The Charlatans – One To Another

This weeks’ selection of vintage music focuses in on great bands of the 1990’s playing their classic material to a present day mid 2020’s audience. And still sounding amazing if not even better than in their heyday. It also maybe highlights the difficulty so many bands have in matching the highs of their early records with new material years later. There are some in these selections who have re-formed on the basis that they remain creative and put out fresh music, others who willingly accept their audiences appetite for the old stuff and then some, like first offering The Charlatans, who have never really stopped writing new albums and mixing it up live with the older classics. Still, seen here in the 2025 series of ‘Later With Jools Holland,’ they had initially played a couple of tunes from their latest release but it was still their rendition of this 1996 classic that gave the show a suitably rousing finale.

Blur – Beetlebum

Blur’s Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon have both individually remained relentlessly creative musicians and have learned the value in re-branding for newer projects and loosening themselves from the shackles of the past. And even though they are fully aware that the re-formed Blur are playing Wembley Stadium, as they did in 2023, not because of the new music but rather to let the golden days of the nineties rain down one more time, this did not stop them from tying a recently recorded album of new songs to the venture. By the time of the concerts however, there was only a passing acknowledgement of ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ during shows, attracting crowds of roughly 150,000 across two nights, that revisited the classics such as this 1997 number one single, taken from their ‘Blur’ album of the same year.

The Lemonheads – My Drug Buddy

Of course the thing about The Lemonheads is that they are essentially a one man vehicle for the music of Evan Dando, the other band members remaining a rolling cast of side-people that would not detract from the commercial clout of a Lemonheads project, no matter the identity of the players at Evan’s side. He obviously was canny enough to recognise that the band name packs more of a punch for his new music than he received when trying out as a solo artist. Furthermore, going out under the band name has given Dando license to dip into the pair of still un-surpassed grunge era classics they released; ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘Come On Feel The Lemonheads’. A temptation that got the host especially excited on a recent TV appearance for ‘Tonight With Jimmy Fallon.’

The Cardigans – My Favourite Game

There is no evidence that I can find of The Cardigans having ever officially split up but despite this, they have not released a new album of songs since 2006’s ‘Super Extra Gravity.’ From 2011 onwards however, they have played together for occasional gigs or festival appearances, describing themselves when asked as still a going concern although evidently one that is happy to play the old stuff. It is true that they were thought of as quite twee in their earlier days and so by the time the band hit big with this song later in the 1990’s, it actually was a head-turning surprise. By the sounds of this recent live appearance, the harder rock muscle of their work remains an element they are very comfortable with, indeed they quite excel at it.

The Beta Band – Dry The Rain

Before they got a big shout out in the film ‘High Fidelity’ towards the end of the nineties, not too many had heard of The Beta Band and indeed, by the time they split up in 2004 it did feel like a case of gone way too soon. Some 21 years later they announced their reunion to tie in with a deluxe re-issue of ‘The Three EP’s’ and they atypically, amusingly, accompanied the news with statements about “shaking it out every couple of decades” and “showing the wall the Luminol, killing the lights and hitting the UV.”

Oasis – Cigarettes And Alcohol

Unlike their rivals from the decade, Blur, the re-formed Oasis showed absolutely no interest in writing any new material or attaching any particular importance to having the original line up of band members from the classic period. Neither were they bothered about TV or film coverage of the shows, this was all about the numbers all the way and squeezing every last drop out of the public appetite to attend and experience this communal live event. That is not to criticise though, because as this live clip from last year definitively proves, the combination of audience energy and band conviction did generate some authentic rock ‘n’ roll momentum from the occasions as the songs that made Oasis great in the first place enjoyed a fully deserved resurrection.