My Festive 30 from 1998 – the final one

1998 was the last time my siblings and I gathered together some time around Christmas and read out our Festive 50 lists to each other. I can’t remember if compiling Festive 50s for 1999 was ever considered, but I doubt I would have even been able to come up with a Top 30. I think I only bought one new album in 1999 and that was Apple Venus Volume 1 by XTC, who are more of a 1980s band anyway. So here’s that final Festive 30. Why are Gomez in there, I wonder. Bring it On is possibly the album purchase I am most embarrassed by. The lesson is never buy an album just because it’s won the Mercury Music prize.

1. Sunrise – The Divine Comedy
2. Way Over Yonder in a Minor Key – Billy Bragg & Wilco
3. God Give Me Strength – Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
4. The Day After the Revolution – Pulp
5. Window Shopping for Blinds- The Beautiful South
6. Generation Sex – The Divine Comedy
7. Mulder and Scully – Catatonia
8. Tsunami – Manic Street Preachers
9. The Unwelcome Guest – Billy Bragg & Wilco
10. Daysleeper – R.E.M.
11. The Ballad of Tom Jones – Space featuring Cerys Matthews
12. This is Hardcore – Pulp
13. In the Darkest Place – Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
14. Game On – Catatonia
15. Get Myself Arrested – Gomez
16. How Long’s a Tear Take to Dry – The Beautiful South
17. Painted From Memory – Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
18. Gone ‘Til November – Wyclef
19. National Express – The Divine Comedy
20. International Velvet – Catatonia
21. Glory Days – Pulp
22. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will be Next – Manic Street Preachers
23. The Certainty of Chance – The Divine Comedy
24. California Stars – Billy Bragg & Wilco
25. Here Comes the Flood – The Divine Comedy
26. Bad Old Man – Baby Bird
27. The Table – The Beautiful South
28. The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim
29. 78 Stone Wobble – Gomez
30. Avenging Angels – Space

Curiously, the only act that is in both my first Festive 50 of 1990 and this final one is The Beautiful South.