SHOW ME MAGIC...

1996, and the Britpop movement that had started a couple of years before and peaked in the summer of 1995 had become the mainstream. Oasis were now the biggest band in the country, and were starting to have success in the USA. Blur seemed to have reached a creative dead end, tipping over into a parody of themselves. Pulp, Supergrass, Echobelly: all having released storming albums the year before, would disappear for a year or two. The Boo Radleys, despising the Britpop tag they'd been given, would go back to their more uncommercial but creative style, releasing C'Mon Kids!, an album of loud garage rock, psychedelic experiments, and distortion. It was quite a shock the first time i heard it: lead singer Sice shredding his vocal cords on the lead single "What's In The Box?" and the title track which somehow made its way into the Top 20. The band hoped to take their new fans along with them: they opted to follow workmanlike indie bands like Cast and Ocean Colour Scene, who were riding on the coat tails of Oasis' success. I found it hard going, to be honest, and it would take a few years before i realised how good it was.

Other bands inspired by the popularity of Indie music popped up to varying degrees of success: Marion, from Macclesfield, were a darker proposition, influenced by The Smiths, Joy Division, and Buzzcocks, they sang about domestic violence, suicide, depression, loneliness and isolation, led by Jaime Hardings' emotional vocals and backed by melodic but powerful guitars. I first saw them on a show called Britpop Now in late '95, presented by Damon Albarn and showcasing live in the studio performances by some of the scenes' best bands: Pulp, Blur, Supergrass, Elastica etc, (Oasis were omitted, no doubt due the ongoing war of words between them and Blur). Marion played a "I Stopped Dancing",a song about adolescent awkardness and growing pains, and i thought it was great, one of the highlights of their debut album This World And Body, released in February and fitting the dark, damp moods of that month perfectly. They made some cracking singles - "Let's All Go Together" and "Time" being my personal favourites - but never really managed to have that one huge hit that might have pushed them into the big leagues. A  re-release of "Sleep" got them to No. 17 after being used on a car advert, but they soon disappeared, and a second album briefly appeared in 1998 before they broke up due to the drug habits of their frontman.

Another defining album of that year for me was The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly. A mix of jangly guitars, pop hooks and keening vocals, they weren't breaking any new ground but they knew their way around a good tune, which helped them knock Oasis off the top spot in the albums chart, bolstered by their No. 2 hit "Slight Return".

Other new albums i bought that year included 1977, the punk-pop debut from Ash, the eponymous first album from electro-rock U.S band Garbage, K, the debut from psychedelic indie rockers Kula Shaker, and Casanova, the third album by Irish baroque-pop outfit The Divine Comedy. Suede came back from their split with maverick guitarist Bernard Butler - who himself had briefly teamed up with flamboyant singer David McAlmont to produce two startling hit singles of orchestral pop - with Coming Up, an album of hook-filled glam-indie to enormous success. Quirky Liverpudlian band Space added a bit of entertainment to the airwaves with several hits from their album Spiders, a record influenced by everything from dub, dance and indie, to film soundtracks, with lyrics about serial killers and misfits. The most surprising success that year though was the return of Welsh political agit-rockers Manic Street Preachers. Their last album, 1994's The Holy Bible, a seething, desperate, black hole of a record, wasn't quite the success they'd hoped for, and its release was followed by a series of bad-tempered tours amid the worsening mental state of their chief lyricist, Richey James Edwards, whose list of problems included alcoholism, self-harming, and depression. In February '95, on the eve of an American promotional visit, Richey left his car at Severn Bridge services, and disappeared off the face of the earth. The remaning members of the Manics were thrown into turmoil, and it was assumed that they would never be heard of again. After a while, they decided to carry on, putting together an album partly from lyrics Richey had left, with the rest penned by co-lyricist Nicky Wire. The result was Everything Must Go, a record full of big songs and big emotions, bombastic and anthemic but also fragile and melancholic, informed by the absence of their friend but looking hopefully to the future. The widescreen feel of the title track, and the lead-off single "A Design For Life" - lyrically about working class identity, and conflicts with a privileged upper class - led to the biggest hits of their career so far, songs that sounded like terrace anthems but with a far greater intelligence, emotionally charged but with political and historical references and themes. The band were so huge that even the track "Kevin Carter", all angular choppy guitars, obscure lyrics (about the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and his suicide), and a trumpet solo was a Top 10 hit.

Not previously having been one for picking up albums by bands i wasn't that familar with, my surprise favourite of the year was the debut album by Welsh psychedlic indie band Super Furry Animals, "Fuzzy Logic". I'd heard a couple of brief snatches of their single "God! Show Me Magic", and decided to give it a go. The following 40-odd minutes of punky glam rock, psychedelic pop, quirky indie and folky laments with lyrics about drugs, alien abduction, frisbees, legendary drug trafficker Howard Marks, and hooking up a hamsters wheel to provide electricity, were the strangest, funniest and most engaging thing i'd heard up to that point. I'm still a fan of the 'Furries today, and whilst it's not their best album, i still love it.