My Festive 40 from 1996

I went back to compiling a mere Top 40 this year and I think my choice of no. 1 is kind of surprising. These Festive 50s/40s tended to be dominated by indie-rock (a genre of music I barely have any interest in these days), so to have a pop-soul number as my favourite song of the year is not necessarily what you’d expect. But I loved it at the time and still like it now. Reflecting on my tastes in music in the 1990s, there’s probably not an awful lot of the artists in these lists I would still listen to with any degree of regularity, or even buy the new releases of if they’re still producing music. One exception to this is The Divine Comedy. Casanova, which came out in 1996, is an album I listen to quite a lot even these days. It may be my favourite album of the 1990s. So, here’s the top 30.

1. Give Me a Little More Time – Gabrielle
2. Brickbat – Billy Bragg
3. A Design for Life – Manic Street Preachers
4. Female of the Species – Space
5. Songs of Love – The Divine Comedy
6. Little Blue – The Beautiful South
7. Corner Shop – Baby Bird
8. Be Mine – R.E.M.
9. Your Woman – White Town
10. Lovefool – The Cardigans
11. Have Fun – The Beautiful South
12. Everything Must Go – Manic Street Preachers
13. The Space Race is Over – Billy Bragg
14. Dead Bird Sings – Baby Bird
15. Killing Me Softly – The Fugees
16. Forbidden City – Electronic
17. Se a vida é – Pet Shop Boys
18. The Frog Princess – The Divine Comedy
19. Innocent – Addis Black Widow
20. Patio Song – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
21.One God – The Beautiful South
22. 6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
23. Everybody Loves You Babe – Billy Bragg
24. So Fast, So Numb – R.E.M.
25. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand – Primitive Radio Gods
26. Been It – The Cardigans
27. Baby Bird – Baby Bird
28. All Surface No Feeling – Manic Street Preachers
29. The One – Tracy Bonham
30. Don’t Marry Her – The Beautiful South

No. 25 is one of those great one hit wonders. I spent the summer of 1996 in the US and it seemed to be on the radio all the time.