Note the soon-to-be Disney-embargoed original title of A.R. Kane's "i".... and, in a relatively lean year compared to '88's bonanza, how the focus of both our listening is increasingly encroached upon by the past (Miles and Blue Orchids, Can offshoots and Love)
(Published in the Xmas issue, December 21/28 1991. Via Nothingelseon.)
As the below were not bylined and tended to be written in a slightly "official" Melody Maker house style, I am not 100 % certain that every single one of these was actually penned by me. Well, nearly all give themselves away by some tell-tale troping or favorite (a.k.a. over-used) adjective. But there's a couple of "is this me?" moments, which are flagged up.
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The Year In... Commentaries
Seems like I'm on the cusp of saying "post-rock" towards the end of this mini-survey of the rock leftfield, in fact it would take me almost another two years to get there. Notice also yet another precocious use of "poptimism" here.
Albums of 1991
This next one totally reads like me - up until the last half-sentence about spunk and songwriting. Maybe an editor added that.
Not 100% on this being one of mine - that said, did do a rave review of Foxbase Alpha, "neo" is one of my standby prefixes, "acid mantra" and "sampladelic" are boilerplate SR.
Singles of 1991
Now this blurb is the one where I'm doubtful - that said, I was Consolidated's most fervent champion at MM (and there weren't many others), reviewing both their LPs and doing the interview. So it would make sense that I would also be tasked with doing this blurb.
bonus bits
one solitary blurb for the Albums of the Year
Not 100% certain this is my blurb although "erotic politician" and "radical MOR" sound like my turn o' I should have written AOR rather than MOR though, to more accurately peg the sound. Also I did the big cover story on the Hearthrobs that year. Cannot honestly resummon my excitement about this album now - but do remember the single "Dreamtime" fondly.
Q + A with Tim Burgess of the Charlatans. Canny recycling of a feature I did for Spin, or rather, full use of the transcript thereof. Likeable fellow, relentlessly mediocre band though.
This was great fun to do but arduous - as a staff writer, you had to do your Herculean bit for these big package features - there's about 40 or so micro-essays from me here, super-distilled little takes on phenomena, figures, fads of the '80s - some of my favoritest scenes and sounds, and some of my least favoritest scenes and sounds.
I'm not sure if any research as such was done - where could you go to do it in those days? There was no internet, there might have been some old magazines lying round the house, but no reference works on the '80s as such. So it mostly was all pulled from my memory, sharper then, and dealing with quite recent stuff - but still, no doubt some errors crept in there on the factual front.
Talking of errors - as they're non-bylined, and this is over thirty years ago, I'm like 97% certain these are all by me, but apologies if I've accidentally trawled in something by Stubbsy or the Studs.
Of course other writers got to do things I would have liked to cover, so it's not a total Zeitgeist-scan according to Moi, but .... not that far off, actually.
It's how I saw things precisely then - the winter of '89 - and not always necessarily how I see them today, or indeed how I saw them within a year or two of writing.
