DAILY DIRT: Welcome to Retro Week, Daily Dirt style

Welcome aboard … Hopefully, you will enjoy today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 461 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Welcome to the inaugural Daily Dirt Retro Week.

With the 2022 calendar nearing an end, I felt it was the perfect time to look back at important anniversary-type years (in particular, for the baby boomer generation), beginning with 25 years ago — 1997. We’ll take snapshot looks at key items in the world of pop culture in general and music in particular every day this week. Upcoming looks will target:

• 30 years ago in 1992 (Tuesday).
• 35 years ago in 1987 (Wednesday).
• 40 years ago in 1982 (Thursday).
• 45 years ago in 1977 (Friday).
• 50 years ago in 1972 (Saturday).
• And, finally, 55 years ago 1967 (Sunday).

Let’s get the ball rolling with these three major headline grabbers that affected us all in 1997:

Gold medal: Princess Diana of Wales is killed in a car crash in Paris late in the year. The most popular woman on the world at the time, her funeral is viewed worldwide by 1.5 billion people. I was one of those viewers.

Silver medal: The No. 1 movie of 1997 was the love story/disaster flick “Titanic.” The winner of 11 Oscars (yes, 11!) starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. I still consider this one of the greatest movies ever.

Bronze medal: Remember Dolly the sheep? She was the famous female Finnish Dorset sheep and the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a cell taken from a mammary gland. I really don’t understand any of that, only that it created major headlines at the time, many of which questioned if scientists were treading in areas they should not.

2. Three of the biggest music-related stories 25 years ago involved:

Gold medal: Elton John and longtime writing partner Bernie Taupin rework the lyrics to their 1973 song “Candle In The Wind” for Princess Diana’s funeral. With proceeds going to charity, the song is released as a single, becoming the second-best selling single of all time (behind “White Christmas”) with 33 million copies sold. The song also spent 12 weeks as No. 1.

Silver medal: I almost placed this No. 1 — Puff Daddy and Faith Evans collaboration of “I’ll Be Missing You.” Faith Evans, wife of Notorious B.I.G., teamed with Puff Daddy and R&B group 112 on a tribute song to her late husband. I absolutely loved this song, and apparently I was not alone. It spent 11 weeks atop the charts.

Bronze medal: The Spice Girls exploded on the pop culture scene (oh I loved those Spice Girls!) with their debut single “Wannabe” and the release of their debut album “Spice in the U.S. Unfortunately, their fame was rather short-lived.

3. Let me get this straight…

If the U.S. beats Iran on Tuesday, the Americans’ record in group play will be good enough to advance to the next round of the World Cup. And if we lose? Most of us won’t care about soccer again until 2026. Did I miss anything?

Steve Thought O’ The Day — U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Every week is Retro Week for Steve.