25 Years Since....May 1993

A bit late this month, but here's what I was enjoying in April 1993:

Guns N Roses - Civil War

It was now getting on for 2 years since Guns N Roses released their "Use Your Illusion" albums and they were still releasing singles from it, this being the last one.

It was actually the lead single from the "Civil War EP" which also included "Garden of Eden" and "Dead Horse". It was the only release from the album that failed to make the Top 10 reaching number 11 which was probably partly to do with most people owning the albums by this point.

Admittedly this was possibly the Guns N Roses single that had the least impact on me at the time, but they were my favourite band and I still liked it. These days it ranks amongst my favourite Guns N Roses songs.

Bon Jovi - In These Arms

The third single to be released from the "Keep the Faith album but not the last. I can't remember whether Bon Jovi were my 3rd or 2nd favourite band at the time, certainly by the summer Bon Jovi took 2nd place from INXS in my list of favourite bands.

My favourite thing about this song is the drums just before the chorus, it's just a short bit that basically bridges the verse drumming to the chorus drumming but it really makes the song for me.

Several years later when I'd been through my Rave days and opened myself up to other types of music I dug out my "Keep the Faith" album and listening to the drums in this having been used to just hearing drum machines for a few years it sounded fantastic.

Rage Against the Machine - Bullet in the Head

When I heard there was a Rage Against the Machine song called "Bullet in the Head" I just had to hear it, particularly knowing what I knew about them.

I wasn't disappointed, if "Killing in the Name" was the "fuck you I won't do what you tell me song" then this was the "motherfuckers lost their mind" song.

When someone would have the Rage Against the Machine in their Walkman at school, the general rule at break time when we had 15 minutes would be to listen to the first two tracks, "Bombtrack" and "Killing in the Name" then fast forward to "Bullet in the Head" and listen to that before the bell would ring.

Inner Circle - Sweat

There was me thinking I was all hip and modern listening to this record. Little did I know this was a band who had previously been in the UK Top 40 in 1979 and formed in 1968.

It was a record that got everyone singing and dancing at the school discos, but we were probably too young to really get what the lyrics implied.

I also used to own a t-shirt with the same colour scheme as the singer has when he's in the sea in the video. That wasn't intentional but I remember loving that t-shirt at the time, but it was terrible really.

Ace of Base - All That She Wants

I remember hearing this for the first time. It was a clip on the Big Breakfast, probably amongst other clips of new records. Later on that day I was hearing other people sing it and thought maybe I'd been missing out by not hearing it in full

It ended up getting to number one knocking off Queen, something which may have upset me a year earlier but my days as a Queen fan were well and truly behind me by this point and I actually saw this as a plus point if anything.

Ace of Base generally had some pretty good singles but this one was the only one I really appreciated at the time, they were the wrong genre for me to appreciate the future hits except perhaps "Beautiful Life" from when I was a Raver which I like a lot more now than I did back then.