Critics Roundup 1990

It’s a funny old game indeed … Maggie out, Mary in, the Cold War defrosted. The Wall comes tumbling down and Rock’s dinosaurs are there to dumbly applaud and bicker over the prime-time TV slots! Phew!

1990 saw lots of the usual (disastrous) high-profile charity events … Morrissey as profound as ever, the highly inflammable Gulf crisis intensifying before our eyes, the Ozone layer being rapidly forgotten, yet more albums from Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash, John Cale and Lou Reed, and John Martyn reinaugurated as the Bonnie Prince of Scotland and rightful heir to the throne … And through all the upheavals and crossing of new frontiers, good old rock music as there, cornerstone of the establishment, pillar of society, a reliable stew of reactionary values – there was no Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and not even a whisper from Elvis (Costello, that is) …

Live …

Marianne Faithful at the Tivoli Theatre in February with just Barry Reynolds, her naked voice and a bottle of Ballygowan was terrifyingly chilling. She rattled with nerves and gave a performance of extraordinary intensity … The Coletranes in March in Walters of Dun Laoghaire distilled honeycombed tunes, in particular ‘Say You Will’ – potentially the most perfect pop song of the century if it ever gets recorded … More recently there was the delightful surprise of the innovative Conmen and a maniacally enthusiastic Lord John White who had more people dancing in The Baggot that I’ve ever seen in my life …

The Go-Betweens were sadly missed but the sweet whispering silences of the Cowboy Junkies sweep you away to a place where you don’t really care about walls, ugly Prime Ministers, beautiful presidents or Pink Floyd’s ego.

I listen to ‘The Caution Horses’ therefore I am – and I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.