Record of the Year Revisited: 1993

Original Record of the Year: Saint Etienne - Hobart Paving

I'm purposely not looking at what I originally picked as my record of the year prior to making my new choice but I'll never forget what my choice was for 1993.

It seemed like the perfect choice for a variety of reasons. It's definitely one of my favourite Saint Etienne hits and it gives me nostalgia of myself being nostalgic about the early 90s at the end of the 90s. I liked their "Too Young To Die" CD enough to buy the video version and seeing the East 17 graffiti in the video made it very 1993.

Then there's the London aspect. A significant amount of their music references London where I ended up moving to and have since spent the majority of my adult life here. Not only can I relate to the London aspect but I can also relate to the fact they appear to be music nerds like myself. At the very least Bob Stanley is.

I still live in London but the members of Saint Etienne have since moved out. Not really relevant in terms of picking my record of the year. What is relevant though is that the reason why I remember picking this is remembering my instant regret afterwards.

As much as I like Saint Etienne and this record I see it as being the TVR of the music world. Basically a TVR is a great car but if I had enough money to buy one I'd only do so if I couldn't afford a Ferarri.

New Record of the Year: Leftfield Lydon - Open Up 

I do find Leftfield a mixed bag but the name alone suggests you're not going to like all of their music. However the main problem with much of their tunes is they're not as good as their debut "Open Up".

The problem with putting vocals on dance records is that it can take the attention away from the beats and certainly some girly vocals can make a hard fast record sound quite namby pamby.

Leftfield had a good solution for adding vocals, get a punk singer to do them. It's an all round good record, it would work just fine without vocals but I think John Lydon really adds something here.