25 Years Since....November 1995

 Time once again to turn back the clock 25 years and take a look at the tunes I was enjoying:

Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise

I remember hearing this for the first time and just thinking wow. I had an appreciation of rap music at the time without it really being my music of choice, but this was like one of those records I'd been waiting all my life to hear.

I certainly favoured the darker side of rap music at the time and this was a very dark record. I was therefore quite surprised that this ended up at number one. You have to remember that prior to this, the only rap number ones we'd had were "Turtle Power", "Ice Ice Baby" and "Boom! Shake The Room". 

It also stayed in the Top 40 well in 1996, once it fell to the lower reaches of the Top 40 I went out and bought the single to help keep it in the Top 40. No such luck though, it fell out the Top 40 the following week.

East 17 - Thunder

The lead single from the final studio album from East 17 as we knew them. This was the album where all band members wrote the songs, but all the singles were still written by Tony Mortimer.

It's not my favourite East 17 song but it's probably by favourite East 17 ballad.

Goldie - Inner City Life

A record that failed to make the Top 40 when originally released a year earlier. I loved this at the time but then started hating Goldie for being too commercial. It only just scraped into the Top 40 though making number 39 which is actually quite surprising given how well known it is.

Jam And Spoon - Angel

Whilst not quite the speed of Happy Hardcore, this was fast enough for me to declare as being not slow. This is probably my favourite Jam & Spoon tune. It's almost like the 2 previous singles were essentially a warm up for this i.e. start with something crap, then something good, then something outstanding.

E'Voke - Runaway

The first time I heard this I thought sounds like "Set You Free" but then I thought does it really matter? it's a good tune in it's own right. At the same time there was a Happy Hardcore version by Jimmy J & Cru-L-T and whatever version I listen to I just think of MC QC at Hysteria 9 on Jimmy J's set rhyming runaway with Jimmy J.