25 Years Since....July 1993

25 years ago I was enjoying my summer holidays from school. Here is what I was enjoying music wise:

Utah Saints - I Want You

Looking through the chart archives I'm quite surprised to see I'm still to reach the point in 1993 when I wouldn't listen to anything that wasn't Rock or Metal. It was certainly my music of choice, but I was evidently still enjoying Dance music as well.

That said, listening to this tune retrospectively it has the same sort of sound the likes of the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers adopted in the mid 90s which appealed to both Rockers and Ravers.

This was the fourth and final hit from their debut album which surprisingly had only come out the previous month and it had been almost 2 years since the first single from that album had been released. We would have to wait until 2000 for their second and most recent album at time of writing to be released.

Levellers - Belaruse

A popular band amongst many people at school by the summer of 1993 was the Levellers. Several people had their "Levelling the Land" album which came out in 1991 and was doing the round on many Walkman's at the time. In fact we had a school trip to Alton Towers at the end of term and someone got the bus driver to play the tape.

This was their new song from their yet to be released album and their was a lot of excitement about new Levellers music, particularly as their last album was 2 years prior which was a lifetime in those days.

The Levellers eventually fell victim to mine and other peoples Rock and Metal only policy a few months later, they were simply considered to be too soft particularly with them having a fiddle player in the band. But for that brief period of time before this I thought this song was great.

Urban Cookie Collective - The Key The Secret

For some reason I remember this tune coming out earlier than the summer of 1993. I remember first hearing this on the Chart Show one Saturday afternoon and it seemed like the perfect tune for what I felt like listening to at that moment in time. Maybe I'd overdone it on the Rock music and needed something different.

This is one of those rare tunes that fits into the Eurodance music that was happening at the time but still seemed like a credible House record.

The vocalist on this and the other Urban Cookie Collective hits was the late Diane Charlemagne who would become a well known vocalist in the Drum & Bass scene singing for Goldie and High Contrast amongst others.

Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain

This was the UK Top 40 debut of Cypress Hill and it just sounded bizarre at the time, mainly down to the contrasting rapping styles of B Real and Sen Dog.

I was also a big fan of swearing in music at the time and had assumed this was exclusive to Rock and Metal music, but this taught me that Rap could be sweary too. I guess my knowledge of Rap music was very limited at the time.

Although a Rap group, Cypress Hill were held in high regard by the Rock crowd particularly as some of their later material had an element of Rock music in it.

Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

Soul Asylum were one of those groups who weren't exactly Grunge music but had benefited from the rise of Grunge Music. This could be partly to do with their lead singer looking a bit like Kurt Cobain.

Although this was their UK chart debut, they were already on their sixth album by the time this came out. This tune probably divided opinion more than any other tune around that time, some said it was too soft but I liked it.

I pretty much forgot about Soul Asylum after this tune until 1995 when I watched them playing Glastonbury on TV. What sticks out from that performance is a tune called "Eyes of a Child" which like this is quite a mellow and profound song but a million times better.