The Charlatans (UK) – to get the weekend rolling. Recorded at King George’s Hall in Blackburn on November 2, 1990 and preserved for posterity by BBC Radio 1.
Certainly one of the bands that ushered in the 90s on a hopeful note, The Charlatans demonstrated that, without a doubt, referencing earlier genres was not only healthy it was alive well and breathing new life into Popular Music.
In short, The Charlatans helped pave the way for a musical renaissance that embraced other genres, mixed with their own points of view and made them their own. They sent a signal indicating music was an open menu that demanded inspection. We had been in the habit in recent years of tossing out a lot of meaningful strides, replacing them with safe music that wasn’t a good place for Pop music to be in – it helped illustrate that the Mainstream was losing touch.
With The Charlatans came a wave of new bands and new ideas that breathed new life but also helped separate the Mainstream into safe and adventuresome and asked the question “which side are you on?” – no place was that more apparent that the state of Radio in America at the time. I don’t recall ever hearing The Charlatans on commercial FM but did hear them a lot on College stations – and that was a harbinger of things to come.
Listening to The Charlatans in this 1990 concert I was aware that we were in for some interesting (in a good way) changes and music was still in a healthy place. A far cry from how it is in 2024 where new music and new ideas struggle even harder to be heard in light of mainstreams (i.e. Corporate) desperate attempt to maintain the spotlight and status quo. Right now, we have it on good faith that new music is still in a healthy place – in 1990 we were convinced it was.
It’s still out there, we just have to dig deep.
In the meantime – press Play and dive into the weekend.
