Some say that trance music originated in September 1996 when "Seven Days And One Week" by BBE was released. Obviously that's nonsense, trance had been around for several years by this point. It was the first trance record to make the Top 3 though and there's no doubting it's a good record.
Is it my favourite trance record of the year? no it's not even my favourite trance record of September. That honour goes to Way Out West with "The Gift". I've talked about this record on this blog before but what makes it stand out to me is the breakbeats.
Saint Etienne were a music act I'd taken a liking to when they released "He's On The Phone" in late 1995. In September 1996 I got the impression they'd split up because their vocalist Sarah Cracknell released the solo record "Anymore". This was simply a side project for Sarah Cracknell and Saint Etienne hadn't split up and are still together at the time of writing, though not for much longer.
There was a new music TV show, "The Noise" which was on ITV on Saturdays before The Chart Show. The first episode was Aug 31st but it felt more appropriate to include it in September because that's when it began getting panned by critics.
It was presented by Andi Peters and I understood the criticism. It was a no frills all about the music sort of show which was going to struggle to get mainstream appeal. However as a music person I liked that aspect and enjoyed watching the show.
It was the month The Fugees topped the charts with "Ready Or Not" which was the better one of their chart toppers in my opinion. It wasn't just impacting the pop world or rap world though. There was a drum & bass version called "Fugees Or Not" which was played in many DJ sets. It was said to be the work of DJ Hype but it was in fact DJ Zinc. There was also a happy hardcore version but the less said about that the better.
One of my favourite happy hardcore tunes of 1996 was "Santa Maria" by Jimmy J & Cru-L-T. In September the tune of the same name that it sampled made the Top 40. It was by Tatyana who became the first act from Croatia to have a Top 40 hit since Ivo Robic in 1959.
Helter Skelter held their 2nd and final event at Club Kinetic on September 20th. Not many more events were held at Club Kinetic because the club closed down at the beginning of 1997.
A week later in the middle of the night on ITV was a show called Helter Skelter which I saw in the TV listings. I thought this must be coverage of the Helter Skelter just gone so decided to watch it. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with Helter Skelter the rave, it was a music show that had a bunch of unknown rock bands playing on it. This was the biggest music disappointment for me since hearing "Spaceman" in full.
A bit earlier in the month I happened to be listening to the Radio 1 Rap Show in the middle of the night, not something I'd usually do at the time. It was during this I heard about the shooting and subsequent death of 2Pac. It was a name I'd only just become familiar with, he'd only had 2 UK Top 40 hits to this point but would have many more to come.
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