I wish I could say that I’d heard of The Boo Radleys before they had a huge hit with this song, but I can’t. That is because I was about 11 when I heard it on the radio for the first time during the glorious year of 1995. More of my memories of growing up in 1995 with Britpop can be found HERE. That same year I bought a ‘Smash Hits’ compilation cassette, not one that came free with the pop mag but one that was on commercial release. Featuring such horrors as Scatman John, Clock and The Outhere Brothers, it also included the better likes of Edwyn Collins and Oasis. I must admit that I didn’t become a big fan of this group until they were about to release their final album, 1998’s massively underrated ‘Kingsize’. After becoming a huge admirer of that LP it was very sad when the band announced their split shortly afterwards, but from then on it was a matter of discovering their older material that I hadn’t heard first time around. And hearing the sublime ‘Giant Steps’ was a revelation. So it is annoying when radio stations only seem to play this one track by the group and ignore everything else they created during their magical career. And although it was flawed slightly overall, the other tracks from 1995’s number 1 album ‘Wake Up!’ are definitely worth investigation.
