NOW 32 - Autumn '95: Emma Harrison

Is this the way they say the future’s meant to be? It’s November 1995. Pop was pulling in many different directions. But predominantly, it was swaggering its way towards the end of the century in a confident, Union Jack draped fashion. Whilst dance music, boybands, TV based retro crooners and a range of other co-stars were vying for our well earned pounds in the likes of HMV and Virgin, it was the guitar driven sounds of Britpop that were sitting at the heart of most CD wish lists as Christmas approached. As always, the team at NOW were on hand to make sense of the latest and greatest hits from 1995 and successfully curate another selection of Top Chart Hits for us. Volume 32, graced with a wonderful wintry sunsheeeine (sorry) setting, welcomed listeners into two CDs (or cassettes or even vinyl!) containing forty of them. Legacy acts such as Queen, Meat Loaf, U2, Tina Turner and Cher provided the familiarity. A sparkling range of great (and, lets be honest, a few not so great) dance bangers including N-Trance, Berri and The Original. But for most purchasing or unwrapping NOW32 in 1995, it was the allure of the likes of Pulp, Radiohead, Cast, Paul Weller AND, of course, the chart battle of blur and Oasis that makes this particular volume of our favourite compilation so iconic. A moment in time? A moment when Britpop demonstrated that it has outgrown NME and was now on the Nine O’ clock news. Joining me for this episode is music and travel journalist Emma Harrison. Together, come back with us THIRTY years to revisit a time when Pulp were the biggest pre-selling artist on Island records, when Jimmy Nail was a genuine pin up for 12 year old girls(!), when Bono and The Edge were writing Bond themes and something called Sacred Spirit was breaking out of aromatherapy rooms into the (very low end of the) charts! Rediscover some genuine 90s classics from the likes of McAlmont & Butler and Everything but the Girl. Revel at how wonderful the HELP compilation album still is. Amaze yourself at a time when Christmas TOTP was presented by Bjork and Jack Dee (and they got away with it, spectacularly) and as always, argue with the presenters and their ‘missing’ track selections from 1995. And celebrate (yes, CELEBRATE) the total lack of Robson and Jerome! Sometimes, NOW really do get it completely right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to NOW 32 - Autumn '95: Emma Harrison online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

NOW 32 - Autumn '95: Emma Harrison is an episode from Back to NOW! by Iain McDermott.

This episode is 56:42 long.

This episode was published on Oct 4, 2025.

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