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)

Yello and a big sprout: the new Electronic Sound is here

In the new issue of Electronic Sound, I write about my Roland TR-08 drum machine, which is why I've illustrated it with Yello standing next to a giant sprout.

The new issue of the magazine is packed with its usual electronic excellence. There's bleepy pioneer Daphne Oram on the cover, as aqua blue as a posh swimming pool, and inside you'll find loads about the Oram Awards. which celebrates inspirational female and gender minority audio innovators. Proper treat.

My column this month arose from the drum machine I bought from a lovely chap called Martin who runs the Electronic Music Open Mic Night, which incidentally happens to be the only music gig I've been to throughout the coronavirus crisis. As usual, though, I got sidetracked so, er, this happened:

And yes, I just alt-texted that cartoon "Yello and a big sprout". You'll have to read the column to get the illustration's context, although in the words of my editors in the blurb for this month's column, "When Band Aid sang 'It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid', they clearly hadn't reckoned on this."

Every month, Electronic Sound runs a Time Machine piece which brings to life particular moments in the history of electronic music. I thought I'd have a go this month, so on pages 18 and 19 of this new edition I recall the time Cher became president of the USA and Timmy Mallett destroyed all known society.

I've also got a couple of album reviews in there too, which contain words like "fossilised", "mushroomy" and "beanbag".

I must say a massive thanks to Electronic Sound for allowing me, for another year, to wheelbarrow all my nonsense words into your finely-pruned magazine garden, raking my bad compost all over your journalistic begonias. And then letting me illustrate it all like an episode of Watercolour Challenge featuring only babies weened on absinthe. 

I'll leave you with Manchester's Vicky Clarke, one of the Oram Award winners, with a delightfully woozy track inspired by sleep walking and algorithmic control.

Further Fats: Another cartoonist – Back once again (2016)

You'll enjoy these endearing FruityLoops versions of banging electronic music tunes

There's a knob-twiddler on YouTube who's been posting FruityLoops version of New Order songs.

"Knob-twiddler" is not a technical term, but instead is a nickname for people who like to experiment making electronic music. "FruityLoops" is indeed a proper term, in fact it's music-making software that's enjoyed something of a renaissance thanks to its users including Avicii, Basshunter and Timmy Mallett.

I lied about Timmy Mallett.

The YouTube user is called Mkaymufc and they are a New Order nut. Because they are using presets and some pretty basic plug-ins, their instrumental YouTube covers of Bernard & chums are not as well produced as the originals. That's like comparing a crayon drawing of a warthog stuck to your bathroom cabinet to a real warthog furiously trying to mate with your bathroom sink's overflow pipehole. You'll never get it in, Porkles. YOU'LL NEVER GET IT IN.

However, what is delightful is what Mkaymufc does with their limitations: there are some pretty detailed covers here, full of heart. There's something so comforting about a Midi-quality bass drum in a era of over-production. And like a cat following a laser along a carpet, you can watch it play along from start to finish in FruityLoops (now called FL Studio).

Sometimes it doesn't work: Electronic's Soviet doesn't come across well. But I loved Some Distant Memory (that Oboe's so cute!). New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle is brilliant, as is their take on Orbital's Kein Trink Wasser. It was an Orbital tweet that brought these videos to my attention. Sometimes the drawing is as enchanting as the real thing.

Here's Bizarre Love Triangle. Enjoy.

🔘 A PRODUCTION COVER OF OUR SONG KEIN TRINK WASSER BY MKAYMUFC 🔘 pic.twitter.com/fy9b1CDYXU

— Orbital (@orbitalband) December 27, 2019

Speed-freak pilots, equine storm joy and Lord Dan of Deacon's new video mayhem

My trousers are bursting with good music.

There's Portishead's first new album since the stone ages, for a start. You may still have time to listen to it online if you're as speedy as a Concorde-piloting amphetamine addict who's just realised he left the oven on.

Electronica's answer to Wilf the inventor, Tom Bugs, made me happier than a horse in a hay storm with this little demo of frequency freneticism. The clip will only mean something to you if you too have spent hours in Sound Control twiddling to your screaming ears' desire.

Incidentally, Tom Bugs is working on something called a Bug Crusher. Ants are trying to invade my kitchen at the moment, although I suspect the machine is a sound modulator and not an insect murderer.

And thirdly, self-professed "absurdist composer" Dan Deacon (pictured) is back. He is the lust child of Har Mar Superstar, Deee-lite and Timmy Mallett. I advise you to remove your retinas before watching this kalaidoscopic video delight.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: NOW WASH