It is hard to believe, but somewhere around this day thirty years ago (yes, really), I attended my university graduation ceremony! I don't especially remember very much of that particular day, but much of the previous three years remains firmly etched in my mind.
A few weeks ago we did a college themed playlist because my daughter had been to look at her first prospective universities - that time we just took some songs that vaguely referred to college life in some way.
But these ten songs are much more personal, each with a relationship to my three years at college, which means there will be a bit less of those usual in depth nerdy song facts and more about how and why they came into my life. This period represents quite a big time in my life - moving from an immature, quite shy 18 year old, to a slightly less shy, immature 21 year old .
Music, as in all stages of my life, played a very important part of those three years - and of course, there are some absolute belters in this list......
1. Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
The glorious yet tragic saga of Nirvana in the world's spotlight neatly bookended my three years, so seems a good place to start. I have to admit though, that while I liked all of their songs at the time, I resisted properly getting into them - because it felt like pretty much every other student was doing that, and I was trying to be different. It was only ten, maybe fifteen years later, that I realised just how powerful and punk they actually were. Teen Spirit came out in September 1991, the month I began my academic journey, and Kurt Cobain tragically took his own life in April 1994, a month before I began my finals.
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Official music video)
2. The Lemonheads: Mrs Robinson
This glorious cover version, released in 1992, became the iconic indie banger played, without fail, at the end of every Monday student night at Manhattan's nightclub, on the front at Southport. From about nine in the evening, until ten to one in the morning, the dancefloor was dominated by girls, and boys who were trying to impress girls - all to a background of classic disco and the dance hits of the day. Then suddenly, as the end approached, dozens of badly dressed spotty lads descended to the dancefloor, enabled by £1 pints and 50p shots, to pogo their way through the aforementioned Teen Spirit, possibly Sweet Child O' Mine and then always this - the distinctive staccato drum and rumbling bass intro, making way for a hundred or so boys to raucously shout along (and those same girls to mostly run for cover)... "do de-do do do do de-do do.... and here's to you Mrs Robinson...."
The Lemonheads: Mrs Robinson (Official music video)
3. Crowded House: Weather With You
I had discovered Crowded House in 1988, with the release of their second album Temple Of Low Men. Follow up, Woodface, was released the summer before I left for college, containing a number of big UK hits. I found out that my new best friend, Andrew, was also a bit of a fan, and then I found out they were touring the UK. So we ended up at the Manchester Apollo in February 1992. I was no novice at live gigs, but their mix of classic songs, immense musicianship, fantastic harmonies and highly amusing between song banter, meant they were at a high level. That was to be the first of three Crowdies gigs in that three years - I remain a huge fan, although sadly Andrew would pass barely a decade later. This one is a belter and it's for you mate!
Crowded House: Weather With You (Live at PinkPop Festival, 1993)
4. Pixies: Hang Wire
At university I also started my love of the great indie bands of New England, which I had read so much about in my copies of Melody Maker, but whom I had never actually heard, because they weren't on mainstream radio during the day, and Spotify didn't exist back then. I can't remember the exact details, but somebody lent me Trompe Le Monde (their last, fractiously made album before splitting) and someone else lent me the two classics, Bossanova and Doolittle. I didn't get to see them live until a decade or so later, when they had reformed, but their was something engaging about the raw, spiky music, and Black Francis' eviscerating vocals, which really grabbed me. Hang Wire is one of the standout tracks from Bossanova - two minutes of slicing guitars and quiet(ish) verses that burst into booming choruses.
Pixies: Hang Wire (Live at Brixton Academy, 1991)
5. Julian Cope: Fear Loves This Place
Reward had been one of the catchiest bits of early 80s post-punk there was, then Julian Cope was putting out those deceptively catchy solo tunes through the mid-80s (think World Shut Your Mouth, Trampolene, Charlotte Anne etc.). By the early 80s he was fully into a more experimental phase - albums Peggy Suicide and then Jehovahkill were full of challenging moments, interspersed with ones like Fear Loves This Place - brilliant, brooding pop songs. I went with Matt Ford to see him at the Royal Court in Liverpool in 1993. He was everything you could want from an eccentric pop star. Half a set of solo acoustic tunes, followed by the other half of classics with a full band. My abiding memory is of him sitting alone, playing songs like this one, hair tied up like some sort of Pekinese and wearing Dennis The Menace boxer shorts over his leggings!
Julian Cope: Fear Loves This Place (Audio only)
6. Power Of Dreams: 100 Ways To Kill A Love
If I ever do a playlist of bands you probably have never heard of, but should - Power Of Dreams will definitely be on it. In fact, it is a travesty that you haven't heard of them. In 1990, the young Dublin quartet were apparently being hailed as Ireland's next big export, a la U2. Somehow, it never happened. Their debut, Immigrants, Emigrants And Me, is a masterful example of driving, melodic indie rock, with songwriting that seriously defied their still teenage years. How did they come into my life though? Well, for my first term away, I endured three months in a grim student house, in the even grimmer post-war town of Skelmersdale. My first time away from home, in a freezing terrace house, with three people I had never met before. However, one of them, Carolyn from Maghull, had a boyfriend who clearly had great musical taste, and she did a mix tape for me, using a mixed bag of stuff from his records. It included bits and bobs by Icicle Works (see later) and most of this amazing album. I was hooked, and somehow over the next few years managed to get hold of all four albums they released - no mean feat, given as I say, that they remained relatively unknown.
Power Of Dreams: 100 Ways To Kill A Love (Promo video)
7. Belly: Feed The Tree
Those New England bands I mentioned liking were all inter-related in various ways, and all came from the stable of legendary UK indie label, 4AD. Tanya Donelly had been in Throwing Muses and the first iteration of The Breeders (see later for both), before forming her own band. I had already found my way into Throwing Muses and Pixies by the time this came out in 1993, so it was an obvious choice to get. Feed The Tree had come out just before the album, Star, and was catchy as heck. It's funny the ridiculous details one remembers, but I can still recall sitting on a college minibus going over the Pennines to play a hockey match in Leeds, listening to the album for the first time on my Walkman.
Belly: Feed The Tree (Live on WXPN, 2018)
8. Icicle Works: Evangeline
We are now back with Carolyn's mix tape, as mentioned in number six. I can't remember exactly which Icicle Works tracks she had put on it, but whichever they were, it was enough to hook me in. They were sadly already done as a band by the time I had heard them for the first time, but I loved the power and breadth of styles they got through in just four albums. Having first heard them in late 91, by the middle of the following year I had all four of those records, and Evangeline was proving to be one of my early favourites. A bright and chirpy keyboard riff and big, crunchy guitar chords - what's not to like?
I had a friend at college who was both from Liverpool, like lead singer Ian McNabb, and also looked more than a bit like him. What's more, he was called Neil Young, just like one of McNabb's big musical heroes. When I told him I could see a resemblance, he told me that they had once passed each other in the street in Liverpool and both had stopped to do a double take!
Icicle Works: Evangeline (Live on The Tube)
9. Throwing Muses: Not Too Soon
Before she formed Belly, Tanya Donelly was in Throwing Muses, a band she had helped form in Rhode Island with her half sister Kristin Hersh. This was another band I knew inside out from my Melody Maker reading days, without ever hearing a tune. That is until I finally took a chance on 1991s The Real Ramona while out shopping when I was back at home in one of the holidays (quite probably the summer at the end of my first year) and I needn't have worried whether or not I had wisely spent my money - it's a classic. Donelly didn't get an equal share of songwriting opportunities on their albums (and that may well be why she ultimately left after this record), but she did leave with Not Too Soon, three minutes of near perfect pop!
Throwing Muses: Not Too Soon (Live on Rockpalast, 1991)
10. The Breeders: Cannonball
"Cannonball is the single of the year. Say no more." So went my rather succinct review in On Edge (the student newsletter of Edge Hill College) as I neatly summarised my 1993 Top10 songs.
In more of that New England cross-pollination; The Breeders was formed by Kim Deal while she was still in the Pixies. The version of the band that had put out first album Pod, included Tanya Donelly, and while by this point she was gone (to form Belly), Deal's twin sister Kelley was now in. As you can tell from my review at the time, I thought Cannonball was a classic - and I would argue that it must be, as it still stands up well over thirty years later.
The Breeders: Cannonball (Live on NPA, 1993)
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