Lightning Seeds 'Sugar Coated Iceberg'

Chart Peak: 12

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Nominated in both 1996 and '97 for the BRIT Award as Best British Group, Ian Broudie's Lightning Seeds arrived in a big way last year with their hit album Dizzy Heights (featuring 'Sugar Coated Iceberg') and the nation's favourite football anthem 'Three Lions', featuring David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.

The only track on the entire album to enter the chart in 1997 itself (though several others hung around from late 1996) is also the first not to have peaked at 7, though it remains their highest-charting original song other than the various versions of 'Three Lions' over the years, even if it's not a song that seems much remembered nowadays. Co-written by Stephen Jones of Babybird, it's an even more unashamedly pop confection than 'Marblehead Johnson' but again a rather bitter confection, as the title suggests when you think about it. And it has, if anything, an even sillier video.

I was very fond of the band - to the extent that they were a band - back then and I still think they're a somewhat under-appreciated musical force, possibly because Ian Broudie never claimed to have any sort of attitude and pop music wasn't considered as respectable as it now is among the sort of people who pronounce on what sort of music should be respected. This song was a particular favourite then, although the slightly cheap sound of it hasn't dated all that well. It remains a song I enjoy listening to and I even pull out the album once in a while, more than can be said for some stuff I was into then.

Buy Like You Do: The Best Of The Lightning Seeds

The Fun Lovin' Criminals 'The Fun Lovin' Criminal'

Chart Peak: 26

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The hip-hop trio of Fast, Huey and Steve emerged from New York to register chart success on both sides of the Atlantic with their debut album Come Find Yourself. The top 30 hit 'Fun Lovin' Criminals' [sic] was the third hit from the group nominated as Best International Newcomers.

Of all cultural phenomena of this era, there weren't many I found more tiresome than gangster chic. Of course it mostly revolved around London gangsters from the Sixties (presumably there were gangsters in other parts of the UK too, but they must have had less smart suits); however FLC represented a sort of New York wing, combining self-consciously cool rap lyrics with AOR. Generally I couldn't stand them but I did have to make an exception for this track mainly because of "Fast" (Brian Leiser)'s contributions on trumpet and harmonica, which make the backing track enjoyable enough for me to put up with Huey Morgan's posturing. Admittedly, even he isn't that annoying on this track, but it's not really him I'm listening to. It's a pity this wasn't among their bigger hits, although reaching the chart at all is more than any of their releases has managed in their homeland.

Buy Bag of Hits: 15 Interglobal Chartstoppers

The Bluetones 'Marblehead Johnson'

Chart Peak: 7

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The intriguingly titled third hit single in 1996 from the quartet of Adam Devlin, Mark and Scott Morriss and Eds Chesters. The Bluetones' debut album Expecting To Fly reached Number One and earned producer Hugh Jones a BRIT Award nomination as Best British Producer.

Again, the notes are oddly reluctant to mention the band's own nomination (for Best British Newcomer) and eny fule kno that Marblehead Johnson is a reference to the late comedian Bill Hicks, who used that name for his musical projects. It is true that it has nothing to do with the lyrical content of the song, though, and at least all the band members' names are spelt correctly.

The scale of the Bluetones' success is sometimes forgotten, possibly because they were never quite the biggest band in their field. Still, there was an impressive run of success early in their career with the chart-topping debut album and three hits from it; and not long after this standalone hit. Perhaps the silly video and ingratiating appearance of the band distract from the top-notch musicianship on board and the outstanding voice of Mark Morriss, but I loved the witty lyrics which add that slight touch of sourness to stop this sounding too much like a cozy pastiche. Unfortunately, nobody seems to remember they did anything other than 'Slight Return' nowadays and after a long spell as the last of the big Britpop acts in continuous operation, they finally called it a day late last year.

Buy A Rough Outline: The Singles & B-Sides 1995-2003

Kula Shaker 'Govinda (radio edit)'

Chart Peak: 7

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'Govinda' was the fourth hit single from Kula Shaker's chart-topping platinum debut album K. Crispian Mills and his three cohorts earned themselves an impressive total of four 1997 BRIT Award nominations including one for 'Tattva' as Best British Single.

And here we have a pretty close repeat of the Manics track: fourth single from the album, peaked at 7, not the single that was actually nominated in its own right (for the record their other nominations were Best British Group, Best British Newcomers and Best British Album). I suppose you could argue that the two bands were both outsiders to the Britpop movement that granted them their biggest commercial success, but they have only one other significant thing in common: a fondness for controversial statements. It was a few months later when Mills talked in an NME interview of the attraction of putting giant flaming swastikas on stage "for the f___ of it" and their career never recovered, especially once said publication delved into some unsavoury incidents in his stepfather's past.
It's difficult to warm to Mills himself as a person or frontman, if I'm honest, and sensationally easy to mock the band's preoccupation with the romance of Indian culture as stereotypical upper-class cultural tourism. But with a decade and a half of nostalgia, I have to say that they did at least add a little bit of colour and I'm pretty  this is the only Sanskrit-language track ever to appear on a Brits tie-in. It's horribly dated now, but I sort of admire the wilfulness of making this a single in the first place.

Buy Kollected - The Best Of Kula Shaker

The Brits 97: Manic Street Preachers 'Australia (Radio edit)

Chart Peak: 7

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The trio of James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore and Nicky Wire completed the Manics' fourth album Everything Must Go following the disappearance of Richey James. The Top 10 single 'Australia' comes from the platinum album produced by Best British Producer nominee Mike Hedges. 

Believe it or not this is at least the third time I've tried to launch this spin-off blog, which is why the name of it is a pun on the title of an album that was released over two-and-a-half years ago. Anyway, the ground rules for the moment are essentially the same as over on Now That's What I Call A Challenge, except that it's about compilations that aren't part of the Now! series and I'm trying to limit the length of time I spend writing each entry. To tie in with all the fifteen years ago activity I'm doing at Charting 1997, we're starting with the tie-in compilation from that year's Brit Awards, which I wouldn't even have thought about buying at the time but was happy to pick up for a quid in late December 2010.

It would've been unthinkable even a couple of years earlier, but the Manics were among the big stars of the 1997 Brits: as well as the nomination for their producer mentioned in the sleeve notes, the band themselves were up for Best British Group, Best British Album, Best British Single and Best British Video, though those last two related not to this song but to the more famous 'A Design For Life'. Still, Sony put this album out so I suppose they were keener to include the more current single or something. Even though I was one of the many who discovered the band through their 1996 material and regard Everything Must Go as one of their two best albums, this track was never a particular favourite of mine and I was faintly disappointed when it was chosen as a single, being possibly the most traditional rock track they'd ever done. That said, there are times when a bit of powerchordage can be satisfying, and it did earn them their fourth UK Top 10 single of 1996, a unique achievement for a British act that year.

Buy Everything Must Go 10th Anniversary Edition