In his final round-up of singles by decade, following The Original Soundtrack, which covered the seismic 1970s and A Part of No Tribe, which took in the reactionary 1980s, Ian Moss looks at an era of splintering genres and confusing alliances in the 1990s.Indie music went corporate, while rap and dance music moved off street corners and out of bedrooms to dominate the charts. Eighties stars such as Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson were quick to adjust while record companies desperate to cash-in on a wave of indie bands attempted to reproduce the 1960s with a chart battle between Blur and Oasis (only one of whom are reviewed here).
Rap, house, garage, shoegaze, Britpop, big beat, grunge, drum ‘n’ bass - Ian gives his final opinion on all of the quality music from a decade that often valued style over substance