Rhiwbina Living 62

culture
International
Velvet
Wales has always been a land of song but back in the 1990s, the
country rode the crest of a musical wave that shook the world
By Neil Collins
‘Every day when I wake up, I thank
the Lord I’m Welsh…’
There’s no song that epitomises
1990s Wales quite like Catatonia’s
‘International Velvet’. Yet at the start
of the decade, such a lyric was
inconceivable.
Back then, Cymru was anything
but cool. Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey,
Shakin’ Stevens, and Bonnie Tyler
may have been mega-selling pop
acts, but what did Wales have to
offer the alternative music fan?
Within a few short years though,
an explosion of bands including
Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry
Animals, Stereophonics, Gorky’s
Zygotic Mynci, 60 Ft. Dolls, Feeder,
and of course, Catatonia, erupted
from this quaint land of harps and
choirs. By its release in 1998, their
album (also named) International
Velvet not only topped the UK
charts, but cast a jealous eye from
across the world onto Wales.
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No longer the butt of music press
jokes, this new generation of Welsh
talent was releasing No. 1 records
and celebrating with huge gigs.
Simultaneously, stars like Catherine
Zeta-Jones, Rhys Ifans, Colin
Jackson, and Joe Calzaghe were
becoming household names. This
rise in Welsh celebrity coincided
with an increasing pride and
respect for Cymraeg following the
Welsh Language Act 1993, which
put Welsh on an equal footing to
English.
Plus, Wales was now ready to
begin governing itself. After the
devastating defeats of the past,
devolution was achieved with a
‘Yes’ vote at the 1997 referendum
along with the creation of a National
Assembly for Wales two years later.
The chorus of ‘International Velvet’
typifies that seismic shift in the
nation’s confidence – a feel-good
factor encapsulating music, culture,
sport, language, and politics.
The incredible success of Welsh
music in the second half of the ’90s
was unprecedented, but it was the
groundwork spanning the previous
ten years that made it all possible.
Bubbling away under the surface
in the early ’90s was an intriguing
Welsh-language scene, which led
to the formation of not only two of
Britain’s best bands of the era, but
also two of the greatest Welsh acts
of all time: Super Furry Animals and
Catatonia.
Each group was lambasted for
making the decision to go big and
sing in English, but both defied their
critics while still embracing their
bilingualism. By the millennium, the
Super Furries released Mwng – the
biggest-selling Welsh-language
album of all time – while Catatonia’s
song ‘International Velvet’ captured
the best of both worlds.
Its verses are delivered in Welsh
before the euphoric, Englishlanguage
chorus tells the world
how proud they are of their
national identity. The transition was