1. Swervedriver - Duel (Creation)
While a lot of the initial buzz surrounding Swervedriver was starting to die down by this point, they managed to retain a lot of affection on the live circuit, and were even managing to gain cult status in the USA - an unusual feat for a lot of British bands at this point.
"Duel" sticks to their usual format of stoned, chugging rock and roll riffola until suddenly, a rampslide into a bright, breezy, sunny pasture emerges in the form of the chorus, which manages to combine the rock raunchiness of Hendrix with the jingle jangle morning of The Byrds. It's an interesting and strangely beautiful single, but not one that was ever likely to result in the band progressing any further. It was the last single of theirs to chart within the UK Top 75, and from this point forward they would slowly slide from view.
Their American audience held them in good stead, though, and ensured that their final LP "99th Dream" was released on New York's Zero Hour Records after Creation Records lost interest.
They recently reformed in 2015.
2. Salad - Kent (Waldorf)
Few bands got as frosty reception when they emerged as Salad. If there was one over-riding golden rule of the early nineties indie circuit, it was that rich kids and celebrities fronting groups should not be tolerated. Performing alternative rock was, after all, a serious business with artistic integrity and an outsider status at its forefront, not anything glamorous. Heaven forfend.
Marijne Van Der Vlugt of Salad, then, was an MTV Video Jock and a model, who had experienced some considerable success at the latter job and remained very visible as the former. Well heeled and incredibly striking looking, she seemed as if she more rightfully belonged in Vogue magazine as opposed to having her music played on evening Radio One. Salad really seemed like a successful person's dalliance or hobby at first, not something with any long-term viability.
It didn't help that their early singles were not actually particularly great. Those aren't my words, either, they're the words of their press officer who phoned me at home in an attempt to drag me out to review one of their mid-nineties gigs. "Honestly, they're amazing now," I was reassured. "I know they used to be shit, but they've really developed". (And reader, I went to see them live and they were indeed fantastic, but I've never had such a strange phone call from a press person since).
"Kent", issued on their own Waldorf label, is a scratchy, basic sounding little single which shows the band had nailed their sound effectively by this point - Marijne's bluesy, teasing, taunting vocals are in place, as is the angular riffage - but it sounds like an early demo from a band who haven't quite got around to writing any significant songs yet. The rhythm section in particular seems a bit clubfooted here, and there's an awkwardness to the group which would dissipate quite rapidly. For now, though, this is merely an OK moment.
3. Cranes - Everywhere (Dedicated)
Dedicated and Beechwood both managed to mess up here, listing the Cranes track "Jewel" on the tracklisting of the LP, while including "Everywhere" instead. So far as I'm aware, this mistake wasn't remedied on any future pressings, so I'm treating "Everywhere" as the official selection.
Whereas most Cranes tracks have an unsettling and uncomfortable air, "Everywhere" is altogether happier in its skin, though these things are all relative. Hanging its lot on a simple acoustic chord progression and Alison Shaw's hushed but strangely child-like vocals, it's otherworldly without utilising the kind of doomy, thundering chords the group often enjoyed. This track therefore dodges the sound that might have had small children running out of Our Price screaming in fear, but doesn't really sound any more "ordinary" for it - it still sounds quite unlike anything else being issued at this point.
4. Family Cat - Airplane Gardens (Dedicated)
Meanwhile, Crane's labelmates The Family Cat continued to plough their own particular cultish furrow, though with "Airplane Gardens" they may actually have produced one of their finest moments. Starting with a two-note keyboard riff then gradually progressing into a monstrous, epic chorus, it sounds exactly like the group they wanted to become. Gone are the rough edges, but also gone are the kind of trucker's key changes and banner-waving Rock School excesses of "Steamroller".
Instead, there's a Julian Cope-esque air to this one, a righteous fury (though about what it's hard to say) and a slightly mystical feel. When I first bought this compilation, I surprised myself by continually playing this, long after I'd tired of many of the other tracks.
It also marked a slight turning point in The Family Cat's attitude, as they became slightly more savage and openly political in the press. One of their future singles "Goldenbook" had a B-side entitled "Bring Me The Head Of Michael Portillo", and they took adverts out in the music press consisting of nothing but the title of that track and a telephone number people could ring. If you phoned the line, you heard a voice softly telling you "He's so arrogant, get rid of him", followed by the coo-ed vocal line "You won't lose much sleep tonight".
The Family Cat were finally moving on from being an archetypal spit and sawdust indie group and visiting some dark and interesting places. In time, it would almost bring them success - their final two singles only narrowly missed the UK Top 40 - but in BMG's opinion, that was probably too little, too late, and they ceased activities in 1994.
5. Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation - Enough Is Enough (One Little Indian)
At the time, this was the political anthem in studentville and indieland. 1993 was a bleak year for British politics, with a weak Conservative Government, the BNP gaining popularity and racist attacks regularly occurring around East London and other areas. (Well, at least we don't have the BNP on the rise at the moment, I suppose... small mercies).
Chumbawamba had at this point spent a long period as political agitators, releasing records with titles as telling as "Smash Clause 28" and "Pictures Of Starving Children Sell Records". They were never subtle, but many of their records had an undercurrent of commerciality - the concept of becoming Crass and making a din to back up the ferocity of their political leanings often didn't seem as appealing to them as journeying back to the folksong traditions of coherent narratives and memorable choruses. Their live shows were also often utterly lacking in subtlety, with costume changes, cheap backdrops and call and response interplay with the audience making the affairs seem a bit like a left-leaning student drama society pantomime. However, they got their radical messages across to a surprisingly large audience.
Over in the other corner for this single sat Credit To The Nation, ostensibly Matty Hanson aka MC Fusion working under a group name. His debut single "Call It What You Want" had sampled Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and caused thousands of plaid shirt wearing teens up and down the country to go racing towards the dancefloor, only to groan and sit back down again when they realised it was "That bloody Hip Hop record" (I never tired of laughing at this). Credit To The Nation burst on to music scene with cries of "unity!" and asked for greater tolerance between black and white people - steadily, though, their political message became sharper and more targeted, and Hanson eventually lost favour with the NME when he (quite reasonably) suggested in a rival publication that their selection criteria for interviews and articles in the magazine could be considered racist. (It's pretty clear that, even to this day, the NME don't really seem to have anything we could refer to as a "diversity agenda". There again, they barely seem to have much of a music-orientated agenda at the moment).
"Enough Is Enough" should have been an enormous meeting of minds, and was obviously regarded as being so at the time. It was the number one track in John Peel's 1993 Festive Fifty, and was played endlessly in alternative or indie clubs - but there's something a bit tepid sounding about it these days. The "Give the fascist man a gunshot" lines feel weak and crowbarred in, and the central chorus is arguably one of the weakest slogans Chumbawamba ever came up with ("Open your eyes, time to wake up/ Enough is enough is enough is enough" doesn't really say anything at all. We all know what it means and what it's referring to, of course, but it's not exactly something you'd feel inspired to daub on a protest banner).
There's a sense that we sorely needed a political anthem in 1993. Britain felt somewhat grey, broke and locked in stasis, and the only people getting any joy out of it seemed to be the knuckle draggers thriving on the ill-feeling. Very few people stepped forward to make the necessary noise, however, and I can't help but feel that we clutched "Enough Is Enough" to our bosoms because it was the best candidate on offer. For all its popularity at the time, though, it's surely an unusual example of a Festive Fifty number one hardly anybody plays anymore.
I prefer "Liar Liar" by Captain Ska meself - though that's not especially great either.