Taking Sides: Grunge vs. Brit Pop vs. The New Rock

So Britpop.

A) didn't suck.
B) was interesting.
C) didn't make my dick go flaccid when I was trying to get it on.
D) had introduced any new or fresh ideas into the rock canon.
E) wasn't so easy to mistake one band for the next.
F) didn't fuckin SUCK.

Anyway, I can't choose grunge or britpop or the new rock, cuz I'm being an angry knee-jerk reaction bloody bastard, so I choose post-rock. Nya.

britpop, though, is another story. i'd have quite a bit of time for all the leading lights: blur, pulp, oasis - all made great records, which i'd still put on every now and then.

Just speaking for myself here... I've found the majority of '90s Britpop very anemic-sounding and (aesthetically/attitudinally) timid.

thank you, good night.

However, when you reduce them down to the band that originated/invented the genre:

Taking sides: Nirvana vs. Blur vs. The Strokes

No bloody contest! Blur are the only band on that list that I'd not pay money not to have to listen to. (bar Out Of Time, which doesn't count, due to loss of principal musican.)

(And that's disregarding my hatred of the Strokes' music.)

setting b-pop,g-runge & g-raj in opposition to one another does nothing but let the dad-rock faction of the brit-pop blow off some steam between footie matches, they're all the same thing - just seperate twitches in the death throes of rock n roll

I think if the shaggs were more in sync with each others instruments and singing they would have invented the strokes in 69.

Kenickie (first album) = Spice Girls + Cheap Trick

Um....What about Korn???? Actually, I guess I might not know what "Britpop" means, either. Does it necessarily just mean BORING bands with guitars and no discernable rhythm sections who came out of England in the mid to late '90s, or what? I LOVE Placebo (their new album's real good, by the way), but the mere fact that I love them might mean that they're NOT Britpop. So: ARE Mansun or Elcka or the Auteurs Britpop? And if Placebo aren't, how come Suede are? Or aren't they? And how come Blur and Oasis aren't mere FOOTNOTES, since they're so much duller than all these other bands?? I'm so confused.

Grunge - I really like Nirvana but even Nirvana at their best aint a patch on top form Suede or Pulp IMO. Still, they were without doubt a great band. As far as the rest of grunge went, I never liked the yank screamy sound - my opinion was always of the 'what can Americans tell me about my life?" which to an extent I stick to (though The White Stripes do move me for some reason and I love them to bits) because I'm a) not American b) can't relate to being American. Plus, bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden always struck me as "lads" bands, there was nothing slightly effeminate there - which I think most great music has a little touch of (he says as he is about to defend Oasis).

Which is maybe why Pulp and Suede never broke America as it's about being a Brit and British issues. Maybe if I was American I'd hate Pulp and like Pearl Jam (though Eddie Veder ROCKS for his anti-Bush stance in Denver). The way American record labels work though is that they were fucked from the start, whereas American bands at least have the clout to make it anywhere. I thought it was really shit when Bush came along and they ARE fucking English lads with Seattle accents. Uergh, torrid.

More recently there's some American bands I really will flip over. The White Stripes for one, Mercury Rev and I must admit The Strokes have some pretty damn fine singles (waaaay overrated album though). Still, I do find it a pity that there's not any bands documenting life in the UK the way The Stone Roses or Suede were.

Other Britpop bands - Blur were good circa Modern Life and Parklife and 'lesser' bands such as The Bluetones, Echobelly and Sleeper I really liked. I do like Oasis as well - they are a "lads" band, I guess, but they appeal to such a large amount of people outside of that too. Liam Gallagher is the everyman down the street as well, and I think Brits tend to want their rock stars to be a bit more normal and less 'Axl Rose' like. I mean, guns and heroin say nothing to me, but pissed up arguements down the pub do... so of course I'll choose Britpop over grunge.

Heh, more or less. basically, i think of it as chirpy guitar-pop coming from britain in the mid-nineties, drawing from classic british guitar-pop influences (beatles, kinks etc). a lot of quirky, character-based songs (although this isn't a strict requirement for being britpop. the line "blur"s somewhat. boom boom).

Taking sides: Nirvana vs. Blur vs. The Strokes"

None of those bands originated any of their respective genres.

They all had moments, Britpop has Pulp BUT also had Oasis. Grunge has Nirvana BUT Stone Temple Pilots. New has White Stripes BUT Vines.

Oh, you make that sound like a *bad* thing! The first two oasis albums (and even the b-sides collection) are tremendous fun. i'd cite shed 7 and sleeper as the downside to britpop (sorry calum). dodgy and kula shaker had their moments, even OCS wrote "the day we caught the train"

Placebo were always pushed early on, and to an extent marketed as, the first post-Britpop guitar band. The Sonic Youth influences were a definite opposition to what had been heard in the charts beforehand. Plus remember that one of them's American and another's Norwegian (or Swedish. I forget). Britpop always was, amazingly enough, British. Well, actually, it was English. Engpop sounds stupid though.

James Dean Bradfield vs. Jack White FITE!

Or TAD.

(Not our Tad).

Under protest I'd have to say Britpop, as long as you're including Saint Etienne who arguably started the whole damn thing back in the early 90s. Britpop went off onto a different course from their vision unfortunately. Blur, Pulp, even Oasis had their moments. But very little else seems to stand up today. Where do SFA stand in all this?

Nirvana were better than all the bands mentioned here however. Mudhoney were overated, but 'Touch Me I'm Sick' is stella.

White Stripes, Stokes... all sound OK, but I'm just not feeling it, the odd single yes, but I can't get into them for a length of time.

So in conclusion? Jungle.

Sonic Youth??? I always thought they sounded more like Rush!!!

Grunge by a gaping chasm of a margin. Honestly, speaking just from personal attachments, if Badmotorfinger was the only grunge album, it might still win this for me. Different Class is great but Britpop barely even registered for me. It mostly seems like a bunch of kissy-poo nothings in retrospect. Even Pearl Jam is much preferable to Blur/Oasis. And that song they did on Letterman was actually decent. Aside from "Hard to Explain" I feel roughly the same way about 'new rock'. Nu-metal totally slays that shit.

My mother there, ladies and gentlemen.

(Ironically, T.Rex were probably the only big British guitar act of the previous 30 years Britpop didn't rip off. Except Dire Straits of course, but ripping off Dire Straits is like ripping off Christ)

(Always quote sources, kids!)

I have no brit-pop albums.

Without grunge, we also wouldn't have had Big Wreck's "That Song".

Musically... The Datsuns have one decent tune. The Bluetones had at least three or four. I was a child of the Britpop days, and that way shall I stay.

P.S. I don't know shit about grunge.

The Kinks only sounded geniuinely English in 65-69. They didn't do much in American during that time period.

Pearl Jam and Nirvana never even had good rhythm sections; Pearl Jam were just REM with Blood Sweat and Tear's singer, as far as I can see -- they were a joke, though "Not For You" (is that what it was called? I forget) did steal a halfway decent Stones riff, I suppose. Soundgarden peaked on their mid-'80s *Sceaming Life* EP on SubPop, and even then Cornell had trouble pulling off his half-assed Robert Plant imiation shtick. They were okay, but they never made a great album, and neither did Nirvana. The Strokes are okay, too; people give them too much shit. I honestly have nothing against them. But they're hardly anything like the best garage band out there. I dunno -- start with the Greehornes, Shams, Von Bondies, Detroit Cobras, Gore Gore Girls, Dirtbombs, Clone Defects, Black Lips, Black Keys, Mr. Airplane Man, and so on, and work your way down. And yeah, the White Stripes. And lots of other ones I can't think off of the top of my head.

Actually, they may have peaked even earlier -- on their "Hunted Down"/"Nothing To Say" single, which I listed in my top ten in '86 or so. And maybe it was more a half-assed OZZY imitation shtick; I forget -- it's been a really long time since I listened to those guys. (Though I definitely spelled "imitation" wrong the first time.)

Basically, the NRR has managed to throw up an incredible amount of mediocrity, but then again I suppose that Britpop did that as well. It's just that, when I co-edited the uni paper music section, I had to have most of the NRR arch-mediocrity kicked into my face.

It is trickier to define what New Rock is, as well - Britpop could have basically incorporated all guitar music made by British musicians under the age of about 33 between 1995 and 1998. Now, however, much of the popular guitar music about just doesn't fit under this banner - the British guitar bands that I can think of that have had top 5 hits in the past twelve months or so are Coldplay, Travis, Stereophonics, Doves, Feeder and Turin Brakes, none of whom are New Rock. In trying to work out the NRR bands that have gone top 40, I completely forgot Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Hot Hot Heat, who are probably New Rock. However, I also left out Hundred Reasons, Hell Is For Heroes and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, who quite possibly aren't, but thinking up reasons why is tricky. You could possibly argue for The Streets as New Rock too, if only because the criteria seems to be new, young-ish bands that the NME jizzes in the ears of. It's confusing. Of those eight what I mentioned, The Coral and The Music really don't sound very much like the other six, and neither do recent NME Tour-ists The Thrills, Interpol and The Polyphonic Spree.

That said, you're right about the US scene, and this is where New Rock really seems to have the upper hand over Britpop, in that it's the less successful bands that feel much more interesting than the leading lights, which is sort of the inverse of the way things were in the Britpop era. The Dirtbombs, The Hunches, The Von Bondies, Interpol, 80's Matchbox, Polyphonic Spree (assuming of course that those three count), The Soledad Brothers, The Futureheads, British Sea Power, The Thrills (though one could quibble about them being lesser known, seeing as they've had a top 20 single and such), The Pattern, The Donnas, French Kicks, The Detroit Cobras - all worth about a thousand Vines or Datsuns.

I'd still say that I'd most likely take most of the major Britpop acts over most of the major New Rockers, but New Rock's minor players do feel much more interesting than either. So... you're probably right, actually.

Then again, I should also point out that I never saw any of the Britpop acts live, apart from Pulp, though that was around the time of We Love Life. I did, however, see The Datsuns, who crushed my soul into pieces with their shittiness and made me loathe everything ever for the next fortnight or so, almost certainly permanently souring my view of New Rock from that point on.

2/britpop. I like Blur "Modern Life is Rubbish" and Parklife" as well as sundry pulp rekkids. Apart from that it's a desert of sux0rness. Maan, I even saw Kula Shaker live, and tho' crispy was k-rowr, they sucked worse than nearly any band I've ever seen before, except maybe ultrasound & the darling buds (the second time i saw them. The first time they were great)

3/"the new rock". I have yet to hear anything from this that I could stand to listen to, Imean I'd probably turn the radio off if str0kez or hot hot heat came on. If I want to listen to musick that=contrived, and so much of this just seems so totally un-heart-felt to me, I want to hear something weird & fucked up, not some ploddy ass meat&potatoes shit like the strokes or the datsuns.

the people who mentioned snc yth, post rock & shoegaze = otm.

It's much more a media invention than the other two were, but that's actually good because it means wildly diverse bands are lumped together and fawned over en masse. I loved Britpop, I'm still very fond of it, but it had a limited range of reference (bands from the sixties. foppish or boorish vocals. social commentary.) and tended to get pretty same-y. Grunge I don't know that much about, but what I've heard of it is easy to define as 'grunge' without thinking too hard. But if we weren't told that, say, The White Stripes and Interpol and the Datsuns were all part of some imaginary New Rock Revolution, how would we know? They don't share all that many influences, or lyrical concerns, or even countries/towns of origin (the Everything NYC Is Good fad notwithstanding). It's a lot less cloistered, a lot less finite, and that's incredibly refreshing.

That might be the reason why it hasn't really caught on that much outside of indie spheres - how are the non-music press supposed to characterise it when there's actually little linking these bands beyond the use of guitars and the fact that they're around now? They could maybe highlight a sub-genre, but they're all too small, too underpopulated, to produce a massive movement on their own: and yet they're just big enough, and just bigged-up enough, for a listener to find some great bands they would otherwise not have heard of. With Britpop, the lines were basically drawn. Oasis and thence OCS and Northern Uproar, or Blur and thence Menswe@r and Sleeper, and Pulp somewhere in between. With the NRR, you can pick and choose from a ton of bands which sound nothing like one another, because none of them are popular enough to produce more than a few imitators.

Also, as Chuck said:
It's faster, and actually has singers who can sing and rhythm sections who can swing.

You can dance to this shit, j0.

(On the other hand, shoegazing was clearly the greatest genre ever in the history of everything.)

There's alot of things you can accuse Britpop of, but surely this is not one of them! I ph33r the fella who could mistake Oasis for Pulp, or The Auteurs for Ocean Colour Scene.

In that case they kept falling asleep in class.

I know we talked about this on another thread but I STILL don't see how Chuck is all het up about all these new bands but doesn't like Rocket From the Crypt, or rather since personal taste is what it is I can't distinguish what the distinguishing factor is for him. I certainly don't think said new bands are just ripping them off or stealing their thunder or anything like that, but Speedo and company still make for me much MUCH better (and more danceable, every time I've seen them play just proves it once again) music than anything from Ohio or Michigan from the past few years -- or a whole lot of anywhere else, actually, and that includes Stone Temple Pilots. ;-)

But ultimately I don't know. All three 'genres,' however defined, are essentially recombinations/reimaginings of something else, usually from the past -- like everything else -- and produced some cool stuff and a lot of crap -- like everything else. I don't know if genre is my own evil word the same way influence is for Mark S, but it seems that there's a similar suspicion of reception and reinterpretation -- or how it's usually conceived -- on both our parts. Ultimately the perceived success of any 'genre' has less to do with quality (or if we must talk sales, quantity) and more with personal wish fulfillment. I'm all for that, in that I like the idea of creating one's own goals and then finding them, but I find trying to extend that out any further ultimately chasing chimeras -- though some are a little more solid than others.

On the other hand, shoegazing was clearly the greatest genre ever in the history of everything.

Well, yes. ;-)

Blur
Pulp
Elastica
PJ Harvey
Gene
Supergrass
Boo Radleys

Much as the Boos seemed very boring at that stage of their career, and the inclusion (and exclusion) of certain bands on this list is dubious, I would say that the first wave of Britpop was no weaker than this NRR stuff. If you're going to lump the Dirtbombs, the Donnas and the French Kicks into the same 'movement' (yecch), then you're effectively throwing open the floodgates to pick and choose any band for your list who are making rock records in America today. If that's the case, and you can do the same with British rock records from the mid-90s, I think it's easy to argue that Britpop had plenty of zip.

OCS were formed several years before Oasis, and never sounded like Oasis imitators.

I think Grunge is the one genre where I can honestly say that I can't get into it because I feel it's too American; this whole bleak attitude towards everything, the whole loser (but not beautiful loser, ugly loser) chic...I can appreciate where it's coming from, and I like alot of the Grunge bands' music, but it all seems far far away from anything pertaining to < Morrisey > MY LIFE < / Morrisey >

Britpop and Nu Garage are much more alike- it's young kids trying to imitate the records that they've listened to, trying to relive all those stories about old movements they've heard about; I can't say that I would *defend* that by any means, but you know, I can relate...I mean, I grew up listening to The Small Faces and thinking how cool it would have been to be a Mod, too- I eventually outgrew that, too, but hey, nothing wrong with a retro thrill or two every once in a while. Both of those movements are quite enjoyable if you keep them in perspective (Britpop over Nu Garage because I always preferred Freakbeat over Garage Rock.)

This is Hardcore is better than Nevermind!

Sorry, Geir, I was unclear: I wasn't trying to imply that OCS were an Oasis clone, but that a lot of people who liked Oasis moved from that into liking OCS, and that whole dadrock scene, via the Paul Weller connection. In the same way, a lot of people who liked Blur moved from that into liking the Camdenite/social-commentary bands, some of whom - Lush for example - had been around for ages (albeit sounding completely different) but then happened to make a record which belonged entirely to that era and subgenre (ahh, Lovelife).

But, yeah, I know: rockist!

OK, now to go into generalization-land: I'm all for "new rock", in the sense of cheering it on and hoping somebody will alchemically transform their next Stooges X Blondie riff into something genuinely NEW and so forth, but here's the thing. It seems to me one of the biggest weaknesses of "new rock" bands is a tendency for their songs to lack a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to hold them together.

Mudhoney and Nirvana's songs came at you with an undeniable cohesion fueled by whateveryouwantocallit (passion, force, lunatic wit)(even if that mean having to sit through a shitty chorus from time to time), as did Oasis et al, in their own way. But listening to many White Stripes songs, for example, is oftentimes like eating a meal on a compartmentalized plate: I can admire the various offerings, but there's something slightly chilling about it.

You might say: who cares if a song "gels"? Maybe it's allright if it falls apart (see Boredoms, DNA, etc etc). Well, I agree. I actually enjoy a song audibly falling apart. A song can audibly fall apart but the energy still somehow be THERE. I'm talking about songs that are not DESIGNED to fall apart. My sense is that the new rockahs want their songs to gel and their crowds to rock out and boogie. I just think it doesn't always happen (having a bassist helps provide at least a semblance of cohesion between the extremes of percussion and lead guitar, but doesn't guarantee it).

And, I must say, there are exceptions. The YYY's phenomenal "Rich" comes to mind.

fukcing seconded there, when I saw them supporting snc yth, they were awesome, certainly one of the best bands i've ever seen.

Well, personally I have never been too fond of Weller's solo material (which is way too bluesy for my taste, plus I don't like his Steve Winwood-wannabe vocal styles much). I do love Oasis though, but I actually like OCS just as much as I like Paul Weller.

And as for "dadrock", if that means stuff like Stereophonics and the debut album by Travis, then it generally leaves me cold because of lack of actually good melodic songs. Again apart from OCS and Oasis.

Britpop was more about refining all those elements and mixing them into a new style of music rather than just repeating them. Blur might actually mix elements from mod, beat, punk and synthpop in the same song, coming up with something that sounded genuinely like Blur, but also very genuinely English. Blur had their own style by mixing elements from other styles.

Hah! When I saw them in Ann Arbor in 1989, I couldn't wait for the show to end, I wondered why I was paying so much attention to all these stupid Seattle bands that all sounded exactly the fucking same as each other, and it became clear to me once and for all that New Kids on the Block had way more to do with the future of music. And I was RIGHT, of course. (A couple years earlier, I thought it was kind of neat that a bunch of kids in Seattle wanted so much to sound like the Stooges and Black Sabbath when nobody else did, but it got old fast.) A couple years LATER, of course, Nirvana came along and fused (as Frank Kogan put it once) Husker Du style music with Husker Du style vocals, and, um, paved the way for Silverchair and Better Than Ezra and Creed. Except Husker Du were better (before 1985, of course, but let's not quibble.) (And yeah, Nirvana ripped off Die Kreuzen and Squirrel Bait and Dinosaur Jr. and Flipper and the Replacements and the first Soul Asylum album and Scratch Acid as well, but whatever.)Anyway, Chargers Street Gang, the Tie Reds, FM Knives, and the Goddam Gentlemen have many songs more realized than "Anyeurism" ever was. (What the heck does it matter if Nirvana had a bassist, anyway? It's not like the guy ever actually did anything halfway RHYTHMIC, y'know.)

Also, Polyphonic Spree have nothing to do with garage rock; they sound like Up With People, for crissakes. (God, British people are gullible.) And Rocket From The Crypt are just plain clumsy, I'm sorry.

Actually, I think he said they were "an amazing synthesis of Husker Du style music with Bob Mould style vocals." Which is even funnier.

But if that's enough, how come I'm not moved? (Not as flippant a question as it might seem.)

And if you mean this new garage punk in general -- like, if you've been completely unmoved by the Gore Gore Girls, say -- there's always the possibility that (how do they say it here?) you, um, hate fun.

Hey now. ;-) It's possibly because I'm tired today that I'm not responding to this with my usual explosive rampage, but I don't buy this and never have. Apologies for the obvious reference point, but one reason I always liked Stairway to Hell was the open embrace of fun as a straightforward rationale, and that rang true for me and then some. There's always fun to be had, and perceived clumsiness or no (I don't see it myself) RFTC feels far more fun for me than most of the folks you're citing, to take a reductionist example. This isn't a matter of claiming a position in every new switchback of a zeitgeist, it's one of saying, "Hey, I really like this!" I don't think you don't hate fun for not liking RFTC more than the Gore Gore Girls; in fact I'd be annoyed with myself for even thinking that way!

Heh. Drop the second don't, please. ;-)

I meant "lots of stuff THAT'S new and rock doesn't move me either."

Which is slightly different, I suppose. (I mean, the Libertines are NOT "as rock" as the Chargers Street Gang. And they're also newer.)

Hmm...

Two words: George Bush

About to get a second term methinks.

"Who is more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?"

I wasn't saying Brits weren't gullible though (although I've not met anyone yet who thinks Iraq was responsible for Sept 11th)

W-wait... so the british population actually INTENDED to put blair in office and this makes them less gullible?

Not that I buy any of the premises of this argument anyway (or of any of the arguments on this thread really.)

Anyway I pick new rock over britpop over grunge because I know less about it. But I pick Xtina's dirrty over all of them.

You have to be aware what the alternative was. It was either Blair or some pathetic Tory MP. No wonder Blair won that election.

Take 1 part Crypt / In The Red / Sympathy / Birdman sound
Blend in a cup of no wave / Gang of Four / disco not disco
Stir until lumpy

On the other hand, I don't think any of the scores of garage bands that've come out of SWEDEN in recent years have matched the music that the Nomads were making in the mid '80s. For whatever that's worth. (And are Leather Nun and Turbonegro grunge or garage? Or goth?)

starting SOUNDING like the Black Crowes, I meant. (Which is to say, when they *sold out.* They made better blues hacks than avant hacks.)

(and when I called New Bomb Turks "inept," I meant "grooveless," too.)

Er, thanks! Which point, though? :-)

I think it's pretty silly how people distrust the matching outfits thing

Quite. *whistles "Middle"*

Leather Nun were surely industrial garoths (not Gareths). Royal Trux ended up sounding better than the Black Crowes at that point anyway precisely because they weren't the Black Crowes, which every other band but them has the automatic advantage of being (or rather not being).

Except for Otis Redding, who did "Hard to Handle" WORSE than the Black Crowes. (Kogan: Otis Redding was the original Michael Bolton.)

On the other hand, mistrusting four-square oafs whose horns are too close to the swing revival for comfort is no crime, obviously!

(My first thought: "Wait, do Jimmy Eat World wear matching suits???")

I hope there are musicians reading this board. Heed Kris' words.