the last 30 or so years. I once saw Peter Hook at the bar at a Therapy? gig in Manchester Academy, he was wearing red leather trousers.

6. Iron Maiden - Aces High (1984)

Could have picked any one of their early 80s singles from Run to the Hills to this, in the end I chose this because of the cover art.

This is (I think) is the last pick that I didn’t first hear at the time. I was aware of Iron Maiden because the scary teenagers who hung out by the bridge in our village wore the T-shirts but didn’t hear any of their records till much later (probably Can I Play With Madness?)

7. Bronski Beat - Small Town Boy (1984)

Very clear memories of seeing this on Top of the Pops and immediately loving it, never get sick of it.

Another memory
Seeing

this

8. a-ha - Take On Me (1985)

Through an accident of timing this is kind of my platonic ideal of a pop single, released around when I started watching Top of the Pops religiously and lobbying for my own tape deck for my birthday.

9. The Bangles - Manic Monday (1985)

Prince in slice of life mode, The Bangles tie all their California sunshine to a song about wearily getting up at 6 to go to a crappy job.

10. Prince - Let’s Go Crazy (1985)

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life!

1988: My sister and I flew from Papua New Guinea to the UK as unacompanied minors, inc a 6hr stop in Singapore where we sat in the airline's staff lounge and watched a VHS of Purple Rain 3 times in a row (unsuitable: strong language, moderate sex and violence) with chain smoking flight attendants.

I couldn't tell you anything about the film except for it kindled my love of Prince's music.

11. Paul Simon - The Boy In The Bubble (1987)

The quintesential car tape. I'm not much for lysics but can sing pretty much every word.

On albums I listen to a lot I tend to favour the later singles. There a trade off, immediacy vs depth. I’ve heard Call Me Al too many times and I love Boy in the Bubble's lyrics ("Lasers in the jungle somewhere") and the epic accordion + big 80s drum intro.

12. Madonna - La Isla Bonita (1987)

Similarly to BITB (see above), a late single from a heavily listened album (the 5th from True Blue). Not a case of overplaying Papa Don’t Preach, I just always preferred breezy Madonna to melodrama Madonna.

This was also a record I listened to alot when we first got to Papua New Guinea so references to tropical islands etc. resonated in my young mind.

13. Poison - Nothin’ But A Good Time (1988)

My friend Scott introduced me to Poison when we visited him and his family in Sydney precipitating a seismic shift in my music taste, an appreciation for METAL.

A kind of the anti Manic Monday, an end of the week release.

14. Inner City - Good Life (1988)

The highlight of tape 2 side 1 of Now 13 - aka the best side.

15. A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray (1988) ⭐⭐

Alchemy! Unlikely ingredients (a Derek and Clive sample?) put together in the perfect proportions. Futuristic, soulful, utopian.

16. Prince - Alphabet Street (1988)

The only artist who gets 2 entries in my list. I've been called a "bad Prince fan" in the past because of my affection for this track (and the clunky rap) so heartening to note I'm not the only one to have picked it.

17. Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan (1988)

Strapping Cohen's whispery singer songwriter/ spoken word delivery to some high gloss 80s production with a massive synth bassline is a bold, inspired decision. I love it.

18. Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise City (1989) ⭐

Best single off the best rock album ever? (possibly? probably?) originally taped off the radio (US top 40), got given a bootleg casette for 12th birthday by my friend Roy (played to destruction)

1990s

Back to the UK, a bit of time in our old house in Wales before moving to Macclesfield. Metal, dance music, hiphop, a seasoning indie. My main music inputs Radio 1, public libraries and friends who read the NME/ Melody Maker/ Select or have access to MTV.

Later I got a Saturday job in a computer shop on Deansgate and spent most of my earnings in Picadilly Records or Vinyl Exchange on the way back to the train station at the end of the day.

19. Imperfect List (Wetherall Mix) - Big Hard Excellent Fish (1990)

An undiferentiated list of petty grievances, personal heartbreak, grave social injustices, and world threatening calamity - prefigures the experience of browsing social media.

But that backing track! Somehow it's not depressing, there's an air resignation sure but also a note of transcendence.

20. The Jesus Lizard - Mouthbreather (1990)

Don’t get me wrong, I like it just fine… but this song also stands in for a bunch of noisy records by bands who’s best (imo) stuff isn’t really on singles (including Nirvana).

21. Gang Starr - Jazz Thing (1990)

Went back and forth over the Gang Starr single to include, this is a bit of an odd one but it's the one curently in my "!!!Now" playlist. In 2024, what with the requirements of the straming audience (hook immediately pls), you couldn't get away with 30 seconds of turntable noodling at the start.

22. Nine Inch Nails - Head Like a Hole (1990)

To my ears NIN at this point have as much in common with The Human League as Ministry.

23. Brand Nubian - Wake Up (Reprise In The Sunshine) (1990)

I admit this is about 90% about the Roy Ayers sample (the lyrics being 5%er stuff - not an issue in this instance I think, but y'know, still gesturing in that direction).

24. EPMD - Give The People (1991)

25. A Tribe Called Quest - I Left My Wallet in El Segundo (independence mix) (1991)

Inextricably linked to painting my newly acquired Space Hulk set over the summer holiday. I have not attempted to avoid sentimental picks.

26. Sisters of Mercy - Temple Of Love ‘92

The contrast between the stretched cassette sounding riff and the shiny Ofra Haza vocals 👌. Just love how seriously everyone is taking it (including me).

I’ve seen a couple of SoM pickers choosing This Corrosion, fair enough, love that too, but there’s no contest for me.

Bonus anecdote: I drew the cover of this on my black canvas bag using my sisters glitter glue resulting in a Lisa Frank x Sisters styled masterpiece. (Thrown into a bush and lost, along with the Realm of Chaos: Lost And The Damned source book contained within, by Russell C- my habitual tormentor)

27. The Prodigy - Out of Space (1992)

The first Prodigy album occupies a similar place in my personal music taxonomy as the first GnR album. A perfect pop record, a perfect expression of a genre, effortlessly new, uniquely thrilling.

28. Faith No More - Everything’s Ruined (1992)

Another late album cycle single

29. Aphex Twin - On (1993)

One of the few 12” I couldn’t part with in the great cull of a few years back. Purely totemic as I no longer own a record player.

30. Rage Against The Machine - Bullet In The Head (1993)

Once every few years I put the 1st RATM album on and get really excited for the first half before feeling let down by the second. This track, the last on side A, is always at my peak enthusiasm.

It was the encore at my first ever gig

31. Stereolab - French Disko (1993)

For a brief period we will now be traversing the indie zone of my list.

Always dissapointing when it was an indie week on the ITV chart show; mostly cheap videos(bad) and drab songs (occasional surprise). As opposed to the dance chart: cheap videos (good) and exciting songs. Generally our household opinion was Dance chart > Rock chart > Indie chart.

32. The Breeders - Cannonball (1993)

33. PJ Harvey - 50ft Queenie (1993)

Just spent a good half hour watching live versions of this on youtube and i’m not sure there’s a better one than this from ‘93. What an amazing voice!

34. KRS One - Sound Of Da Police (1993) ⭐

There can never really be justice on stolen land.

Perfect early-mid 90s hiphop.

The fact that the opening bars are acapella is an absolute gift to DJs on a record that's already a guaranteed dance floor filler (or atleast it was last time I was regularly seen near dance floors).

35. Alkaholiks - Make Room (1993)

36. Queen Latifah - U.N.I.T.Y. (1993)

37. The God Machine - Home (1993)

38. Empirion - Narcotic Influence (1994)

39. D'Cruz - Lonely (1994)

Early drafts of this list had more drum and bass/ jungle but they mostly fell by the wayside, this was never in doubt though. Evokes late night car rides in and out of Manchester with amazing clarity.

40. Underworld - Cowgirl (1994)

A regret: Missing Underworld at Reading '96 (somehow nearly 30 years ago) because my friends and the people we'd met at the festival (girls!) all wanted to watch The Stone Roses.

41. Masta Ace inc - Born to Roll (1994)

“Is that bass line even legal?” - my friend Guy when I first played this for them

42. Method Man & Mary J Blige - I'll Be There For You/ You're All I Need (1995)

Have very clear memories of Marks Radcliffe and Riley sneering about Mary J “Bilge” when they were on radio one. What a pair of losers.

43. TLC - Waterfalls (1995) ⭐

We're still in 95 but this track, and the accompanying video, are solid early examples of a future facing Y2K aesthetic. Performance and production feel effortlessly light but both are packed with intricate details

44. Ol Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya (1995)

45. Pulp - Disco 2000 (1995)

A late comer to the pleasures of Pulp, hearing this on the school bus was what made them click for me.

46. Blackstreet ft Dr Dre, Queen Pen - No Diggity (1996)

47. New Kingdom - Unicorns Were Horses (1996)

There's an alternate reality where the merger of hiphop and metal didn't result in Limp Bizkit et al but instead ended up in a sludgier more interesting place.

48. Missy Elliott - The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) (1997)

The foothills of Missy & Timbaland, already awesome

49. Luniz - I Got 5 On It (Urban Takeover mix) (1998)

An obviously doomed pick this mix, but I couldn't resist. It's like one of those stretch Hummers, welded together from 3 (possibly stolen) vehicles on an industrial estate somewhere off the North Circular, looks basically normal (if a little vulgar) from the front but then, in defiance of good taste and reason, it just keeps going, threatening to fall apart at any minute.

50. Kelis - Caught Out There (1999)

The problem with doing this list chronologically is there's a risk of ending on a whimper (unlike the countdown approach which guarantees a string of giants at the end). As luck would have it though this feels like a good finish; truely iconic and a harbinger of shiny Y2K R&B things to come.

Choosing

I vascilated between songs that were important/ formative to me at the time and songs that I listen to a lot now, in the end mostly plumping for the latter. If I instinctively turn up the radio when it comes on it's in, if I make sure it's downloaded on my phone before I get on to the tube that's a strong signal.

One thing I was a bit surprised about was how much I value the social aspect of certain pieces of music, do I enjoy them with friends? with my kids? I think the biggest change in my tasteover the last 25 years is that I have a greater appreciation for that social aspect. Not like the communal joy of a mosh pit, or a dance floor, though that approaches it, more about connections between individuals.

I tried to only have one track per artists. Prince get two though.

RE: Consensus

The outcome of this picking process as performed by 100 or so people and then aggregated on some big spreadsheet (I guess) is, as with all similar excercises (the weekly pop charts etc.), a picture of consensus. In this case the consensus is that these are the tracks that most people in this cohort agree on. Tracks that might not be anyone's particular favourite but which are liked by many will rise to the top. The extreme and the specific tend to be sidelined in favour of the broadly appealing.This is fine but reinforces for me the idea that considerations about splitting the vote or whatever are broadly counter productive, they tend to get you to lean into a percieved concensus.

The enjoyment of this process has been in selecting enjoying other people's selections, hearing a bunch of stuff I had never encountered before or which I'd forgotten about and seeing how my own taste fits with that of others. Being true to my taste in the moment is more rewarding than metagaing to get PJ Harvey in the top 10 or whatever.

Related anecdote: A few weeks back I was playing Wavelength at a boardgames meetup in a pub with my regular group, we range in age between early 20s and early 70s, a spread of nationalities and ethnicities not atypical for London. The game required me to choose something which represented a particular space on a spectrum between the poles of "mainstream" and "underground". I picked New Order of the 7 other people playing none had heard of New Order. This was not my expectation.

Regretable omissions

A bunch of my favourite bands and artists (past and present) didn't make it. No Nirvana (my fave track is Aneurism - not a single (though Sliver nearly made the cut)). I used to love Beck for years but haven't listend to him in decades. No Squarepusher (don't like the singles particularly except Come on my selecta off Big Loada, and is that a single? not worth the risk tbh). Sonic Youth, Kyuss, The Fall? Album bands for me. Fugazi & Shellac didn't really release singles (in the case of the latter, when they did I prefer the B Sides). And finally...

Minutemen - History lesson part II (1984)

My favourite band. Out of consideration because they didn't do singles.

"Our band could be your life" 🖤 RIP Mike Watt.

Compliance

THE NEIL KULKARNI CLAUSE: A maximum of 70% (35) of your 50 singles can be exclusively credited to white men. If exceeded, all ‘non-compliant’ singles will be penalised.

By my reckoning 76% of the list, i.e. 38/50 entries, are NK compliant.

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