IT was the year Noel, Jarvis, Liam, Robbie, Bjork, Bob and Michael all hit the tabloids with a vengeance and provided more front covers than they did hit singles. In a world where politics and politicians operate in ever-decreasing ideological circles and where a bunch of not-so-new lads put the popular back into pop culture, the status of "Pop Personality" has taken on an added resonance.
If you weren't positively vibed by the sight and sound of Nick Cave emoting "It's Mister Stagger Lee, motherfucker" you just weren't in the picture at all this year, bub. The album was quaintly called Murder Ballads and Mr Cave and his Bad Seeds sure squeezed every last drop of pathos and humour out of its every groove. Most wonderful stuff.
There was also Brett Anderson extolling the virtues of White Trash (quite fashionable these days, apparently) and James Dean Bradfield apologising for the fact that "everything must go". Both Suede and The Manics looked dead'n'buried at the beginning of the year - the former had fallen from indie grace, usurped by Britpop, and the latter were struggling with the absence of Richy Edwards - but in Coming Up and Everything Must Go they hit the high notes and gleefully waved two fingers in the air as both chart return shops and concert halls succumbed to their many charms.
Oasis went from being an indie band turned big into a social phenomenon. Except for this: when the Mercury Music Prize was announced (still the only credible music prize around, equidistant as it is from the mainstream piffle of the Brits and the indie ghetto of the Brats) they lost out not only to Pulp (1st) but also to Norma Waterson (2nd) whose eponymously-titled debut album of folk cover versions was one of the better highlights of the year. Anybody for Britfolk? The international single of the year has to be Born Slippy by Underworld (because it reminds me of Edinburgh), although it was pushed all the way by the pyrotechnics of Firestarter by The Prodigy.
Over in the US, Nirvana reminded us what it was all really about with the posthumous release of the live From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, while Sebadoh and The Screaming Trees provided some post-grunge delights. The west coast team of Dr Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog lost out to the east coast grooves of the Wu Tang Clan, the Staten Island bunch who provided us with Genius/Gza, yet another of our albums of the year.
The comeback of the year was most definitely The Sex Pistols. What could have been a tragedy turned out to be a triumph - and take me out and shoot me now, but here's thinking that Pretty Vacant, Anarchy In The UK and everything else sounded better the second time around.
Back home normally you're fully stretched to come up with five good Irish albums. This year, however, there were five great Irish albums: The High Llamas - Hawaii, Divine Comedy - Casanova, Ash - 1977, A House - No More Apologies and Rollerskate Skinny - Horsedrawn Wishes.
FACTOR in The Frank And Walters, whose astonishingly good Grand Parade will eventually see the light of record-shop day (on Setanta) in the new year and you're talking about a boom time. Congrats to Dave Fanning, Tom Dunne and Eamon Carr for recognising this fact and playing the only music that matters.
On the single and EP front, there was some highly impressive stuff from The Sewing Room (Drug Free EP - and the new album, again out next year, is great too) while for my money, The Jubilee Allstars stole the show with the By The End Of The Night EP, so good in fact it evoked the spirit of the Stars of Heaven - while Derry's Cuckoo gave us the Non Sequitur EP, which was equally marvellous. A major bonus this year was the Creation re-release of Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine. The Hormones brought out their electrifying debut Are You With Us/Devil Goes To Moscow and the dual good news for them is that they've just been signed by Richard Branson's label, V2.
It's always something of a tradition in this column to close the round-up wondering about new releases from two of the best bands in my world. This year, unlike last year and the year before that, we can confirm that The Revenants will have an album in the shops very soon, while the bold Keith Cullen (who now manages them) insists that My Bloody Valentine are "in the studio". Ready, steady, go.
