I have never been a fan of Madonna; I think she has a very thin voice. This, however, written for the Mike Myers film Austen Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me is a very good attempt to capture a certain sound of the 1960s. And I’m a sucker for that.

Just because it’s such a good song.

Like the good lady, in the 1990s I had a bit of a soft spot for James.

Sit Down was the band’s biggest hit.

An acquaintance of mine once complained he hated that when it came to the middle eight of this song people listening to it would start to sit down. As if it was the group’s fault.

My feeling is that artists aren’t responsible for the way people react to their creations. George Orwell couldn’t have foreseen folk saying, “it’s like 1984, isn’t it?”

This is the originally released version from 1989. It doesn’t have quite the bite of the later release and the video is a bit unimaginative.

I would wager there haven’t been many songs written in English about the Spanish Civil War.

Still fewer have been chart hits.

This one made number 1 in the UK.

Sadly its message is even more relevant today than it was in the 90s.

The first single taken from This is Hardcore, Pulp’s follow-up album to their big breakthrough LP Different Class.

One of the sounds of the nineties. Except for the strings, of course, which were sampled from a 1960s orchestral recording of The Rolling Stones’ The Last Time (which itself draws on This May be the Last Time by The Staple Singers) and were subject to a lawsuit.

Well this is appropriately titled for today.

A nice piece 1992 of jingle-jangle jauntiness from The Cure.

I feel like I should preface this with the warning, “Contains flashing images.”

I’ve not had anything from The Lightning Seeds for a while, so why not?

They always had a bright, cheerful sound.

The track that annnounced Radiohead to most of the world.

Granted, it’s not the cheeriest of songs, but it still has a certain something.

(I must only have heard radio edits before as I don’t remember the [repeated] swear word.)