Big Manics Chart 2021 Update

In 2015 I took on the rather foolish undertaking of ordering the whole of the Manic Street Preachers back catalogue, all 307 of them, as well as collating the fans' Manics Top 50s.  So when I decided this year that the return of live music and a new album in the shape of The Ultra Vivid Lament would fit in nicely with a refresh of everyone's top 50s, I thought I'd Repeat (UK) the exercise, this time expanded to 338 tracks.

I first entered the Manics story in 1991, when I was 13.  I had previously seen a clip of Motown Junk on the Chart Show's Indie Chart and thought they looked pretty funny and then soon after taped You Love Us from Mark Goodier's Evening Session (or possibly taped it off my brother who had taped it off the Evening Session).  They were definitely different to all of the other bands featured in NME and Melody Maker etc. in looks and sound and after reading some early interviews it was clear that they were happy to set themselves apart even more than that with their words.

As I was starting to buy more records around that time, my first purchase was the cassette single of the second version of You Love Us and I never missed a release from that point on, snapping up anything I could get my hands on, official or unofficial.  After I sent away for some fan club goodies and received a heap of fanzines, badges, stickers etc. in 1993, they managed to make the progression to being my favourite band, taking over from the Senseless Things.

There aren't many bands that can have such an effect on a person as to subtly shape them but the Manics are such a band.  They've always been around and have been my favourite band for 28 years now, so I couldn't tell you what might have happened if they never existed, but I think I'd probably be a different person, in whatever subtle ways that might manifest itself.

I made a point of not looking at my previous chart all the way through ordering this one, but I also have a pretty good memory and my opinions don't really change that much over time.  So it's interesting to see how close some of the placings are with that in mind, obviously with the addition of 31 new songs the lower reaches were going to drop by around the same amount until the new songs started feeding in, but it's quite weird how similar a lot of them turned out!  

Some songs did change a fair bit, with a few songs going up in my estimations, but in the opposite direction also maybe taking a more realistic view of some of the lesser Generation Terrorists-era songs, ordering with head rather than heart this time.  And don't think that a song being below the 150 mark or around halfway makes it anywhere near average.....far from it, the depth and quality of the material runs deep here.

I was very interested to see the update of the average placing chart that I did below, to see if it actually fits with what I thought my placings of the albums would be.  It ended up being there or thereabouts, Generation Terrorists should probably move up a place as it's dragged down a little by a couple of lower placed songs and Journal For Plague Lovers feels a little low but I can't argue too much with how it turned out.  

As you can tell from the placings, I'm very much an old school type of fan, the first four albums are undoubtedly the best, but their career certainly didn't end in 1996, or even 1994 as some people may believe.  The last 25 years of their career have seen some classic songs and excellent albums, all of which got at least one track in my top 50.  And it's also hammered home by the latest album ranking 7th with a song also breaking into the top 10, which is pretty unheard of for me.  Their B-sides and so called lesser songs can still eclipse a lot of bands' better songs and long may it continue.

So, after several weeks compiling and a few weeks announcing via Twitter, here is the final chart (numbers in brackets denote their placing in my 2015 chart):

1. Motown Junk (1)
2. A Design For Life (3)
3. Stay Beautiful (2)
4. From Despair To Where (4)
5. Motorcycle Emptiness (5)
6. This Is Yesterday (6)
7. Faster (7)
8. You Love Us (8)
9. Still Snowing In Sapporo (-)
10. The Masses Against The Classes (10)
11. No Surface All Feeling (20)
12. Sleepflower (14)
13. Firefight (57)
14. Empty Souls (9)
15. La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) (11)
16. Enola/Alone (18)
17. Australia (22)
18. Yes (12)
19. Condemned To Rock 'N' Roll (15)
20. Little Baby Nothing (13)
21. Tsunami (28)
22. The Everlasting (33)
23. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (43)
24. Together Stronger (C'mon Wales) (-)
25. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (19)
26. Complicated Illusions (-)
27. People Give In (-)
28. Found That Soul (16)
29. Archives Of Pain (17)
30. PCP (23)
31. Show Me The Wonder (29)
32. Baby Elian (21)
33. The Girl Who Wanted To Be God (24)
34. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky (38)
35. Everything Must Go (27)
36. Revol (31)
37. Imperial Bodybags (26)
38. 1985 (32)
39. Postcards From A Young Man (36)
40. Sepia (51)
41. This Joke Sport Severed (47)
42. (It's Not War) Just The End Of Love (30)
43. New Art Riot (35)
44. Donkeys (45)
45. 4st 7lb (37)
46. The Secret He Had Missed (-)
47. International Blue (-)
48. Walk Me To The Bridge (55)
49. Judge Yr'self (25)
50. Sorrow 16 (34)
51. Of Walking Abortion (39)
52. Suicide Alley (41)
53. ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart (70)
54. Slash N' Burn (44)
55. Fearless Punk Ballad (48)
56. This Sullen Welsh Heart (71)
57. Ocean Spray (59)
58. Ready For Drowning (42)
59. 4 Ever Delayed (63)
60. Dead Martyrs (64)
61. Patrick Bateman (54)
62. To Repel Ghosts (56)
63. Welcome To The Dead Zone (58)
64. Some Kind Of Nothingness (87)
65. Die In The Summertime (40)
66. She Is Suffering (68)
67. Mausoleum (69)
68. Born to End (61)
69. Life Becoming A Landslide (52)
70. Crucifix Kiss (62)
71. Roses In The Hospital (53)
72. Nat West - Barclays - Midlands - Lloyds (65)
73. Another Invented Disease (66)
74. Hold Me Like A Heaven (74)
75. Repeat (49)
76. Underdogs (50)
77. Journal For Plague Lovers (46)
78. Theme From MASH (Suicide Is Painless) (104)
79. Love's Sweet Exile (60)
80. Send Away The Tigers (81)
81. We Were Never Told (106)
82. Nobody Loved You (98)
83. Jackie Collins Existential Question Time (77)
84. All Is Vanity (73)
85. Prologue To History (102)
86. Interiors (Song For Willem de Kooning) (75)
87. Virginia State Epileptic Colony (84)
88. Further Away (99)
89. Symphony Of Tourette (89)
90. Velocity Girl (113)
91. The Ghost Of Christmas (185)
92. Vision Blurred (146)
93. Happy Bored Alone (-)
94. Dreaming A City (Hughesovka) (67)
95. Kevin Carter (74)
96. You Stole The Sun From My Heart (109)
97. Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier (101)
98. Yourself (95)
99. Afterending (-)
100. (Feels Like) Heaven (-)
101. Gold Against The Soul (108)
102. Automatik Teknicolour (90)
103. Be Natural (128)
104. Out Of Time (178)
105. There By The Grace Of God (91)
106. Intravenous Agnostic (127)
107. Peeled Apples (88)
108. You're Tender And You're Tired (156)
109. Golden Platitudes (100)
110. Dead Trees And Traffic Islands (76)
111. Indian Summer (112)

112. Spectators Of Suicide (111)
113. Mr Carbohydrate (110)
114. A Song For Departure (83)
115. Autumnsong (93)
116. Democracy Coma (79)
117. Take The Skinheads Bowling (119)
118. RP McMurphy (79)
119. The Love Of Richard Nixon (85)
120. Bright Eyes (141)
121. Removables (123)
122. Sculpture Of Man (151)
123. Too Cold Here (86)
124. Can't Take My Eyes Off You (176)
125. Black Holes For The Young (124)
126. A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun (82)
127. Don't Be Evil (96)
128. The Second Great Depression (94)
129. Hazelton Avenue (120)
130. Askew Road (149)
131. Solitude Sometimes Is (142)
132. The Vorticists (115)
133. I'm Just A Patsy (92)
134. Drug Drug Druggy (107)
135. The Convalescent (134)
136. Strip It Down (80)
137. Methadone Pretty (97)
138. Us Against You (131)
139. Glasnost (103)
140. I Live To Fall Asleep (186)
141. Distant Colours (-)
142. Umbrella (160)
143. Marlon JD (72)
144. Don't Let The Night Divide Us (-)
145. Love Letter To The Future (161)
146. Orwellian (-)
147. Nostalgic Pushead (114)
148. Boxes & Lists (136)
149. Quest For Ancient Colour (-)
150. The Descent (Pages 1 & 2) (154)
151. Door to the River (265)
152. Last Exit On Yesterday (150)
153. Comfort Comes (140)
154. Charles Windsor (148)
155. The Year Of Purification (166)
156. Epicentre (163)
157. We Her Majesty's Prisoners (126)
158. So Why So Sad (133)
159. Miss Europa Disco Dancer (162)
160. So Dead (116)
161. My Little Empire (217)
162. Black Dog On My Shoulder (155)
163. Montana/Autumn/78 (203)
164. Mirror Gaze (-)
165. Broken Algorithms (-)
166. I Think I Found It (105)
167. Let's Go To War (153)
168. 30-Year War (159)
169. Rendition (189)
170. Futurology (175)
171. Me And Stephen Hawking (138)
172. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (184)
173. Born A Girl (238)
174. Empty Motorcade (196)
175. Running Out Of Fantasy (247)
176. Hibernation (121)
177. My Guernica (139)
178. We Are All Bourgeois Now (173)
179. All We Make Is Entertainment (152)
180. Bag Lady (145)
181. William's Last Words (235)
182. Broken Up Again (177)
183. Auto-Intoxication (158)
184. The Instrumental (137)
185. Dead Yankee Drawl (122)
186. The Intense Humming of Evil (130)
187. Never Want Again (117)
188. Into The Waves Of Love (-)
189. Ostpolitik (231)
190. Pretension/Repulsion (129)
191. Bored Out Of My Mind (125)
192. Ain't Going Down (179)
193. Starlover (144)
194. Let Robeson Sing (168)
195. In Eternity (-)
196. Europa Geht Durch Mich (174)
197. Anthem For A Lost Cause (187)
198. Emily (198)
199. Fragments (211)
200. Cardiff Afterlife (212)
201. Dylan & Caitlin (-)
202. Midnight Sun (181)
203. This Is The Day (135)
204. I Know The Numbers (164)
205. Primitive Painters (198)
206. Everything Will Be (167)
207. Winterlovers (214)
208. Dying Breeds (170)
209. No Jubilees (171)
210. Diapause (-)
211. Hanging On (172)
212. These Dark Roads (-)
213. The Soulmates (207)
214. It's So Easy (190)
215. Tennessee (118)
216. First Republic (182)
217. Black Garden (192)
218. All Alone Here (165)
219. Picturesque (169)
220. Leviathan (206)
221. The Endless Plain Of Fortune (287)
222. Soul Contamination (205)
223. Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children (191)
224. Masking Tape (220)
225. A Vision Of Dead Desire (143)
226. Damn Dog (132)
227. Distractions (228)
228. Socialist Serenade (200)
229. Sequels Of Forgotten Wars (-)
230. Vivian (-)
231. Misguided Missile (157)
232. A Song For The Sadness (-)
233. The Next Jet To Leave Moscow (226)
234. Rock And Roll Music (244)
235. Stay With Me (227)
236.  Are Mothers Saints (216
237. The Drowners (224)
238. Wattsville Blues (241)
239. Groundhog Days (261)
240. Royal Correspondent (204)
241. Last Christmas (237)
242. Just A Kid (219)
243. Love Torn Us Under (218)
244. Valley Boy (278)
245. Close My Eyes (195)
246. 1404 (208)
247. (I Miss the) Tokyo Skyline (243)
248. 4 Lonely Roads (223)
249. Rewind The Film (245)
250. Under My Wheels (209)
251. A Secret Society (202)

252. Antarctic (255)

253. Little Girl Lost (233)

254. Anorexic Rodin (201)

255. Heyday of the Blood (236)

256. The Long Goodbye (242)

257. Everyone Knows/Nobody Cares (188)

258. Wrote For Luck (147)

259. Dead Passive (183)

260. Quarantine (In My Place Of) (249)

261. Litany (270)

262. Kiss My Eyes For Eternity (234)

263. I'm Not Working (252)

264. Happy Ending (222)

265. The Left Behind (-)

266. Blank Diary Entry (-)

267. Alien Orders/Invisible Armies (258)

268. The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever (253)

269. Holding Patterns (-)

270. Concrete Fields (-)

271. She Bathed Herself In A Bath of Bleach (193)

272. Facing Page: Top Left (197)

273. My Drowning World (-)

274. I'm Leaving You For Solitude (259)

275. Death Of A Digital Ghost (275)

276. What Happened To The Blue Generation (232)

277. Teenage 20/20 (215)

278. What's My Name (250)

279. Penny Royalty (239)

280. Doors Closing Slowly (248)

281. Lost Voices (260)

282. Red Rubber (180)

283. Black Square (194)

284. Always/Never (210)

285. Sex, Power, Love And Money (240)

286. Voodoo Polaroids (280)

287. Ballad Of The Bangkok Novotel (274)

288. Morning Comrades (213)

289. Kodawari (272)

290. The Last Time I Saw Paris (271)

291. The Sound Of Detachment (230)

292. The View From Stow Hill (282)

293. His Last Painting (251)

294. Locust Valley (268)

295. Horses Under Starlight (254)

296. See It Like Sutherland (246)

297. Buildings For Dead People (273)

298. Liverpool Revisited (-)

299. A Soundtrack To Complete Withdrawal (-)

300. No One Knows What It's Like To Be Me (281)

301. SYMM (269)

302. 3 Ways To See Despair (225)

303. Builder Of Routines (288)

304. Melancholyme (262)

305. Lady Lazarus (266)

306. Time Ain't Nothing (257)

307. Evidence Against Myself (284)

308. Slow Reflections - Strange Delays (256)

309. Train In Vain (285)

310. Been A Son (279)

311. Pedestal (277)

312. Unstoppable Salvation (263)

313. It's All Gone (264)

314. Start Me Up (297)

315. Caldey (229)

316. You Know It's Going To Hurt (295)

317. Mayakovsky (289)

318. Between The Clock And The Bed (292)

319. Divine Youth (293)

320. As Holy As the Soil (That Buries Your Skin) (221)

321. Manorbier (291)

322. Working Class Hero (283)

323. Red Sleeping Beauty (294)

324. Foggy Eyes (298)

325. Little Trolls (267)

326. Fear of Motion (276)

327. Inky Fingers (286)

328. The Passing Show (290)

329. Rock 'N' Roll Genius (301)

330. Wake Up Alone (303)

331. Blistered Mirrors (300)

332. T.E. Lawrence On A Bike (302)

333. Antisocialmanifesto (296)

334. Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel (299)

335. Failure Bound (304)

336. Dixie (305)

337. Glory Glory (306)

338. Engage With Your Shadow (307)

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By Album - Average Placing

Generation Terrorists 82

Gold Against The Soul 74

The Holy Bible 51

Everything Must Go 53

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours 121

Know Your Enemy 151

Lifeblood 137

Send Away The Tigers 108

Journal For Plague Lovers 153

Postcards From A Young Man 132

Rewind The Film 218

Futurology 227

Resistance Is Futile 175

The Ultra Vivid Lament 125

or

In Order of Preference
1. The Holy Bible 51
2. Everything Must Go 53
3. Gold Against The Soul 74
4. Generation Terrorists 82

5. Send Away The Tigers 108
6. This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours 121

7. The Ultra Vivid Lament 125
8. Postcards From A Young Man 132

9. Lifeblood 137
10. Know Your Enemy 151
11. Journal For Plague Lovers 153

12. Resistance Is Futile 175

13. Rewind The Film 218

14. Futurology 227

(Average placings were rounded to the nearest place)

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By Album (regular album versions)
Final overall placings in brackets

Generation Terrorists
1. Stay Beautiful (2)
2. Motorcycle Emptiness (5)
3. You Love Us (8)
4. Condemned To Rock 'N' Roll (19)

5. Little Baby Nothing (20)
6. Slash N' Burn (54)
7. Born To End (68)

8. Crucifix Kiss (70)

9. Nat West - Barclays - Midlands - Lloyds (72)
10. Another Invented Disease (73)
11. Repeat (75)
12. Love's Sweet Exile (79)
13. Spectators Of Suicide (112)
14. Methadone Pretty (137)
15. So Dead (160)
16. Tennessee (215)
17. Damn Dog (226)

Gold Against The Soul
1. From Despair To Where (4)
2. Sleepflower (12)

3. La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) (15)
4. Life Becoming A Landslide (69)
5. Roses In The Hospital (71)
6. Symphony Of Tourette (89)
7. Yourself (98)
8. Gold Against The Soul (101)
9. Drug Drug Druggy (134)

10. Nostalgic Pushead (147)

The Holy Bible
1. This Is Yesterday (6)
2. Faster (7)
3. Yes (18)
4. Archives of Pain (29)
5. PCP (30)
6. Revol (36)
7. 4st 7lb (45)
8. Of Walking Abortion (51)
9. ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart (53)

10. Die In The Summertime (65)
11. She Is Suffering (66)
12. Mausoleum (67)
13. The Intense Humming Of Evil (186)

Everything Must Go
1. A Design For Life (2)
2. No Surface All Feeling (11)
3. Enola/Alone (16)

4. Australia (17)
5. The Girl Who Wanted To Be God (33)
6. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky (34)
7. Everything Must Go (35)

8. Interiors (Song For Willem de Kooning) (86)
9. Further Away (88)

10. Kevin Carter (95)

11. Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier (97)
12. Removables (121)

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours
1. Tsunami (21)
2. The Everlasting (22)
3. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (23)

4. Ready For Drowning (58)
5. Nobody Loved You (82)
6. You Stole The Sun From My Heart (96)
7. Be Natural (103)
8. You're Tender And You're Tired (108)

9. My Little Empire (161)
10. Black Dog On My Shoulder (162)
11. Born A Girl (173)
12. I'm Not Working (263)
13. SYMM (301)

Know Your Enemy
1. Found That Soul (28)
2. Baby Elian (32)
3. Ocean Spray (57)
4. Dead Martyrs (60)
5. Intavenous Agnostic (106)
6. The Convalescent (135)
7. The Year Of Purification (155)

8. Epicentre (156)
9. So Why So Sad (158)
10. Miss Europa Disco Dancer (159)

11. My Guernica (177)

12. Let Robeson Sing (194)
13. Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children (223)
14. Wattsville Blues (238)
15. Royal Correspondent (240)

16. His Last Painting (293)

Lifeblood
1. Empty Souls (14)
2. 1985 (38)
3. To Repel Ghosts (62)
4. A Song For Departure (114)
5. The Love Of Richard Nixon (119)
6. Solitude Sometimes Is (131)

7. Glasnost (139)
8. I Live To Fall Asleep (140)
9. Emily (198)
10. Fragments (199)

11. Cardiff Afterlife (200)
12. Always/Never (284)

Send Away The Tigers
1. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (25)
2. Imperial Bodybags (37)
3. Underdogs (76)
4. Send Away The Tigers (80)
5. Indian Summer (111)
6. Autumnsong (115)
7. The Second Great Depression (128)
8. I'm Just A Patsy (133)

9. Rendition (169)
10. Winterlovers (207)

Journal For Plague Lovers
1. This Joke Sport Severed (41)

2. Journal For Plague Lovers (77)
3. Jackie Collins Existential Question Time (83)

4. All Is Vanity (84)
5. Virginia State Epileptic Colony (87)
6. Peeled Apples (107)
7. Marlon JD (143)
8. Me And Stephen Hawking (171)

9. William's Last Words (181)
10. Pretension/Repulsion (190)

11. She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach (271)
12. Facing Page: Top Left (272)
13. Doors Closing Slowly (280)

Postcards From A Young Man
1. Postcards From A Young Man (39)

2. (It's Not War) Just The End of Love (42)
3. Some Kind Of Nothingness (64)
4. Golden Platitudes (109)

5. A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun (126)
6. Don't Be Evil (127)

7. Hazelton Avenue (129)
8. The Descent (Pages 1 & 2) (150)
9. I Think I Found It (166)
10. All We Make Is Entertainment (179)

11. Auto-Intoxication (183)
12. The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever (268)

Rewind The Film
1. Show Me The Wonder (31)
2. This Sullen Welsh Heart (56)
3. 30-Year War (168)
4. Running Out Of Fantasy (175)

5. Anthem For A Lost Cause (197)

6. (I Miss The) Tokyo Skyline (247)

7. 4 Lonely Roads (248)

8. Rewind The Film (249)
9. 3 Ways To See Despair (302)
10. Builder Of Routines (303)
11. As Holy As The Soil (That Buries Your Skin) (320)
12. Manorbier (321)

Futurology
1. Walk Me To The Bridge (48)
2. Dreaming A City (Hughesovka) (94)
3. Let's Go To War (167)
4. Futurology (170)
5. Europa Geht Durch Mich (196)
6. Misguided Missile (231)

7. The Next Jet To Leave Moscow (233)
8. Black Square (283)

9. Sex, Power, Love And Money (285)
10. The View From Stow Hill (292)
11. Mayakovsky (317)
12. Between the Clock And The Bed (318)
13. Divine Youth (319)

Resistance Is Futile

1. People Give In (27)

2. International Blue (47)

3. Hold Me Like A Heaven (74)

4. Distant Colours (141)

5. Broken Algorithms (165)

6. In Eternity (195)

7. Dylan & Caitlin (201)

8. Sequels Of Forgotten Wars (229)

9. Vivian (230)

10. A Song For The Sadness (232)

11. The Left Behind (265)

12. Liverpool Revisited (298)

The Ultra Vivid Lament

1. Still Snowing In Sapporo (9)

2. Complicated Illusions (26)

3. The Secret He Had Missed (46)

4. Happy Bored Alone (93)

5. Afterending (99)

6. Don't Let The Night Divide Us (144)

7. Orwellian (146)

8. Quest For Ancient Colour (149)

9. Into The Waves Of Love (188)

10. Diapause (210)

11. Blank Diary Entry (266)

B-Sides

1. Sepia (40)

2. Donkeys (44)

3. Sorrow 16 (50)

4. Fearless Punk Ballad (55)

5. Patrick Bateman (61)

6. Welcome To The Dead Zone (63)

7. We Were Never Told (81)

8. Prologue To History (85)

9. Velocity Girl (90)

10. Automatik Teknicolour (102)

Covers

1. Theme From MASH (Suicide Is Painless) (78)

2. Velocity Girl (90)

3. Vision Blurred (92)

4. (Feels Like) Heaven (100)

5. Out Of Time (104)

6. Take The Skinheads Bowling (117)

7. Bright Eyes (120)

8. Can't Take My Eyes Off You (124)

9. Umbrella (142)

10. Charles Windsor (154)

Top 75 of 1998

1998 was the year I left my teenage years behind, it was the year I started my final year at university, it was the year where the number of gigs I went to took a slight downward turn and never really recovered following my most prolific year in 1997.  That was probably partly influenced by Middlesbrough Arena, during the mid-90s every Friday you could find 2nd and 3rd division indie (and occasional rock) bands interrupting the indie disco. So either those gigs started fading along with Britpop or it was my interest that was fading as the new bands I was listening to were increasingly coming from the heavier end of the spectrum.

Looking at some of the songs included here, I would definitely have started frequenting Blaises in Middlesbrough more than the Arena, which had a rock/metal room that I preferred as well as another room that was more like the Arena.  A lot of my favourite bands from earlier in the decade had either split up or changed, Senseless Things & Faith No More were no more, Max had left Sepultura, Manics and Pearl Jam were on pretty different paths to what hooked me in, so the way was open for something new to come along.

In that respect, three of the best albums of the year were debuts (The Haunted, System of a Down and Carrie), another contender for best album of all time was from a band I'd only discovered a year earlier (Cradle of Filth) and another future favourite band contender introduced themselves (Dark Funeral). It was a line in the sand of sorts in my record collection.

My gig list for the year was only 12-strong, the full list is below:

17/01/98 Catatonia, Derrero (@Middlesbrough Arena)

14/02/98 Catherine Wheel, Feline, Radiator (@Middlesbrough Arena)

11/04/98 Dust Junkys, Bullyrag (@Middlesbrough Arena)

18/04/98 China Drum, Pecadiloes (@Middlesbrough Arena)

28/04/98 Tura Satana, Will Haven, Psycore (@Middlesbrough Cornerhouse)

14/05/98 Symposium, A (@Middlesbrough Arena)

30/05/98 Carrie, Feline (@Middlesbrough Arena)

25/09/98 Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Olivia Tremor Control (@Middlesbrough Arena)

13/11/98 Gold Blade (@Middlesbrough Arena)

20/11/98 Delakota (@Middlesbrough Arena)

04/12/98 Miles Hunt and Malcolm Treece (@Middlesbrough Arena)

14/12/98 Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia (@Newcastle Arena)

Two of the highlights were actually the support slots from Will Haven and A, a blisteringly intense (and very loud) performance from the former and some further familiarisation with the latter to set them on the way to what would end up being 3rd favourite band status.  The Manics gig was notable for two things - James introducing Tsunami as 'Toon Army' with it being Newcastle and all and the performance of Clash cover Train In Vain being used later on as a B-side to You Stole The Sun From My Heart.

In terms of my own music, 1998 was a pretty barren year in terms of actually finishing anything, just the one EP from The Personnel completed with my brother.  That highlighted two things - I was taking more care with writing the next Beneath Utopia album and also I had less time for such things moving into my final year at university.  The Underdog album wouldn't see the light of day until May 99, but moved on leaps and bounds from the two previous releases in songwriting terms, even if the sound was still a bit shoddy.

But back to chart matters, the shortlist was shorter than usual, possibly reflecting the fact that while there were still some great songs released in 1998, they were from a more select cast of characters.  This time the only bands that made the list but not the chart were Covenant, A, Pulkas, Spineshank and Sepultura, the latter highlighting that dip in quality after Max's departure.

1. Fear Factory - Resurrection

2. Cradle of Filth - Once Upon Atrocity/Thirteen Autumns and a Widow

3. The Haunted - Chasm

4. Symposium - The End

5. Pearl Jam - Given To Fly

6. The Haunted - Undead

7. Pitchshifter - Genius

8. Korn - Got The Life

9. Napalm Death - The Infiltraitor

10. Dark Funeral - Ravenna Strigoi Mortii

11. Shed 7 - Chasing Rainbows

12. The Haunted - Hate Song

13. Cradle of Filth - Lustmord and Wargasm (The Lick of Carnivorous Winds)

14. Emperor - A Fine Day To Die

15. The Gathering - Liberty Bell

16. Carrie - Breathe Underwater

17. Idlewild - When I Argue I See Shapes

18. The Gathering - Illuminating

19. Cradle of Filth - Beneath the Howling Stars

20. Dark Funeral - The Black Winged Horde

21. Pitchshifter - Please Sir

22. Cradle of Filth - Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids

23. Manic Street Preachers - Tsunami

24. Manic Street Preachers - The Everlasting

25. System of a Down - Suite-Pee

26. Bolt Thrower - Powder Burns

27. Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

28. Black Crowes - Kickin' My Heart Around

29. Bolt Thrower - No Guts, No Glory

30. System of a Down - War?

31. System of a Down - P.L.U.C.K.

32. Metallica - Turn the Page

33. Entwined - Shed Nightward Beauty

34. The Haunted - In Vein

35. Hammerfall - Legacy of Kings

36. Pearl Jam - Brain of J

37. Cradle of Filth - Desire in Violent Overture

38. System of a Down - Spiders

39. Manic Street Preachers - Ready For Drowning

40. Cradle of Filth - The Twisted Nails of Faith

41. Korn - It's On

42. Carrie - California Screamin'

43. Catatonia - Mulder and Scully

44. Entwined - Under A Killing Moon

45. The Haunted - Blood Rust

46. Bal Sagoth - Blood Slakes the Sand at the Circus Maximus

47. Hammerfall - Heeding the Call

48. System of a Down - Sugar

49. Rob Zombie - Superbeast

50. The Haunted - Bullet Hole

51. The Haunted - Shattered

52. Nightwish - Sacrament of Wilderness

53. Nightwish - Sleeping Sun

54. Korn - Dead Bodies Everywhere

55. Iron Maiden - The Clansman

56. Cathedral - Voodoo Fire

57. Dark Funeral - Vobiscum Satanas

58. The Haunted - Choke Hold

59. The Gathering - Travel

60. Manic Street Preachers - Nobody Loved You

61. Manic Street Preachers - Prologue To History

62. Cecil - Acres

63. Dark Funeral - Thy Legions Come

64. Carrie - Joseph

65. Catatonia - Road Rage

66. Divine Comedy - National Express

67. The Gathering - Great Ocean Road

68. Dark Funeral - Enriched By Evil

69. Cradle of Filth - Black Metal

70. Silver Sun - I'll See You Around

71. Metallica - Whiskey in the Jar

72. System of a Down - Know

73. Rob Zombie - Dragula

74. Fear Factory - Edgecrusher

75. Soulfly - Eye For An Eye

Top 75 of 1997

1997 was the year I turned 19, starting the last year of my teens and my second year of my Maths degree at the University of Teesside. Musically, it was also the year that two bands who would later join my unholy triumvirate of favourite bands entered my life - Feeder and A.

It was the year I went to my first full weekend music festival at Reading (this was just before they would introduce the closer option for me of Leeds), with that great rock Sunday of Metallica, the year's big rock hype Marilyn Manson (plus surprise guest Jonathan Davis), Bush, 3 Colours Red and Feeder among others.  Not to mention a legendary headline set on the Saturday from the Manics with Nicky discarding their recent 'Man at C&A' image and busting out the camo dress.

My gig count for the year was 21, if you count Reading as one big gig, most of them coming from bands playing around the weekly indie night at Middlesbrough Arena.  Some of them were excellent, some of them were made up of fifth division indie bands, lost to the mists of time (I mean Travis, who are they?!).  The full list is below:

17/01/97 Groop Dogdrill, Soul Bossa (@Middlesbrough Arena)

31/01/97 Gold Blade, TC Hug (@Middlesbrough Arena)

07/02/97 Perfume, Spacemaid (@Middlesbrough Arena)

11/02/97 Suede, Mansun (@Middlesbrough Town Hall)

14/02/97 Space Monkeys, Hardbody (@Middlesbrough Arena)

21/02/97 Silver Sun, Grass Show, Montrose Avenue (@Middlesbrough Arena)

07/03/97 18 Wheeler, Formula One (@Middlesbrough Arena)

14/03/97 Speedy, Rude Club (@Middlesbrough Arena)

18/04/97 Travis, Spacemaid (@Middlesbrough Arena)

25/04/97 Smaller, Montrose Avenue (@Middlesbrough Arena)

09/05/97 Corduroy, Mantaray (@Middlesbrough Arena)

16/05/97 Jesus Jones, A (@Middlesbrough Arena)

23/05/97 Carter USM, Midget (@Middlesbrough Arena)

06/06/97 David Devant and his Spirit Wife, The Smiles (@Middlesbrough Arena)

13/06/97 The Hybirds (@Middlesbrough Arena)

01/07/97 Teenage Fanclub (@Newcastle HMV)

03/08/97 China Drum, Velma, Helter Skelter (@Stockton Festival)

22/08/97 Sick of it All, Symposium, James, Millencolin, Silver Sun, Kenickie, A, Incubus, Carrie, Strangelove + Suede, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Dust Junkys, Period Pains (@Reading Festival)

23/08/97 Manic Street Preachers, Space, Super Furry Animals, Republica, Gold Blade, My Life Story, Stereophonics + Wannadies, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Lemonheads, Rude Club (@Reading Festival)

24/08/97 Metallica, Marilyn Manson, Terrorvision, Bush, 3 Colours Red, Descendents, Dog Eat Dog, Feeder, Radish + Bis (@Reading Festival)

12/09/97 China Drum, Cable, Carrie (@Middlesbrough Arena)

18/10/97 3 Colours Red, Bullyrag (@Middlesbrough Arena)

06/12/97 Teen Spirit, White Negroes (@Middlesbrough Arena)

After me and my brother met Dave from China Drum at Stockton Festival in August, he got us in on the guest list for their Boro gig a month later, where we ended up meeting Gerry from Mega City Four who was roadie for Cable and I also had a chat with future Kerrang editor Paul Brannigan who was doing an on the road feature of the tour.

In terms of my own music I moved away from my two main solo bands during that year (in fact Spraypaint still haven't released anything since), completing the third Uranium album (my industrial act) and the only Vein album (grunge, some great songs that I must upload at some point) as well as two Pyf Belly Machine albums and a Personnel EP with my brother.

I also worked on some new metal-based ideas, basically picking several bands or sounds (Cradle of Filth, My Dying Bride, Napalm Death, Korn, Megadeth, Gabber with guitars - kind of an Atari Teenage Riot type thing) and recording two songs each in their style to see what came out.  The results can be found here with the two Cradle of Filth-style songs going under the name of Beneath Utopia, a name I swiftly moved across to take the place of my main metal band, then called Oakenshield.

That name change coincided with the first of my 5 appearances in national rock/metal magazines (he says in the style of Les McQueen), consisting of TWO demo reviews by Dan Silver in the October 1997 edition of Metal Hammer. Harsh but fair comments too.

But back onto chart matters again, 1997 was obviously a year of me digging deeper below the surface for new music, delving into the black metal world on the Feuersturm double CD compilation starring Emperor, Dark Funeral, Immortal and many more, plus the Cacophonous compilation The Unholy Bible, which introduced me to Bal-Sagoth, Abyssos, Vergelmer and more.  The 21st Century Media Blitz compilation was also a great introduction to The Gathering, who would eventually rise pretty high among my favourite bands, plus other-worldly metal from Strapping Young Lad and Samael.

But quite a lot of the chart came to be dominated by British rock bands, A, 3 Colours Red, Feeder, Silver Sun, Reef, Paradise Lost, Stereophonics and Ash all took either several places or prominent placings in the chart.  And my first festival was pretty influential too, 24 of my top 75 came from bands that played Reading festival, 30 more were on the shortlist.

The competition seemed even more ridiculous than usual this time, the songs that just missed out seemed more than deserving of a place but it wasn't to be.  So honourable mentions this time to the bands that made the shortlist but not the chart as follows: Chemical Brothers, James, The Ataris, Chumbawamba, In Flames, Nightwish, Rollins Band, Deftones, Sigh, China Drum, Dimmu Borgir, Blackstar and Coal Chamber.

1. Foo Fighters - Everlong

2. A - No. 1

3. Paradise Lost - Say Just Words

4. 3 Colours Red - Nuclear Holiday

5. Paradise Lost - One Second

6. Faith No More - Ashes to Ashes

7. 3 Colours Red - Sunny in England

8. Emperor - With Strength I Burn

9. Silver Sun - Lava

10. Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get

11. The Gathering - The Earth Is My Witness

12. Stereophonics - Local Boy in the Photograph

13. A - Foghorn

14. A - Bad Idea

15. Will Haven - Mason

16. The Gathering - On Most Surfaces (Inuit)

17. Mindset - Nosebleed

18. Ash - A Life Less Ordinary

19. Life of Agony - Weeds

20. The Gathering - Third Chance

21. Shelter - Whole Wide World

22. Shelter - Refusal

23. Strapping Young Lad - All Hail the New Flesh

24. Mindset - ihateudon'tleaveme

25. Metallica - Fuel

26. Will Haven - I've Seen My Fate

27. Metallica - The Unforgiven II

28. 3 Colours Red - Pure

29. Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench

30. Napalm Death - Breed to Breathe

31. Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

32. A - Cheeky Monkey

33. Paradise Lost - Another Day

34. Napalm Death - Lowpoint

35. Mindset - Psycho Sound Wave

36. Feeder - My Perfect Day

37. Symposium - Drink the Sunshine

38. Symposium - Fairweather Friend

39. Vergelmer - Her Harvest is my Prey

40. The Gathering - Nighttime Birds

41. Machine Head - Struck a Nerve

42. Abyssos - As The Sky Turns Black Again (Love Eternal)

43. Machine Head - Take My Scars

44. Megadeth - Trust

45. Silver Sun - Dumb

46. Foo Fighters - My Hero

47. Feeder - Tangerine

48. Green Day - Redundant

49. A - Winter of 96

50. A - Out of Tune

51. Green Day - Nice Guys Finish Last

52. Feeder - Cement

53. Emperor - The Loss and Curse of Reverence

54. Metallica - The Memory Remains

55. The Prodigy - Breathe

56. Rammstein - Du Hast

57. Silverchair - Abuse Me

58. Reef - Come Back Brighter

59. Reef - Place Your Hands

60. Supergrass - Richard III

61. Blur - Song 2

62. Charlatans - One to Another

63. Machine Head - Ten Ton Hammer

64. Paradise Lost - Cruel One

65. Metallica - Prince Charming

66. Lacuna Coil - Falling

67. Emperor - Ye Entrancemperium

68. Will Haven - Foreign Film

69. Immortal - Mountains of Might

70. Strapping Young Lad - Underneath the Waves

71. Silver Sun - Wonderful

72. Faith No More - Last Cup of Sorrow

73. Feeder - Polythene Girl

74. Feeder - Crash

75. Helmet - Like I Care

Top 75 of 1996

1996 was the year that, in terms of age, I became an adult, although we all know that still hasn't actually happened yet in most ways.  It was the year I sat my A levels, the year I started university, the year I had some money that wasn't just pocket money.

When I received my grant money (it was lucky timing that I managed to get a grant to cover my costs and not need to rely on loans like anyone that came after me) I allowed myself £38 a week, almost half went on bus fares and most of the rest on free periods wandering around Middlesbrough's record shops.

Back then I had a choice of HMV and two independents, Playback and Alan Fearnley's. Playback was pretty small, but a great source for cheap CD singles and albums I could take a chance on for a fiver. Alan Fearnley's was more vinyl-oriented but still got plenty of bargains.  There was many a time where I'd spend a full hour browsing and walk up to the counter with only a 50p CD single!

My source of hearing new music had to change too, in terms of rock and metal I had been introduced to loads of new music by videoing Raw Power/Noisy Mothers overnight, but when that was axed I was reliant on free CDs with Kerrang and, starting with the December 96 issue, Metal Hammer.

That covered new rock and metal bands but I also got new indie/rock sounds from gigs, mostly from the weekly indie night at Middlesbrough Arena, doubling my tally of 10 gigs in 1995 to 20 in 1996:

19/01/96 Shed 7, Soda (@Middlesbrough Arena)

02/02/96 Cecil, Bullyrag (@Middlesbrough Arena)

06/02/96 Honeycrack, Schtum (@Middlesbrough Cornerhouse)

23/02/96 Perfume, Cooper, 1941 (@Middlesbrough Arena)

08/03/96 Sultans, Mansun  (@Middlesbrough Arena)

05/04/96 Bis, Kenickie (@Middlesbrough Arena)

30/04/96 60ft Dolls (@Middlesbrough Cornerhouse)

03/05/96 Inaura, Helter Skelter (@Middlesbrough Arena)

24/05/96 Manic Street Preachers, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (@Middlesbrough Town Hall)

24/05/96 Sneaker Pimps (@Middlesbrough Arena)

28/06/96 Octopus, Geneva (@Middlesbrough Arena)

02/08/96 Senser, Agent Provocateur (@Middlesbrough Arena)

04/10/96 Kenickie, Gold Blade (@Middlesbrough Arena)

11/10/96 Salad, Brassy (@Middlesbrough Arena)

25/10/96 Urusei Yatsura, Eska (@Middlesbrough Arena)

01/11/96 Catatonia, Diggers, Big Leaves (@Middlesbrough Arena)

08/11/96 Symposium, Speedy (@Middlesbrough Arena)

05/12/96 Northside (@Middlesbrough Arena)

06/12/96 3 Colours Red, Symposium (@Middlesbrough Arena)

13/12/96 Rachel Stamp, Circus (@Middlesbrough Arena)

Between finishing my A levels and starting university, in the summer of 96 I had the longest holiday from education I'd ever had and it resulted in a prolific year in terms of making my own music.  Over the year there were 2 albums and 2 EPs from my pop-punk band Spraypaint (then called Marvin), an album by my industrial band Uranium, 4 albums by me and my brother's band Pyf Belly Machine, 2 EPs by the masters of the sub-minute classic The Personnel and a few odds and sods including an anarcho-punk album going under the name of Land Army.

The best Spraypaint songs can be found here with virtually all of them apart from the first 3 being from 1996 (the first 3 being 1995). Bad singing, fizzing guitars and bubbling Senseless Things basslines were the order of the day.

There was also a bizarre appearance by Pyf Belly Machine on a benefit tape alongside a handful of anarcho-punk bands and some bands we'd actually heard of. Our song just happened to be a cover of Blame it on the Boogie we'd recorded the previous year, which was an interesting choice amid the "proper" bands, but can be found on the Spraypaint link above.

But the most important development was the creation of my first metal band, Oakenshield (later to become Beneath Utopia). A mini-album recorded when I really should have been revising for my A levels and a full album a few months later saw a prolific start.  Initial Bolt Thrower influences dominated, but other favourites of the time such as Fear Factory also crept into the mix.  If you're intrigued you can find the results in the discography here as Oakenshield and Something to Fear. They're not amazing but they're also not bad for a 17/18 year old writing metal for the first time.

It might sound strange to some but 1996 is probably the year where I start to consider albums as being "new". So Roots, Great Southern Trendkill, Load, Everything Must Go etc. they're not albums that formed my love of a band, they're NEW ones. And yes, I do know that they're now 23 years old.  And quite a few of those albums were a little bit disappointing compared to what came before.  Pearl Jam, Bush, Soundgarden, Sepultura, Pantera, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine - all released albums in 1996 that were good, but weren't up to the high standards that they'd set previously.  But other bands moved in to stake their claim.

As far as this chart goes, Cradle of Filth, Feeder and Bal-Sagoth took some prominent places and due to my extra spending money some bands I was now able to take a chance on like Floodgate, Gravity Kills and Pist.on appeared from nowhere.  But the Manics took the honours with their triumphant return from the disappearance of Richey Edwards.  It could have been the end, but with a complete reinvention and the sentiment that "Everything Must Go" they returned from the brink in a blaze of hits and awards.

The honourable mentions for bands that made the shortlist this time but don't feature in the final 75 are Cathedral, Will Haven, Bluetones, Arch Enemy, Kerbdog, Darkthrone, Pearl Jam, Placebo and Bush.

1. Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life

2. Cradle of Filth - Queen of Winter, Throned

3. Feeder - Descend

4. Cradle of Filth - Funeral in Carpathia

5. Soundgarden - Burden in my Hand

6. Lightning Seeds - Three Lions

7. Cradle of Filth - Dusk and Her Embrace

8. Bal-Sagoth - The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire

9. China Drum - Can't Stop These Things

10. Manic Street Preachers - Enola/Alone

11. Babylon Zoo - The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes

12. Republica - Ready To Go

13. Suede - Trash

14. Manic Street Preachers - No Surface All Feeling

15. Soundgarden - Pretty Noose

16. 60ft Dolls - Pig Valentine

17. Republica - Drop Dead Gorgeous

18. Gravity Kills - Enough

19. Bal-Sagoth - Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule

20. Shed 7 - Getting Better

21. China Drum - Wuthering Heights

22. Manic Street Preachers - Australia

23. Pantera - Suicide Note Pt. II

24. Bal-Sagoth - As the Vortex Illumines the Crystalline Walls of Kor-Avul-Thaa

25. Korn - Good God

26. Cradle of Filth - Malice Through the Looking Glass

27. Metallica - Ain't My Bitch

28. Pist.on - Grey Flap

29. Cecil - No Excuses

30. Honeycrack - Sitting at Home

31. Manic Street Preachers - The Girl Who Wanted to be God

32. Catatonia - Bleed

33. Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

34. Cradle of Filth - The Forest Whispers My Name

35. Suede - Beautiful Ones

36. Shed 7 - Where Have You Been Tonight?

37. Cradle of Filth - Heaven Torn Asunder

38. Feeder - Sweet 16

39. Feeder - Shade

40. Manic Street Preachers - Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky

41. Sepultura - Roots Bloody Roots

42. Napalm Death - Greed Killing

43. Dark Funeral - When Angels Forever Die

44. Manic Street Preachers - Sepia

45. Rage Against the Machine - People of the Sun

46. Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade

47. Feeder - Stereo World

48. Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People

49. China Drum - Fall Into Place

50. Babylon Zoo - Spaceman

51. Marilyn Manson - The Reflecting God

52. Metallica - King Nothing

53. Metallica - Bleeding Me

54. Type O Negative - My Girlfriend's Girlfriend

55. Honeycrack - Go Away

56. Kula Shaker - Hey Dude

57. Bal-Sagoth - To Dethrone the Witch-Queen of Mytos K'unn (The Legend of the Battle of Blackhelm Vale)

58. Bal-Sagoth - In the Raven-Haunted Forests of Darkenhold, Where the Shadows Reign and the Hues of Sunlight Never Dance

59. 60ft Dolls - Stay

60. Manic Street Preachers - Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)

61. Shed 7 - On Standby

62. Soundgarden - Blow Up the Outside World

63. Floodgate - Till My Soil

64. The Blood Divine - Aureole

65. Ash - Lose Control

66. Feeder - World Asleep

67. Bal-Sagoth - And Lo, When the Imperium Marches Against Gul-Kothoth, Then Dark Sorceries Shall Enshroud the Citadel of the Obsidian Crown

68. My Dying Bride - For You

69. Metallica - The Outlaw Torn

70. My Dying Bride - A Kiss To Remember

71. Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song

72. The Divine Comedy - Becoming More Like Alfie

73. Samael - Jupiterian Vibe

74. Honeycrack - I Hate Myself & Everybody Else

75. Napalm Death - My Own Worst Enemy

Top 75 of 1994

After the years of musical discovery of the 1990s so far I'd moved through the indie of my brother's initial record collection through rock and grunge and found that I was being drawn more and more to heavier music.  I was still listening to the other styles of course, but new music was now coming more and more from the heavier end of the spectrum.

This was partly due to me venturing out into the world of music magazines myself, previously I had nabbed whatever my brother had bought, mostly Melody Maker, NME or Select, and browsed the features of interest.  But later in 1994 I started buying RAW, which was fortnightly if I remember rightly, I think the first issue I bought had Scott Weiland on the cover and came with a load of stickers which I later stuck to the bass that I got for Christmas that year.

As this was now MY magazine I could read it cover to cover and absorb everything, new bands to look out for, more detail about bands I liked that wouldn't be featured in the indie papers etc.  This was pre-internet of course though, so actually hearing the bands still meant watching out for a clip on The Chart Show or Noisy Mothers or waiting for a free cover-mounted tape, I wasn't in a position yet to just take a punt on a band I'd never heard.

In 1994 I turned 16, so I finished school with a decent 2 A*s, 1 A, 5 Bs, 2 Cs and a D and started college where I selected A levels in Maths, Chemistry and Computing and a one year GCSE in Media Studies.  In college you could wear your band shirts with pride and see other people's allegiances at the same time.  I think my early shirts consisted of Senseless Things, Pantera, Sepultura, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Extreme and The Farm, so a varied selection.  My hair had also been growing out for about a year by then too and sporadic bouts of not shaving my chin kicked off the occasional appearance of my later permanent goatee.

1994 saw an explosion in recording my own music, still just primitively layering instruments over each other on a simple tape recorder, so the results weren't amazing.  I did two albums and an EP of my own music under the name of Marvin, all pretty bad, but the main concern of Pyf Belly Machine with my brother were even more prolific, 6 albums or about 7 hours worth of material over that year period.  After starting college, two of my mates hooked up with us to make it a "proper" band, the official lineup was my brother Peter on guitar/vocals, me on bass/vocals (or the top string of an acoustic guitar until Christmas when I got my bass), Gord on guitar and Darren on drums, but we swapped instruments a lot, I was probably the most guilty in that respect.

At the back end of 1994 we ended up playing a couple of gigs in Gord's garage (he had a big house with a triple garage, swimming pool and a sauna.....quite possibly room for a pony, if your mind was heading that way), we mostly played our own songs from the 2-piece version of the band's albums but also did covers of Girls and Boys, Everything About You and Jump Around.  I'd start the gig on drums, move to bass and a bit of singing, then guitar, back to bass before finishing on drums again.  About 20 college mates turned up to watch, let's just say if the other two weren't in the band we probably wouldn't have persuaded anyone to come.

That was a bit more background than usual......but I was enjoying myself remembering, anyway, music from 1994.  There were some pretty dark albums that came out that year, The Holy Bible being most prominent given the Manics were my favourite band, but The Downward Spiral was also up there too, given I'd been a Nine Inch Nails fan for around 3 or 4 years at that point.  Both incredibly dark albums, both giving the impression of decay in very different ways.  A few years later I would also discover the self-titled debut from Korn, taking a similar dark path but from a different angle.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, punk stirrings were felt across the Atlantic in the form of Green Day's Dookie and Offspring's Smash mainly, both featuring here.  Although interestingly Smash ended up with a lot more entries, not something I would have imagined beforehand with Dookie being the preferred album in my head.  There were also the beginnings of what would become Britpop, in particular with the release of Blur's Parklife.  This links in with me starting to go out for the first time, mostly to Middlesbrough Arena with it's indie club night on a Friday and second and third division indie bands playing often.  After my first gig experience in 1993, I had two more in 1994, seeing my beloved Manic Street Preachers for the first time in the February at Middlesbrough Town Hall, followed by Blaggers ITA at Middlesbrough Arena in the December.

But as mentioned before, my record collection was starting to take a metal turn.  One CD in particular helped this along a more extreme path, the Earplugged compilation on Earache records.  Two songs each from Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Napalm Death, Brutal Truth, Entombed, Cathedral and Godflesh - I would take a big interest in the first 3, some interest in the others, but I liked every song on there.  This, coupled with my choice of magazine and the emergence of bands like Machine Head putting metal back at the forefront, would lead me in to new unexplored avenues of music in subsequent years.

A quick note on bands that missed out as competition was fierce this time around and some good albums surprisingly didn't make the cut.  The full list of bands making the shortlist but not the chart were as follows: Godflesh, At the Gates, Shed 7, Ash, Carter USM, The Almighty, Stabbing Westward, Prong, Pro-Pain, The Farm, China Drum, Bad Religion, Stone Roses, Senser, Gun, Black Crowes, Spin Doctors, Sick of it All and Sultans of Ping.  Some of those I was particularly disappointed to see them not make the cut.....but you have to go with the best songs!

1. Bush - Comedown

2. Pearl Jam - Better Man

3. Bolt Thrower - ...For Victory

4. Machine Head - Davidian

5. Manic Street Preachers - This Is Yesterday

6. Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5

7. Manic Street Preachers - Faster

8. Bush - Little Things

9. Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song

10. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun

11. Offspring - Genocide

12. Nine Inch Nails - Heresy

13. Weezer - Buddy Holly

14. Manic Street Preachers - Yes

15. Pantera - I'm Broken

16. Pantera - 5 Minutes Alone

17. Bush - Machinehead

18. Pulp - Do You Remember the First Time?

19. Blur - Girls and Boys

20. Pearl Jam - Spin the Black Circle

21. Green Day - Basket Case

22. Pearl Jam - Nothingman

23. Bush - Glycerine

24. Green Day - Welcome to Paradise

25. Manic Street Preachers - Archives of Pain

26. Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde

27. Cradle of Filth - The Forest Whispers My Name

28. Nine Inch Nails - March of the Pigs

29. Nine Inch Nails - Hurt

30. Emperor - I Am The Black Wizards

31. Offspring - Gotta Get Away

32. Offspring - Smash

33. Soundgarden - The Day I Tried To Live

34. Machine Head - Old

35. Manic Street Preachers - PCP

36. Therapy? - Screamager

37. Green Day - When I Come Around

38. Offspring - Self Esteem

39. Offspring - Nitro (Youth Energy)

40. Blur - Parklife

41. Manic Street Preachers - Judge Yr'self

42. Manic Street Preachers - Revol

43. Bush - Everything Zen

44. Blur - End of a Century

45. Nine Inch Nails - Closer To God

46. Dog Eat Dog - Who's the King

47. Nine Inch Nails - Ruiner

48. Manic Street Preachers - 4st 7lb

49. Korn - Faget

50. Therapy? - Trigger Inside

51. Soundgarden - Fell On Black Days

52. Cradle of Filth - To Eve The Art of Witchcraft

53. Cradle of Filth - The Principle of Evil Made Flesh

54. Bolt Thrower - When Glory Beckons

55. Machine Head - A Thousand Lies

56. NOFX - Leave It Alone

57. Offspring - Come Out and Play

58. Offspring - Bad Habit

59. Offspring - Something to Believe In

60. Bolt Thrower - Remembrance

61. Bolt Thrower - Lest We Forget

62. Pantera - Becoming

63. Dog Eat Dog - No Fronts

64. Rollins Band - Liar

65. Cradle of Filth - Summer Dying Fast

66. Emperor - Cosmic Keys to my Creations & Times

67. Soundgarden - Like Suicide

68. Korn - Ball Tongue

69. Korn - Blind

70. Filter - Hey Man Nice Shot

71. Therapy? - Nowhere

72. Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow

73. Obituary - Don't Care

74. Napalm Death - Plague Rages

75. Brutal Truth - Choice of a New Generation

Top 75 of 1993

Compared to the years of musical discovery that were 1991 and 1992, looking back at the albums and songs in my collection from 1993 there were a lot of strong contenders but not as much in terms of volume.  There were some excellent albums released in 1993, but it didn't seem as though there were that many of them.  Hence this chart is dominated by a few prominent releases.

Back in 1992, through the influence of The First of Too Many album and the Easy to Smile single, Senseless Things had established themselves as my favourite band.  I got background information in the form of newsletters (no internet back then of course) and wore my blue Pop Kid shirt with pride, they were MY band.

But in 1993 I sent off for and received a pack of goodies from another band who, through a flurry of singles and a great debut album, had also got my attention big time the previous year.  I'd already read the interviews in my brother's Melody Makers, NMEs, Selects etc. but now I was reading uncut manifestos, background information, lyrics, I had badges, stickers and a membership card.  Impressive stuff for a 14/15 year old.  And then came the second album which impressed me even further, time has pegged it a little further back in their overall album rankings but then it was fresh and new.....and of course that band was the Manic Street Preachers.  1993 saw them become my favourite band and they're unlikely to ever be dislodged from that status.

I suspect, as with 1992, that I was catching up a little in terms of the previous year so some of the albums I bought in 93 would have been from 92.  But those I did buy that year were the aforementioned Gold Against the Soul by the Manics, Senseless Things' Empire of the Senseless, Pearl Jam's Vs and Sepultura's Chaos AD, all on cassette (my dad had a CD player in 93 but I didn't, meaning that I could only ever play my only CD - Rollins Band's Tearing single - downstairs).

Another major first from 1993 was something that happened on the 5th October at Middlesbrough Town Hall - my first gig.  Headliners Carter USM were obviously the main draw but support band Sultans of Ping FC were also well known to me at the time through Where's Me Jumper and Stupid Kid and to be honest I think I ended up enjoying them more.  The first band on were called Blink, pretty unremarkable although I imagine they were the Blink that caused Blink 182 to add the 182 onto their name.

1993 was also the year I first started making music, if you can call it that.  In the March, a couple of months shy of my 15th birthday, I recorded 6 solo tracks under the name of Listy.  Predominantly recorded on keyboard they were pretty awful, one track even just consisting of me singing alternative words over the top of Shadow by The Lurkers (the actual song itself, not a cover), renaming it Neale James is a Saddo after the radio DJ.  In May me and my brother teamed up to record Totally Spontaneous Masterpieces under the name of Sludge From the Bottom.  A list of pre-planned song titles based on TV and in-jokes were created off the cuff using a keyboard, a guitar and our voices.  Filling a one hundred minute tape.  Let's just say I don't listen to it very often.

October and November saw a slightly higher standard of improvisation, although still pretty dire, as our main 90s collaborative band was born - Pyf Belly Machine.  Best of 93 Sessions and Forks Brain Cake by the Lake Near Cirencester were the titles......it could only go up from here.....

But enough of that, back to the proper music.....a smaller number of bands made the shortlist this time but didn't get in the final 75.  Those bands consisted of Primus, KMFDM, Brad, My Dying Bride, Duran Duran, Saint Etienne, Thousand Yard Stare, New Order and Clawfinger.  I've always had the feeling that after Stone Gossard was part of the Brad album that he was never the same again in Pearl Jam.  His songs became less frequent, maybe even less interested and given his songs were some of the classics on the first two Pearl Jam albums that was a shame (no pun intended surprisingly).

One of the possible reasons for the lack of new album buying in 93 could have been that in terms of media I was still only reading my brother's indie papers and magazines, while I was moving further and further into rock and metal territory in terms of what I was listening to.  So, as shown with the Manics, Senseless Things and Pearl Jam, I was largely sticking to what I already knew.  In 1994 I started buying my own magazines, which blew everything apart, but that's for next time.

1. Paradise Lost - Embers Fire

2. Manic Street Preachers - From Despair to Where

3. Pearl Jam - Rearviewmirror

4. Paradise Lost - True Belief

5. Senseless Things - Too Much Kissing

6. Die Krupps - Fatherland

7. Carcass - Heartwork

8. Sepultura - Territory

9. Sepultura - Refuse/Resist

10. Manic Street Preachers - La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)

11. Manic Street Preachers - Sleepflower

12. Smashing Pumpkins - Today

13. Pearl Jam - Go

14. Life of Agony - This Time

15. Pulp - Lipgloss

16. Skyscraper - Choke

17. Senseless Things - Primary Instinct

18. Mega City Four - Iron Sky

19. Life of Agony - Through and Through

20. Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock

21. Die Krupps - Crossfire

22. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul to Squeeze

23. Faith No More/Boo-Yaa Tribe - Another Body Murdered

24. Tool - Sober

25. Senseless Things - Hold it Down

26. Senseless Things - Too Much Like I Know You

27. Manic Street Preachers - Donkeys

28. Carcass - Rot 'N' Roll

29. Manic Street Preachers - Life Becoming a Landslide

30. Manic Street Preachers - Roses in the Hospital

31. Carcass - This Mortal Coil

32. Sepultura - Slave New World

33. Sepultura - Biotech is Godzilla

34. Senseless Things - Homophobic Asshole

35. Manic Street Preachers - Patrick Bateman

36. Sultans of Ping FC - Stupid Kid

37. Sultans of Ping FC - You Talk Too Much

38. Life of Agony - River Runs Red

39. Pearl Jam - Animal

40. Pearl Jam - Daughter

41. Type O Negative - Black No. 1

42. Senseless Things - Keepsake

43. Suede - Animal Nitrate

44. Blur - For Tomorrow

45. Suede - So Young

46. Blur - Advert

47. Manic Street Preachers - Symphony of Tourette

48. Manic Street Preachers - Yourself

49. Paradise Lost - Widow

50. Paradise Lost - Dying Freedom

51. Pearl Jam - Glorified G

52. Carcass - Blind Bleeding the Blind

53. Sepultura - Propaganda

54. Carcass - Death Certificate

55. Cathedral - Midnight Mountain

56. Paradise Lost - Colossal Rains

57. Utah Saints - Something Good

58. Manic Street Preachers - Drug Drug Druggy

59. Manic Street Preachers - Gold Against the Soul

60. Pearl Jam - Leash

61. Die Krupps - Bloodsuckers

62. Sultans of Ping FC - Where's Me Jumper?

63. Blaggers ITA - Stresss

64. James - Sometimes

65. Napalm Death - Nazi Punks Fuck Off

66. Paradise Lost - Christendom

67. Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box

68. Senseless Things - Runaways

69. Kingmaker - 10 Years Asleep

70. Inspiral Carpets - How It Should Be

71. Breeders - Cannonball

72. Senseless Things - Tempting Kate

73. Pulp - Razzmatazz

74. Carter USM - Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over

75. Jesus Jones - The Devil You Know