Three weeks into the KLF War, and the Feared Republican Guard was still largely intact, reported allied sources. British Airways stepped up security checks, believing that the greatest threat came from Arabics wanting to blow up aeroplanes during flight.

The fallacy of this position was personally made clear to the prime minister at 10.10 on Thursday morning, when a meeting of the war cabinet was interrupted by falling snow, and falling mortar bombs, the latter courtesy of the IRA. No-one was injured after the bombs, fired from a van parked near Horseguards Parade, landed in the Downing-street garden. One eyewitness commented, The van looked in fairly good condition apart from the fact that it was a blazing inferno on the inside. Het Grauniad said on Friday that this put the kybosh under the new prime minister's plans to live an approachable lifestyle; the next day, Mr... er, erm... Mr Wotsisname dined at a Happy Eater on the A1 near Doncaster, and would have discussed the weather with other patrons, except that everyone else was off the road because of the weather.

Mr... er, erm... the prime minister had been forced into a change of plan when his helecopter had been unable to land, because there was heavy snowfall in Scarborough. Indeed, heavy snow covered much of the country: almost all routes across the Pennines were closed, railway points froze, airports were closed due to the access roads being shut, just four games were played in the Football League - all in the north-west - and the all-weather racing track at Lingfield called its meeting off.

British Rail's spokesman was asked about the failure of some of the company's newer trains. They had been crippled by precipitation entering their engines, melting, and flooding the moving parts with water. Though snowfall had been expected in the design of the engines, it was expected to be large wet flakes, not small and powdery ones. Snow like this gets everywhere, penetrating air filters and everything else. The specification is to operate in temperatures down to minus 20°C. But you can't know that there are going to be problems with a certain type of snow. By the time transport minister Mr. Rifkind answered questions the next week, the factual point was on the express line, set to crash into the buffers of cliché.

Trouble continued in the USSR, where the Kremlin (under Mr. Gorbechov) ordered Russian Radio not to give airtime to Mr. Yeltsin (Russian president). The USSR also said that it would not recognise a referendum in Lithuania, which resulted in a 90% mandate to establish an independent democratic republic. The USSR sent in the troops, ostensibly on manouvres.

Health warnings on cigarette packets became compulsory. In the latest appeal for the Birmingham Six, the prosecution said it no longer relied on forensic evidence; a full appeal will be heard on the 25th. Chelsea was given until the end of the season to raise £40 million or leave its Stamford Bridge ground. Cabra Estates, which owned the land beneath the stadium, lost patience with the club and its chairman Ken Bates. Thames Television was bought by Thorn EMI.

New at 71 came Tigertailz with Heaven. Here was the Great Welsh Hope for the 1990s: four guys with luridly large haircuts, a line in glam-rock revivalism, and wearing more spandex and eye-liner than anyone else in the pages of Kerrang, even the token girlies. They'd been on the verge of success since the summer of 1988, and second album Bezerk scraped into the top 30 in a quiet week at the start of 1990. Heaven was their second top 75 single, and their bigger hit. The group was dropped by their indie label before 1991 was out, and had fragmented into two warring bands by 1995.

New at 70 for the Real People, Open up your mind (let me in). It's the first hit for the London chancers, and we'll discuss their career in July. New at 69 came Energise with Report to the dancefloor. It's their one and only hit.

Last hit for the Frazier Chorus, Walking on air charts at 67. The group was formed in Brighton in the late 80s, and managed to survive without a single guitar or standard drum on their records. The group's best album was their first, Sue (1989), where they combined witty lyrics with sharp melodies to produce the perfect intelligent pop. Dream kitchen invited listeners to make a wish... it won't get you anywhere, and Cloud 8 was the place where things weren't perfect, just decent. Four singles from Sue made the top 60, but none quite made the top 50. A further roll of the dice had the band engage expensive remixers like Youth and Oakenfold to mix their second album Ray into dancefloor fillers. It didn't work, and the band was dropped faster than a hot potato. Lead singer Tim Freeman continued recording under the group's name, but is now best known as the big brother of Martin Freeman, who played Tim Canterbury in The Office. A rather large waste.

Three-place climbs for Them and Donny Osmond to 65 and 64. New at 63 comes Claudia Brucken's Kiss like ether; the vocalist had left Propaganda in 1989 for a brief solo excursion. It didn't meet with success in the UK, where Absolut(e) made 71 in summer '90 and this single gets no higher. Nor was there any significant success elsewhere in the world; she's since worked with former OMD bloke Paul Humphreys in the band Onetwo.

In at 62 for Great White's Congo square. The Yankee blues-rockers had been going since the mid-80s, and their biggest hit was House of broken love, number 44 in February 1990. Love Inc climbed seven to 59, Carlton's Love and pain entered at 56, JJ rose four to 55, and Caron Wheeler rose three to 53.

From the department of Follow That!, the new single from The La's. After falling short on first release in autumn 1988, There she goes had jangled its way towards the top ten the previous autumn. The song's timeless melody and haunting vocal lines made it an instant standard; even though it had never been a big hit before, it sounded like a comfort blanket. Hopes were high for the follow-up single, Feelin', another blast of jangly guitar pop. Trouble loomed as it could only make 51 in its first week out: were people rather annoyed because the song was barely 90 seconds long?

Or were they pissed off with the band's approach to promoting their album? Songwriters Lee Mavers and John Powers were utter perfectionists, had scrapped one attempt at recording an album in 1989, and wanted to do the same to the second take in 1990. Their label, Go Discs, insisted that something could be salvaged by Steve Lillywhite, and did get something out. Mavers, in particular, was unhappy with this decision, and wasted no opportunity to criticise the music industry in general, and Go and Steve Lillywhite in particular. The band would go on to tour during 1991, but Power left the group in 1992, pointing out that they were still playing songs written six years earlier. He would go on to form Cast, and Mavers stewed in his own juices until deigning to re-unite the band for a greatest hits tour in 2005. There she goes has become the La's calling card, covered by acts as diverse as Robbie Williams and Sixpence None the Richer.

That Petrol Emotion rose 15 to 49 with Tingle. The group had grown from what was left of the Undertones (yep, of Teenage kicks fame) after Feargal Sharkey went off to have his solo career, mostly songs about Maria McKee's split from Benmont Tench. That Petrol Emotion had released singles, mostly appealing to the indie sensibilities of the Peel crowd. TPE was signed to Polydor in 1987, and their major label debut Big decision peaked at number 43. It would turn out to be their biggest singles chart hit, though both Tingle and its immediate predecessor Hey Venus graced the top 50 nationally, and the top 40 in Scotland. The band had moved to Virgin in 1988, but was dropped after two albums sold poorly, and split in 1994. Which must mean the reunion tour is on the cards...

Just shy of the top 40 are Quartz, up 13 to 44; 2 Mad, up three to a peak at 43; and Joey B Ellis and Tynetta Hare's Go for it (heart and fire), the theme from Rocky MCMLXXXVIII. New at number 40 for George Michael's Heal the pain, the fourth single from his Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1 album. It's the sort of innocent soul that had underpinned Kissing a fool from Faith, and would go on to give Spinning the wheel from Older. After Praying for time had been an entirely deserved number 6 hit in August, Yog had released a single every two months - Waiting for that day and Freedom! both stalled in the mid-20s.

With the last bed-blockers from 1990 on the way out of the chart, some good stuff could enter the top 40. A four-place climb saw Jellyfish put The king is half-undressed at 39. The group was retro-psychadelia with a knowing glance towards proper pop sensibilities. If they'd come along five years later, they'd have been filed in the same breath as the Lightning Seeds. For now, a four-week climb finally gives them a first play on the top 40 show; little did we know that it would be their last.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, and the Milltown Brothers's Which way should I jump? rose 9 to 38. The group from the mill town of Colne featured brothers Matt and Simon Nelson. And *that* was about the limit of their artistic creativity. Apple green had been released to some minor acclaim in autumn 1990, and this single threatened to be the first of many hits. As we'll find out, it's not to be, and they won't even bother the national top 40 again. They're perhaps best remembered for providing the theme to the television show Preston Front, though we do have a soft spot for their 1993 valedictory single It's all over now baby blue.

Julian Cope's Beautiful love rose four to 37, and Chris Rea's Auberge was straight in at 36. Breaking into the top 40 was Living Colour's Love rears its ugly head, up 11 to 33, and new at 32 for DJH featuring Stefy. Think about... was the song, we prefer not to. Note the remarkable fall for Queen's Innuendo, which has now gone 1-2-12-31. The release of the album this week didn't help.

Here's something that's never happened before, and would never happen again: a My Bloody Valentine hit single. The tremelo ep - lead track, To here knows where - was new at 29. MBV had been going in something approximating their present form since 1984, and signed to Creation Records in 1986. They released a number of ep and lp records in 1987, breaking into hitsville with 1988's You made me realise and the album Isn't anything. The group had honed their trademark layered guitar sounds: not just track A spliced over track B, but topped with tracks C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J, then come the vocals, with guitar tracks K-T over the top, and then the whole thing warped to the point of distortion.

The ep was a taster for the group's second album, which would eventually come out in November under the title Loveless. In the intervening period, the band recorded two more eps, but spiked them for not being good enough. On the album, there was a consistent sound, using guitars strummed with a tremelo bar, taped drum loops, and vocals a long way down in the mix. Loveless took forever to record; sessions had started in February 1989, and continued well into autumn 1991. Producers were hired and fired, studios were hired and cancelled, engineers were told that they couldn't touch the amplifiers, band members were afflicted by tinnitus, and a computer breakdown messed up the album's final mastering. Press reports would suggest that Loveless cost Creation Records anything up to half-a-million pounds; the lowest figure seriously suggested for carrying a group for three years was £100,000.

Loveless was mostly recorded in mono, had vocals that were dreamlike, and had a great dynamic range - rather than the whole album sounding loud, it had really loud bits, and really quiet bits. Subject to the limitations of reproduction equipment, the consensus is that the album gains from being played ear-splittingly loud.

The whole object was to create a sound, rather than a collection of songs. In that, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Later in the year, we'll encounter the shoegazing scene, drawing directly from MBV's earlier work. The band had perfected their sound, defined their genre, and set down a tight marker that no-one would ever challenge. Critics showered it with effusive praise, going on about how it challenged the preconceptions between noise and tune, between obvious and subtle. Yet the utter brilliance of Loveless would prove to be the undoing of My Bloody Valentine: after creating the defining moment of their genre, where the hell do they go now? How, indeed, do they Follow That!?

They just go. Money was tight for Creation, and rather than risk another three years of bills for an album that'll never cover the cost of its advance, they dropped My Bloody Valentine within days of the release of Loveless. There would be no singles after the release of the album, not that it was easy to draw any singles out of it. Money would remain tight for Creation, ensuring that they had to sell a development stake to Sony Records. MBV signed to Island records for half-a-million quid, but released just one song for their new label before giving up on their third album. The fall-out from Loveless killed the shoegazing scene, taking many of its protagonists with it: they knew that they could never be more than a second-rate copyist. Some of the shoegazers would go off and hone their pop qualities: Lush in particular would get a second career with proper jangle-pop tunes. The backlash against the complexities of shoegazing and the nihilism of grunge combined to rescue Creation when it found a cash cow to milk and milk and milk until the money dried up. Oasis was still three years away from breakthrough. For My Bloody Valentine, there would be nothing more until a series of concerts in London, Manchester, and Glasgow in summer 2008.

Further reading: a thesis on Loveless and its place in the rock canon, including a long discussion on the album's musical structure.

After a digression almost as long as the making of an album (yep, even that one), we'll return to the chart, shall we? Up 9 to 28 for the Railway Children's Every beat of the heart, and no move at 27 for Mark Summers's Summers magic. Tedious rock from Jimmy Barnes and INXS as Good times climbs 14 to 24, and Chris Isaak's Blue ho el was up 9 to 21. We'll explain the running joke next week, promise. Kenny Thomas's Outstanding was up six to 18, and Free's re-released All right now was the fastest climber, up 22 to 17.

The highest new entry was at number 16 for 808 State with In yer face. Ver State was a double-act from Crater Manchester, whose first success had come in autumn 1989 with the chilled Pacific state, backed by that well-known cool groover Woo Gary Davies. The follow-up wasn't released until autumn 1990, and Cubik / Olympik was - in part - the theme to the proposed Manchester bid for the Rainy Season Olympics in 2000. In yer face was similar to Cubik, in that it was industrial house music (or something along those lines), except that it had some twonk shouting the title at annoyingly frequent intervals.

Seal's Crazy dips four to 15, and the New Kids are up three to 14 with Games. That's as high as they'll go, the ninth single in 15 months becomes their first to miss the top ten. Vanilla Ice's top ten career is over, Play that funky music drops three to 13. Up ten to 12 goes The Source with You've got the love, and Rick Astley has also ended his time in the top ten, Cry for help is down two to 11.

Up eleven to ten goes Kim Appleby with G.L.A.D.. Kim had been one half of Stock-Aitken-and-Waterman protogées Mel and Kim, responsible for a string of top ten hits between 1986 and 1988. Regrettably, Mel fell ill with a cancer of the spine, and died in January 1990. Sister Kim threw herself into the songs that had been intended for the duo's second album, and lead single Don't worry made number 2 in October 1990. G.L.A.D. was the second single from her solo album, and followed the now-familiar formula of disposable pop with trite lyrics - in this case, singing about good loving and devotion. Number 10 would be top weight for this release, and she's not been back in the upper echelons since.

Down one to 9 went Soho, and the beginning of the end for EMF's career - I believe dropped two to 8. Up 8 to 7 went Oleta Adams with Get here. The song had originally been penned by Brenda Russell, and was the title track to her 1987 album, which also included Piano in the dark and Dinner with Gershwin. Around that time, Tears For Fears were in a bar and saw a young soul singer. Roland Orzabel and a kangaroo liked what they heard, and invited Oleta (for it was she) to work with them on their next album. One My Bloody Valentine-esque delay later, she was the co-vocalist on Woman in chains. Her solo album was produced by Roland Orzabel and a kangaroo, and went to number 1 in the UK, but she wouldn't have any more success, apart from a brief flurry in 1995.

Kylie Minogue was up one to 6 with What do I have to do?, and Two In A Room dipped two to 5 with Wiggle it. That allowed one-place climbs for Praise's Only you, and Nomad Featuring MC Mikee Freedom's (I wanna give you) devotion. Last week's number one is this week's number 2, the KLF's 3am eternal.

Britain has a new number one, and for the first time since 1969, it's by a completely made-up act. The Simpsons was an animated series created by Matt Groening. It was included in The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987, but these animations were cut from the programme when it was shown on the BBC. As a result, the show wasn't seen on British television until 1996. West London's ever-so-cheap television channel SKY Television (named after its franchise area of Staines, Kingston, Yeading, and places between) picked up the show for a few pence, and showed it incessantly, just like it showed every other show in its flimsy catalogue a zillion times.

Part of the marketing effort by Fox Television (part of the same tax-dodging corporation as SKY Television) was to release as much spin-off merchandise as possible. T-shirts, baseball caps, and an album, The Simpsons Sing the Blues. From that came lead single Do the Bart, man, a lame rap set to an uninspiring beat. The song was rescued, as much as it could be, by the animated video. If we're being brutally honest, it was amongst the bottom quarter of 1991's number one singles, but had the great advantage of being amongst the better songs at the top end of this week's chart.

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