Four years ago, most of mainstream Britain hadn't even heard of Bollywood. Until Cornershop hit Number One with a song venerating singer Asha Bhosle, most people ignorantly had no idea that India possessed the biggest film factory in the world.
And now look. Bollywood is ubiquitous. Its gaudy fashion stalks the catwalks, films such as Monsoon Wedding and Kabhi Kush Kabhie Gham top the box-office, and even Basement Jaxx have jumped in on the vogue, with their video 'Romeo'.
As for Cornershop?
Well, to the Gareth Gates-buying masses, they're regarded as an affectionate relic of fin-de-siecle popular culture. Like Chumbawamba, combat trousers or Cartman from South Park.
Unfair, yes. But Cornershop have got nobody else to blame but themselves. Changing their name to Clinton and issuing an oblique disco album just 18 months after 'Brimful Of Asha', was hardly going to propel them back onto the shelves of Woolworths, was it?
But now huzzah! Cornershop are back. And 'Handcream For A Generation' is an album that picks up where 'Born For The Seventh Time' left off, twisting between genres and ideas with a joie de vivre that hasn't been heard since, ooh, 1997 or something.
And there are splashes of real genius here - the Almost Famous-recalling single 'Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky IV' chugs along with all the debauched hedonism of 'Rocks' from Primal Scream, offering a damning indictment on the over-grown super-shit that is nu-metal. The espirit of Etienne du Crecy materialises on 'Music Plus One', while 'People Power In The Disco Hour' is given an Orange Juice-style white-funk makeover, making it more potent than the flaccid, clap-happy Clinton original. And then there's the 'Bonus Track', a testimony to Tjinder's six-month stint living in Paris, summoning up a Left-Bank café-ambience and sounding like the soundtrack to a pervy 1970s French porn movie, scripted by Jean-Luc Godard.
The album's most 'Brimful of Asha' moment comes in the form of 'Staging The Plaguing Of The Raised Platform', which features glockenspiels, a 'Definitely Maybe'-style riff and a choir of children chirping away on the chorus, making it sound like the Tweenies Go Indie.
But while there's no doubting Tjinder's undeniably good taste, the sheer profusion of ideas on offer is probably Cornershop's biggest shortcoming.
'Handcream' pays homage to more sounds and genres than the sub-sections in a record shop - Dixie-brass, reggae, funk, easy-listening, 1960s psychedelia, 1970s cock-rock, 1980s synths, 1990s house and 2000s-whatever. There's no sense of coherency to the album. Whereas fellow eclecticans such as Beck imbue their album with a central leitmotif, 'Handcream' swerves from Otis Clay one minute to wonky Rasta reggae the next. To paraphrase Alanis Morissette in 'Ironic', it's like: 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.
Take 'Spectral Mornings' which features Noel Gallagher. What starts off as a startlingly original slice of Punjabi-punk soon degenerates into an orotund 15-minute jam, which sounds something that might have been left on the 'Be Here Now' cutting-room floor. (Still better than 'Hindu Times' though).
Punters will be perplexed by Tjinder and Ben's latest offering, but Cornershop are a wonderful anachronism that it's impossible to dislike. Top marks for audacity.
