Back in the good old days (no, they weren’t!) this was what the music sounded like (no, it wasn’t).
Interesting details: this would be the last time Björk and Tricky made it to our list. We can only apologize. Interesting newcomers were Belle & Sebastian (highest position: 3), Conershop, Atari Teenage Riot and Ani DiFranco (highest position: 4). We liked Ani so much we put her entire back catalogue (which hit the European shelves in 1997 for the very first time) in the list. The idea of Suede to put all their excellent B-sides on one disc made us gentle enough to put the entire album on chart position 49. Exotic Nordic extravaganza include Larry and the Lefthanded and Bob Hund.
The list also included a number of Butter 08 and we only found out later that the album was released no sooner than 1998. Please also note that our number 1 only became a hit in 1998. Our hopes that the same would go for 98’s number 1 (Solex) were only materialised in Holland, England and the United States. Still, that could have been worse.
Anyway, this was 1997's best of breed:
1 BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Lazy line painter Jane
2 SUEDE Filmstar
3 CORNERSHOP Brimful of Asha
4 ANI DiFRANCO "Back catalogue"
5 RADIOHEAD Karma police
6 FOLK IMPLOSION Pole position
7 BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Belle and Sebastian
8 BJÖRK FEAT. ALEC EMPIRE Pluto
9 BLUR Song 2
10 ANI DiFRANCO In or out
11 RADIOHEAD Paranoid android
12 CORNERSHOP Good ships
13 FOLK IMPLOSION Insinuation
14 GALA Let the boy cry
15 TRACY BONHAM Navy bean
16 BJÖRK Bachelorette
17 FOLK IMPLOSION Burning paper
18 JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION Wail
19 BENTLEY RHYTHM ACE Bentley’s gonna sort you out
20 ATARI TEENAGE RIOT Destroy 2000 years of culture
21 CORNERSHOP Candyman
22 GUS GUS Believe
23 LARRY AND THE LEFTHANDED Dance me me
24 LEE HAZELWOOD Poet, fool or bum
25 URUSEI YATSURA Fake fur
26 BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Judy and the dream of horses
27 PULP Help the aged
28 CORNERSHOP Butter the soul
29 ATARI TEENAGE RIOT Deutschland has gotta die
30 RADIOHEAD Airbag
31 [???]
32 KENT Om du vär har
33 GALLON DRUNK To love somebody
34 BOB HUND Dusseldorf
35 SUEDE Europe is our playground
36 EELS Susan’s house
37 HELIUM Leon’s space song
38 SELIG Popstar
39 SERVOTRON People mover
40 DAVID DEVANT AND HIS SPIRIT WIFE Ginger
41 BJÖRK I miss you
42 ANI DiFRANCO Hide and seek
43 SUEDE Lazy
44 ATARI TEENAGE RIOT Get up while you can
45 RADIOHEAD No surprises
46 BLUR Death of a party
47 BECK The new pollution
48 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Hermann loves Pauline
49 SUEDE "Sci-Fi Lullabies"
50 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS The international language of screaming
51 JUNGLE BROTHERS Brain
52 BUTTER 08 Butterfucker
53 DE BOSSEN Speed queen
54 WHITE TOWN Your woman
55 LARRY AND THE LEFTHANDED Il fantasma del Italpark
56 dEUS Fell off the floor, man
57 THE FALL I’m a mummy
58 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Demons
59 BENTLEY RHYTHM ACE Midlander
60 SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER For heaven’s sake
61 SMASHING PUMPKINS Eye
62 STEVE EARLE N.Y.C.
63 PRIMUS Over the fall
64 NOORDKAAP Triest
65 TRICKY Tricky kid
66 STEREOLAB Miss modular
67 PORTISHEAD Elysium
68 BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Dog on wheels
69 DAFT PUNK Around the world
70 PENTHOUSE Voyeur’s blues
71 ELITE FORCE A main frame lacker
72 OCEAN COLOUR SCENE 100 miles high
73 DAVID DEVANT AND HIS SPIRIT WIFE This is for real
74 NIGHTNURSE Golem
75 JOHN FOGERTY Walking in a hurricane
76 OSDORP POSSE Geen clubhit
77 COLDCUT More beats and pieces
78 PORTISHEAD Over
79 ATARI TEENAGE RIOT & SLAYER No remorse
80 GRANDADDY Everything beautiful is far away
81 BLOODHOUND GANG Kiss me where it smells funny
82 BLONDE REDHEAD Bi-polar
83 THE HERBALISER Blend
84 GENEVA Worry beats
85 GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI Meiron wyllt
86 JIMI TENOR Sugardaddy
87 WANNADIES Shorty
88 SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER My narrow mind
89 GALA Freed from desire
90 ANDREW DORFF Death to sorry
91 DIMITRI FROM PARIS Sacré français
92 LAMB Gorecki
93 SLEATER-KINNEY Dance song ‘97
94 JAY JAY JOHANSON So tell the girls that I am back in town
95 CAKELIKE Lorraine’s car
96 DE LEGENDE Het oog/oor van Sören Kierkegaard
97 CARTER Negative equity
98 22 PISTEPIRKKO Birdy
99 SUGAR TOOTH Club foot