Standing before the Tempest- Growing up in the late 1990s
It was mad, brilliant and wonderful. Put on your rose-tinted glasses.
A couple of years ago I was in Stockholm for a video game convention hosted by one of my favourite publishers, Paradox Interactive (who I have written about previously) who produce the sort of sweeping historical grand strategy games that are my bread and butter. The nature of the convention is only important because it gives a little background context as to why it was I ended up on a bus full of random people discussing culture and politics. I can’t even really remember how we got onto the topic, but the conversation ended up with someone else (who I should say, was not British, or they would no doubt have shyly neglected to make the following statement) asserting that Britain had maintained a great culture for the last several hundred years. Sensing that this was one of those debates that could be settled with one of those single rhetorical sweeps that so rarely come along, I pulled out my phone, and headed straight to YouTube. The video I sought was this one.
To the poor souls who were brave enough not to fear a Rick-roll and followed that link, you have my deepest and sincerest apologies, and I hope that you’ll forgive my imposition. To those that have not and would prefer me to explain (an eventuality that I concede might apply even if you did follow the link), that link takes you to the music video for the 1993 Christmas number one in the United Kingdom. Whilst Christmas number ones are no longer a big thing in the UK (killed by attritional years of cut-and-paste TV talent show screeching, social media campaigns run by people who haven’t left their basements or looked out of a window for weeks to see if there’s anything better to do, and endless songs which are ‘comically’ adjusted to be heavy on sausage rolls) back then they still carried some degree of social weight.
The 1993 Christmas number one, unlike some of its predecessors, was not a traditional Christmassy song, replete with jingle bells, saccharine sentiments and nostalgic pseudo-Victorian sentiment. Nor was it a rehash of an old hit, rereleased or rerecorded to top up a musical pension. The 1993 number one, as those of you who watched that YouTube video and are now alternately gouging your eyes out with teaspoons and pouring bleach into your ears in the hope that it has a seriously deleterious effect will be aware, was the novelty song “Mr Blobby”.
It is, by almost every measure, one of the worst songs ever written or recorded. If it has a single redeeming feature, it is that it ends. Unfortunately, this is countered by the fact that it only does so after four minutes. It goes beyond the quaintly eccentric, or even curiously mad to plum the depths of genuine concern for its authors and everyone involved in its making. An MTV critic suggested that it was an attempt to “kill music”, and MTV critics have had to sit through a lot of dross. The Telegraph, who admittedly aren’t known for their love of the new, named it the worst Christmas number one in history and said it would neve be usurped from that position. In my view, it alone not so much refutes the argument that British culture has any greatness, as nukes it from orbit destroying the planet the idea was on and leaving a serious bruise on the fact of space time itself.
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