Remembering 1996: June

Euro 96 is often mentioned when looking back on 1996. I was a significant event and I'm going to talk a bit about it here mainly to show that there were more Euro 96 related songs than "3 Lions".

In fact "3 Lions" wasn't even the official Euro 96 record. That was "We're In This Together" by Simply Red which is now largely forgotten. It's not a very memorable song though, what's more memorable was that it came at a time Mick Hucknall had his haircut after Martine McCutcheon had been sick on it.

Then there was the alternative song which saw Black Grape collaborate with Joe Strummer and Keith Allen on "England's Irie" which I guess you could call the "Vindaloo" of it's time.

It was an era when songs from adverts were getting in the charts and in Jun was the turn of Collapsed Lung with "Eat My Goal" which appeared on the Coca-Cola advert which tied in with Euro 96.

Even the BBC theme music to their Euro 96 coverage made it into the Top 40. This was "Ode To Joy" by the BBC Concert Orchestra.

England weren't the only British team in Euro 96 with charting songs though. There were 2 songs for Scotland which were "Purple Heather" by Rod Stewart and "The Big Man And The Scream Team Meet The Barmy Army Uptown" by Primal Scream, Irvine Welsh & On-U Sound.

Speaking of Irvine Welsh, this was of course the year for his film "Trainspotting" which also gets mentioned a lot when looking back at 1996. In Jun we had the first song from the soundtrack make the Top 40. No, not that one. It was "For What You Dream Of" by Bedrock featuring KYO which had originally been released in 1993.

It was a month we had 2 big names of techno both score Top 40 hits. Carl Cox had the double a-side "Sensual Sophis-Ti-Cat / The Player" and Dave Clarke had "No One's Driving". It would be the last time we'd see Dave Clarke in the Top 40 but Carl Cox would be back.

Heading back to Scotland and from the world of bouncy techno we had the only Top 40 hit for Q-Tex with "Let The Love". One of it's members was Scott Brown whose tunes were making it into a lot of happy hardcore sets in England.

Helter Skelter was fast becoming the biggest rave promoter of this era. On June 1st they started using the Rollers warehouse for their event at The Sanctuary which effectively doubled the capacity of their events, something Dreamscape first did on NYE 1994.

Meanwhile M-Beat teamed up with Jamiroquai to make the drum & bass record "Do U Know Where You're Coming From". This had been played on One In The Jungle a couple of months prior.

It was the end of the road for one band who announced to the world they were breaking up, though they have since reunited. No not Take That, they'd already broken up. It was Crowded House, though judging by the single that coincided with this announcement "Instinct" it sounded like they'd run out of steam.