25 Years Since....September 1993

Time to go back 25 years once again. I found it difficult finding 5 songs from the charts that I was enjoying at the time because as I was now anti-Pop Music, but I just about managed it:

Pet Shop Boys - Go West

We begin with a song that's as far away from Rock and Heavy Metal as you can get. I didn't exactly keep it a secret that I liked this song, but I wasn't exactly vocal about it either. I remember people at school saying this song was shit, but I'd just keep quiet rather than stick up for it.

I've gone through a lot of phases in music throughout my life but the Pet Shop Boys have been one constant so you can pretty much guarantee they will always feature in these posts.

This is obviously one of their better known songs but it never made number one, it was kept off the top by Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and spent two weeks at number two.

Rage Against the Machine - Bombtrack

The third and final single from the self titled debut album of Rage Against the Machine. This didn't have much swearing in it but still had the same aggression that appealed about the band.

I went on an activity holiday with the school around the time and one of the instructors there wore a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt. When we discovered he was the one DJing at the disco we had on the trip we had to request a Rage Against the Machine song and this was the one he played.

It would be another three years until we'd see Rage Against the Machine back in the charts, by which point I'd moved onto Rave.

Belinda Carlisle - Big Scary Animal

It was hard to tell at the time whether it was considered acceptable to listen to with the Rock and Metal crowds. It is a guitar based song, but it wasn't exactly comparable to the music we'd listen to generally speaking

I wasn't aware at the time that Belinda Carlisle was once a member of the Go-Gos which would have made her more credible in that respect. Maybe others did know that, I do remember one of the anti-pop people at school singing this and maybe that was his justification.

Whatever the rights and wrongs were, this is a good song which I enjoyed at the time and still like it now.

Radiohead - Creep

I wasn't sure whether or not to include this song. I did quite like it but do remember thinking it wasn't heavy enough. That was partly to do with someone saying that Radiohead were a Heavy Metal band who had been around since the 70s and their music was considered to be very heavy.

Of course that was nonsense, it turned out he was thinking of Motorhead. This was a relatively new band who debuted with "Anyone Can Play Guitar" earlier on in the year and singles wise at least this is probably their heaviest song.

Generally speaking I find Radiohead's music rather boring but this is different to pretty much everything I've heard them do since and is a lot better.

Stone Temple Pilots - Plush

One thing me and the other Rock & Heavy Metal fans genuinely thought at the time was that we were listening to music that wasn't popular, it was music just for people like us. That is despite the fact some of the bands we were listening to are bands that pretty much everyone has heard of.

Amongst my peers at school, in terms of the major Grunge bands, everyone knew Nirvana, most people knew Pearl Jam, everyone who considered themselves a Grunger knew Alice in Chains and probably half of those knew Soundgarden (this was before "Black Hole Sun"). Then there was Stone Temple Pilots, a band that I knew of and talked about without hearing any of their music.

Then this song appeared on Top of the Pops and I was happy to have finally heard a song of theirs. Obviously being on Top of the Pops meant millions of other people had now heard them, but I'd talk about how I was the first to discover them. Obviously the reality is that anyone who knows a thing or two about music has heard of them. Despite that though, this was their on UK Top 40 hit.