The Lightning Seeds - love explosion, 1990

"The Lightning Seeds are not, as you might imagine, an obscure American garage band from Buttclench, Indiana, but the pop brainchild of Scouse wunderkind Ian Broudie (he of the almost legendary Liverpool groups Care and Original Mirrors). Possibly better known for his production work with Wah!, Echo And The Bunnymen and lcicle Works, Broudie’s first solo LP is an understated affair packed full of gentle semi-precious pop songs. Echoing the plaintive and highly unfashionable tones of bedsit balladeer Al Stewart, Broudie’s voice wafts angelically through the LP, counterpointed by a collection of neat and massively hummable songs, sometimes reminiscent of New Order’s surefire melodic touch. Aside from the energised percussive blast of Love Explosion, the delicately textured love song Joy and the effervescent pop of Pure, the finest cut is the beautiful and quietly despairing ballad Bound In A Nutshell, which mourns the disenfranchised and put-upon city of Liverpool, yearning for its regeneration through a breath of life to make our engines roar."

Happy Mondays - kinky afro, 1990

"Kinky Afro" is a song by the English alternative rock band Happy Mondays, produced by Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne. It was released as the second single from the band's third studio album, Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, on 8 October 1990. The song's chorus paraphrases the Labelle song "Lady Marmalade".

Cocteau Twins - iceblink luck, 1990

"Iceblink Luck" is a single by Scottish band Cocteau Twins, released by 4AD Records in August 1990. It was the first single from the Heaven or Las Vegas album and the band's first single to be released in the United States. It was the band's second single to reach the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 38. The single was a moderate success in Europe, debuting at No. 43 on the European Airplay Chart as well as at No. 91 on the European Hot 100 Singles chart."

Ride - kaleidoscope, 1990

"Rolling Stone called Nowhere a “masterpiece”, The Guardian dubbed Ride “Teenage saviours of rock ’n’ roll”, while Creation Records boss Alan McGee quipped that the Oxford band had achieved overnight a genius status his label’s tarnished elder statesmen Primal Scream had taken six years to carve out."

It's Immaterial - an ordinary life, 1990

 

"The song "An Ordinary Life" draws inspiration from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair, telling a melancholic story of unrequited affection, loneliness, and routine existence. It's often praised as part of an understated, introspective record that's gained cult status over time (e.g., ranked in Uncut's top 200 albums of the 1990s in 2024). Despite critical acclaim for its poignant portrayals of ordinary lives, the album was a commercial disappointment."

Ride - vapour trail, 1990

"Vapour Trail" is a song by British shoegaze band Ride. It is the closing track of the band's debut album, Nowhere (1990), released on Creation Records, and was later released as a single in the United States in early 1991. Written by lead guitarist Andy Bell (but credited to the whole band), the song features a distinctive swirling guitar riff, a strong, fill-based drum beat, and a coda that includes a string quartet."

Pet Shop Boys - being boring extended mix, 1990

"In a 1993 interview, Tennant described "Being Boring" as "one of the best songs that we've written", and said that "For me it is a personal song because it's about a friend of mine who died of AIDS, and so it's about our lives when we were teenagers and how we moved to London, and I suppose me becoming successful and him becoming ill".

63 Trees - darkness this is manchester, 1990

"This Is Manchester - 14 Songs From The North West"

Paul McCartney - band on the run live tripping the live fantastic, 1990

"Band on the Run" is a classic Wings track from their 1973 album of the same name, written by Paul McCartney during a challenging period in Lagos, Nigeria. It became one of McCartney's biggest solo-era hits, blending rock energy with a narrative escape theme. In 1990, McCartney revived it for his first major solo world tour (1989–1990), which marked his return to live performances after a decade-long hiatus due to family priorities and legal issues with the Beatles' catalog."

Cocteau Twins - cherry-coloured funk, 1990

"Guthrie’s layered guitar work provides a dense harmonic backdrop, while Raymonde’s bass contributes a melodic counterpoint. Fraser’s vocals—at once emotional and cryptic—serve both as a lyrical and instrumental element, emphasizing sound and tone over literal meaning. The song’s title and repeated phrases evoke vivid, synesthetic imagery that reflects the band’s interest in abstraction and mood rather than narrative."

The Cure - catch live, 1990

"The inspiration for this sweet, “Catch”-y little song just might surprise you. It also helps to clear up something that has always left me scratching my head just a little: how exactly did The Cure end up contributing a brand new song to the 1993 Judge Dredd soundtrack? Well, it turns out that Robert Smith wrote “Catch” after watching a late-night airing of Rocky II back in the mid-’80s."

Paul McCartney - hey jude live, 1990

"I started with the idea "Hey Jules," which was Julian, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Hey, try and deal with this terrible thing. I knew it was not going to be easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces"

It's Immaterial - in the neighbourhood, 1990

"a sense of place is strong in every song. Each song is a story and the Liverpool-based Mancunians have set them firmly in the North of England."

Paul McCartney - things we said today live, 1990

"McCartney wrote the song in May 1964 while cruising the Caribbean aboard a yacht called Happy Days with his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. Music critic Ian MacDonald said, “The sombre lyric—provoked by the frustrating interruptions of a relationship between two career people—matches the lowering gloom of the music.“

Pet Shop Boys - it must be obvious, 1990

"But it feels like the flight of the von Trapps, does that mean it's war?" – The Trapp Family Singers, led by their patriarch Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp, were a popular Austrian vocal group during the period just before the Second World War. Ardently anti-Nazi, they fled Austria just before their country was annexed by Germany in 1938, at which time their home was confiscated. They settled in the United States. Their story, told primarily from the viewpoint of stepmother Maria von Trapp, became the basis of Rodgers and Hammerstein's popular 1959 stage musical The Sound of Music."

The Beautiful South - i think the answer's yes, 1990

"The band’s music includes heavy doses of personal and public politics. This biting track is an indictment of the abuses of the political system and the crushing of the working class. Sung as sweetly as ever, it promises to do its best to bring down the power structure, seeing it as irrevocably corrupt. Although the narrator feigns fondness for the practitioners of greed, he assures the listener that his insider status merely allows him to find the quickest path to a better world. The answer is clearly “yes” and the question seems to be “do we need a revolution?”

The Lightning Seeds - don't let go, 1990

"Like anyone with a parent, you get to a certain age and the roles reverse a little. The child feels more responsible. As someone who manages their dad, I certainly feel like that towards him. He now trusts me to make sure everything is right for his career. We have a good laugh on tour, and thankfully if anyone needs telling off, the tour manager can do that – not me. Dad knows that everything I do is for the best. The best for us, for the band and for his songs, which are so personal."

Pet Shop Boys - bet she's not your girlfriend, 1990

"This fast-paced track was originally inspired, as the Boys have put it, by seeing a newspaper photo of George Michael with a woman (Chris: "We can say that now"). But then Neil turned it into a song about his close relationship as a teenager with an absolutely gorgeous young woman named Krysia, a longtime friend who eventually ended up running the early PSB Fan Club. But back in Neil's pre-fame days, friends and acquaintances couldn't figure out what Krysia saw in him, who was—as his own lyrics put it—"kind of shy and dry and verging on ugly." https://sintrabloguecintia.blogspot.com/2024/01/voyage-from-east-to-west-1977.html

Electronic - the patience of a saint, 1990

"Although Neil has written and recorded a couple other songs with Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner as part of their Electronic project ("Getting Away with It" and "Disappointed," with Neil singing lead on the latter), this cut from the 1991 Electronic album is the only one on which both Neil and Chris are co-writers and performers. As Sumner himself has said of this song, Chris "wrote a lot of the music." Thus it merits inclusion here as a "Pet Shop Boys track." The narrator (or perhaps, as we shall see, narrators) of this song is something of a bastard, set in his carefree ways, who admits that he's difficult to live with."

The Durutti Column - neon, 1990

"A cult artists’ cult artist, he’s not necessarily unknown. Acting as sideman for Morrissey on his solo debut Viva Hate certainly put him on peoples’ radars, and he has the distinction of being Wilson’s first signing to Factory Records, though not really a bellwether of the kind of music they’d be known for. Indeed, one Durutti Column record wasn’t necessarily a bellwether for any subsequent Durutti Column record."