Friday, December 26, 2008

- Countdown to Festive Season #10: 1990

Hope everyone had a nice time yesterday. Ok, first up it’s joke time:

One sunny day end of January, 2009 an old man approached the White House from Across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay", and walked away. The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and, again, just walked away. The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?" The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it." The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."


Now on to business… in 1990, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public due to safety concerns. Something to do with it leaning a bit, apparently. February was a pretty big month as history goes. In South Africa President F.W. de Klerk allowed the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to set Nelson Mandela free. This he fairly promptly did: Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was freed from Victor Verster prison outside Cape Town. Also, an agreement was reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany which, as we know, worked out so well. Indeed, East Germany hastily accepted the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West. Later in the year Latvia proclaimed independence and the first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Romania. In November, destroyer of towns Margaret Thatcher resigned as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which was nice.


Bitch

In the world of computing, the Windows 3.0 operating system was released by Microsoft to wide lack of acclaim and Paperback Software were found guilty by a U.S. court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program (that's the abacus equivalent of Excel for all you young 'uns). The first known World Wide Web page was written in November. Interestingly, on 8th July or 7th August, depending on how (un)American you are, the time and date was 12:34:56 7/8/90.


This was the future of dance music

This year’s Festive 50 was broadcast between 22nd and 30th December. This was the first chart for a while (ever?) to include a genuine pop chart #1 (OK, I’ll give you a clue, it went in at that all-important #44 slot, although officially it only made #2 in the pop charts – can you remember why?). If my memory serves me well (which it probably doesn’t), this was the closest I ever came to voting for an FF #1 (I went for MBV’s epic ‘soon’). There are a shed load of different downloads for this particular fifty, so I’ll try and make it easier for you not to get lost in them all:

22nd – here, here, here and here
23rd – here, here and here
29th – here, here, here, here and here
30th – here, here, here and here

6 comments:

entrailicus said...

The Festive Fifty of 1990:

1. Fall - Bill Is Dead
2. My Bloody Valentine - Soon
3. Ride - Dreams Burn Down
4. Ride - Like A Daydream
5. Sonic Youth - Tunic (Song For Karen)
6. Paris Angels - (All On You) Perfume
7. Wedding Present - Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
8. Happy Mondays - Step On
9. Wedding Present - Corduroy
10. Orb - Loving You
11. Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows
12. Would-Be's - I'm Hardly Ever Wrong
13. Lemonheads - Different Drum
14. New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Big
15. Fall - White Lightning
16. Morrissey - November Spawned A Monster
17. Charlatans - The Only One I Know
18. Wedding Present - Don't Talk, Just Kiss
19. Nick Cave - The Ship Song
20. Wedding Present - Heather
21. Boo Radleys - Kaleidoscope
22. Wedding Present - Crawl
23. Nirvana - Sliver
24. Pixies - The Happening
25. Ride - Taste
26. Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Kill Your Television
27. Lush - Sweetness And Light
28. Charlatans - Polar Bear
29. Dinosaur Jr - The Wagon
30. Fall - Blood Outta Stone
31. Pixies - Velouria
32. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro
33. Fatima Mansions - Blues For Ceaucescu
34. Shamen - Pro-Gen
35. Fall - Telephone Thing
36. Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends
37. Spiritualized - Any Way That You Want Me
38. Babes In Toyland - House
39. Wedding Present - Dalliance
40. Sonic Youth - Kool Thing
41. Fall - Chicago, Now!
42. Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds
43. Teenage Fanclub - God Knows It's True
44. Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart
45. Bastro - Nothing Special
46. Farm - Stepping Stone
47. Farm - Groovy Train
48. Pixies - Allison
49. Pixies - Dig For Fire
50. Inspiral Carpets - Beast Inside

So It Goes said...

Adamski!!! The 1982 Festive Fifty had Dexy's Midnight Runners' 'Come On Eileen' at number 19, with Peel freely admitting he'd never played it before.
Splendid job, excellent joke, spot on about T******r too.

So It Goes said...

Also, according to everyhit.com, Deee-Lite never got to number one. I quote:
'As computers began to play a greater part in the chart compilation / listing process it became more difficult to cope with records tieing for a position (there are technical reasons why it is much better to have distinct positions rather than shared ones.) For the week ending 15 Sep 1990, two records tied for number one - "The Joker" by Steve Miller Band and Dee-lite's "Groove Is In The Heart". Based on sales in the shops which contributed to the chart there was absolutely no difference between the two; it was a dead heat. But a rule introduced in the '80s was invoked; "The Joker" was given the number one as its sales had increased more from the previous week. Though they had sold sufficient copies to be a joint number one, Deee-lite were relegated to number two. Eager to deflect the flack which flew when this came to light, the chart compilers subsequently announced that "The Joker" had, in fact, on review of the figures, sold eight more copies than "Groove Is In The Heart."
Sorry, mate.

entrailicus said...

I knew that about Deee-Lite but I guess I'd always somehow manages to overlook Dexy's FF entry, although they were a much better band than many gave them credit for.

Anonymous said...

Some great songs in there. Thanks for sharing this one.

entrailicus said...

My pleasure. This is one of my favourites, truth be known.

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