Nothing Serious (Just Blogging)

As regular blog readers will know, I've chosen to dedicate July to the music and pop culture of the 1990's. This has been a harder task than I thought - not because there isn't good material to be found, but because it is so diverse. Judging by my download streams, the most popular posts are albums from the early 80's, and generally if you like the new wave sound, you will like music from that era. But the 90's is so fragmented that an album that I like may have very limited appeal to others, so I have found it harder to balance stuff I like with stuff that people might be interested in or looking for.

The positive side is that if you do find something you connect with, then the availability is much better. Amazon has streams of 90's albums available through third party sellers for under a dollar. For example, I found a terrific album by the group SYN called A Matter Of Time, which cost about 90 cents and was still in the wrapper with the original Best Buy price tag of $11.99.

Random 90's Wednesday has been interesting to me because I have no idea until five minutes before posting what tracks I am going to put up. There's a lot of difference, sonically, between something from 1991 and 1998. But it's all stuff I like, and I'm enjoying putting it out there. I have to mention one track in particular. I featured it on my other blog Left A Bit and it had no hits, so I reposted it here. The track is a pop tune called "Anyway" by a power pop outfit called Poole. It wasn't a single and wasn't one of the tracks recommended for radio play on my promo CD, but I just think it's a fantastic song, so if you haven't checked it out yet, here it is again:

Poole - Anyway

BTW, my Fileden bandwidth got sucked up again. I'm not mad, because I'm pretty sure it was due to a glowing recommendation from Halfhearted Dude on his blog, so I appreciate the extra traffic. In the meantime, I'm using Mediafire.

You might notice some new links in my blogroll. Several site I have been following have become inactive, but while researching my 1990's material, several blogs appeared that cover the Britpop era very comprehensively. Now I came very late to the Britpop party, in 1996 just when the scene was starting to slow down. So I appreciate sites like Moody Places, that posts a myriad of CD singles from the early to mid 90's, and Dirk Wears White Socks, that does something similar but also throws in an album or two. My perennial favorite Box Set Go is another good source for "baggy" material, as is Madchester Rave On. Frankly, I have found so much unfamiliar material on these sites that it's going to take a while to absorb it all. I'm thinking I may produce some compilations of tracks that stood out to me.

Other more general sites I have added are the excellent Castles In Space and Echoes In The Wind, both well worth checking out.