PEOPLE are fond of claiming the 1990s produced some of the greatest pop music of all time. Which falls on its arse when you recall these piles of total wank from the genre.
Shampoo – Trouble (1994)
Hailed by the music press as ‘perfect pop’, there’s a good reason duo Jacqui Blake and Caroline Askew were around for all of five minutes. Their two-dimensional brand of watery rebel-pop was a bit too knowing and ironic, and the result was a shorter shelf-life than last night’s prawn curry leftovers. ‘Something’s come along and its burst our bubble’ was, thankfully, deeply prophetic.
Britney Spears – Baby One More Time (1998)
The Swedish songwriters behind this mega-hit confused ‘hit me’ with ‘hit me up’, so Britney’s not actually recommending repeatedly hitting a 16-year-old girl in a revealing school uniform. That doesn’t address the other problem, which is that it’s being sung by a 16-year-old girl in a revealing school uniform. Now seen as a wank track for dirty old men in raincoats, so wokeness does have its purposes.
Simply Red – Something Got Me Started (1991)
The commercial success of bland wine bar pop merchants Simply Red is one of life’s great mysteries, like what’s at the end of space, or how Britain has managed to keep electing transparently shit Tory governments for 14 years. ‘I’d give it all up for you,’ warbles chubby ginger novelty troll Hucknall. Yeah, if you could mate, that’d be great.
Sub Sub – Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) (1993)
Madchester and The Hacienda have a lot to answer for. Supremely catchy, but then so is syphilis, and no one ever talks about ‘classic VD’. Had a mercifully short career before Jimi Goodwin and the Williams brothers definitely didn’t burn their Manchester recording studio down and use the insurance money to launch the infinitely superior Doves.
Kylie Minogue – Better The Devil You Know (1990)
Hugely popular, even though it was just the latest in a brainless procession of identical Stock, Aitken and Waterman detritus. Great if you like songs that go ‘oo-oh, oo-oh, oo-oh, o-oh’ when they’ve run out of vaguely-connected sentences to call ‘lyrics’. Mainly heard nowadays being slaughtered by out-of-tune hen party revellers in karaoke bars who leave other drinkers in fear of getting punched or snogged or both.
S Club Seven – S Club Party (1999)
S Club Seven were a synthetic creation of Simon Fuller in the badly mistaken belief he could recreate the financial success of the Spice Girls. If there really ‘Ain’t no party like an S Club Party’ we should all be eternally grateful, because it would be full of pissed teenagers vomiting alcopops. Sadly the comeback tour won’t happen now, but it does solve the awkward problem of what to play after the two hits people liked when they were ten.
