It was last updated on Wednesday, March 03, 1999

The entire content of this web site is © Copyright Francis Madeira 1998

Beth Orton - Stollen Car Beth ‘Comedown Queen’ Orton is back. After the astonishingly well received debut Trailer Park, and featuring On both Chemical Brother LPs (including the best track on Exit Planet Dust). The extremely trendy 27-year-old folk songstress is unusually talented, and should expect even more success this time round, if the obviously Orton new single Stolen Car is anything to go by. Watch out for the new LP, Central Reservation, out March 8th Boyzone - When The Going Gets Tough 0! I am not one for charity records. I’m all for giving money to charity, and do so frequently, but I feel that the singles chart should be representative of the country’s most popular music, and not the country’s most popular charity. Having said that if the charity record is a good record it should be given critical acclaim. This record however deserves no acclaim whatsoever. Billy Ocean’s original hit from the Jewel In The Nile soundtrack was a fantastic single, but this does not even equal the brilliance of the original, let alone improve on it. B-Side What A Wonderful World by Alison Moyet is much more appealing but certainly not the best cover version of that song I have ever heard. Delakota - 555 This is wicked. It's so 1999! Delakota are the band to watch for this year - this single (complete with a David Holmes remix, baby!) should be massive (though no doubt it won't be, as it hadn't secured the all-important radio airplay). It's ideal background music for late-night drinking sessions (particularly if stuck on a tape with Jurassic 5!) - it hasn't got an intrusive beat or anything like that - just flows along swimmingly! George Michael & Mary J Blige - As Stevie Wonder’s superlative song, As has been covered many a time but few versions have flowed like this one. Both George Michael and Mary J Blige sing very well, and the video for the song features hundreds of Marys and Georges dancing together and is definitely worth checking out - not quite Fatboy Slim - Praise You but definitely a video of the year. The Knowledge released a very trendy house version of this track back in 1997 which still sounds extremely fresh and much better than this - if you can’t find the single [FFRR - FCD 312] then a version is on the Cream Anthems 1998 CD - Seb Fontaine disc John Spencer Blues Explosion - Talk About The Blues Why are the blues not commercially successful in this country? You would think that there would be enough blues fans in this country to propel a single such as this into the lower reaches of the chart at least, but up until now John Spencer Blues Explosion have failed to achieve their deserved success - even with all that oh-so-important critical acclaim, but this single may well change things. For a start the song is great, but that seldom matters in our chart anymore - more significant is that David Holmes has remixed the track, and the video (which is a bonus track on the CD) features non other than Winona Ryder! Plus stars of Boogie Nights & Saving Private Ryan! JSBX Mini-tour UK 99: April 20 Glasgow Garage, April 21 Manchester Uni, April 22 London Forum. Worth Checking Out. Kleshay - Rush Talented R&B trio Kleshay are British girls Alani, Candii & Leah who are set to be massive, unfortunately due to their colour they won’t get on the covers of any of the magazines or tabloids which bring all that bad good press which has helped all the other girl groups to the top of the charts, but with songs like Rush and Reasons they shouldn’t need any of that. As with Reasons, Rush has some decent Full Crew remixes, and in a fair world should be headed straight for the top ten when it’s released on February 8th. Kleshay tour with Another Level in April. Propellerheads - Extended Play EP You have to buy this single! There is no doubt in my mind that any of my readers would not love this old fashioned style EP which has been banned from the UK chart for being too long! The stupid CIN ruling which came into effect last year and has pretty much killed the UK singles market has meant that one of the coolest releases of 1999 will never chart, even though it has one song featuring the Jungle Brothers!!!! Another featuring De La Soul!!!! And two other tracks including a reworking of the classic Radio One chart rundown theme, Crash, which is very funky and has a video with Elvis and Propeller Alex Gifford doing an old Morcome and Wise sketch! Rae & Christian - All I Ask This slow delightful new single from R&C featuring Veba is the second from their superb debut Northern Sulphuric Soul. Released on the 15th, this is backed by a DJ Spinna remix and a new track and is well worth checking out. Impendind UK tour dates for Feb 99: 17 Leeds Cockpit, 18 Mnachester Uni, 19 Glasgow, 23 Brighton Zap Club, 24 Bristol Fleece & Firkin’, 25 London King’s College. Space Raiders - Laid Back Space Raiders rule - after Glam Raid, one of 1998’s best singles, Space Raiders return with the less crazy Laid Back, inspired by the feeling they felt after gigs when touring with the now barely existent Lo-Fidelity Allstars. This is just a teaser of the new album - a full review will be on-line here in the near future, accompanied by Mackie’s interview with the Space Raiders! Stony Sleep - A Slack Romance This is the best non-dance LP of 1999 so far. Stony Sleep are not heavy enough for Kerrang! But probably too heavy for NME, so I don’t know where all their fans are going to come from, but they definitely deserve plenty on the strength of this second album. A Slack Romance features many different styles - most tracks rely heavily on guitars, but the final track is a soft piano led end is a complete contrast to the aggressive rock of the other 12 tracks. Every song is well written, well produced, and, most importantly, has a very funky name - Christmas On Mars, Feline Groovy, Superbadasssweetdaddyjones etc etc. The only thing this album lacks is the silver lizard which featured on the sleeve of the debut! There’s even a song if you leave the CD playing long enough! This band will go far! Tatyana Ali - Kiss The Sky Tatyana Ali is a very talented girl, whose new album has lots of nice songs - nothing too challenging, but not at all bad for a first attempt. The album is surprisingly short, with the intro, interlude and almost identical Will Smith remix of Boy You Knock Me Out (which is thrown in as well as the original) making the 13 tracks seem longer than they actually are. The first two singles seem to be the strongest ones, and I doubt this album could stretch to four top ten hits without more Big Willie Style help, but it is nice to see Will looking after his old friends, and also nice to think that her whole singing career started in that episode of Fresh Prince when Ashley defied her parents by signing a recording contract with Will as her manager. She got really popular, but by the time the single was in all the shops the public had lost interest - she was upset but her father was happy as it wasn’t the business he wanted his daughter to go into, and it all worked out right in the end. After that episode everyone kept asking her when her single was going to be released. In real life Tatyana is just as studious as her character - having just deferred her entry to Harvard no less to concentrate on music for a year.