Pre-Millennial Affection

1999 saw earnestness return to music. With a mixed public response.

The late-90s were an odd musical era. Kurt was dead and we were starting to get over our Kurt Damage. Although post-rock had stroking our chins with vigour, and – in Melbourne at least – slowcore ruled both the pubs and public radio, there was also the space developing for pop to be appreciated, and for bands to be earnest without being deemed uncool.

This was especially the case in the United Kingdom, which always maintained a more open-minded approach to music, that transcended the aloofness and cynicism of indie scenes, where making the charts was both a band’s ambition and something that didn’t damage their credibility.

In 1999, an otherwise insignificant Big Beat duo, Mint Royale, teamed up with Lauren Laverne from power-pop fourpiece, Kenickie (and now of the BBC), to write an utterly sparkling love song – Don’t Falter. A song the bursts with enthusiasm and joy, and unambiguously seeks to be the feelgood hit of the summer (overlooking that it was written about the guitarist from Arab Strap).

To this day I remain astonished that it peaked at only number 15 on the UK charts. Maybe we weren’t quite ready for this level of glee and sincerity? With song appearing just before music got happy again in the early-2000 (albeit briefly).

If Don’t Falter couldn’t get the widespread adulation it deserved, Ooberman’s Shorely Wall was always going to fall flat. Twee-prog was never to to be a genre to capture a great deal of interest – trying to meld two almost mutually exclusive constituencies.

Before disappearing, Ooberman released a pair of frankly ridiculous albums that were annoyingly catchy but suffered from trying to cram too many ideas into them. Shorely Wall, however, could have, in some other timeline, been an important song.

The song is meticulously constructed and has a gorgeous sighed harmony underneath chorus’s main vocal. The spoken word outro is built on teenage tears, and in at least a handful of bedrooms would have been jotted down and clutched close to the heart.