Nostalgia Trip - Songs from the 90s (Arcade)

Last weekend I talked about the songs that take me back to my childhood, playing games in the arcades of Caister and Great Yarmouth in the mid-to-late 80s. This week I thought I would talk about songs from the 1990s that remind me of when I was in higher education and frequenting various arcades around Mansfield and Nottingham. This period was from 1992 to 1996 and coincides with the Britpop explosion, a time when I discovered more music than ever in my life. Whittling this list down to 10 was tough and I ended up editing it numerous times, even after I first published it. As such there are loads of bands I loved from that era that didn't make the list, including Supergrass, Suede, Bluetones, Elastica, Reef, Kula Shaker and Pulp. In the end, these are the 10 songs that I most associate with those care free years, when I would hang around arcades during the day playing Street Fighter 2, Tekken, Sega Rally and Time Crisis, then head to the nearest student pub in the evening to drink myself into oblivion.

Say Britpop to anyone and two bands instantly spring to mind, Blur and Oasis. I liked them both, but in the beginning Blur's greater back catalogue meant I listened to them more. Nonetheless, it was 1994's "Parklife" album that really propelled them into the spot light and my favourite track from that was not "Boys and Girls" and certainly not the silly title track, but this one, "End of the Century":

By the time "What's the Story?" was released in 1995 Oasis felt like the more credible of the two Britpop giants, as Blur became increasingly twee. The first time I heard "Don't look back in anger" I was pulling into the university car park in my Peugeot 309, listening to Radio 1. I remember the DJ saying it was like the Beatles, which meant nothing to me at the time, but Oasis did ultimately introduce to the Fab Four's peerless music.

Now we've got that out of the way, it's time for a bunch of Britpop acts with female vocalists, all of whom I fancied the pants off at the time. Let's start with the cutest of them all, Louise Wener and Sleeper with "Inbetweener":

Next up, a band made up of Butch Vig, producer for Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Smashing Pumpkin's "Siamese Dream" and a wee Scottish lass who looked like she would eat you alive, man or woman. It's Garbage with "I think I'm paranoid": 

Echobelly were a great band and "King of the Kerb" is one of my all time favourite songs from the era. Why they were not bigger I will never know: 

Born from the ashes of The La's, Cast's 1995 debut "All change" was one of the very best albums released during the height of the Britpop scene and is brimful of great singles. Despite this fact, I can't find an official video, only a video of them performing the brilliant "Alright" on the now defunct Top of the Pops. Ahh, the memories:

Technically, Ash were not part of the Britpop scene because they were Irish, but like so many Britpop bands they debuted in 1995 and so they are often swept up with that pack. They recorded their debut album, "1977", when they were just 18. Despite their youth, it was brilliant body of music, full of memorable tracks, perhaps none more so than "Girl from Mars":

A band I absolutely loved in '95 and which hardly anyone else remembers is Honeycrack. Founded from the remains of the Wildhearts, Honeycrack's songs were full of witty, quick-fire social commentry. This is the first single I ever heard, although again, I cannot find an official video of it. No matter, the music is more than enough: 

One of the biggest British bands to emerge in the 1990s was Welsh rockers the Manic Street Preachers. The first time I heard any of their music was actually in a computer game shop in town in 1993. They were playing the whole of the "Gold Against the Soul" album, so I got to hear most of it before I bought it myself a few weeks later. This is "La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)":

I'm going to end this trip down memory lane with a band that emerged in the 90s and whose music still sends shivers down my spine today. If I was ever asked to pick my absolute favourite album of all time, it would be "The Bends" by Radiohead and this is the first song I ever heard by them, "Just": 

And there you have it, the two decades where arcade games were a big deal and the music I listened to in and around those venues. Thank you for indulging an old gamer. Hopefully some of you out there have similar sense of nostalgia for the 20 songs I chose. 

MTW