Faster Than a Cannonball 1995 and All That

, Decades tend to crest halfway through, and 1995 was <i>the year</i> of the Nineties: peak Britpop (Oasis v Blur), peak YBA (Tracey Emin's tent), peak New Lad (when Nick Hornby published <i>High Fidelity</i>, when James Brown's <i>Loaded</i> detonated the publishing industry, and when pubs were finally allowed to stay open on a Sunday). It was the year of <i>The Bends</i>, the year Danny Boyle started filming <i>Trainspotting</i>, the year Richey Edwards went missing, the year Alex Garland wrote <i>The Beach</i>, the year Blair changed Clause IV after a controversial vote at the Labour Conference.<br> <br> <br> <br> Not only was the mid-Nineties perhaps the last time that rock stars, music journalists and pop consumers held onto a belief in rock's mystical power, it was a period of huge cultural upheaval - in art, literature, publishing and drugs. And it was a period of almost unparalleled hedonism, a time when many people thought they deserved to live the rock and roll lifestyle, when a generation of narcotic omnivores thought they could all be rock stars just by buying a magazine and a copy of <i>(What's the Story) Morning Glory?</i><br> <br> <br> <br> <i>Faster Than a Cannonball</i> is a cultural swipe of the decade from loungecore to the rise of New Labour, teasing all the relevant artistic strands through interviews with all the major protagonists and exhaustive re-evaluations of the important records of the year - <i>The Bends</i> by Radiohead, <i>Grand Prix</i> by Teenage Fanclub, <i>Maxinquaye</i> by Tricky, <i>Different Class</i> by Pulp, <i>The Great Escape</i> by Blur, <i>It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah!</i> by Black Grape, <i>Exit Planet Dust</i> by the Chemical Brothers, <i>I Should Coco</i> by Supergrass, <i>Elastica</i> by Elastica, <i>Pure Phase</i> by Spiritualized, ...<i>I Care Because You</i> Do by Aphex Twin and of course <i>(What's the Story) Morning Glory</i> by Oasis, the most iconic album of the decade.,<br> <br>