Honestly, I am not trying to be wilfully obscure by having two years in a row where my track of the year is a foreign language song that never troubled the UK charts or consciousness. This is all about the songs that soundtracked my life, and my life involved a lot of dabbling in European pop at this time. I came across the band Niagara on one of those late-night TV shows, probably hosted by Antoine de Caunes, and went out and bought their current album, Religion, and immediately fell in love with the song Pendant Que Les Champs Brûlent.

I still have no idea what the lyrics are about and I really don’t care enough to try translating them, because Pendant Que Les Champs Brûlent just sounds so gorgeous. While I do appreciate catchy lines in a lyric I am not too bothered if I can’t understand a song because of the language or because, like in death metal, I can’t make out the words. It is probably why I never got heavily into artists who do a lot of story-telling in their songs: I am just listening to the sound unless some odd phrase grabs my attention.

Anyway, Pendant Que Les Champs Brûlent is such a seductive-sounding song, underpinned by a strong bassline, and the way Muriel Laporte sings words like “Accrochée” makes you melt. The song is not really representative of the album or the band, but is one of my all-time favourites in any language.

I did get to see Niagara in London and they had everything I could have wanted from a band: very funky bass player, horn section and hammond organ. I was one of the few Brits in the Marquee club that night, as the place was stuffed with French ex-pats. I was chatting to some people who had travelled from Switzerland especially for that show.

By this time I had given up hope of becoming fluent in French, but I had got hooked on the music so continued listening to it. I was still going to Paris for work and the hotel had a French music channel so I made note of songs I liked and hunted down the records. Or cassettes.

As a result I missed out on some things that I only caught up with much later like NWA’s Straight Outta Compton and Primus’s Frizzle Fry, but there was plenty in this first year of a new decade that I did enjoy at the time like Public Enemy, Dread Zeppelin, George Michael’s Listen Without Prejudice, and Waiting for Cousteau by Jean Michel Jarre – the French artist it wasn’t pretentious to enjoy. All of those bring back specific memories.

For Dread Zeppelin it is the memory of failing to see them play at the Marquee club. The band performed reggae versions of Led Zeppelin songs, with vocals provided by an Elvis impersonator which all seemed obscure enough that we could just turn up and go in. When we just turned up we found that the queue stretched all the way back to Leicester Square and there was no way we were going to get in.

For Jean Michel Jarre it is also the memory of failing to get to the concert. He was performing at La Defense and I had intended to visit the girlfriend in Paris that weekend, but she was in Brussels and it all fell through, as did the relationship soon after. Who would have guessed that going out with someone who lives abroad was not sustainable?

The new decade started well for pop singles with lots that was good and lots that was memorable, even if some of the memorable stuff was not really that good. We had Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Epic by Faith No More, Suicide Blonde by INXS, Paua Abdul with Opposites Attract, Vogue by Madonna, Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, Londonbeat with I’ve Been Thinking About You, Paul Simon’s album Rhythm of the Saints, and Betty Boo. Also a couple more Technotric songs that were almost identical to Pump Up the Jam. My collection of 12″ dance singles had quite a few from 1990!

Ah Betty Boo. I had the album and played it to death. It was a Christmas present from Bernie. The singles were just so catchy and the whole cartoon persona was so endearing that it is easy to forget that she was, and is, a very talented musician and songwriter who should be taken more seriously. I am not ashamed at all to be a Betty Boo fan, and there is no hint or irony or ‘guilty pleasure’ about it.

Of course the big event of the year was the World Cup. As I was travelling around a bit I missed a lot of it, but I was fortunate to be in Italy for part of Italia ’90 and watched the Argentina v Italy game in a hotel restaurant in Milanofiori. The whole room had been re-arranged so that diners could see a huge TV that had been installed. The waiters were getting increasingly over-excited by the game and slopping food everywhere as they were paying more attention to the TV than the plates. I ended up watching the penalty shoot-out up in my room to avoid the utter carnage in the restaurant and bar.

Some other games I watched in my girfriend’s flat in Paris, on a portable black and white TV with French commentary. That is how I saw the famous Gazza’s tears semi-final.

The tournament was also significant musically, and not just because we had a decent England single in the New Order song with the legendary John Barnes rap break. It kicked off the connection between opera and football, made everybody familiar with Nessun Dorma, and the ‘three tenors’. It saw a Pavarotti album and the Three Tenors albums both top the albums chart.

I could easily have picked Epic or Groove is in the Heart as my track of the year. They both evoke memories of good times in very different clubs, but it was Niagara that I was listening to when I got home.