Gezza's Review of Every No 2 single 1995-1999

[andrew07]

I love Supergrass but I must admit it did seem like "Alright" was becoming bigger than them, which was why they began to exclude it from live performances, I Should Coco was a great album, but it's what they did next that I really loved and we'll see that from the next No.2 hit that they'll have soon.

My first ever gig was Supergrass at Edinburgh's Corn Exchange in 2003 on their Life On Other Planets tour (aged 22, late bloomer but making a start) and they were just amazing live, such power. They were supported by The Raveonettes and Ed Harcourt who were also great. It was also the very gig where my first mobile phone got stolen also.

It is a shame that they split last year, and that the last thing they recorded (their Release The Drones album) hasn't been released. Was surprised to see Danny Goffey appearing on Celebrity Masterchef recently too.

[evansabove]

Love Shy Guy and i dont think it really matters whether you know what she is singing about or not. Great to listen to this time of year and it brings back the feelings of summer

[borneoman]

Alright is a nice-summery single but for me the lyrics are too silly, especially compared to other BritPop acts like Pulp...

Shy Guy wasn't bad either...

[Gezza]

19TH AUGUST- I LOVE U BABY- Original (1 week)



So here I am in August 1995 waiting for my A Level results to come through, working part time in a local hotel silver service waiting, they were innocent pre uni days when the most stress I had was exams. In the pop world we were gearing up to the biggest chart battle of the decade but the week before that this euro dance outfit almost bagged a surprise chart topper from the mighty Take That.

I can't really find anything on the web to tell me that much about the band, other than this made No 31 in Jan 95 before a re-release post summer holidays proved more fruitful. It's another example of the famous "Ibiza" effect, returning holiday makers buying tracks they had heard in the most famous clubbling spot in the world in the 90s anyway, and whilst I don't dislike this song it's hard to sum up any strong feeling about it all. A traditional slump in sales in August may account for it's high position but it's an "also-ran" song for me i'm afraid.

[Gezza]

26TH AUGUST- ROLL WITH IT- Oasis (2 weeks)



So we finally arrived at the infamous battle of the decade. Looking back it seems an odd battle, neither track is the best the bands (Oasis and Blur) did maybe this was therefore a battle about other things, North Vs South, Middle class vs Working class, witty intellectualism vs salt of the earth honesty. Imagine if this battle had been "Don't Look Back In Anger" Vs "The Universal" or "Supersonic" Vs "Tender" but we're stuck with what we got, and I still remember the slot on the 9 o'clock news that Monday night 14th August when the battle was deemed important enough to run alongside tales of war & Famine. Sometimes Pop can extend outside of its own confines and grip the nation, and as a 19yr old it seemed at the time that it was all about my age group, we were the bright young things who were making a mark on the world, fools that we were. but that the power of Britpop it made you believe your life was immeasurably more interesting than it was simply because the songs were about just that ordinary life in your average UK town.

Shame then that "Roll With It" is so poor, a rock-n-roll by numbers track that is full of its own pomp but this time sadly without much of it being warranted, the end result of that battle which places this Oasis track in this thread was probably the right one in the end in my opinion though of course it was hotly contested at the time, and yes the question "Do you prefer Oasis or Blur" was genuinely asked many times back then and in pubs- the cliches are all true. "Roll With It" is a track that even Oasis seem to bore of half way through and it's a track I always skip when listening to WTSMG, almost any other song on there would have been a better single than this but by this point the name alone would guarantee a top 2 placing.

As we know the battle was lost but the war was won by them and Oasis's impact on pop culture and the proverbial kick up the jacksy they gave the record industry in the mid 90s can't be under-estimated. Few bands had come with the urgency to be massive, a drive so primary and vital that they refused to be denied, and that was something which had been lacking in the UK Charts for a good decade or so (probably since the new romantic movement) which goes part way to explaining why they became so big, and for a while the records echoed that sense of purpose and drive. Ignore "Roll With It" and you have a pretty flawless string of string of hit singles 1994-1996, dots that connect to form the perfect cannon of rock singles.

[borneoman]

if only it had been Wonderwall instead of Roll with It!!!!!! Country House was crappy but still miles ahead of Roll With It

Cannot remember that Original song at all

[evansabove]

This is Oasis at their very best. I found the Blur single a bit naff so was disappointed when they won the battle

[vastar iner]

I assume that, like The Wanted, The Original were named ironically.

Nov 20, 2011 12:17:06 GMT 1 Gezza said:

26TH AUGUST- ROLL WITH IT- Oasis (2 weeks)
As we know the battle was lost but the war was won by them and Oasis's impact on pop culture and the proverbial kick up the jacksy they gave the record industry in the mid 90s can't be under-estimated.

Did they really though? By 2000 it might be said that Oasis had won the war, but when the Great Book of Music is written, it may well say that Oasis proved to be the late 20th century equivalent of Status Quo, producing the same record over and over again (indeed "Roll With It" seems to take inspiration from "Rockin' All Over The World"), whereas Damon Albarn at least will go down as someone constantly re-inventing himself, probing, trying new things and leaving a legacy of interesting and challenging music.

Although I maintain "Music Is My Radar" and "Song 2" are utter gash.

[Gezza]

Nov 20, 2011 13:53:18 GMT 1 vastar iner said:

I assume that, like The Wanted, The Original were named ironically.

Nov 20, 2011 12:17:06 GMT 1 Gezza said:

26TH AUGUST- ROLL WITH IT- Oasis (2 weeks)
As we know the battle was lost but the war was won by them and Oasis's impact on pop culture and the proverbial kick up the jacksy they gave the record industry in the mid 90s can't be under-estimated.

Did they really though? By 2000 it might be said that Oasis had won the war, but when the Great Book of Music is written, it may well say that Oasis proved to be the late 20th century equivalent of Status Quo, producing the same record over and over again (indeed "Roll With It" seems to take inspiration from "Rockin' All Over The World"), whereas Damon Albarn at least will go down as someone constantly re-inventing himself, probing, trying new things and leaving a legacy of interesting and challenging music.

Although I maintain "Music Is My Radar" and "Song 2" are utter gash.

I think the war was won, in commercial terms by the end of 95 when WTSMG took off in a way that left Blur behind. It is almost certainly true that in terms of making vaired musical output and in being "artistic" then Blur were certainly streets ahead, but the drive and ambition and therefore cultural "umph" certainly came from Oasis, Blur quickly became ashamed almost of the kind of fame they had found themselves in, Oasis got fat and lazy off theirs. But in terms of the 90s I think the sales speak for themselves, look at us debating Blur and Oasis it's like 1995 all over again!

[borneoman]

but wasn't the so-called Oasis vs Blur war a bit of a press thing? personally I liked both bands, and bought both The Great Escape and WTSMG

and yep sure Blue were more imaginative than Oasis, but that's not saying much, cos Noel is the most repetitive songwriter like ever. I don't think Blur re-invented themselves with every album either, all their albums were varied in general...

[Gezza]

Nov 20, 2011 14:34:08 GMT 1 borneoman said:

but wasn't the so-called Oasis vs Blur war a bit of a press thing? personally I liked both bands, and bought both The Great Escape and WTSMG

and yep sure Blue were more imaginative than Oasis, but that's not saying much, cos Noel is the most repetitive songwriter like ever. I don't think Blur re-invented themselves with every album either, all their albums were varied in general...

Blue Vs Oasis is a whole other argument

It was a press thing but they both bought into it and were slagging each other off in the press for much of 95/96

[andrew07]

"Country House" was the wrong song for that sort of battle, but the NME were the ones who hyped it all up and they wanted Blur to win that. I think personally it should really have been "The Universal" vs "Wonderwall", because those were far better songs.

Blur's "Great Escape" album is my least favourite album of theirs and you could say it was the final part of their "Britpop trilogy" after "Parklife" and "Modern Life Is Rubbish", but thankfully they moved away from that and would become much more experimental as a band.

"Roll With It", is the weakest song on "Morning Glory", but the album itself is definitely one of the greatest, it became massive at the school I was at, if you didn't have that album you were nothing. "Champagne Supernova" was our anthem too and even now when I hear it, the hairs still stand up and I'm instantly taken back to those times.

[borneoman]

personally I think that Pulp > Blur + Oasis

[Earl Purple]

Neither Country House nor Roll With It was written or released with the purpose of taking part in a battle against another band. I was suprirsed at the time that Blur were considered contenders for #1 at all as they had never previously peaked higher than #5 (with Girls And Boys).

Blur released 2 CDs as was typical at the time, and one of them was priced at £1.99. "Roll With It" was £2.99 but had quality B-sides, probably 3 of them.

I liked Country House - it was a fun pop song. And the first line of the 2nd verse was, of course "he's got morning glory, life's a different story..". Having said that it was kept out of #1 in my chart by "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette whilst "Roll With It" came nowhere near, peaking at #5 and their only single from "Whatever" to "All Around The World" inclusive not to reach my top 3, which confirms with opinions of others here that it wasn't one of their better songs (but it was however a good pop song).

In any case this battle really helped commercialise britpop which was a good thing in my opinion as that was a fantastic period for pop music in the charts.

[Gezza]

16TH SEPTEMBER- STAYIN ALIVE- N-Trance Featuring Ricardo Da Force (1 week)



Oh dear- how the mighty have fallen. After the fantastic "Set You Free" N-Trance decended into a seemingly endless parade of 1970s covers with increasingly poorer results, this of course a cover of the Bee Gees 1978 No 4 hit. No bad thing for the brothers Gibb though as they were, for the remainder of the decade, much sought after in the cover version stakes with Take That, Boyzone, Blockster, 911, and Steps all scoring top 3 hits with the remakes in addition to this, a compilation album of artists covering their songs "A Message To You" also made it big in 1998 and they even returned to the top 10 in person on Celine Dion's "Immortality" in that same year.

Ricardo Da Force you may recall was also the rapper on many a KLF hit in the early part of the decade so it seems to have sulled all's reputation in the involvement of this cover. If the 80s was full of 60s remakes and re-issues then the 90s was full of the 70s doings and N-trance became just another byword for cheesy dance remixes of that decade's biggest hits, Clock, Course, and Bus Stop would be similar criminal bands to fall under this banner. By way of trivia "Stayin Alive" in it's original form was used to train doctors to give the correct amount of chest comopressions during CPR in the 80s?!!!

Anyway I can't think of a single redeming factor for anyone involved in this creation so best we move on.

[Gezza]

7TH OCTOBER- MIS SHAPES/ SORTED FOR E'S & WHIZZ- Pulp (2 weeks)



Well here they are again. This time with added controversy. Both sides of this hit were taken from their forthcoming "Different Class" album which was very shortly to be conferred with the "classic" tag, but in early Oct 1995 the band were embroiled in a very public spat with the Mirror Newspaper which concerned not only the lyrics to "Sorted" but also the packaging, the full story of which can be found here pulp controversy but in short the original sleeve contained DIY instructions on how to make a "speed wrap" which the band thought of a s a promo gimmick considering the nature of the single. The Mirror however took it to be an endorsement of drug taking and campaigned to get the song banned with some initial success, though more for the band who had pre orders of over 200k!

Pulp eventually conceeded and the artwork was changed though of course they still maintained that the song had ben fundamentally misunderstood. Frankly it beggers belief that anyone who listened to the lyrics could think it was a PRO drugs track in the same way that "Ebenezer Goode" was back in 1992. A tale of drug taking focusing on the empty feeling of the comedown, "Sorted" is a majestic record, not as poppy as "Common People" certainly but a self assured wise old record wishing to impart its knowledge, the dislocated bridge of the record seems to mirror the floating "high" feeling of the track with the come down similarly represented musically, a great record deserving of all the praise regularly heaped onto "Common People".

"Mis-Shapes" is for me, not as good a record, an ordinary pulp tale of the outsider, it's still fantastic in relation to the N-Trance gubbins obviously, it's just that it is more formally structured and therefore less stand out than "Sorted" but confirmed Cocker's status as spokesman for the dis-enfranchised for the britpop period. As a package the fact that was denied the No 1 spot (despite leading in the midweeks) is criminal really, such witty insightful lyrics deserved a place at the very top of this country's chart but I suppose while you have the Simply Red's of the world then the chances were always slim, for a band so championing of the underdog and the outsider, perhaps the fact they were never admitted to the No 1 club is rather fitting?

[evansabove]

Both the N-Trance & Pulp singles were pale shadows of their previous #2 hits with Stayin Alive a little bit too cheesey even for me

[borneoman]

Mis Shapes was mediocre but Sorted for Es was fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[andrew07]

I like both sides of the Pulp single, but it's "Sorted" that I like more .

[vastar iner]

Mick Hucknall represents everything in music I detest. Songs that are the equivalent of sticking silver paper on fillings - I was once in Smiths when they decided to play "Stars" over the tannoy, I literally HAD to walk out to keep my sanity - performed by a hypocrite of the highest order; one who complained to extremes about how much the music industry was taking from him but only AFTER saturation promotion had given him platinum albums; one who proclaims proudly his Socialist ideals whilst having diamonds studded in his choppers; one who complains about ginger jokes yet supported the Iraq war; one who "supports" Manchester United.

And then he keeps Pulp off number one.

When I'm world dictator, I'm finding everyone who bought "Fairground", locking them up in Wolverhampton, and using them as organ donors. It's the kindest thing for them, an early termination of their existence would be equivalent to putting a cancerous, one-legged, blind, deaf and dumb puppy, whose soul-tearing howls would be more melodious than a Simply Red album, to sleep.