SIXTEEN CANDLES BURNING IN MY MIND

(Ignore the Post Title, it's nothing depressing lol)

1992, the year i turned 16. My weekly single buying slowed down quite a lot a few months into the year because, as far as the charts were concerned, it all seemed a bit boring! Everyone was listening to Guns 'N' Roses, who i thought were bloody awful, and the Grunge sound of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam sounded depressing to my teenage pop sensibilities. A few indie and "baggy" bands were still popular, but they went over my head, with the exception of James and Carter USM, who provided one of the comedy highlights of my year when Fruitbat rugby tackled Philip Schofield at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party! The dance music which had seemed so exciting and inventive a year or two before was starting to become a parody of itself: barely a month went by without yet another song sampling a kids tv show appearing: Sesame Street, Trumpton, Rainbow, Roobarb and Custard. And whilst the more "progressive" dance acts like Orbital, The Orb, and Future Sound Of London were still making innovative music, i don't remember hearing it on the radio. Tedious, soul(less) pap dominated the charts this year, with Wet Wet Wet, Dina Carroll, Mariah Carey, and Curtis Stigers all having huge hits. Sleep-inducing stuff. My main obsession in this year was the return of Madness, which i won't elaborate on here, as i've already covered that in a previous post. As the year came to a close, my vinyl collection came to an abrupt halt, as i made the switch to CDs, and more significantly, a more album based collection. I still had my singles, and my stereo, but the CD boombox i had for Christmas heralded a change in my listening habits, and thanks to the amount of older music being reissued on CD, the opportunity to delve into the past....