1997: what the flip was going on?

Someone tweeted about 1997 being an incredible year for music. Can't remember who. (Cool story, Fats.)

And yeah, there was Daft Punk and Propellerheads and Prodigy and Chemical Brothers and Roni Size. You were right, tweety person, you were right. 1997 was a great year for music.

It's good to measure these things so let's get specific. I decided to look at the singles chart exactly 20 years ago. 23rd June 1997. Let's wallow in a memorable year of fantastic tunes, shall we?

1. Puff Daddy's mawkish I'll Be Missing You was number one. Okay. Not so great. But all the good songs get to number two, right?

2. Bitter Sweet Symphony. And there's the good number two. Never did make it to the top of the charts. THANKS, Puff.

3. Mmm Bop by Hanson.  Three flesh muppets talking nonsense. Oh dear.

4. Ocean Colour Scene? Bog off. I'd drain the oceans and watch all aqua life writhe and die before listening to this shambles again.

I'm not convinced this is really working. Let's speed things up. Time to skip some numbers and get to the real meat of this burger of musical joy.

9. Guiding Star by Cast. Possibly the most annoying band of the 90s, and the band I have heckled the loudest. Make them stop.

11. Celine Dion? Crumbs. I'd forgotten about the boat-mouthed siren that was Celine. Ouch.

18. Savage Garden?! Worst S-band name ever. Apart from Shed Seven. And Salad.

22. The Friends theme tune that was in the charts forever. I'd rather have the clap clap clap clap.

This is terrible. This week in 1997 was a travesty. Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah Brightman, Brand New Heavies, Wet Wet Wet. All this chart proves is that 1997 was a verruca on the foot of the 1990s - and even then it's not a foot, it's just some weeping stump on the diseased leg of the 20th century.

No wait. I've found something.

87. The Saint by Orbital. Not their most remembered track, but with 11 weeks in the chart and a high point of number 3, it remains their best charting single. Kept off the top spot in April 1997 by I Believe I Can Fly and Song 2.

Yay! Told you 1997 was good.

Yeesh.

Boring Pauls

In my ongoing quest to uncover the musical Pauls (see my Awful Pauls and my Gorgeous Pauls), you don't have to scrape off too much froth to discover a steaming pile of terminal dullness. Here are the boring Pauls.

Paul Stanley

Stanley Eisen was so dull, he changed his name to Paul. He then joined Kiss. If you're not sure which one he was, he had a single black star over his eye which made him look like glam-era Elton John after a hefty punch in the face. Stanley was never rock and roll, despite the Kiss persona. He hardly ever missed a show, he's had a hip replacement or two, he talked more than he played on stage, and he perfomed a duet with Sarah Brightman of all people. Crazy, crazy nights, huh?

Paul Weller

Don't get me started on the Pantene-haired Britpop-leeching plodfather of mod, Paul Weller. How he can bottle something like the Jam and let it turn into runny, tasteless like the snoozesome Wild Wood MOR dross, I'll never know. I blame Weller entirely for Ocean Colour Scene and The Enemy, two bands that cancel out anything good he ever recorded. If he was a colour, he'd be brown. And not even a good brown.

Paul Anka

You may not have noticed, but Anka's back in fashion after jumping on the Glee and American Idol bandwagons. This is very bad news indeed. He represents everything I hate about the 1950s: slick hair, white teeth, Elvis warbling and uncontrolled use of rhyming couplets (Diana alone has rhymes as tedious as 'me / see', 'say / play' and 'lover / other'). For a man called Paul Anka, rhyming couplets is a dangerous game. Except it's not dangerous: it's just dull.

Peter Paul and Mary

This trio was drippier than a leaking tap on a drizzly Sunday. They gave rise, unashamedly, to the dubious notion that the 1960s were all about smoking pot and picking flowers. In fact, the Magic Dragon they sang about really was a crappy children's song about a dragon, while Leaving On A Jet Plane led to New Order being sued in a nasty bit of solicitor spitefulness. Drip, drip, drip, the 60s are dead and so is your childhood, get over it.

Paul Hewson

Paul Hewson, otherwise known as Bono Out Of U2, is a Pope-badgering, vocal-straining, swollen-eyed, God-complexing, post-unmodern, microphone-chewing, charity-mugging, tax-dodging philanthropist with a neat line in mid-life crisis trousers and an ability to keep shouting "EDGE!" in live shows like he's got some kind of Pizza Hut tourettes whilst simultaneously making every song sound like it was recorded for an advert for life insurance for the over 70s. He is now possibly the most boring musician on earth, and James Blunt isn't dead yet, so that's saying something.

More Pauls

Surely some Pauls are redeemable? This can't be all the Pauls? What about the good Pauls? Can you have a good Paul? Jump to the Gorgeous Pauls, or click here for some Awful Pauls.