Pop: Lyric Sheets: 1998 - A Drear Year

A brief glance back at a fairly uneventful year in pop music

The dullest year ever in pop

Try asking next December

What was big in Ninety-eight?

I bet you won't remember

Costello paired with Bacharach?

It should have worked - I rushed, I paid

It gathers dust upon my rack

The most expensive musak made

Return to stage for Plant and Page

Return-to-form, U2

Blur, Oasis treading water

Up to scratch but nothing new

Boy bands, girl bands, factory fresh

Fast-track plans, identi-hits

Sleekly coiffured, choreographed.

Now available as kits

Other chart-space allocations

Share and Cher-alike

Please send my congratulations

Decent tunesmiths all on strike?

Of the three Canadians

Dion, Morissette and Adams

Two have names like vintage cars

One is sir and two are madams

This year's talent, mostly Welsh

First prize to... of course, The Manics

Second, Catatonia

- Melanie plus four mechanics

Welcome back, Massive Attack

Wind up clock, put on pyjamas

Personal album-of-the-year?

Cold and Bouncy by High Llamas