The Nineties Danny Baker's Rockin' Decades


The Nineties

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Tonight, our tuneful time machine through the rock decades

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stops to look around the 1990s.

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The 1990s - I know! That was, like, 20 minutes ago, right?

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Well, I'm afraid not, shipmates. Think on this.

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The current all-conquering heroes of the charts

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turning on the youth just like Elvis, The Beatles, and Bowie did

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are One Direction. Every member of One Direction

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sat out part of the rocking '90s because...

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they weren't born.

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Well, sit down, Harry, Niall, Zayn, Liam and Louis.

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Tonight, we'll tell you what you missed.

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This programme contains some strong language.

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MUSIC: "Step On" by Happy Mondays

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# Back with another one of those block rockin' beats. #

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Oh, my, to be young and British and independent in the 1990s,

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when Britpop reigned

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and rock fell under the narcotic spell of dance music,

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when Happy Mondays acted daft,

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when Radiohead light-heartedly shared a joke, when...

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oh, you get the drift.

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Was that how it was, though? A decade of two halves?

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The first spent dancing, the second playing earnest rock?

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Well, I and three other happy-go-lucky hipsters

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intend to dissect the decade

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and stress-test the notion that the '90s might just have been

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the last great decade of British rock.

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To this end, I will be joined

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by the singer of the very Britpopular Sleeper,

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an award-winning toppermost comedian

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and the head rock and pop critic of The Guardian.

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There's Louise Wener, once of Sleeper and now a novelist.

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Music critic Alexis Petridis.

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And comedian and occasional musician, scintillating musician,

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Josie Long.

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Let me test where you people are coming from for a start.

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Louise, where was your local record shop?

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The '90s are about the last time you could possibly have had one.

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I remember buying Nirvana's Nevermind.

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I was at home at my parents' house after uni.

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-And it was in Barkingside in Essex.

-Yeah.

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And I went in and I bought Nevermind.

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I remember queuing up for it, went in and the guy behind the counter said,

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"Take this home and play it really loud."

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LAUGHTER

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-"OK."

-"I will."

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And was it a chain? Our Price, or one of those?

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I don't think it was a chain. It was a little independent shop.

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-It seems like...

-It seems like a lifetime away.

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I played it and I did think it was the most brilliant thing.

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He wasn't wrong. Alexis, your local record shop?

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Would have been initially, the first part of the '90s,

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I still lived at home so it would have been Record House in Amersham,

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-which I assume is long gone.

-And a wonderfully groovy dell, was it?

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No, but you could order anything, so it didn't matter what was in stock.

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You could ask for stuff. They had an indie section.

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It was like a local record shop.

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And what were you, were you precocious?

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Did you like stuff you shouldn't have liked?

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-Were you ordering Sonny Rollins records?

-Yeah...yeah.

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I don't like to...because you sound like a total dickhead.

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No! That's what we're like and hopefully the audience, too.

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Erm, I came across my music teacher from my secondary school on Twitter

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earlier this year and he verified a story that I've always told.

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I said, "I think you used to teach me music

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"when I was 12 or 13." He was like, "Oh, yeah.

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"You were the one that liked The Velvet Underground."

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-So that was my great claim to awful, precocious...

-Well done.

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..arseholery.

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No, that's good, because I'm fed up of people, you know,

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trying to pretend this ain't tremendous fun.

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This is a free zone from all that sort of stuff.

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Josie, where was your local record shop?

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A record shop in Orpington, where I grew up, called Elpees.

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-And it was spelt E-L-P-E-E-S.

-Of course it was.

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-I didn't know what that meant.

-LAUGHTER

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That's the guy who runs the shop - Mike Elpees.

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It's a light shop now, I know that. It sells lights.

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But it used to have this thing where you could sell unwanted CDs

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and get cash back at the store.

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I remember, all it was in 1995 or '96,

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was a big pile of Kula Shaker albums.

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Like that was the currency you couldn't sell, you couldn't get rid.

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And of course, Kula Shaker was the son of, erm...

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-Hayley Mills.

-That's right.

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And that's cheered up all the family, hearing that...

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That's not to do it down. It was a very popular record.

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I think it was one that everyone had a copy or something.

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It shipped gold but was returned platinum.

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So, where to begin our geological dig

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into the heart of rock's dance decade?

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Well, that's a no-brainer, ol' Bez, my boy.

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Let me take you back to a reclaimed toxic waste site in Widnes.

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The 1990s began with, arguably, the gig of the decade.

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The Stone Roses at Spike Island would be championed

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as the Woodstock for the E generation.

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# I am the resurrection

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# And I am the light... #

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They and their 27,000 pals convened at, appropriately enough,

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the birthplace of the British chemical industry.

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Here was the band of the moment from the city of the moment.

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Manchester - previously famous for the Busby Babes,

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Elsie Tanner and The Hollies,

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was seemingly able to produce an endless list of bands.

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# Don't need no skin tights in my wardrobe today... #

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Some baggy, some druggy,

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many great.

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Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans, The Mock Turtles

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and, of course, the "bit too" Happy Mondays.

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# Don't know what you saw

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# But you know it's against the law

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# And you know that you want some more

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# I've heard it all before... #

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When record contract disputes put The Stone Roses out of action,

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there was a vacuum waiting to be filled

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and a new wave of, let's be frank, shy and indolent bands

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known as shoegazers began to emerge,

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like Chapterhouse, here singing their melancholy classic Pearl,

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which thundered all the way up to number 67 in the charts.

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# ..to know her. #

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Wake up, kids, here comes Nirvana.

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# With the lights out it's less dangerous

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# Here we are now

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# Entertain us

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# I feel stupid

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# And contagious

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# Here we are now

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# Entertain us... #

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The success of ABBA-loving Kurt Cobain's angsty thrash rock

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as well as Pearl Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins

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meant that we Brits had to just suck it up and salute Uncle Sam.

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A lot of sighing going on around here, of a good kind.

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But, Louise, how does that strike you now as somebody who was...

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to be part of it, right in the heart of it, that period at the beginning,

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did that feel like something that was yours and happening?

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Not so much. I mean, I really like... I love Shaun Ryder, he's brilliant,

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I love the Happy Mondays. It makes you smile when you see that stuff.

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-It does, yeah.

-Morrissey called it "revenge of the daft", I think.

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-Did he?

-Which I think is brilliant.

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I loved that. I don't really get The Stone Roses that much.

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I don't understand the deification of them. It seemed quite orthodox.

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Orthodox, chimey guitar.

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I now quite like the album, but that huge gap till the next one

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and I was on Radio 1, that's how long ago it was,

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and I remember when it was announced, it was such reverence

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that I must say I referred to them as the po-faces.

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There was a little of that going on.

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Does it seem more exciting now, looking back,

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than you remember it at the time?

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I think so. The whole grunge thing seemed exciting

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because it came off the back of that shoegazing thing.

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All those bands seemed completely allergic to tunes, you know?

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Just write a melody. How hard is that?

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-And then...

-Very hard, actually.

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And then you had the grunge bands, it properly seemed exciting to me.

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It really seemed like a brilliant thing and I loved it.

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Alexis, I'm seeing it now...

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And absolutely, it went past me.

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My Lord, I was getting towards the early forties back then.

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Now I hear it mainly reflected through edited packages

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on football shows, because they're always putting those songs

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behind these "Let's see how Everton's season's been."

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-Grunge songs? Nirvana?

-Really.

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-Yeah.

-I know nothing about football.

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On Sky Sports, you'll hear all of that,

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all of their things are cut to it.

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It's what Kurt would have wanted!

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So what...is it your period?

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Would you say, "Yes, that's probably where I fit better?"

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Yeah, to a certain degree,

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because I was about, what, 17, 18.

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I was a big fan of shoegazing.

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People look down their nose a bit at it now

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but I was a huge fan of My Bloody Valentine,

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who I don't think were a shoegazing band at all.

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Shoegazing was wafty, sort of floaty.

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My Bloody Valentine was like having the top of your head ripped off.

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I went to see them at the Roundhouse a couple of years ago and there was

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this noise bit at the end and it was like everyone

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was just trying to prove that they liked the noise.

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It's become a bit of an endurance test.

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It's rather like, as we record this,

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King Crimson's Red, their real loudest, loudest album

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has been released on a 23-disc set.

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Do you remember it being a movement and being part of something?

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I never really felt like I was part of something.

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It seemed like there was a lot of... a constant supply of new stuff,

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different sounding stuff, so that video we just showed

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-covers effectively what, two years?

-Yeah.

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And you go pretty quickly from the Happy Mondays

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to Chapterhouse to Nirvana,

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all of whom sound different from each other.

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There was a sense of constant motion in music

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that I don't think you necessarily get and things tend to develop

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-at a slightly slower pace now.

-Yes, they do.

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Josie, just looking at those images, how was it for you?

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At that time...I was born in 1982,

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so around that time I would have been eight, nine and ten

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and I remember Nirvana Nevermind,

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my sister had it on tape, and I stole it off her

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and that changed my life.

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At that time, I liked about four bands.

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I liked Queen, Nirvana, Madness

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and Sergeant Pepper era The Beatles.

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Three out of four ain't bad. Forget all about Queen, thank you.

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And then, so...

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it was like an identity thing but that ill-informed thing

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where you don't have a clue really what anything is

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when you're 11, 12, so you cobble together what you think

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is a coherent identity for yourself.

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So we were like, "We're grungers and we're not townies."

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That was the thing we were defined in opposition to.

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-What's a townie?

-Someone who goes to Bromley and goes to McDonald's!

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LAUGHTER

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I'm thinking those wounds aren't closed yet, are they?

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We would go to the Virgin Megastore, which is incredibly different.

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But I think it was this thing of we decided that we loved music

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and other kids at school... things like grunge and stuff.

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But there were loads of other bands that, for some reason,

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did or didn't pass the test.

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For the majority of the British youth over the preceding decades,

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rock and pop were pretty much the only forms of music

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they took to in number.

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Sure, you could dress it up and mess it about

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but an older sibling could always say,

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"You know what that sounds like? A bit like..."

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And that's disappointing.

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But suddenly, in the '90s, as Viv Stanshall once said,

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there were new horizons in sound.

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# Rhythm is a dancer

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# It's the soul's companion... #

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By the early '90s, dance music was pretty much inescapable in Britain.

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MUSIC: "What Time Is Love?" by KLF

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From warehouses to fields, forever somewhere off the M1,

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right into the charts, where one in three of the Top Ten hits in the UK

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was a dance record.

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It was only a matter of time before the solid rockers got in on the act.

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The Shamen, a sometime indie group from Aberdeen,

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diligently put in the necessary personal research.

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"This could be psychological dynamite."

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# Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode... #

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And lo, they reached the highest position in the charts

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with Ebeneezer Goode.

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Historians still argue over what the song actually meant.

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# Very naughty! #

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Primal Scream, who had been channelling the MC5,

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went to their first rave, dropped E and met DJ whizz, Andy Weatherall.

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His remixes gave them a hit album, Screamadelica,

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and a hit single, Loaded,

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which this time channelled Peter Fonda's voice

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from the 1960s film Wild Angels.

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We want to be free to do what we want to do.

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MUSIC: "Insomnia" by Faithless

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As the decade progressed, the government legislated

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to restrict rave culture and clubbing moved indoors.

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# And you just groan boy

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# She said come over, come over

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# She smiled at you boy... #

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# Back with another one of those block rockin' beats. #

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Glastonbury and T In The Park gave ravers fresh air again

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when they opened festival dance tents in 1995.

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Dance acts were happy to share the stage with rock bands

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and show how repetitive beats could move a festival crowd.

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The following year, 2.6 million people

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tried to buy tickets to see Oasis at Knebworth.

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Also sharing the bill were The Prodigy, Dreadzone

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and The Chemical Brothers, proving rave culture had well and truly

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infiltrated part of the rock mainstream.

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Let's not ignore the 300-pound gorilla in the corner of the room.

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I've never taken E, so I felt excluded

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from the plain ecstasy that the people there did.

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I could hear the music, "This is great", but I was plainly not

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-completely absorbed in it.

-"On one", as they used to say back in the day.

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What did it do? What did it enhance?

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Was it absolutely necessary?

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I don't think it's ever absolutely necessary. It certainly changed...

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you don't want to say this because it sounds dodgy

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but the first time I went to a rave

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was in glamorous Margate on Margate Pier.

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It was called Seduction, in 1991, I think it was.

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I took ecstasy for the first time at this rave.

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-That experience totally changed my life.

-Why?

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Because I hadn't really been interested in dance music before.

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To be completely honest, I went because I wanted to take ecstasy

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and I completely got the sense of the communal experience,

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I completely got what the music was about. It was hardcore,

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that era of Charlie by The Prodigy and Sweet Harmony by Liquid

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and those records

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and it just, it completely changed my perspective on music.

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Did it work outside of the E? If you played it in the car the next day,

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-did you think, "I don't know what I was thinking"?

-No, no, no.

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I think it completely works. It works as pop music.

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You know, those records went really high in the charts.

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Loads of those records were massive hit singles,

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they weren't just being bought by people on ecstasy all the time.

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Dance music, to my mind, is the most important thing

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that happened in the '90s, full stop, in terms of pop culture.

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It totally... it's the most impactful thing.

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It had a social impact in a way that no other music did.

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-Did dance music do it for you?

-It really didn't, you know.

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I feel I missed out on it, looking back and hearing that stuff again.

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As Alexis said, it works as pop tunes,

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it's just so brilliant on that level.

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But if the '80s was all about individualism

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and this was all about being the collective mind,

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it always felt a bit like group-think for me.

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Were you suspicious of it?

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I was suspicious that everyone was going out

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having the same euphoric experience and ending up

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making this sort of shape in a field.

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You've got this benign dictator with the lasers and the four-on-the-floor.

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It was counter-cultural, but what was it saying?

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It just seemed to be saying, "Let's have a hedonistic time",

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so I didn't know...

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There's worse things to say in music than that.

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Of course there is, but at the time for me, looking back,

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I feel like I missed out in not experiencing that, frankly.

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But at the time for me, it was sort of dividing, it was tribal.

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You were either into that or you weren't.

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I think it's interesting

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because it's the last great rupture in pop culture,

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like in the same way punk was and, you know,

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required a certain readjustment of your thinking about music

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if, like me, you basically came from like an indie background

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and got into that,

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and I completely immersed myself in dance culture for most of the '90s.

0:16:490:16:53

-Were you much of a dancer before it?

-Oh, God, no!

0:16:530:16:56

The first rave I went to, I had to borrow my mate's clothes,

0:16:560:16:59

my mate's raver clothes in order to go,

0:16:590:17:01

because I looked like Bobby Gillespie in that clip.

0:17:010:17:04

Tight jeans and pointy boots and '60s hair, and all that.

0:17:040:17:07

-He said, "You can't go like that."

-When you danced, how was it?

0:17:070:17:11

-I'm not doing it now!

-But did you surprise yourself?

0:17:110:17:16

-Was that the liberating thing of it?

-Yeah, absolutely.

0:17:160:17:19

It felt totally liberating, it didn't feel like anyone

0:17:190:17:22

was going to laugh at you or think you were a dickhead because of,

0:17:220:17:24

you know, how you looked, how you were dancing.

0:17:240:17:27

It felt like a really....

0:17:270:17:28

It's chemically induced and you can say it's false or whatever,

0:17:280:17:31

but it felt like a really warm, communal experience.

0:17:310:17:34

Absolute precedent because you can see at some of these things

0:17:340:17:37

in Hyde Park in the '60s, the Third Ear Band would be on stage,

0:17:370:17:41

not one of the great moments, but there's somebody there just...

0:17:410:17:45

Yeah, they're wigging out but it's, again,

0:17:450:17:47

when you say about the communal,

0:17:470:17:49

it's not so much about the band any more and God knows,

0:17:490:17:51

perhaps not even the music. I think that's what I thought

0:17:510:17:54

when I used to look at those barns and think,

0:17:540:17:56

"I can't think of anything worse."

0:17:560:17:58

And then if you look at the individual you'd think,

0:17:580:18:00

"He couldn't care less, he's having the time of this life."

0:18:000:18:03

-It must have felt amazing.

-I thought it was totally like punk as well.

0:18:030:18:06

One of my theories about it at the time was that it was like,

0:18:060:18:09

if punk was an attempt on some level to break down the boundary

0:18:090:18:12

between performer and audience, this had really happened

0:18:120:18:14

because the stars were the people who were dancing.

0:18:140:18:17

-The DJs weren't until later.

-It's all pirate radio... Sorry.

0:18:170:18:21

It's all pirate radio as well when it's all like samples,

0:18:210:18:24

it's really taking control and like, going for it.

0:18:240:18:27

By 1995, rock 'n' roll was fully 40 years old.

0:18:270:18:31

The original bobby socks and youth culture

0:18:310:18:33

could now have grandchildren.

0:18:330:18:35

40 years of rocking, that's a lot of noise.

0:18:350:18:38

That's a lot of hellraising. It's a lot of back catalogue.

0:18:380:18:41

And for quite a few modern bands it offered a whole new way

0:18:410:18:44

to plunder - I mean, re-imagine a song.

0:18:440:18:47

Although invented in the 1970s,

0:18:530:18:55

it was the 1990s which became the decade of the CD.

0:18:550:18:59

Record companies wisely persuaded us to pack up our vinyl collections

0:19:010:19:05

and repurchase them all over again on compact disc.

0:19:050:19:09

By the early '90s,

0:19:110:19:13

70% of all music sales in the UK were from back catalogues.

0:19:130:19:18

# I was always thinking....

0:19:180:19:20

Rock's entire musical heritage became easily accessible.

0:19:200:19:24

And once rediscovered, it was reinterpreted.

0:19:240:19:27

# But only love can break your heart

0:19:270:19:30

# Try to be sure right from the start. #

0:19:300:19:35

The biggest selling single of the decade

0:19:350:19:37

was Wet Wet Wet's cover of a '60s hit by The Troggs.

0:19:370:19:41

# Love is all around me... #

0:19:420:19:44

Oh, no!

0:19:440:19:46

# There she goes

0:19:460:19:48

# There she goes again... #

0:19:480:19:51

The La's were one of the first in a long line of '90s groups

0:19:510:19:54

to evoke The Beatles,

0:19:540:19:56

obsessively sourcing vintage mixing desks for the perfect sound.

0:19:560:20:01

# This feeling that remains... #

0:20:010:20:04

# I'm free to be whatever I... #

0:20:060:20:10

Oasis were fans of The Beatles and, we presume, The Rutles too.

0:20:100:20:16

# How sweet

0:20:160:20:19

# To be an idiot... #

0:20:190:20:21

Which contained Neil Innes, who was a big fan of The Beatles.

0:20:210:20:25

Don't laugh, that's actually the shape of Neil's head!

0:20:250:20:28

# No more heroes any more... #

0:20:280:20:32

And as the old line between homage and stealing became blurred,

0:20:320:20:36

some people took exception.

0:20:360:20:38

# ..But I'm lazy.. #

0:20:380:20:41

The Stranglers sued Elastica for plagiarism.

0:20:410:20:44

A sample from The Andrew Oldham Orchestra was "overused"

0:20:460:20:50

by The Verve.

0:20:500:20:51

It was a bittersweet success when 100% of their royalties

0:20:550:20:58

were awarded to The Rolling Stones, who wrote the original.

0:20:580:21:01

# We are young, we run green... #

0:21:040:21:07

As well as musical similarities,

0:21:070:21:09

there were noticeable stylistic comparisons.

0:21:090:21:12

As a result of all this borrowing, the '90s became the first decade

0:21:130:21:17

when the same music appealed to both teenagers and their parents.

0:21:170:21:21

Which doesn't sound like a good thing, Josie,

0:21:210:21:23

and yet you said the '80s meant nothing to you.

0:21:230:21:27

-Did you discover the '60s or the '70s before the '80s?

-Yeah, I did.

0:21:270:21:31

My mum had a record collection that was quite modest

0:21:310:21:33

but I used to go through...

0:21:330:21:35

I got Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan.

0:21:350:21:39

Erm, this Ella Fitzgerald Live In London record.

0:21:390:21:43

It's still one of my favourites ever, it's incredible.

0:21:430:21:45

-She forgets the lyrics...

-Yes, I've heard that.

-She's so charming.

0:21:450:21:48

-It's amazing. Er, like Donovan.

-Oh, well done, your mum.

0:21:480:21:52

But she had loads of Rolling Stones,

0:21:520:21:54

but for some reason I took against the Rolling Stones

0:21:540:21:56

at about age eight or nine and I've never been able to get over that.

0:21:560:21:59

-Really?

-I've always been like,

0:21:590:22:01

"Nah, don't like them." I have no idea why.

0:22:010:22:03

She had Jethro Tull, loads of cool stuff. So I had all of that stuff.

0:22:030:22:07

That was some of the first music I found.

0:22:070:22:09

When my parents were out I'd put it on the record player and be like,

0:22:090:22:12

-"What is this?"

-Well done.

0:22:120:22:14

It must have been a bit of a drag when a song was a hit

0:22:140:22:16

and somebody else would say,

0:22:160:22:18

"That's a cover version, let me play the original."

0:22:180:22:20

Nobody wants that either, though.

0:22:200:22:22

Me and friend had this game this summer.

0:22:220:22:26

There's a band, Tame Impala, now who sounds like '60s R&B, I think.

0:22:260:22:31

They did a cover of Remember Me, which goes,

0:22:310:22:33

-# Remember me... #

-Blue Boy.

0:22:330:22:36

Yeah. But Blue Boy did it - it's just samples from another song.

0:22:360:22:40

If you were to listen to Blue Boy, the '90s dance song,

0:22:400:22:44

the Tame Impala, the 2012 cover, and the samples it's from,

0:22:440:22:47

you would assume that Tame Impala is the original

0:22:470:22:50

and Blue Boy was the cover

0:22:500:22:51

and the third one was some sort of reinterpretation.

0:22:510:22:54

And I think it's kind of lovely

0:22:540:22:55

that that was the start of boundaries being blurred like that.

0:22:550:22:59

I mean, I find it both refreshing and obviously comforting.

0:22:590:23:02

Tame Impala, particularly, when I first heard them, you think,

0:23:020:23:06

"Wow, Man are back." There's a reference.

0:23:060:23:08

I don't know whether people care any more like we did

0:23:080:23:12

about owning stuff like that.

0:23:120:23:14

You, plainly, Alexis, had more of an idea of heritage.

0:23:140:23:19

Yes, to a certain degree.

0:23:190:23:21

But I think there's a fundamental change in the way that,

0:23:210:23:23

and it's partly down to sampling

0:23:230:23:25

and partly down to something else, I think,

0:23:250:23:27

in the way rock music and pop music work, and it happens in the '90s.

0:23:270:23:31

Up to that point for the most part, rock and pop music tries to ensnare

0:23:310:23:35

an audience by means of novelty, it's something new,

0:23:350:23:38

you've not heard anything like this before. You know what I mean?

0:23:380:23:41

In the '90s, and it's something that still goes on now,

0:23:410:23:44

it starts to ensnare an audience by familiarity,

0:23:440:23:47

there's something comforting about it.

0:23:470:23:49

It sort of recalls stuff you've heard in the past.

0:23:490:23:52

Oasis sound a bit like Slade or whatever.

0:23:520:23:54

You know, that kind of thing.

0:23:540:23:56

I don't quite know what brought that on.

0:23:560:23:59

Partly, it's down to sampling,

0:23:590:24:01

partly it's down to the sort of growth in this notion of a,

0:24:010:24:04

growth in this notion of nostalgia.

0:24:040:24:06

Is there an argument there, it's also, perhaps,

0:24:060:24:11

symptomatic of an exhaustion of the form?

0:24:110:24:13

Is there much more you can do with it?

0:24:130:24:17

That doesn't disenfranchise what they're doing

0:24:170:24:20

but they hear it and think,

0:24:200:24:22

"That may not be perfected upon. We can do it differently, but..."

0:24:220:24:27

I think that's a really dangerous thing to think, though,

0:24:270:24:29

if you're a band. As people have been constantly told

0:24:290:24:33

since the mid-90s,

0:24:330:24:34

if you set out your belief that, basically,

0:24:340:24:37

all the great things have happened in the past

0:24:370:24:39

and the best you can hope to do as a new band

0:24:390:24:41

is Xerox something from the past

0:24:410:24:43

in the hope that a bit of the magic will somehow transfer itself to you,

0:24:430:24:48

if you tell kids that enough, they'll believe it.

0:24:480:24:50

That's the worst.... That's the worst thing that I've heard.

0:24:500:24:53

It is, but by the same token, nobody said it would last for ever,

0:24:530:24:57

what we are discussing as rock music,

0:24:570:24:59

in the same way as vaudeville or silent movies, or even television.

0:24:590:25:02

It can be finite.

0:25:020:25:04

On the one hand, you've got this flood of information

0:25:040:25:07

and you've got access to every record ever released at all times,

0:25:070:25:10

so that's incredible and intimidating.

0:25:100:25:12

Obviously, there's more and more things stacked up

0:25:120:25:14

but there's always going to be people who want to make music

0:25:140:25:17

and be creative and there's infinite complexity to that.

0:25:170:25:20

But at the same time, if anyone had ever told me

0:25:200:25:23

when I was younger, "You're going to grow up

0:25:230:25:25

"and people are not going to play or know who Frank Sinatra is",

0:25:250:25:28

I'd have said, "It's too big." It's happening.

0:25:280:25:30

Coming to Louise, when you first started making records,

0:25:300:25:33

were you aware...

0:25:330:25:34

"Does this sound new or am I too much a product of my influences?"

0:25:340:25:37

I don't think you think about that so much.

0:25:370:25:40

You sort of look at more about what's going on around you

0:25:400:25:42

and you start to form part of the movement

0:25:420:25:44

that you see other people doing

0:25:440:25:46

and you start to feel a part of the movement.

0:25:460:25:49

But I think part of that nostalgia

0:25:490:25:50

and that celebration of British music was a reaction against grunge,

0:25:500:25:54

wasn't it, as well as all these teenagers that won't tidy their room

0:25:540:25:58

making alienated music.

0:25:580:26:00

You know, it's all, like, complaint rock, they called it,

0:26:000:26:03

and then the British response was,

0:26:030:26:04

"Look at our heritage, look what we've got", which is great,

0:26:040:26:08

but then you had these well-behaved teenagers

0:26:080:26:10

that would come down from their bedrooms

0:26:100:26:13

to sit with their mum and dads to share the same music,

0:26:130:26:16

which is kind of nice, but maybe this was the first generation

0:26:160:26:19

that grew up with their parents' records that were great.

0:26:190:26:22

If you grew up and your parents were playing The Beatles

0:26:220:26:25

and The Stones and The Kinks and XTC and all that kind of stuff,

0:26:250:26:27

then it's quite hard to then say, "Actually, that was shit,

0:26:270:26:30

"let's go and have something else", because it was great.

0:26:300:26:33

But your initial approach to making records, who did you want to be?

0:26:330:26:37

-When I first started ever? Bananarama.

-There you go!

-Yeah.

0:26:370:26:41

-That's pretty cool.

-Yeah. That's what I wanted to do.

0:26:410:26:44

I was pure pop when I was growing up.

0:26:440:26:46

Is there footage of you perhaps in a Bananarama-eqsue mode anywhere?

0:26:460:26:49

We've burnt it.

0:26:490:26:50

LAUGHTER

0:26:500:26:52

For much of the '80s, the roaring rhetoric of punk rock

0:26:520:26:55

was still too raw to be reasoned with.

0:26:550:26:57

Old farts and past fashions were still only fit to be sneered at.

0:26:570:27:01

But in the '90s, The Beatles, The Kinks

0:27:010:27:04

and even Deep Purple were heard as if fresh.

0:27:040:27:08

New bands said, "You know, you guys, don't be modern.

0:27:080:27:11

"Do what you used to do. You're brilliant! Oh, and so is Britain!

0:27:110:27:13

"Oh, and so are we!"

0:27:130:27:15

MUSIC: "Cool Britannia" by Bonzo Dog Band

0:27:150:27:17

Cool Britannia, the "UK is OK" brand,

0:27:200:27:23

was first launched in the Swinging '60s,

0:27:230:27:26

and celebrated by the Bonzo Dog Band.

0:27:260:27:28

# Cool Britannia

0:27:280:27:31

# Britannia, you are cool

0:27:310:27:32

# Take a trip

0:27:320:27:34

# Britons ever, ever, ever shall be hip

0:27:340:27:38

# Hit me, hit me! #

0:27:380:27:39

After that, the idea sat it out for a couple of decades,

0:27:420:27:45

until the Brit hit the fan all over again.

0:27:450:27:49

Now there was Britpop, Brit cinema, Brit fashion, Britt Ekland,

0:27:490:27:53

and even Brit art.

0:27:530:27:55

Everybody seemed to be everyone else's chart,

0:27:550:27:58

swept up in a typhoon of media swoon.

0:27:580:28:02

Look, there's Damien Hirst,

0:28:020:28:03

directing a video for his friends Blur.

0:28:030:28:06

Britpop bands thumbed their noses at grungey Americana,

0:28:080:28:12

and focused instead on the more exciting aspects of British life.

0:28:120:28:16

# Cigarettes and alcohol. #

0:28:160:28:19

# I want to live like common people

0:28:190:28:22

# I want to do whatever common people do. #

0:28:220:28:26

To be cool, you had to be a working class person,

0:28:260:28:28

or at least do a thundering good impression of one.

0:28:280:28:31

You could make videos in supermarkets, like Sleeper and Pulp.

0:28:310:28:35

# I took her to a supermarket

0:28:350:28:38

# I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere

0:28:380:28:42

# So it started... #

0:28:430:28:45

British comedy, which was, of course, the new rock'n'roll,

0:28:450:28:47

was not to be left out.

0:28:470:28:49

Baddiel and Skinner sang that English football was coming home.

0:28:490:28:53

This was the era of lads behaving badly,

0:28:530:28:56

and enough Union Jack bunting to circle the globe.

0:28:560:28:59

# You got to roll with it

0:28:590:29:01

# You got to take... #

0:29:010:29:03

The music press took to stoking the fires of a North-South feud...

0:29:030:29:06

The Manchester band Oasis

0:29:060:29:08

and their archrivals Blur released new singles today.

0:29:080:29:12

# You're taking me over... #

0:29:120:29:15

..and declaring a band such as Suede

0:29:150:29:17

to be approaching the best in the world,

0:29:170:29:20

even before they've released a record.

0:29:200:29:22

# Moving on up, you're moving on out... #

0:29:220:29:25

Even Tony Blair, who probably hadn't thought about rock

0:29:250:29:28

since quitting his college band Ugly Rumours,

0:29:280:29:31

invited Noel Gallagher back to his place for a drink,

0:29:310:29:34

and possibly a jam.

0:29:340:29:35

For a year or so, Union Jacks were inescapable.

0:29:350:29:38

The Spice Girls jumped aboard

0:29:380:29:39

when Geri Halliwell's sister made her a dress for the '97 Brit Awards.

0:29:390:29:43

All from tea towels, too!

0:29:430:29:46

And what news of the Dane?

0:29:460:29:48

Well, he was flaunting an Alexander McQueen Union Jack coat,

0:29:480:29:52

but sensing the suspension was beginning to go a bit

0:29:520:29:55

on the Brit bandwagon, Bowie was now down with the drum and bass crew.

0:29:550:29:59

You know, floundering a bit.

0:29:590:30:01

# Wonder you. #

0:30:010:30:02

-Alexis, here we are, 1990s. Britpop.

-Yeah.

0:30:030:30:07

There's a really interesting thing that happens to Britpop.

0:30:070:30:10

If you look at that... You showed the famous cover of Select magazine

0:30:100:30:14

with the guy from Suede and the Union Jack.

0:30:140:30:17

The bands that were featured in that issue of Select,

0:30:170:30:20

the only ones that went on to become a huge Britpop band were Pulp,

0:30:200:30:25

and all the other bands, Pulp included,

0:30:250:30:28

were not... They were interested in the past, they were interested in

0:30:280:30:32

looking back at Britain's past,

0:30:320:30:34

but it definitely was not in this Union Jack waving,

0:30:340:30:37

"Whoa! Wasn't 1966 amazing", good old, you know,

0:30:370:30:40

"We won the World Cup." It was a sort of really interesting,

0:30:400:30:43

I thought, interrogation of stuff about the early '70s.

0:30:430:30:47

It was a lot murkier, it was a lot darker. You get a hint of that.

0:30:470:30:51

-Who are you talking about, then?

-The Auteurs, Denim.

0:30:510:30:54

They're not much thought about these days, but, you know,

0:30:540:30:58

Pulp did it to a certain degree.

0:30:580:31:00

Common People is held up as this big Britpop hit.

0:31:000:31:02

It's not some sort of flag waving...

0:31:020:31:04

This is a serious song about the class system in Britain.

0:31:040:31:07

It's one of the few, in inverted commas, "protest songs"

0:31:070:31:09

to come out at that time,

0:31:090:31:10

and there's a really intriguing, slightly depressing shift, I think,

0:31:100:31:15

in the mid '90s. Initially, you have bands looking back at Britain's past

0:31:150:31:19

in a slightly... Looking at it slightly askance and going,

0:31:190:31:21

"That's a bit peculiar" and sort of picking at it a little bit.

0:31:210:31:24

And somehow, by the middle of the '90s,

0:31:240:31:26

that just becomes waving a Union Jack

0:31:260:31:28

-and "Isn't everything wonderful?"

-Yeah.

0:31:280:31:30

But do we blame... We don't blame,

0:31:300:31:33

but do we look at the bands for that,

0:31:330:31:35

or because rock and pop had become industry, everyone thought,

0:31:350:31:38

"That's what we're going to sell.

0:31:380:31:40

"We can sell this angle." Louise, by the time you're up and running

0:31:400:31:45

and making records and doing all the shows,

0:31:450:31:48

did you feel part of anything, or even you were being, perhaps, pushed

0:31:480:31:54

-towards a certain style, look, movement?

-It felt mostly

0:31:540:31:58

like a media construct, I think, because I don't think...

0:31:580:32:01

Like you said, we weren't all going home

0:32:010:32:03

waving our Union Jacks in front of the telly.

0:32:030:32:05

It just wasn't about that. I think it was a slight re-examination of what

0:32:050:32:09

it meant to be English and the notion that, instead of writing pop music

0:32:090:32:13

or rock music which escapes the suburbs and all that stuff,

0:32:130:32:16

you could actually re-examine it,

0:32:160:32:18

write about it, write lyrics about what the experience was like

0:32:180:32:21

and you could be sort of parochial, I suppose, on some level

0:32:210:32:24

and that was acceptable and it was OK

0:32:240:32:26

and you could hark back to, again, a lot of that nostalgic stuff.

0:32:260:32:29

But did it come naturally if you wrote upbeat,

0:32:290:32:31

or did you feel a pressure

0:32:310:32:33

to release something of a piece with the country's mood?

0:32:330:32:36

When we began, we were quite grungey

0:32:360:32:37

and it moved, became more and more sort of Britpop,

0:32:370:32:40

and I think there was certainly that pressure to do that,

0:32:400:32:44

and everyone became more and more cartoonish and concentrated,

0:32:440:32:47

until you get to that Country House video

0:32:470:32:50

and suddenly it's like Benny Hill, isn't it? It's oompah music.

0:32:500:32:54

And all of a sudden, you find yourself pressured

0:32:540:32:57

-to do goofy sketches on TFI Friday.

-Exactly!

0:32:570:32:59

-Who wrote those?

-I apologised before the show began. It's all right.

0:32:590:33:02

Josie, how do you look at Britpop?

0:33:020:33:04

Does it resonate with you quite as much as it does

0:33:040:33:06

with everybody else here?

0:33:060:33:08

Yeah, I mean, definitely, and weirdly, considering, like, the way

0:33:080:33:11

that, I suppose,

0:33:110:33:13

what my identity was at the time, I think I thought I was riot grrrl,

0:33:130:33:16

but I didn't really know any riot grrrl bands

0:33:160:33:19

and I was really into, like, zines.

0:33:190:33:21

I was into little bits of culture

0:33:210:33:23

I'd managed to find in Orpington without the internet, you know,

0:33:230:33:26

so, like, I was really into zines

0:33:260:33:27

and I was really into small bands up in London. So I really liked...

0:33:270:33:32

I liked Kenickie a lot,

0:33:320:33:34

and I liked things that were kind of just that little bit more...

0:33:340:33:38

I suppose, like, smaller scale.

0:33:380:33:42

Was there enough around for you to find a nourishing base of music,

0:33:420:33:46

-or did you feel left out of it?

-No! We were so excited by it.

0:33:460:33:51

Like, there were so many kind of...

0:33:510:33:53

Because we were just down the train line

0:33:530:33:55

from Bromley coming up to London, we were just so lucky

0:33:550:33:57

that we could go to little gigs at the Borderline

0:33:570:34:00

and the London Astoria too, and you would find out things

0:34:000:34:03

and then you would get the NME and you would find out another gig that

0:34:030:34:06

you could go to and stuff like that, so it was actually one of the things

0:34:060:34:09

that was less prohibitive, because you could only book tickets

0:34:090:34:11

for gigs if one of your parents had a credit card and would let you.

0:34:110:34:14

Whereas if you're at a smaller gig and it's three or four quid,

0:34:140:34:17

-you could potentially get to that.

-And of course,

0:34:170:34:20

you may have felt a little pressure from the incredible recent

0:34:200:34:23

pop heritage of that Bromley set,

0:34:230:34:25

the Bromley set who were huge in punk rock,

0:34:250:34:27

and then with the whole New Romantic scene,

0:34:270:34:30

that Bromley line you were travelling had a heritage.

0:34:300:34:33

We thought that we were the best for being from there.

0:34:330:34:35

We were like, "David Bowie's from here, so we're the best."

0:34:350:34:38

-We were just teenagers doing nothing.

-Siouxsie Sioux, you know...

0:34:380:34:41

old Billy Broad, who went on to have a few hits himself.

0:34:410:34:44

We were into that.

0:34:440:34:45

But it's so funny as well,

0:34:450:34:46

because that ended quite clearly in about 1981,

0:34:460:34:49

and then we're there in 1997 like,

0:34:490:34:51

"Yeah, we're all part of that." But, you know.

0:34:510:34:54

Part of the Swinging Britain thing, and here's the extraordinary thing.

0:34:540:34:58

It remained British. It did not conquer America

0:34:580:35:01

as a previous British fever had.

0:35:010:35:02

Why do you reckon that was?

0:35:020:35:04

Um... I don't really know. I think...

0:35:040:35:08

Pulp, Oasis couldn't get arrested in America...

0:35:080:35:11

You can see that Pulp is something that's very bound up

0:35:110:35:14

with kind of, a certain kind of arcane Britishness

0:35:140:35:18

that's not going to play in Ohio - it just isn't.

0:35:180:35:21

You've got to know these kind of references they're making

0:35:210:35:24

to quite arcane '70s telly and things like that. That's not going to work.

0:35:240:35:28

Why Oasis didn't take off, I've absolutely no idea

0:35:280:35:30

because Americans could have had the pick of British bands,

0:35:300:35:34

they all went over there.

0:35:340:35:35

They didn't like their stroppiness very much.

0:35:350:35:38

They didn't like Oasis's stroppiness.

0:35:380:35:40

Also, if we're looking at an antecedent being in Slade,

0:35:400:35:42

they didn't happen in America either.

0:35:420:35:44

By 1997, though, the Britpop party was still in session

0:35:440:35:48

but to be fair, being so upbeat all the time can be exhausting.

0:35:480:35:52

Tell me about it.

0:35:520:35:53

If rock was going to emerge vital and strong into the millennium,

0:35:530:35:56

it was going to have to sober up a bit, and sober it got.

0:35:560:36:01

Aided and abetted,

0:36:010:36:02

as Phil Daniels had so ironically bellowed in Parklife,

0:36:020:36:05

aided a bit by the by the old Vorsprung Durch Technik -

0:36:050:36:08

advancement through technology.

0:36:080:36:11

# Things can only get better... #

0:36:110:36:15

When the fizz of Britpop faded in 1997,

0:36:160:36:19

a less joyous mood seemed to take hold.

0:36:190:36:22

# Like a cat in a bag

0:36:220:36:26

# Waiting to drown... #

0:36:260:36:29

Ironically, many of these more sober-sounding bands

0:36:290:36:32

who had watched Britpop from the sidelines

0:36:320:36:34

would go on to be more successful

0:36:340:36:36

than most of their red, white and blue-bedecked cohorts.

0:36:360:36:40

# Know I'll see your face again... #

0:36:400:36:43

After a dry afternoon at Glastonbury in 1999,

0:36:450:36:48

Travis caused an almighty downpour.

0:36:480:36:51

# Why does it always rain on me? #

0:36:510:36:54

They embraced the moment, though, and each raindrop signalled a sale.

0:36:540:36:59

The MO of such bands was businesslike and unflashy.

0:37:040:37:07

The North/South divide was over.

0:37:070:37:10

These bands came from Glasgow, Wigan, Birmingham, Liverpool.

0:37:100:37:14

45% of them were outright Welsh!

0:37:140:37:17

Perhaps the most well-known of the Cool Cymru exponents

0:37:190:37:22

were the Manic Street Preachers.

0:37:220:37:25

After the strange disappearance of their guitarist Richey Edwards,

0:37:250:37:28

they regrouped to find even greater success

0:37:280:37:31

playing to 80,000 fans on New Year's Eve in 1999.

0:37:310:37:35

As pre-millennial tension manifested itself,

0:37:440:37:47

the music industry was grappling with a new digital future.

0:37:470:37:52

# No alarms and no surprises... #

0:37:520:37:57

For many, Radiohead's OK Computer

0:37:570:37:59

was one of the greatest achievements of the decade.

0:37:590:38:03

Appropriately, singer Thom Yorke said

0:38:030:38:05

the album had been inspired by the speed of the '90s.

0:38:050:38:08

And few would have predicted that Coldplay,

0:38:150:38:18

a band who sold just 50 copies of their debut EP,

0:38:180:38:22

would soon become one of the biggest bands in the world.

0:38:220:38:25

This was the dawning of yet another new age for British rock.

0:38:270:38:30

# I swam across

0:38:300:38:33

# I jumped across for you... #

0:38:330:38:37

For some, it represented phenomenal growth and opportunity.

0:38:380:38:43

For others, it was the end of an era.

0:38:430:38:45

# Cos you were all yellow... #

0:38:450:38:49

And I don't know about you, Josie,

0:38:490:38:51

it may have been the last twitching of the corpse

0:38:510:38:54

where perhaps a youth was in charge of its culture.

0:38:540:38:57

After that, it dissipated somewhat, no?

0:38:570:39:00

You see, I'm such an optimist

0:39:000:39:02

but I think about things like grime music now

0:39:020:39:05

and I think about how many young people

0:39:050:39:07

are making their own music electronically and just how...

0:39:070:39:11

I feel like it's always there.

0:39:110:39:13

But where's the tension not to?

0:39:130:39:15

Up until perhaps that period, there was a resistance by the culture.

0:39:150:39:20

Really, pop music? But now, it's yeah, sure. Here's your grant.

0:39:200:39:24

Grant?! There's no such thing!

0:39:240:39:27

No, nowadays there's the big, really, really...

0:39:270:39:30

where all the money goes to the massive acts

0:39:300:39:32

and then there's everything else for you to find

0:39:320:39:35

and there's loads of people out there doing things

0:39:350:39:38

where they know they can't make a living from it but they love it,

0:39:380:39:40

where they know they are battling all kinds of circumstances

0:39:400:39:43

to make something incredible.

0:39:430:39:44

How do you view that change from "It's a great party"

0:39:440:39:49

to "Let's sober up and try and do something serious"?

0:39:490:39:52

Forced jollity, you know, wears on your nerves after a while.

0:39:520:39:56

Um, that's one reason why it happened

0:39:560:39:58

and if you look at that latter part of the '90s,

0:39:580:40:01

the rise of bands like Travis and Coldplay,

0:40:010:40:04

I think what that is is... there was a fundamental change

0:40:040:40:08

in the way "alternative" musicians thought in the '90s.

0:40:080:40:13

Up to that point, they were always a bit embarrassed

0:40:130:40:16

about being famous or wanting to be successful.

0:40:160:40:18

With Oasis, a certain rapaciousness becomes the norm.

0:40:180:40:21

"We want to be the biggest band in the world, da da da da..."

0:40:210:40:24

It became acceptable, totally.

0:40:240:40:26

Before, if an indie band went on Top Of The Pops or a punk band,

0:40:260:40:29

you would take the piss a bit or look embarrassed or not go on at all.

0:40:290:40:33

We saw Nirvana earlier on, goofing around.

0:40:330:40:35

Whereas... so, the quest is for a mass market,

0:40:350:40:40

to sell as many records as you possibly can

0:40:400:40:43

and inevitably with that,

0:40:430:40:45

there's going to be a certain watering down, a certain dilution

0:40:450:40:49

because you're not necessarily going to want

0:40:490:40:52

to make the most ground-breaking music ever,

0:40:520:40:54

that's going to put people off.

0:40:540:40:56

That's probably why it went to...

0:40:560:40:57

Do you suspect, then, that the musicians we were talking about,

0:40:570:41:00

I mean, Radiohead plainly are making the music they want to make,

0:41:000:41:03

but do you think they will sit down with a business plan

0:41:030:41:06

and a bunch of managers and say "This would be a smart move"?

0:41:060:41:09

-I know they do.

-They do now.

0:41:090:41:11

To be fair, they did in Britpop as well

0:41:110:41:13

and everyone was obsessed with that stuff.

0:41:130:41:16

It was a pretence that we didn't care about that stuff

0:41:160:41:18

but everyone was sitting down with focus groups,

0:41:180:41:20

fretting about their midweeks, it wasn't...

0:41:200:41:23

How did you feel about that?

0:41:230:41:24

Was there a muso inside you saying, "I'm selling out"?

0:41:240:41:27

No, because I didn't grow up like that,

0:41:270:41:28

I just wanted to be a pop star and I didn't grow up with that notion.

0:41:280:41:31

I find that hard to fit into, that "I have to be credible".

0:41:310:41:35

I just wanted to sell lots of records, that's what I wanted to do.

0:41:350:41:39

I think part of the come-down

0:41:390:41:41

was a response to the whole post-modern thing in Britpop

0:41:410:41:44

where everything was a bit tongue-in-cheek.

0:41:440:41:47

Everything was all a bit wry.

0:41:470:41:49

Do we really mean it, do we not really mean it?

0:41:490:41:52

And then you get Coldplay and Travis and it was

0:41:520:41:55

"I know where I am with that."

0:41:550:41:57

It's sentimental balladry, singing about things that are yellow.

0:41:570:42:01

It's earnest.

0:42:010:42:03

It's earnest, but I can see the attraction to that

0:42:030:42:08

off the back of what had gone before.

0:42:080:42:10

That irony had increasingly become a cover for doing things

0:42:100:42:13

that were actually quite naff.

0:42:130:42:15

-If you look at the Country House video, it's crap.

-Of course it is.

0:42:150:42:18

-It's a crap, embarrassing video.

-It was at the time, to be honest.

0:42:180:42:22

It didn't find...I remember when Country House came out,

0:42:220:42:25

they pretty quickly disowned that style

0:42:250:42:27

and the public thought, I think,

0:42:270:42:30

"This might be a Cockney walk too far."

0:42:300:42:32

And so I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

0:42:320:42:35

In fairness to Blur, nobody backtracked more dramatically

0:42:350:42:38

-or more successfully than Blur did.

-And brilliantly.

0:42:380:42:41

And proceeded to make three really credible albums.

0:42:410:42:43

Beetlebum came out how long after Country House? Not that long.

0:42:430:42:47

'98, the next year.

0:42:470:42:48

And yet we're talking as if it was an all-pervading style,

0:42:480:42:52

what we've just heard, and of course it isn't.

0:42:520:42:55

There were still a lot of old bands being welcomed in,

0:42:550:42:58

a lot of mixing going on and there were a bunch of bands

0:42:580:43:01

who wonderfully don't quite get it right and pop up and fizz and go -

0:43:010:43:05

Shed Seven and all of these groups...

0:43:050:43:07

Kula Shaker, who used to come through TFI Friday

0:43:070:43:09

and just have a go.

0:43:090:43:11

Josie, who took you into the millennium

0:43:110:43:13

-and you thought, "I thought that was going to last for ever"?

-Oh, gosh.

0:43:130:43:16

For me, there's a lot of things from 1996 to 1999

0:43:160:43:20

that I was so in love with and it was like a hard lesson for me

0:43:200:43:24

to learn that not every band I loved was going to make it.

0:43:240:43:27

And also that thing of the injustice of it,

0:43:270:43:31

"These people are incredible, why are they not number one?"

0:43:310:43:34

and not being able to understand, bands like Strangelove.

0:43:340:43:38

I went to see Strangelove at the London Astoria

0:43:380:43:40

and I got on stage with them.

0:43:400:43:41

He got loads of people on stage with him and he was whispering,

0:43:410:43:44

"I love you all"

0:43:440:43:46

and it was one of the most incredible experiences of me,

0:43:460:43:49

being a teenager, because it felt beyond our dreams

0:43:490:43:52

to be on stage and I expect people still appreciate them

0:43:520:43:56

but they aren't one you'd be like,

0:43:560:43:58

"In the '90s, there was Strangelove",

0:43:580:44:00

and then the Longpigs, I loved.

0:44:000:44:02

Richard Hawley was their guitarist.

0:44:020:44:04

I could list you 10 or 15 or 20 bands that were so meaningful to me.

0:44:040:44:09

I thought Honeycrackle were going to be enormous.

0:44:090:44:12

In fact, I saw a member of them the other day

0:44:120:44:14

and I bought some laces off him...

0:44:140:44:15

I think that is an eternal motif, where you think of this period

0:44:150:44:21

and you can try and back who the winners are going to be.

0:44:210:44:24

Is there anyone who's come through to rule the world?

0:44:240:44:26

Did you see it coming with Coldplay?

0:44:260:44:28

Did anyone see it coming, particularly with Radiohead?

0:44:280:44:30

The thing people forget is that there was a stage, Louise,

0:44:300:44:32

where Radiohead were seen as kind of a joke in Britain.

0:44:320:44:37

Creep was laughed at.

0:44:370:44:38

He had stupid hair and they never looked right.

0:44:380:44:42

And they went to America and got big in the States.

0:44:420:44:45

It was like, hold on...

0:44:450:44:46

I remember hearing the band, having completely dismissed them.

0:44:460:44:49

I was working in an office at the time on a Saturday

0:44:490:44:51

and somebody brought The Bends in and I thought, "This is really good.

0:44:510:44:54

"It's Radiohead!" And you could tell there was a degree of motion.

0:44:540:44:59

I had no idea Radiohead would go on to do what they've done.

0:44:590:45:03

I went to see Radiohead last year at the O2

0:45:030:45:06

and without a shadow of doubt, it was the least commercial music

0:45:060:45:10

I have ever heard played in a venue that size.

0:45:100:45:13

This is the biggest venue in Europe.

0:45:130:45:15

They didn't play any sort of classic material,

0:45:150:45:19

they didn't play... I think they played one song off OK Computer.

0:45:190:45:22

It was all new, it was all really experimental and strange.

0:45:220:45:25

I didn't think they would do that, no.

0:45:250:45:28

The pressure to be successful was pretty much inescapable in the '90s,

0:45:280:45:32

yet despite the stultifying effect of this way of thinking,

0:45:320:45:36

there still remained performers determined to do their own things

0:45:360:45:39

in their idiosyncratic way and in doing so - perversely -

0:45:390:45:43

some of them also became uniquely successful.

0:45:430:45:46

MUSIC: "3am Eternal" by the KLF

0:45:460:45:50

Self-confessed purveyors of "stadium house music", the KLF

0:45:550:45:59

brought a goodly dose of cynicism to the business end of pop.

0:45:590:46:03

One of the biggest-selling singles acts of the decade,

0:46:030:46:06

they also wrote the manual, How To Have A Number One The Easy Way.

0:46:060:46:09

Here they are, giving their last ever performance

0:46:090:46:13

at the Brits in '92,

0:46:130:46:14

after which, in a magnificently insane gesture,

0:46:140:46:17

or possibly Situationist protest,

0:46:170:46:20

they set fire to £1 million of their royalties

0:46:200:46:23

on the Scottish Isle of Jura.

0:46:230:46:25

# My lovely lovely lovely horse

0:46:270:46:29

# My lovely horse... #

0:46:290:46:31

Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy wonderfully reminded us

0:46:310:46:35

that pop could be both clever and really funny,

0:46:350:46:38

co-writing the equine-themed, sort-of Eurovision entry

0:46:380:46:42

for Father Ted and Dougal.

0:46:420:46:44

A flurry of gifted foreigners rather sweetly believed that Britain

0:46:480:46:52

might be a nice place to set up shop, and we duly rewarded them

0:46:520:46:55

by giving them hits.

0:46:550:46:58

Iceland's Bjork perplexed and enchanted.

0:47:010:47:03

Closer to home, Bristol took over from Manchester

0:47:110:47:14

as Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky

0:47:140:47:17

got intensely moody with trip hop.

0:47:170:47:19

# Really hurt me baby

0:47:190:47:22

# Really cut me baby

0:47:220:47:24

# How can you have a day without a night? #

0:47:240:47:27

But fellow Bristolian PJ Harvey thrillingly chose to deliver

0:47:310:47:34

intensity of a very different kind.

0:47:340:47:37

Her '90s albums established her as one British artist who would

0:47:400:47:44

continue to intrigue her audience well into the next century.

0:47:440:47:47

# 50 foot Queenie

0:47:470:47:49

# 50 foot Queenie. #

0:47:490:47:51

Louise, watching the outro of that,

0:47:530:47:56

do you think in some ways it can be easier to be a maverick

0:47:560:48:01

than it can to be just someone who tours and writes hit records?

0:48:010:48:05

Because always, the benefit of the doubt

0:48:050:48:07

is given to the uncompromising.

0:48:070:48:09

Yeah, good point, you can stand out and plough your own furrow,

0:48:090:48:12

do your own thing, you don't have to join in with anything.

0:48:120:48:15

"That's how they are" - given the freedom.

0:48:150:48:18

And that must have been hugely liberating, I think.

0:48:180:48:20

Although watching that and seeing the KLF burn the money,

0:48:200:48:23

it just seemed like such a brutal, nihilistic thing in retrospect.

0:48:230:48:27

It's one of those things everyone's glad they did,

0:48:270:48:30

just because it's a great piece of lore,

0:48:300:48:32

but every time you actually see it going into the furnace

0:48:320:48:35

and knowing how members of the KLF feel about it since,

0:48:350:48:38

you just think, "Oh, my Lord!"

0:48:380:48:39

I just went, "Ooh! I haven't seen that for a long time."

0:48:390:48:43

It's an old expression, but is that rock'n'roll?

0:48:430:48:46

No! It's really...

0:48:460:48:47

Your face, particularly, during that was...

0:48:470:48:50

Coming back from it, away from the mavericks and stuff,

0:48:500:48:53

you - am I right here? -

0:48:530:48:55

have more respect for someone who can write hit after hit?

0:48:550:48:59

No, not at all.

0:48:590:49:00

I think it's both, I just don't feel so judgemental about it.

0:49:000:49:04

People that do the pop thing...

0:49:040:49:06

it's a skill in and of itself, and people like PJ Harvey,

0:49:060:49:11

I think is marvellous, obviously, and, you know...

0:49:110:49:15

Did you and do you envy anyone from that period,

0:49:150:49:17

you thought, "That's the way to have done it"?

0:49:170:49:19

I think someone like PJ Harvey,

0:49:190:49:21

I don't think I appreciated at the time, but in retrospect

0:49:210:49:23

like much more than I did at the time.

0:49:230:49:25

Just having the balls and the confidence to say,

0:49:250:49:28

"We're doing our own thing and all be damned".

0:49:280:49:32

To have this confidence to stand up and do that is a fabulous thing.

0:49:320:49:36

Is that a bravery that record companies, as they were,

0:49:360:49:42

could accommodate? And would you have been able to get away with it

0:49:420:49:45

if you weren't selling records, Alexis?

0:49:450:49:48

If you're not selling records, you can't get away with anything,

0:49:480:49:50

-cos you get dropped.

-In the '70s, you could.

0:49:500:49:52

I suppose so, yeah. Certainly, the Britpop era was the last time

0:49:520:49:59

I can remember record companies just signing...

0:49:590:50:01

it was a like a bit of a gold rush.

0:50:010:50:03

I remember a band called Earl Brutus - brilliant band,

0:50:030:50:06

got signed to Island, a major label.

0:50:060:50:08

This was not a group that anybody in their right minds thought

0:50:080:50:12

was going to sell any quantities of records.

0:50:120:50:14

Most of their gigs used to end up in fights.

0:50:140:50:17

The two amazing bits of stagecraft they had,

0:50:170:50:20

they had one of those revolving signs

0:50:200:50:22

that you get outside of garages,

0:50:220:50:24

and on one side, it said "Music" and on the other it said "Chips".

0:50:240:50:27

I saw another gig where they played in front of a huge funeral wreath,

0:50:270:50:31

where they'd made words out of a funeral wreath, "Dad" or whatever,

0:50:310:50:35

and it said "Fuck off" behind the stage.

0:50:350:50:36

-Who's this? Earl Brutus?

-Magnificent band.

0:50:360:50:40

And I remember going to the gig,

0:50:400:50:42

there was Island going, "Look at this band we've signed."

0:50:420:50:46

And it ended up in a fight with the audience, it was complete chaos.

0:50:460:50:49

You just thought... On one hand, I'm very glad they gave them money

0:50:490:50:54

because their records are amazing and brilliant pieces of art.

0:50:540:50:57

They sound like the Deviants of their day.

0:50:570:51:00

There is a certain element of that, yeah.

0:51:000:51:02

They're like the Deviants crossed with Mud.

0:51:020:51:04

LAUGHTER

0:51:040:51:06

Magnificent band.

0:51:060:51:07

Josie, do you see someone doing that and think,

0:51:070:51:09

"I couldn't do it but thank God someone is."

0:51:090:51:12

Definitely, absolutely.

0:51:120:51:13

I was thinking, when I was a teenager,

0:51:130:51:15

there was a band called David Devant & His Spirit Wife

0:51:150:51:18

who did really silly, funny, performance art stuff on stage.

0:51:180:51:23

He had this thing where he poured a big vat of custard over himself.

0:51:230:51:27

I don't even know why you would... and he had loads of wheat stalks

0:51:270:51:31

that he sheathed at one point during it,

0:51:310:51:33

-and he had an LED, LCD, I don't know...

-The dot thing?

0:51:330:51:38

Yeah, it was like a ticker.

0:51:380:51:39

And it would say things across the top of it during the songs.

0:51:390:51:43

Sounds like an episode of Tiswas or something!

0:51:430:51:45

It was, it was like Saturday morning TV!

0:51:450:51:48

And were there records behind this?

0:51:480:51:51

Yeah. Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous - classic album!

0:51:510:51:54

Oh! Now, that, I would hazard a guess, has gone,

0:51:540:51:59

because I don't think anyone is going to say,

0:51:590:52:01

"parlay my money up with your eccentricity,

0:52:010:52:03

"and do what you want with it" - is anyone going to do that?

0:52:030:52:06

There is a huge market, I think for...

0:52:060:52:10

Yeah, but no-one's going to - record companies are scared

0:52:100:52:13

and understandably so. And these are timid times,

0:52:130:52:16

and you're not going to give money to Earl Brutus

0:52:160:52:20

or whatever the millennial equivalent of Earl Brutus is.

0:52:200:52:24

Janelle Monae is really experimental and really successful.

0:52:240:52:26

I'm not knocking her, but there is a commercial potential in her records,

0:52:260:52:30

she's got duets with Prince...

0:52:300:52:32

Always with us, because I don't think

0:52:320:52:35

you can always tell a studied eccentric from...

0:52:350:52:38

whether it's a Wild Willy Barrett, a Viv Stanshall,

0:52:380:52:41

an Arthur Brown, right up to your Earl Brutus there.

0:52:410:52:44

The late Nick Sanderson, the lead singer.

0:52:440:52:46

There you go. So I don't think it's a choice to go

0:52:460:52:49

into the record industry.

0:52:490:52:50

It used to be somewhere where it was their last resort,

0:52:500:52:53

perhaps would like to think it still is. Here's the bit I like best.

0:52:530:52:56

After all the examination, it's like taking off tight shoes.

0:52:560:52:58

Having coolly dissected the decade in question,

0:52:580:53:02

here come the warm jets. It's our flight case to the future.

0:53:020:53:06

Regular viewers of all three shows will be well aware of what it is.

0:53:060:53:10

We ask each of our guests to put an album and a piece of memorabilia

0:53:100:53:13

in it that best describes for them the decade we've been talking about.

0:53:130:53:16

Josie first.

0:53:160:53:17

I've got Belle and Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister.

0:53:170:53:20

-Why?

-Because I love this album and I still love this album,

0:53:200:53:23

I love every track on it.

0:53:230:53:25

Also for me, Glasgow in the 1990s - you've got Belle & Sebastian,

0:53:250:53:28

Arab Strap, Mogwai, the Delgados, Bis, Urusei Yatsura,

0:53:280:53:32

that's like so... I'm barely touching on it,

0:53:320:53:35

I feel like Glasgow, now still, but since forever

0:53:350:53:39

has been the most exciting cultural city.

0:53:390:53:41

Thank you for bringing Belle & Sebastian, somebody needed to.

0:53:410:53:45

What have you got there?

0:53:450:53:46

These are albums... Can I say I've never liked the Spice Girls,

0:53:460:53:49

this was just from the Pound Shop and I've never covered it!

0:53:490:53:52

This is my albums with pictures and gig tickets of gigs I went to

0:53:520:53:56

when I was a kid. This one here, I'm really proud of.

0:53:560:54:00

-All your tickets!

-Helen Love and Period Pains, bands I really loved.

0:54:000:54:04

-You are the indie-est person I've ever come across!

-Nada Surf...

0:54:040:54:08

David Devant and His Spirit Wife! Look at this one - Urusei Yatsura,

0:54:080:54:11

Helen Love, Superstar Disco Club, Strangelove...

0:54:110:54:15

If we had a red button facility, that's an entire programme there,

0:54:150:54:18

Josie goes through... Including Helen Love and the Period Pains!

0:54:180:54:22

Sebadoh, Elliott Smith, Hefner, Quasi, that is a bill!

0:54:220:54:25

LAUGHTER

0:54:250:54:26

Alexis, what have you brought?

0:54:260:54:29

I've brought in Be Here Now by Oasis.

0:54:290:54:32

What, no Helen Love and the Period Pains?

0:54:320:54:34

Alas, no. Is this my favourite album of the '90s? No.

0:54:340:54:38

But if you want to know what Britain was like in 1997,

0:54:380:54:43

a year where this country temporarily appeared

0:54:430:54:46

to lose its mind in the wake of the death of Princess Diana,

0:54:460:54:50

this is the album that soundtracks it.

0:54:500:54:52

It's the sound of coked-up stupidity on a mammoth scale.

0:54:520:54:58

Is it any good?

0:54:580:54:59

It's perversely enjoyable, in a kind of gonzo way.

0:54:590:55:02

But, just as a kind of, as an artefact of the '90s

0:55:020:55:07

just sort of tipping over the edge into complete insanity.

0:55:070:55:12

What's your memorabilia?

0:55:120:55:13

It's just some stuff from the Heavenly Sunday Social,

0:55:130:55:16

which was a club I went to when I first came to London.

0:55:160:55:19

It used to be on a Sunday night, the Chemical Brothers -

0:55:190:55:22

the Dust Brothers, they were then called - were the resident DJs.

0:55:220:55:25

It was a sort of meeting point of dance music

0:55:250:55:28

and the nascent Britpop scene. It felt like Swinging London.

0:55:280:55:33

-That was the moment...

-And you have Polaroids to prove it?

0:55:330:55:36

-Absolutely.

-Well done.

0:55:360:55:37

That's one thing I could never get my head round.

0:55:370:55:39

Louise?

0:55:390:55:41

I've got Garbage, from 1995,

0:55:410:55:43

and in the midst of Britpop which was all happy and positive and lovely,

0:55:430:55:47

this was this dark album I absolutely loved.

0:55:470:55:49

And I loved Shirley Manson,

0:55:490:55:51

cos she seemed to be in a permanent state of premenstrual tension.

0:55:510:55:54

She was constantly on day 26 of her cycle, which really appealed to me!

0:55:540:55:59

It seems to be for both genders,

0:55:590:56:00

comes with the territory being called Manson, one way or another.

0:56:000:56:04

Great songs, they still stand up, I love the darkness of it

0:56:040:56:08

-and the toughness of it.

-Yeah. And as a piece of...?

0:56:080:56:12

My memorabilia is this T-shirt, I felt like I wore it

0:56:120:56:16

for the whole of 1995, it says "Another female-fronted band" on it

0:56:160:56:20

because at the time, female-fronted bands were a thing

0:56:200:56:23

to be put in a zoo to be looked at, "Ooh, girl with a guitar!"

0:56:230:56:28

-It also smells of Britpop.

-Does it?

0:56:280:56:30

-Yeah. Chip shops, greyhounds, sugary tea.

-Cocaine...

0:56:300:56:35

Great T-shirt - I suspect even as this goes out,

0:56:350:56:37

somebody is now manufacturing copies of that. That's brilliant.

0:56:370:56:41

I've tried to keep the thread going through the programmes

0:56:410:56:44

we've been doing.

0:56:440:56:45

One band who seem to have come up in the '70s programme,

0:56:450:56:48

the '80s and '90s programme

0:56:480:56:50

and seen it out really well despite the demons they seem to fight

0:56:500:56:53

is XTC. Not the most surprising of choices

0:56:530:56:57

but it's about time we said, "Well done",

0:56:570:56:59

because they are still with us.

0:56:590:57:00

This is a pretty good album, it's psychedelia on an old format

0:57:000:57:04

but it was recorded in the '90s

0:57:040:57:06

and they are still pretty astounding.

0:57:060:57:09

Hit after hit after hit, a very undervalued British band.

0:57:090:57:12

Britpop even tipped the hat to them.

0:57:120:57:14

But the memorabilia, again, straddles all the decades.

0:57:140:57:18

This is David Bowie, of course,

0:57:180:57:20

who we've had to try and bet without

0:57:200:57:22

every time we've had a conversation here,

0:57:220:57:24

so it's Bowie, '70s,

0:57:240:57:26

and the film he made, on a format none more early '90s, the laserdisc.

0:57:260:57:31

And after meeting virtually everybody in television and rock,

0:57:310:57:35

I finally got to meet him on TFI Friday,

0:57:350:57:37

which I worked on in the '90s

0:57:370:57:39

and there it is. He signed it. "Bowie, '99".

0:57:390:57:44

If you're going to encapsulate everything we've been talking about,

0:57:440:57:47

you can do it in pretty much two words - David Bowie.

0:57:470:57:49

Thank you very much for being with us - Louise, Alexis, Josie,

0:57:490:57:54

it's been terrific. Thank you.

0:57:540:57:56

We began this trilogy of programmes hoping to legitimise

0:57:560:57:59

the often derided concept of decades.

0:57:590:58:02

But in musical terms at least, you really can hear them.

0:58:020:58:06

'20s - trad jazz, '40s - Glenn Miller and bebop.

0:58:060:58:08

'50s, Elvis.

0:58:080:58:10

In the three decades we've covered - bizarrely if conveniently,

0:58:100:58:14

we've seen musical movements really do sometimes break down

0:58:140:58:18

into neat ten-year segments, which brings us to today.

0:58:180:58:21

What is rock music doing now? Well, listen.

0:58:210:58:24

I can't hear a thing.

0:58:250:58:27

Well, Mr Bowie?

0:58:270:58:29

Well?

0:58:290:58:31

# Look into my eyes he tells her

0:58:310:58:34

# I'm gonna say goodbye he says yeah

0:58:340:58:38

# Do not cry she begs of him goodbye yeah

0:58:380:58:43

# All that day she thinks of his love yeah

0:58:430:58:46

# They whip him through the streets and alleys there

0:58:460:58:50

# The gormless and the baying crowd right there

0:58:500:58:54

# They can't get enough of that doomsday song... #

0:58:540:58:57

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