POP BITES OF A T4 MUSIC MAESTRO:

A quick peek a boo at the singles chart and you’ll notice that it's all gone a wee bit old skool 1990s revivalist... Take That, The Spices, Kylie, Oasis, Westlife, Nirvana, Seal and the even The Verve are still knocking around albeit at No 199. Seems like the time has come for the 1990s to now be considered vintage.


Adding fuel to this thought are three newly released CDs... 'Never Forget - The Very Best of the 90s’, ‘The Brit Box’ and the Spice Girls 'Greatest Hits'. One of these is almost genius, one you’ll want skip every other track the other is the most wretched collection ever released.



The only thing I think that I have in common with HRH is that 1992 was also my ‘Annus horribilis’. OK so I didn’t have a castle burn down or have a couple of pesky daughter in laws, but it was my worst year ever in terms of music. Everything that had once been magic and magnificent i.e. acieeeed house, Morrissey, Stock Aitken and Waterman (including Kylie), The Happy Mondays and even Smash Hits, to name a few, suddenly took a massive downturn. This damn year also introduced us to Suede, who ruined the party for everyone... see the track listing for the Brit Box CDs 2 to 5.

Thankfully the mid to late 90s saw a massive upturn thanks both to the Spice Girls - can you think of any other band (apart from two of Manchester’s finest) who’ve had such a good run of ten flawless singles?), and the French house phenomenon of Daft Punk and Air. You could almost smell the whiff of a 1990s French house revival this week (or was it garlic?) at the Digitalism gig in London town, only this was 2007 and they were bang on trend.

That’s the past and present dealt with so now to the future and oh what a future she has... Duffy is a newly-signed Welsh songtress who appears to be absolutely lovely and actually looks like she was born in 1992, even though she wasn’t. It is predicted by many that 2008 will be owned by Miss Duffy in the same way that Mr Mika and Mrs Winehouse-Fielder-Civil have owned 2007. And they just might be right.

Duffy’s album will be released in February 2008 and has been brilliantly produced by Mr Bernard Butler - oh no, not them again!

By Nick Neads - T4's Head of Music

T4 Music Maestro Part One featuring Girls Aloud, Leona Lewis, Alicia Keys and The Ting Tings.

Watch exclusive performances from Leona Lewis, Westlife and Hard-Fi at T4

Check out Duffy's MySpace page