What was the best 1990 UK number one single?

1990 was a big music year for me. I was 16 going on 17, blossoming from a snot-nosed teenage misery into a slightly older snot-nosed teenage misery.

This mean I have OPINIONS about chart hits in 1990. That's OPINIONS in capital letters. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could grade all of 1990's UK number one singles without much thought at all.

Let's do it. A first-draft blog post, no editing, no research (apart from getting the list from Wikipedia). What were the best UK number one singles from 1990?

Let's go through every dang one of them. Firstly, we have Band Aid II's Do They Know It's Christmas? Bros and Sonia? Pretty terrible, although not as embarrassing as the third one in 2004. Then there was New Kids on the Block's Hangin' Tough, which sounded as tough as a floppy curtains fringe (which hadn't quite hit the mainstream just yet). A bad start to the year. 

Then we have a half-decent run of number one singles. Kylie Minogue turning into a career artist with Tears on My Pillow, a weeping Sinéad O'Connor being iconic on the Prince-penned Nothing Compares 2 U, and Norman Cook foreshadowing his 1990s dance music dominance on Beats International's Dub Be Good to Me. Let's put Sinead and Beats into the top tier, which I will discuss at the end of this blog post.

Remember, this is all first reactions. Looking through the list, typing these words, zero post-editing.

Ah, now here comes Snap!'s The Power, a strange, angular block-party jam with Turbo B looking like a president or something (pictured). I hated this track when it came out: so strange and discordant. I was wrong, of course. This genius track goes straight through to the top tier.

Madonna's Vogue was a huge hit, but it was no Like A Prayer. Adamski's Killer rocked my world in so many ways, and despite a pretty ropy album, this goes through to the top tier, as does England New Order's World in Motion which is the only acceptable football song alongside that crowd-chanty Pop Will Eat Itself track. 

From June onwards, it's a pretty rough run of number ones. Elton John's Sacrifice was the one where he started giving all his royalties to charity. Then came the novelty hits: Partners in Kryme's Turtle Power, which taught kids about the names of classical painters, and Bombalurina's Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - Timmy Mallett later became a painter himself and has a website called Mallett's Pallet. No joke.

Is it one T or two Ts for Mallett? No time to check: this is all first-draft.

Those novelty hits were bad, but nowhere near as bad as The Steve Miller Band's The Joker, which is one of the worst singles of all time. I'm getting upset just thinking about it. Was this the one with the guitar wolf-whistle? I want this song to die.

This next bunch of number ones, taking us from September through to November, I kind of respect, but they're not for me. Maria McKee's Show Me Heaven is an undoubted tune, The Beautiful South's twee A Little Time has its own charm, and The Righteous Brothers rerelease of Unchained Melody was a chance to revisit one of history's greatest anthems. My mum loved that one. No top tier for any of these, though. 

That leaves us with Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby, only really good for karaoke, and Cliff Richard's Christmas number one Saviour's Day, which I don't think even God would listen to.

So that's the year. Most of the good stuff was in the first half of 1990. Now let's visit the top tier choices, and sort them into some kind of order. We had weepy Sinead and Norman's Beats International and angular Snap! and Adamski's Killer and New Order's football fun. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can grade this lot without much thought.

The bestest UK number one singles from 1990, as decided on the spot by me.

5. Snap!: The Power 

4. England New Order: World In Motion

3. Beats International: Dub Be Good To Me

2. Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U 

1. Adamski's Killer 

There you have it. Killer was easily the winner: it gave me permission to become my own bedroom-based keyboard wizard. To live my life the way I wanted to be-ee-ee-eee, yeah! I hope I didn't make too many mistakes in this entirely unedited blog post. We should do this again: 1991, maybe. *hits publish*

Further Fats: The Designers Republic vs B12 Records: are the 1990s dead? (2007)

Further Fats: The doctor (Adamski) will see you now (2018)

A Full On Guide to Full On: introduction

When Kylie Minogue moved to Deconstruction Records to release Confide In Me, she gained an indie credibility entirely absent from her Stock Aitken and Waterman past.

And yet, Deconstruction was no less pop. Co-founded by Mike Pickering of M People, they had the big piano anthems of Black Box, K-Klass and Bassheads and M People. Taking on Kylie seemed an entirely sensible choice.

There was one compilation, however, which cemented Deconstruction's underground credentials. It was Full On: Edition One, subtitled "a year in the life of house music". This was Decon sticking a massive flag on the moon, and that moon was underground dance music. Not that moons can be made from abstract nouns, but you get the idea.

The cover design wasn't great. Here is its Discogs image in all its low-resolution glory. It looks like the front page of a financial company's glossy annual report. "Yah, Damien says the VAT changes have had a peripheral effect on out-sourcing but the bottom line remains pretty solid."

I shouldn't knock the designers, Farrow Design. They have pretty solid credentials, helping define the look of post-Richie Manics, Orbital's 20th anniversary, and recent Pet Shop Boys.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about whether navy goes with burnt orange. I'm here to talk about the music.

Full On came out in 1992, which made it pre-cool-Kylie but post-Italo-house. 2 Unlimited had taken the charts by storm with their lowest common denominator "techno" sound. Full On had a foot in similar bouncy Euro-house, but there was something so much more listenable about it.

It had Felix and Usura banging out thumping anthems for blocky pre-Windows-95 visuals. It had an early appearance from Justin 'Lionrock' Robertson', laying an early warning shot for the rise of big beat. And it had a nascent appearance from someone who, five years later, would score one of the most memorable top ten singles of all time.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to analyse one track a day and I'm going to call it a Full On Guide to Full On. I'll do two tracks a day if I don't have much to write about. Three if I'm really struggling. You can see the complete track listing on Discogs.

Don't worry: if you never listened to this album, you should still enjoy this. I'm going to shine a light on 1990s dance music by, er, deconstructing this Deconstruction album. At least, I hope so: I haven't written any of it yet.

Stay tuned for the Full On Guide to Full On.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

August in brief: Poom Gems, Kylie's horse, doing a Bush, Elton flipping John

What an amazing August that was. Do you remember the bit when the meteorite smashed into the Earth and the skies were made of fire? That was my favourite bit.

Lots happened in the world of music. Fitness trainer Joel Corry spent all month at number one, with vocals from the rather wonderful MNEK (pictured). Hudson Mohawke put out an album called Poom Gems, which sounds like an anagram for something disgusting, and no I'm not going to check. 

Smash Mouth made a fantastic contribution to the spread of Covid-19 (well done, chaps). Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion had the audacity to be body-positive women in a video, and a lot of men weren't happy. Kae Tempest came out as non-binary. Taylor Swift released some music I haven't been bothered to listen to.

Kylie Minogue released a new video:

"So we're agreed, the video will be Kylie and a pretend horse?"

"Yes, just that, nice and simple."

"Just Kylie sitting on the horse or standing near the horse or singing near the horse? Nothing else?"

"We could add in one or two sparkly bits, perhaps..."

Some people farted on about Last Night Of The Proms (Last Night Of The YAWNS, amiright?!). Harry Styles became more successful in America than the UK, which is known as "doing a Bush" (the band not the presidents). And speaking of presidents, Neil Young sued Donald Trump while Kanye West continued standing for president yet not standing for president. 

The shy and retiring Elton John called for more "proper songs", which as far as I can tell means music made without computers. I'd expect this fusty attitude from some old bald bloke called Reg, but not from the pop superstar Elton J— oh wait.

But most of all, I liked that bit when the meteorite wiped out all human civilisation. Do you remember that happening? It trended on Twitter for a whole afternoon. Strangely the burning space rock hovered momentarily above the ground before zeroing in on Nick Clegg. Poor guy. I know he lied about tuition fees, killed off PR for a generation, put a Bullingdon boy in number 10, and is now a shill for Facebook, but being the first human to get flattened in an apocalypse seems a bit harsh.

Oh and this happened. Roll on September, readers.

WOMAN PASSING ME IN THE STREET: Hey, you look like Mike Ashley.

ME: Okay.

WOMAN: Has anyone ever told you that?

ME: Actually they have.

WOMAN: He drives a Rolls Royce.

ME: Oh, right. I don't have a Rolls Royce.

WOMAN: He's got a Rolls Royce.

ME: *-*

Further Fats: Do stop believing: the rock music fad is over (2011)

Further Fats: Ten things I did in September (2018)

This is a box: writing new comedy material and calling everybody Doris

What a busy week. As well as putting some Electronic Sound deadlines to bed, I hosted my own quiz show.

Kind of.

On Saturday, I took to the stage for Mother's Ruin, a queer cabaret night that regularly sells out at the Royal Exchange. At the weekend, at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre / Turn On Festival, I performed my first full fifteen minutes of new material since I began developing my Seven Inch show in 2017. And boy, it was hard work.

"You don't have to go to the effort of devising new material," said the organisers.

"No, I really have to," I said with a crazed look in my eyes.

Blow me down with a feather duster, it went well. Wonderfully fun. I can't recreate the chaos through the medium of blog text, so here is a vague description of my performance: an LGBTQ quiz derailed by pre-recorded malfunctioning audio beyond-terrible celebrity impressions, two startled contestants I insisted on calling Doris throughout, a mystery box labelled "this is a box", and a surreal use of a cartoon God.

It was a move away from my music themes of previous performances, but I still managed to get in references to Kylie Minogue, Sam Smith and, er, Skrillex. One of the comedic conceits was that I decided that each round should have its own theme tune, so I wrote a bunch especially for the performance. At the end of this blog post is a montage of the "theme tunes" plus my walk-off music, and brief but surprising mention of a modern queer icon.

If you read this in time, Mother's Ruin are back at Hope Mill Theatre this coming weekend — get tickets here.

I'm writing this bog post while listening to 808 State's 1993 album Gorgeous, which was very much my spirit animal when I was younger. I remember wearing the band's 'Gorgeous' t-shirt everywhere I went. Once a show-off, always a show-off...



Further Fats: Live latest – Royal Exchange, Mother's Ruin, the Spoken Word Showcase (2014)

Further Fats: Fats at the Lowry – a Curious trip to the North East (2017)

I went to see Kylie...

...however, it will be almost impossible to explain what I saw, other than to say the phrase "that's the gayest thing I've ever seen" in increasingly shrill tones. So:

- A half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie singing to a half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie riding around in the air singing on the back of a half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie singing There Must Be An Angel to the half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

Chariots, Greek baths, golden shells, S&M slaves, sychronised swimming, a massive Kylie bust (not that kind of bust), and a huge man fountain. This was not Aphex Twin.

Here are some blurry photographs that weren't completely ruined by me shaking from heart palpatations.

She's on the back of a chariot in this one:

 Here comes the angel:

 

 

 

 The fountain climax. Some of it looks like the dancers are weeing, but actually they're performing acrobatics on sodden ropes in increasingly precarious ways. The biggest jets of water are just out of shot:

  

 

 

 

 I'll be re-enacting this one on the fountain outside Manchester town hall:

So Greater Music Police have been tweeting every 999 call...

Call 1: Report of murder of deputy sheriff and his immediate superior. One suspect in custody. Keeps asking what rhymes with 'lion'.

Call 2: Silly-haired man found igniting blazes. Has apparent tourettes.

Call 3: Five black Americans arrested for using course language to police officer. Seemed to object to our "badge and mother-effing traffic gun."

Call 4: Four post-punk Londoners Three reggae-pilfering new wavers* arrested impersonating officers of the law. The blondest one waffled about tantric sex: re-arrested for being a gobshite.

Call 5: Scotsman and Liverpudlian caught driving around in an old police car, towing an ice cream van. Cargo included heavy artillery, a list of northern cities and several dead sheep.

Call 6: Eccentric man-child caught breaking and entering before attacking a woman, leaving bloodstains on the carpet. Victim's name is Annie.

Call 7: Australian woman found bludgeoned by river. Rose found in mouth of victim. A wiley Hugo Weaving lookalike was seen fleeing scene.

Call 8: Welshman complaining of theft of sun from heart. Was asked to remove balaclava but refused.

Call 9: Young men in chemical masks found in a hypnotic st-8. Had to activ-8 back-up. Won't stop bloody dancing.

Call 10: Smirking gangsters caught running around robbing banks. Evidence of cartoon-dog-based drug taking.

Call 11: Fight broken up between reptiles and local petty criminals. Eye masks seem colour co-ordinated with Teletubbies. Started doing dance routines. Probably mentally unstable: did not intervene.

Call 808: Report of sample theft by Manchester ravers...

If you want some time to figure some of these out, try to ignore the tags below this post!

*see comments section

Live tweeting at the Brits - the full text

As promised a couple of shakes ago, I have just live-tweeted the 2009 Brit Awards on my Twitter feed, which, incidentally, is worth signing up to because I post a few extra links and news that I can't fit onto this site.

Here are my Twitter comments ("tweets") in full, with minor edits so it makes more sense.

- The Brits are copying Glastonbury and using a 'pyramid stage'. Pfffrt. Expect some highly smug tweets as I watch from my tellybox.

- U2 are putting all their words on a big screen like a worship concert.

- Ha ha, look at James Corden, doing a great Homer 'smock'.

- Simon Pegg has kept that weight off.

- Duffy best female?! - the clue's in the name.

- Best International Female up next, it's... NO NO NO WRONG NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WRONG GET HER OFF NO NO NO NO NO AAAARGH STOP HER TALKING NO NO NO OH PLEASE NO. Katy Perry's stopped. Phew.

- Took Corden 15 mins to do a shag joke to Kyles.

- Girls Aloud look like flamingos.

- Second Brit for Duff(y).

- It's Coldplay - I may have to hide.

- Chris Martin came on naked, doing a rap version of Run To The Hills. Didn't expect that.

- Pet Shop Boys, Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa later. It could be messy.

- Strong International Group category. It's Kings Of Leon, obvs'ly. Epitome of casual cool, "y'all".

- Why's Paul Weller at home having tea with Adele? (He was in a pub, it turned out.)

- Has Duff(y) finished? Can I un-mute yet?

- Joe Calzagglewaggle looks sheepish because he's totally forgotten which award he's presenting- heh!

- KINGS OF LEON YOU ARE IN BRITAIN NOT JUST ENGLAND. Gah.

- Who are those people with torches?

- It's our hometown boys, Take That. Robbie fever! Rumour was Robbie Williams would turn up. He didn't, but Take That's Brit performance was truly beautiful. Mat Horne is having an orgasm at it.

- Take That looked like Kraftwerk.

- Nick Frost looks like a geography teacher browsing a gardening centre.

- Eddie's just killed Iron Maiden.

- Matt Lucas knows how to find the camera, doesn't he?!

- Hoff and Elbow. What a contrast. Oh as I type, Guy Garvey says to the Hoff, dryly: "You up for a drink later on, David?" Fried Brits gold, ha ha ha!

- Next bit of gossip: Will Katy Perry "controversially" snog Florence & The Machine? Will the Pet Shop Boys, the Killers and Lady GaGa be a car crash? Stay tuned.

- They muted Florence's introduction. Hmm. No snogging.

- Gok's predictable and receding.

- Best International Male Kanye West did a terrible "inter-racial" joke. (International. Inter-racial. It's a pun, see? Kanye's no Tim Vine.)

- Ting Tings and Estelle's quite good mash-up is more sass than my bowels can cope with.

- Did Grace Jones do Estelle's make-up?

- Allan Carr comes on to 'Womanizer'. Does science teacher joke - I've already done that here, luv.

- Best single Girls Aloud is a major relief.

- Tom Jones is a McLaren F1 car (orange and grey).

- Right, Radiohead, it's your time to win... go on... go on... Duff(y)?!? Oh come ON.

- Duff(y)'s crying. Good. She's ruined all music forever by beating Radiohead.

- Stephen Fry's tummy is rumbling - oh the trivia of Twitter.

- Took Corden 110 minutes to do a shag joke about Brandon Flowers.

- Here's Pet Shop Boys' disembodied heads. Starting with Suburbia, with added pink wig, then Love Etc, then Always On My Mind, then (to a massive cheer) Go West . It's a classic Brits melody!

- Here come the sexy men dancers.

- The sexy men dancers have been replaced by Lady GaGa on What Have I Done To Deserve This. One second of I'm With Stupid, then Brandon doing It's A Sin. A couple more breakneck track changes.

- Wow, those mostly naked dancers don't leave a lot to the imagination, do they?

- Pet Shop Boys didn't need Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa.

- So that's it, done. Elbow had the best moment with the Hoff, Take That were the best performers and Duff(y) was a travesty.

A finally message to a friend on Twitter: "Twittering was the only way of coping with the awfulness." See my Twitter page here.

Rare as a green-- oh, look, there's one now

I have spent most of this week being slapped around by bacteria and being threatened by mutated microorganisms with phrases such as: "Nice bowels. Shame if somethin' were to... happen to 'em..."

Which means I'm catching up on all the wonderful blogness I would have bestowed upon you if I hadn't been as feverish as a the cast of Saturday Night Fever after they've caught scarlet fever from listening to Kylie Minogue's classic 2001 album Fever...

This is an ever-so-slightly Manchester-centric post. There was a great Rare As A Green Dog's night at the Royal Northern College Of Music last week.

The nutty but wonderful Barbara Morgenstern gaily set her grand piano on a Kaoss pad, while asbo-technoist Caro Snatch made some quite frightening noises at spoken word artist Lisa B and soprano Jenny Kosmowsky.  DJ Paizan teamed up with nimble-fingered VJ Digital Donut to provide a rhythmic contrast to the ethereal strains of Peterloo Massacre. A cracking night.

Lisa B's new collection Resonant Frequencies, set to the bold, dirty effects of Caro Snatch, will be released at Nexus Art Café in Manchester next Monday, December 8th, 8pm.  It's free to get in, but only a tad over 100 copies of the album will be available on the night.

And now for something totally un-Manchestery.  The hypnotic animation Waltz With Bashir (pictured, with my green-ness added) boasts one of those soundtracks that swoops up the film and flings it to new heights.  Let your earholes be as seduced as your eyeholes .Go see the film, before I set my infected microbes on you.

Pathetic, turgid and very unKylie - number two of a descending series of five

Hop across to Ebay and look up item number 120274828675. I've never sold on Ebay before, but there are my Kylie tickets right there.

Right then. Back to my enthralling series-- wait-- that doesn't quite sound right.

Back to my interesting series on customer reviews-- hold on a sec-- I'm not sure if that really sums things up too well.

One final try.

Back to my turgid attempt at a "series of posts" about customer reviews on i-tunes, as if anyone really gives a hamster's crotch.

Towards the beginning of the month, I decided to put up five reviews on i-tunes in a descending order of positivity. The first review got five stars, the second would get four stars, and so on until my fifth review which would be a scathing one-star rant.

And so to my four star review, referred to on this blog as "that album that had the red cover and it sounded a bit like a movie soundtrack," and otherwise known as Deadly Avenger's Deep Red.

This series will get interesting when we get into the lower stars. Honest.

Go, Kylie! You got it, guuurlfriend!

A warm, filmic engrossing album for fans of DJ Shadow and David
Holmes.

It ranges from gorgeously dark, low-down depths (Black Sun, Lopez), to
weaker easy listening down-tempo (Blade, Love Sounds), to Avenger's particular
area of strength - grand, spacious, friendly, meaty, beaty pieces of enjoyable
soundtrack pomp (We Took Pelham, Punisher).

Electronica that positively breathes down your neck. Four stars.

Two little boys had two little toys... (me and Lee doing a pub quiz, then)

I wouldn't want to distract you from buying new pantalons for your date with me on Wednesday, but here is the latest pub quiz news from the world of Fat Roland.

Here's the music round I foisted upon the suffering public this week. Ogle more quizzery at Nine Tenths Full Of Pingpongs.

I'll splat the answers in the comments hole below this post in about a week's time. And no googling, you flips.

Question one. Rolf Harris' Two Little Boys goes like this: "Two little boys had two little toys. Each had a wooden horse. Gaily they played each summer's day, warriors both of course. One little chap then had a mishap, broke off his horse's head, wept for his toy then cried with joy as his young playmate said--" What's the next line?

Question two. Which musician’s publicity department was known as the Bilk Marketing Board?

Question three. According to his old nickname, what vegetable does Bronski Beat star Jimmy Somerville look like?

Question four. Name the four principal members of the Goons. (Only a music question because the first single I ever owned was by them.)

Question five. So then, Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi is partially from Lucinda, but what does Lucinda mean? (a) Bringer of light; (b) Physician; (c) All-seeing.

Question six. Kylie Minogue likened it to being hit by a nuclear bomb. What was she talking about?

Question seven. Avril Lavigne had a hit about a "skater boy". Spell her his single correctly.

Question eight. Name the men with the surname Stewart that had a hit with the following singles. (a) Donald Where’s Your Troosers; (b) There Must Be An Angel Playing With Your Heart; (c) You Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)

Question nine. So, then, Thin Lizzy. Mad Lizzie kept us fit on TV-AM but who was her rival on the BBC? (This is a music quiz, honest. You have to imagine me playing music clips then veering off on a tangent in a comedy stylee.)

Question ten. On Friday June 1, what did anniversary did Beatles fans celebrate?

Question eleven. In terms of their big hit singles, who's the odd one out? Avril Lavigne, Bronski Beat, Cyndi Lauper, Rolf Harris, Thin Lizzy. There may be a clue if you scan over these questions...

Back to planning our date. Were you really thinking of going out in those shoes?