1998: You Get What You Give - The New Radicals
Looking back at 30 years of music | The New Radicals, The Divine Comedy, The Cardigans, David Gray, Jamiroquai, Alanis Morissette, The Goo Goo Dolls, Fatboy Slim, Cher, All Saints
I started this series as an excuse to write about the music that has come out in my lifetime, to explore releases year by year, as I count down to my 30th birthday. The series kicked off by looking at the song that was Number 1 in the Singles chart the day I was born and has since covered Alanis Morissette’s brilliant Jagged Little Pill album, songs by The Wallflowers and Fiona Apple, and last week I took a deep dive into Bob Dylan’s incredible Time Out Of Mind.
But I wasn’t even 3 years old when Time Out Of Mind came out. I wouldn’t hear that record for the first time for over ten more years. I don’t remember the other songs that I’ve written about so far coming out, either. I mostly came to them all much later, in my teens and twenties.
I do, however, have very early memories of some songs that came out in 1998. I turned four at the end of this year so the memories of, or linked to, this music may actually be from the next year or two, but I can vividly remember being aware of some of these songs not long after they were released. They can instantly transport me back to various childhood locations, or are tied in my mind to certain family members or else, i’ll be reminded by those family members of how I would stop what I was doing and dance along to them when they came on (mainly to Steps’ Tragedy, or It's Oh So Quiet by Bjork). Even as my tastes have changed, developed and grown with time as I have, I’ve always thought fondly of these songs and know that I always will.
One of the best things we had in our house when I was little was an all-in-one hi-fi system (a Goodmans Midi System 2720 PLLR, to be precise). Alongside the built in radio and record and cassette players, it could hold 3 CDs at a time and when one was finished it would spin the disc tray around and start playing the next one straight away. Some albums pretty much never left that CD player. Albums like Carole King’s Tapestry and Come Away With Me by Norah Jones or Jagged Little Pill and Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too by The New Radicals. Others, like My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra and White Ladder by David Gray were never far away and later, all sorts from Green Day’s American Idiot to Daniel Beddingfield’s Gotta Get Thru This or Kings of Leon’s Aha Shake Heartbreak would take up residency in that disc-tray, too. All of them still hold a special place in my heart.
Music is the best time machine we have. Whether it takes you back to a moment of your own past or can somehow land you in a place or year that you’d otherwise have no way of visiting, it is some of the most transformative and transportational magic that we have access to.
You Get What You Give - The New Radicals
I love the way this song builds. First with that repetitive, chopped up piano part and then the phased synths that usher in the drums; Gregg Alexander vocalising wordlessly before yelling through a one-two-one-two-three-oh and on into a searing guitar solo. And that’s just the first thirty seconds!
Alexander told Billboard when the album Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too came out that this song is about “remembering to fly high and be completely off your head in a world where you can't control all elements”. As a four-year-old, all you want to do is fly high in a world where you don’t control any of the elements. And especially so when you’ve got the music in you.
The National Express - The Divine Comedy
Of course I loved this song as a child. Just listen to it! It’s music for adults who never stopped being children. I haven’t ever taken a trip on the National Express but there’s no way it’s as fun as this song is.
From that big brass opening to the rollicking piano, the surf-style guitar solo and Neil Hannon’s booming ba-ba-da-daa’s, all human life is here, indeed, and everything that you’d want from a pop song, too.
My Favourite Game - The Cardigans
I really only know two songs by The Cardigans, and, because they both sound so different, it only dawned on me recently that they’re actually even by the same band.
Lovefool was the lead single from their 1996 album First Band on the Moon, whilst My Favourite Game was the first to be released from its 1998 follow up, Gran Turismo. No one could say that songwriters Nina Persson and Peter Svensson don’t know how to come up with a memorable melody. I can vividly remember singing, dancing and air-guitaring to this song with my mum around the house after it came out, and that insistent guitar riff hasn’t ever left my head since.
This Year’s Love - David Gray
When David Gray released this album at the end of 1998 on his own iht label, nobody outside of Ireland paid any attention to it. Whilst it sold 100,000 copies there, it didn’t touch the UK charts or make any waves in America. It took a re-release through ATO Records in 2000, and then a further year on the shelves, for the rest of the world to catch up with what Ireland had known all along: this is a great record, jam packed with great songs. Please Forgive Me, Babylon, My Oh My, This Year’s Love, Sail Away, Say Hello Wave Goodbye? There are more great David Gray songs on this one album than from the rest of his career combined.
Deeper Underground - Jamiroquai
These songs weren’t the only thing that I got into in a big way in 1998. For as long as I can remember, I have loved Godzilla. Sometimes my family would get together at the Wing-Yip combination buffet-and-supermarket, and every time we did my mum would treat me to a new Godzilla VHS. We never found them in any other shops. We had Ebirah: Horror of the Deep and Destroy All Monsters, Terror of Mechagodzilla and Godzilla vs Gigan among others. Just amazing man-in-a-rubber-suit Japanese monster movie madness.
In 1998 Godzilla swam and stomped into New York City and Western cinemas for the first time ever. The movie was not well received, regarded or reviewed at the time and hasn’t grown any more popular over time. One part of the production was a success, though. Deeper Underground, from the movie’s soundtrack, would give the funk/acid-house group Jamiroquai their only UK Number 1 hit.
Elsewhere in 1998…
Alanis Morissette followed up her all-conquering 1995 album Jagged Little Pill with Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. The first few tracks on the new album feel like Morissette is simply picking up where she left off on the last one, with a mix of grungey and guttural guitars and, now very dated, 90s drum machines until she gets to the more introspective, almost hymn-like meditation on self-acceptance that is the wonderful That I Would Be Good.
The Goo Goo Dolls released one of the all time MoR anthems, Iris. If you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if you mixed up the music of The Eagles and Nickelback, it’s probably something like this.
Fatboy Slim brought Big Beat into the spotlight in a big way with his second album You've Come a Long Way, Baby. Even if, like me, you’re not really a fan of dance music, Right Here, Right Now and Praise You are both classics of the genre. Both were huge crossover hits, too, with Praise you taking top spot in each of the UK Singles, UK Dance and UK Indie charts.
Another dance track that topped the charts in 1998 was Cher’s Believe. A while back I went to a talk by a former Warner Music Group executive who was instrumental in putting this song together. He told those of us in the crowd how much he disliked the auto-tuned vocoder effect that was used on Cher’s voice, and how he’d even tried to have it removed but that Cher insisted that it be kept on the record. He probably didn’t mind about the vocal effect quite so much when the track went on to top the charts in over twenty different countries.
My girlfriend was born on May 17 (incidentally, the same date that this piece goes out - happy birthday, Emily!). Number 1 in the UK chart that day? Under the Bridge / Lady Marmalade by All Saints.
And finally, whilst performing at the Grammy ceremony where he picked up the awards for Album of the Year, Contemporary Folk Album and Male Rock Vocal Performance for Time Out Of Mind, Bob Dylan was joined on stage by an unwanted guest dancer. You wouldn’t know anything unusual was happening from Dylan’s reaction, though. For a great read on Dylan’s Grammy appearance that year, head over to the excellent Flagging Down the Double E’s here.
Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap
Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach - Painted From Memory
Hole - Celebrity Skin
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Madonna - Ray of Light
Mercury Rev - Deserter’s Songs
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
PJ Harvey - Is This Desire?
Steps - Step One
Whitney Houston - My Love Is Your Love
Coming up next week:
1999: When the Pawn… - Fiona Apple
Another in depth piece, this time we're seeing out the century with one of the greatest albums released in my lifetime.
There’s a SECOND Cardigans song??