International Velvet: How Wales Conquered the 90s Charts

How Welsh bands and musicians soared up the music charts in the 1990s.

The 1970s and ’80s were a bleak time for much of Wales: the closure of steel works and coal mines led to mass unemployment while the country’s culture and language were disregarded by politicians and the music industry alike. Some bands even traveled across the Severn Bridge to make sure their records arrived at the London offices sporting an English postmark.

The 1990s changed everything. While Wales was already known for Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, and Male Voices Choirs, bands such as Catatonia, Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, and Super Furry Animals exploded into the charts and showed the UK population the breadth of what this small but inherently musical nation could offer. Meanwhile, the Welsh-language television channel S4C gained new prominence and a new Welsh Assembly was on the horizon.

Featuring fresh analysis and new interviews, International Velvet charts music in the UK during the decade of the Cool Cymru cultural movement, showing how it inspired the still-vibrant Welsh music scene into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Neil Collins is a Cardiff-based writer and the host of Welsh Music Podcast. He is the author of Make Us Dream and Red Mist.