Undoubtedly Stephen Hawking will be remembered as much for his wit and sense of humour as for his contributions to science: he was interviewed by John Oliver, hosted a party for time travellers, and even appeared on The Simpsons.

And when, in 1997, we asked him for his opinions on songs by that year’s BRIT Award nominees, Hawking happily indulged us.

The Varsity music team, then edited by Sathnam Sanghera, now a writer at The Times, sent the cosmologist records by the Spice Girls, Manic Street Preachers, Suede, Oasis, Prodigy, Mark Morrison, The Charlatans, Baby Bird, George Michael, Kula Shaker, and Underworld.

Hawking was brutal. On the Manic Street Preachers’ song Design for Life, part of the BRIT-winning album Everything Must Go, he said: “Might be quite good if I could make out the words”. He wasn’t much more positive about the others – Suede’s Trash had a “Trite tune, rhythm and rhyme”, Prodigy’s Firestarter had an “Exciting beginning, but doesn’t get beyond that”, while The Charlatans’ One to Another was “Just a noise; and not a very nice one.”

He didn’t stop there. There was “Nothing to recommend” about Mark Morrison’s Return of the Mack. George Michael’s Fastlove had “a boring tune and backing”. But Hawking saved his most stringent criticism for Kula Shaker’s Tattva: “To listen to this for more than a minute may damage your mental health.”

But there were a couple of artists who tickled his fancy. He said Baby Bird’s You’re Gorgeous could appeal if he were “a teenage girl”, and said Oasis’ Don’t Look Back in Anger was more than passable: “I like it. I think it is the best.”

Most amusingly, when asked to comment on the Spice Girls’ Wannabe, he said simply: “Yes please.”

Other academics, including then-junior research fellow at Trinity in English at the time, Matthew Reynolds (who was “glad to see [George Michael] is nearly dead”), also gave their takes.

Richard Beadle, now professor in the English department and fellow of St John’s, called the Spice Girls’ hit “a saucy gamine package”, and John Lennard, now a bye-fellow at Christ’s, reflected the national mood when he said he was “sick to death of the bloody Gallaghers”.