Britpop re-assesed?

A lot of the music - particularly the second- and third-tier Britpop bands - sounds very weak now. And also the discovery that guitar pop/rock by white Brits could sell again in Britain condemned us to the post-Britpop Catatonia years. You could argue also that Britpop has severed, or at least had an effect on, the link between the 'indie scene' and the charts. I'm not quite sure what I mean by that though so I need to think about it more.

But! The rush to condemn the parochial "Brit" bit of Britpop misses out the "pop" bit. I think it's good for pop and good for the charts when strong, hooky, exciting guitar or 'indie' records get into the top 10, and this happened more during 1994-5 than it has since. The notion that such records were 'saving' the chart rather than 'enriching' it is one I'm totally unsympathetic to. But "Girls And Boys", "Alright", and "Common People", to name a handful, were excellent pop by almost any definition.

That said, some music did come out of it all. The tracks Tom mentions, also Blur's "Parklife" album (for all that Blur are intrinsically shite), Wasis' first album, Elastica singles and live performances, etc.

I've never minded the 'Brit' end of it. I'm not British but I don't have a problem with British people liking their country. There is a lot to like.

Perhaps it reflected the desperation of the media to find a musical consensus, a yardstick everybody could see as "good". The fact that that yardstick was Oasis highlighted the plain bad taste, and ennervating, lazy nostalgia in the UK media, partic. the broadsheets, clueless as they always had been when covering music.

I remember the summer both Weller's Stanley Road and Scott Walker's Tilt were released. Weller got leaden reverence, Walker barely disguised ridicule. It was disgusting, offensively anti- intellectual.

So no new insights from me then. I'm stiucking the Reynold's party line, with the caveat that the end of that era didn't kill indie, it drove it underground again.

It seemed a letdown. The previous couple of years there had seemed to be a quite exciting trend of indie bands responding to techno and the takeover of pop by dance, whether in an overground poppy way (St Etienne and Pulp) or in an underground post-dance way (Seefeel/Pram/Stereolab/Disco Inferno). Everything looked really rosy, and even when stuff like "Girls And Boys" came on the radio I felt, yes! Something really good is happening! And *then* Oasis came along and all these other bands, and that experimental pop energy just dissipated, and it took in my view 3 or 4 years for indie to start getting interesting in that way again.

It's also worth remembering that dance music seemed incredibly exciting then, really developing fast, and suddenly the entire media attention shifted, and this really oppositional culture appeared. So it was hard not to resent that.

It's worth differentiating between the Britpop bands (pre-Morning Glory, pretty much) and the Britrock bands (post-Morning Glory and Stanley Road). That was the point at which whatever positive effects the movement had pretty much curdled.

It was all the coverage on grunge that ignited Britpop as a media creation, starting with a jingoistic, anti-american and silly editorial in Select on the subject.

I don't believe grunge stars ever decried Sonic Youth as "intellectual bollocks" or turned "music shouldn't have to be intelligent" to "music shouldn't be intelligent" as a central credo.

Also, maybe as an american you didn't have to endure Menswear, the ahem, "feminist" "ideas" of Sleeper, Echobelly et al. It quickly became clear the whole thing was a dumbing down, an insult to readers' intelligence which I found profoundly depressing. It becomes clear to me I'm talking about the phenom, not the bands per se. But the fact that the music was forgettable makes it even worse.

Anyone not stupid/anti-ponce had to smother whatever they did in treacly layers of irony: Blur, Pulp

But it's not just the anti intellectualism, it's when it was combined with the air of triumphalism and chauvinism that accompanied it from almost all concerned. It was pure tabloid, full of ignorance, bad faith, self-importance, bad priorities. There was no fun in it!

I don't think there's any question about Blur, but I cannot think of a single Pulp song that was smothered in irony. That's an accusation that gets tossed at them a lot, but like with the Pet Shop Boys it's just not so.

I'll take your word on that, but it is, however wrongheadely, a reason why a lot of people adored them. I remember a lot of people at University sighing "oh, the irony, the exquisite irony!" when Jarvis nominated Scott Walker doing his full chanson stage bit as his hero on Jools Holland.

It strikes me I have posted too much on this thread, and my answers have been a. not really been about the music as much as the media storm and b. mentioned Scott Walker all too often. I will now retire, hoping the usual poliphony of voices will resume. But it was good to get it off my chest!

My god, what an awful picture you paint. Do students really still lounge around making inane comments as inane as this?

I would have thought Jarvis Cocker nominating Scott Walker was somewhat... obvious and not remotely ironic. Maybe they didn't understand who Scott Walker was.

So yes, there were some good things. And then there was, for instance, Kula Shaker. ARRRRRRRGH! And I also have to say that Supergrass never meant much to me, I'd rather listen to the Sweet.

I loved Menswear (most likely band to be cool in 20 years time), Supergrass (the prettiest), Pulp (wittiest), the Blur/Oasis battle was funny and exciting. Pop needs more rivalry. These were excellent pop bands, creating lots of stories for the papers and releasing some good records (and plenty of duff ones – but then loads of pop acts I really like have made duff records). I am surprised that Elastica are being marked as a stupid band – I marked them down as the intelligensia (for ‘vaseline’ if nothing else).

I like Tom’s Britrock definition – the bad times came when it got less pop and more Mojo rock - Ocean Colour Scene spring to mind of course, but Cast, Ash etc have a similar effect on me.

If you distil Britpop into a series of singles it seems great. For that reason alone it therefore has to get my vote. The dance argument I think is lame – dance acts have charted consistently since rave, and I didn’t notice any decline in clubbing during the Britpop years. In fact the whole Bristol scene was peaking at that time – on my mix tapes from the period Tricky and Massive Attack go with Pulp 12" dance mixes nicely. Strangely the northern bands were more rock (I don’t remember Oasis 12" remixes) though they LOOKED more rave. Perhaps Madchester was rockier than its supporters believe.

I have no quarrel with any of that or...

It's also worth remembering that dance music seemed incredibly exciting then, really developing fast, and suddenly the entire media attention shifted, and this really oppositional culture appeared. So it was hard not to resent that. (Tom)

...but my perception of it at the time was bizarrely different. For over ten years I had been obsessively immersed in soul/funk/r&b, hip hop, and various forms of dance. Thoughout that period I hated indie with a passion. But by 1994 I was *bored* with the fragmenting dance scene, and 'Britpop' seemed like a refreshing return to my punk roots (not in a strictly musical sense obviously, more in the sense of a quasi-mod 'scene').

The oppositional thing was actually a strong part of its appeal to me - cocking a snook at certain acquaintances who liked things like Stereo MCs or Moby. Of course a lot of the bands were mediocre, but Sleeper and Echobelly were a bit like Chelsea or the Lurkers - 2nd or 3rd division bands that were musically (and more importantly 'ideologically') acceptable for a time. But, to extend my (stupid?) analogy, Kula Shaker and Ocean Colour Scene were like Eddie & the Hot Rods or early Police (ie not acceptable - as countless critical thrashings in the music press would testify).

But I can trace the beginning of my disillusionment - when the term 'Britpop' started to appear in Melody Maker (not sure who coined it). That one word spoiled and cheapened the music in an instant. It didn't seem to fit my notion of what the music was. And of course the point was swiftly reached when the same Moby-loving people I referred to earlier started to say that Oasis were 'actually quite good'.

One last thing. I'm not sure of the chronology but I remember thinking at the time that Britpop's commercial collapse came incredibly suddenly - almost in a matter of a very few months (which seemed a little strange considering the chart dominance it had established for a while).

I pretty much concur entirely with Tom that the good stuff came out earlier when it still had a pop sense and had yet to morph into plodding neo-AOR; I did very much like the "Parklife" album for a while, and "Common People" was a moment of total excitement and wonder (probably *the* moment which convinced me to love pop music and, therefore, the starting point for this posting) which pretty much deserves Tom's single-of-the-decade accolade. The turning point to the dadrock years was autumn '95, and indeed the pathetic critical rehabilitation of "Morning Glory" after it exploded (having initially been greeted with disdain when it looked as though Blur might win not just the battle, but the war), and then the ludicrous praise of "Be Here Now" (itself retracted within a few months) was the defining moment in the reputation-loss of the mainstream Britpress. The Oasis coverage will, in 10 years' time, be presented as a prime example of how the NME and MM dug their own grave.

And on the subject of the credibility-erosion of the inkies during this fatal period, it's also interesting to speculate on what kind of press some of the very "British" records in 93 / early 94 coming at it from a totally different, more enigmatic, less celebratory perspective (the first two Auteurs albums, Ultramarine's "United Kingdoms", Saint Etienne's "Tiger Bay") would have got had they come out at the height of Britpop fervour (a tangent: "Britpop" was used by the MM in '93 to mean people as diverse as all the above and, erm, Apache Indian and Credit To The Nation, rather than its later definition). Judging from the critical ignorance of the Auteurs' brilliant "After Murder Park" in early '96, probably not much.

David's final question: I'm not sure exactly which period you mean but, after the realisation of just how shit and indulgent "Be Here Now" was (even among previous Oasis fans), the era was definitely over. Certainly by the end of '97 it was clear that Cast / OCS / KS had passed their peak, and Sleeper's album bombed; in early '97 Blur had repositioned themselves and in late '97 / early '98 Pulp did the same. So, yeah, autumn '97 is the point at which it whittled away, though it had gone shit two years earlier.

What I think: if the P*pt*nes thread is a guide — obviously ignoring R*bin's manic tr*lling — britpop fans wouldn't get the connection you and the record companies think so obvious to make. If it's cynical, it's a cynicism that (refreshingly) assumes (a) knowledge of history (b) ownership of adequate ears

What my mum thinks: that should be "owing to the derivative nature of these bands", not "due to"

In the case of my cousins, existent knowledge of 60s music, esp. Beatles, made them all the more receptive to Oasism *and* still more obsessed with that past. Certainly people did seem enthusiastic about buying up some of those old rock bands rather than getting into, say, TLC or Blackstreet or Wu-Tang. But I think it was a passing fad which faded with Britpop, and one which probably never took in the majority of those bands' audiences (for whom, to deconstruct That Phrase, the "pop" of "Girls and Boys" or "Live Forever" was always more important than any "Brit" Big Book Of Rock stuff); you'll always get the supernaturally aged teenagers looking for penpals in Mojo, but they'll thankfully be an ignorable minority.

I remember your letters well; it was easy simply to *say* that what was wrong with Britpop was the motives and the sidelines rather than the music, but hard to phrase it and express it so well. The one that attacked Taylor Parkes's view of John Coltrane and condemned the inkies' idea of "black music as the exotic other" (I think that was you, anyway) is probably my favourite MM letter from that period. As I think I've said before, seeing you here was like greeting a long- lost friend I never actually knew.

Theory: "influence" is a critical concept which KILLS history (ditto "appropriation") ...

I like Marcello's New-Gold-Dream analogy (as one who ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY went for Morley's line at the time): but I'm not sure how strongly I was believing that the Future had been suborned; just that the present was (for today) more fun. I didn't believe in the Future in 1982. ("We'd been promised the end of the world, and we didn't get it...")

"Owing to" = grammatically correct;' "due to" = not (it needs a verb). It's that simple, Robin.

(I feel I have deftly caught the Manc twang of Noel's thought-patterns here, or Liam's, or whichever one it is has thought. No?)

The Beatles boom was fuelled mainly by the Anthology, I'd ay: the thing itself, in renewed effect. The simian pseudo-mods (Real Mods — 1965 Mods — hated the Beatles: also the Who) didn't do any harm here — cracked a sub-market likely by standard generation-gap norms to be indifferent if not openly hostile to the past repackaged. So yes, I concede that, somewhat. But (a) history is stripped out of the package, replaced by the tidal wave of anti-history the Anothology represent (b) what-sounds-like-what is also toed to the car graveyard and cubed. Wasis REALLY DON'T sound all that like Beatles/Who/Kinks: moments, maybe, but strained through 20 years of (obliterated) PowerPop. Raspberries/Shoes/Shirts/Yachts, more like: with comedy eyebrows and couch-potato attitude.

(The generation gap — a brilliantly effective 40s/50s marketing strategy which opened up the possibility for genuine kulturkampf, albeit rooted in the stupdiest of social distinctions — ain't what it was: I think this is a good thing, mind. I reserve the right to check Diane Krall and DJ Martian: my Dreem Cupple...)

Am I Paul? Is this Tarsus? Tarsus, Syria? I'm just now replaying 'Oranges and Lemons', first time since I gave it a good review in MM (to prove I sucked no line, nohow: despite thinking it was actually quite dull).

Or has this connection been made a million times? I'm mark s at Tarsus, but it's just a bus depot now....

To hand: well, I fucking tht I had! A famous 1979 NME piece by Penny Reel — a "Real Mod" by any other name — written to coincide with Quadrophenia-the-movie, abt mod life in its heyday c.1964. I was only rewading it a coupla months ago: apparently didn't refile it properly (aisle 7, wing d, floor 3-sub-2, annexe). Let that be a lesson.

None of the Detours were really mods — Moon liked surf-music, for fook's sake — and Real Mods knew this, and despised them and avoided them. All that thrashing around: very uncool. What the Who did rather brilliantly was to package up elements of Mod-ism with other happening Pop Stuff and take it all to the world.

Best I can do for the moment (quoted in Frith's _Sound Effects_): "Not only is [Beardy Pegley] the first guy I ever see wear hair lacquer and lipstick, but he is also the earliest on the scene with a pink tab- collar shirt, a grey crew neck jersey, knitted tie, scarlet suede jacket with matching leather colar, navy blue crombie overcoat, white half-mast flares, and candy-stripe socks, as well as being the first mod to sing the praises of Laurel Aitken, James Brown, the Pretty Things, the Flamingo Club in Wardour Street, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and marijuana, insult Eden Kane at the Chez Don, and is still the only guy I ever meet who owns a pair of bright emerald green fur booties, all this circa 1962."

(Actually the Frith book has "met" for "meet", a obvious typo.)

Oh, and Mark's comments on the overlay of such a narrow reading of the 60s are the most articulate description of the way these nostalgia-movements rewrite and simplify history I think I've ever read. Good call on New Easy, as well, though there was always a little too much grinning irony in that movement for my liking.

ie Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, sees the light, becomes Paul: oh yes, I remember NOW, now that I look like a FOOL...

And also a Saturday morning's experimentation proves that XTC sound nothing like Oasis, dashing my hopes of a critical breakthrough. However, I do find I enjoy the usually too-quirky XTC much more if I fill my head with the aggressively unquirky Oasis before I start. So that's progress of a sort.

Wish I hadn't missed out on this thread first time. But everyone on it had so darned much to say anyway.

A DIVA MADE FOR MIDDLE ENGLAND;
Lisa Stansfield delivers her version of blue-eyed soul to the faithful following at the Albert Hall

BYLINE: Kodwo Eshun

SECTION: THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. T5

LENGTH: 415 words

ALTHOUGH she rode in on the post-Aciiid Britpop boom of 1989/90, the years of Bomb the Bass and S Express, Yazz and Coldcut, late-eighties era sampladelia never really suited Lisa Stansfield.

There was a distinct unease about the way she was singing, a definite mismatch between the house beats which were just a little too fast and a voice that was more comfortable cruising along at medium tempo.

Of all the Brit house generation, Stansfield has been by far the most successful. Her albums, unmemorable in the extreme, sell millions to an audience confused by the ongoing hyperfragmentation of Planet Pop in the nineties.

The audience that's packed into the Albert Hall for Friday's one-off charity show is well into its 30s, 40s and 50s, and the atmosphere - excitable yet restrained, tentatively exuberant - makes it feel as if she's presiding over the World's Largest Office Party in its opening stages.

Stansfield's record sales reflect the sense of reassuring normality she offers. In an Age of Infinite Remixology, she sings definitive versions of "real songs", not so much soul as generic renditions of what people think soul should sound like.

A Stansfield record peaks straight away with a snatch of chorus, slows down into a husky monotone and then arcs its way emphatically skyward in a fanfare of parping horns and sweeping strings which buoy up Lisa's cheerful paeans to positivity.

The London Philharmonic string section bent to their job, sawing away behind her, generating a sound that suffused the adoring audience in waves of pop memory. I'd forgotten just how many hits she'd had: My Oh My, If I Could Change My Life, Some Day I'm Coming Back, All Around The World, We've Got To Live Together: on and on they rolled, a seamless segue of singles for the silent majority who'd faithfully come to London for the occasion. Swept into a fervour, they started, hesitantly at first, to shuffle and shimmy until the entire Albert Hall heaved with bodies.

Stansfield looked suprised, if not stunned by the ringing applause. She skipped backwards, looked helplessly at her backing singers and then ducked back into the roars of "Encore'. But this fierce loyalty doesn't change the fact that she is a mediocre songwriter. Nor is she in any way a diva; she's what Middle England has instead of a Liza Minnelli or a Barbra Streisand. She's a homegrown Reality Check in a pop world long since shot to pieces. The very definition of underwhelming.

this just dropped in the inbox :

TF Presents...
BRITPOP
SPECIAL
Vibe Bar, London
Friday May 27th
10 Hour Zone – 6pm – 4am
*Top Secret Massive Headline Act*
Shaun Ryder (DJ Set)
Northern Uproar
Shed 7 (DJ Set)
The Bluetones
PENGU!NS

Plus many, many more…
Now then, nothing in music truly ever dies – genres and styles take their twists & turns on the musical merry-go-round, evolve into something new and have a massive resurgence. BRITPOP has already been through the evolution part of the mill, with the number of bands born out of the ashes of BRITPOP. Now it’s time for the resurgence, which has been bubbling underneath the floorboards since the turn of the year.
With Liam in full pomp, Pulp reforming for a series of summer shows and Blur penning a new album, This Feeling is delighted to announce A BRITPOP SPECIAL @ Vibe Bar – complete with a couple of our very own reformations.
So, without further ado, we have a *top secret massive headline act* locked in to play a full live set, which will be announced in due course. Northern Uproar – specially reformed for This Feeling’s BRITPOP SPECIAL - will be living it up for one night only to play a live set, which is set to be truly magical. The Bluetones make a slight return before their farewell tour in September with frontman Mark Morriss performing a blissful set on the acoustic and Echobelly now known as Calm Of Zero will kick the night off, set the temperature and get those BRITPOP juices circulating again. Zak Starkey's new band PENGU!NS soon to support Kasabian on tour play "live" and as ex Oasis and Lightning Seeds drummer should know a thing or two about Britpop. Noel Gallagher's first signings to his record label, Proud Mary, complete the "live" zone.
TOP SECRET HEADLINE ACT – LIVE
NORTHERN UPROAR – LIVE & REFORMED
MARK MORRISS ( THE BLUETONES) – ACOUSTIC
CALM OF ZERO (EX ECHOBELLY) – LIVE
PENGU!NS - LIVE
PROUD MARY - LIVE
Following this monumental resurgence of BRITPOP hysteria, Shaun Ryder will drive the party into the small hours and beyond (as only he knows best) with a DJ Set, which will take the Vibe Bar on a journey that has been 15 years in the making.
With 4 rooms at the Vibe Bar celebrating one massive BRITZONE, Shed 7 frontman Rick Witter will take to the decks and wipe the dust off his BRITPOP vinyl collection along with Damian Jonze from the NME and Cool Britannia.
SHAUN RYDER – DJ SET
SHED SEVEN (RICK WITTER) – DJ SET
DAMIAN JONZE (NME) – DJ SET
COOL BRITANNIA – DJ SET

"TOP SECRET HEADLINE ACT – LIVE"

guesses on a postcard please ..

Scarfo.

Shed 7 (DJ Set)

Shed 7 (DJ Set)
Shed 7 (DJ Set)
Shed 7 (DJ Set)

.. which is weird as there are adverts in mojo re a forthcoming shed 7 tour.
guess the promoters of this couldn't stump up the necessaries for the whole band to do a greatest hits set as i believe that they are quite a big deal on the nostaligic brit-pop scene (tours sell out etc).

yeah i think they can fill medium venues with saddoes

the "Indie saddo DJ set" must be one of the piss-takingest ways of making a living ever invented

wonder how much of that 'britpop' shaun ryder's going to play

i wonder how each of the djs decide what to play given that there is probably a lof of crossover selections when these guys play out individually.

i think shaun will walk if they don't let him play 'daydreamer'

they just play the same fucking bollocks that gets played at every 90s indie night and nobody notices or complains

Urgent and key

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/06/friday-poll-special-the-great-britpop-sorting-hat/

fucking pulp.

i mean seriously .. what the fuck ..

a second rate indie band scraping a barrel that gets lucky.

i've never got the love for them ..

ok, you can all ban me now ..

Not sure My Life Story quite deserve to be down there with Seahorses and Northern Uproar.

yes they do!

ag tells the truth.

Ah, they weren't so bad. Didn't like them at the time but I got roped into seeing their comeback show a few years ago and it was much better than I had expected.

them and the divine comedy were awful! Equally as bad as Northern Uproar and Shed Seven and the likes. Only Stereophonics and Ocean Colour Scene were worse!

Britpop is the reason I missed out on so many great bands of the 90s. As a youngster I just assumed all bands with a guitarist were awful.

ILM certainly put a fair amount of guitar bands fans off guitar bands

I bet a fair few were britpop bands at the time mind you; So I dont blame anyone for thinking guitar music was bad if dadrock was the guitar music you heard!

if u dont select any of them it says 'Please choose a valid poll answer'

I thought the same about dance music in v early 90s due to eurodance & happy hardcore etc (yes Im aware tons of ilxors were either into that) But by 94 I was well into other dance music. Honestly the best UK music at the time of Britpop was dance music and at the time a whole bunch of britpoppers loved it too. Funny how it got written out of Britpop history as dadrock traditions tookover.
xp

Oasis had a ton of bands supporting them like Chemical Brothers, Prodigy et al. People forget that when slagging off Oasis.

Did anyone dig 60ft Dolls?.

Oasis had a 5/5 review in Mixmag with Definitely Maybe in 1994. Strange times.

now i know how 1976 punks must've felt by 1996

Oasis got in top 20 AOY by Metal Hammer & Muzik with Definitely Maybe too. So many people (myself included) thought they were a breath of fresh air on radio. Didn't last for long though.

on that list is WELLER Paul Weller?

NV who were The Exploited of Britpop?

I didn't think Muzik was up and running till '95. Did The Wire list them??

maybe it was morning glory they listed.

NV who were The Exploited of Britpop?

the poor saps that bought it

terrorizer used to have swans,diamanda galas,gybe in their eoy lists in the 90s too.
(Mostly) All the lists for magazines are here
http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/publications.htm

dont see oasis in the muzik lists but its possible there was top 40s and only 25s listed here. Would need to go up into the loft to find my old mags to check (Not going to)

Would still gladly listen to and consciously put on albums by Pulp, Blur, Suede, Supergrass, Super Furry Animals, Ash, The Boo Radleys, Mansun and Paul Weller (up until Heliocentric). I suppose if someone put an early Oasis track on from their peak years of 1994-1996, it wouldn't offend me, but I haven't felt the need to consciously put an album of theirs on since at least the release of Be Here Now. I don't mind Marion or Lush, and find the first Catatonia album, (Way Beyond Blue, a bit of a guilty pleasure.

Kenickie, Elastica, The Divine Comedy, Sleeper, Black Grape, Gene, Longpigs, Echobelly, Shed Seven, Space, Menswear, My Life Story and Northern Uproar didn't speak to me or mean anything to me to begin with. I didn't own an album by any of those bands, although of course I knew people that did. Elastica, in particular, I always felt were cripplingly overrated. I didn't really give a shit about them.

Cast, The Seahorses, Kula Shaker and Ocean Colour Scene were more my dads thing.

Whenever I put on an album from this particular era now I'm immediately struck by how dated and tied down to its time some of it is - and incredibly, it seems to be the more trad. rock end of the spectrum which has dated the most. Having said that, the last time I listened to Parklife it didn't feel like I was listening to a contemporary record at all... as great as some of the songs on that record are, it feels more than ever like a time capsule of that particular era to my ears, in a way that Blur's self-titled record doesn't. The deeper cuts on Parklife seem to have fared a lot better with the passage of time than, say, 'Girls & Boys' and the title track.

And what about the '90s bands that didn't make it into this poll, of which there are hundreds more? Some that I thought were extremely terrible (Travis), and others that I thought were quite underrated (Geneva)...

the last couple of weller albums have been his best and least trad rocky! Tho Heliocentric had been his best album since wild wood.

Black Grape's 1st album is still the best album of that era and a damn better album than the mondays ever made (and i loved the mondays). 2nd album I pretend never happened..

And indeed, what about the guitar bands of the '90s that weren't Britpop? Where did Placebo fit in with all of this? The Verve: were they really a Britpop band? Maybe in a way, but ultimately not as far as I'm concerned. What about the Manics, were they Britpop? Even with the success of 'A Design For Life' and Everything Must Go in mind, I'm not so sure.

verve and manics certainly benefited commercially from it but they couldn't be called Britpop really.

they didnt get called Britrock either (Kerrangs answer to Britpop ie terrorvision,feeder, A, Skunk Anansie etc)

I forgot Reef LOL

How about Cable, weren't they around at the time of Britpop, while not being Britpop?

I remember them. You read Kerrang too?

Did anyone dig 60ft Dolls?.

i love the 60 ft doll album. tis ace.

verve and manics certainly benefited commercially from it but they couldn't be called Britpop really.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Friday, June 28, 2013 11:57 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this... guitar bands selling and getting lots of airplay undoubtedly helped both bands, but I suspect other factors came into play too. With The Verve, it was the fact that they'd already split up and re-formed once (thus generating hype in the music press), as well as the focus on more accessible Richard Ashcroft-penned (as opposed to group-penned) compositions and Ashcroft himself being hailed as some kind of genius by Noel Gallagher (back in the days when kids were hanging upon his every word) which helped things along. With The Manics, it was their first release after the disappearance of Richey (which generated quite a lot of publicity for them in itself), coupled with the fact that they'd made their most accessible batch of songs yet. I certainly don't think the Manics were aiming to hitch a lift on the 'Britpop bandwagon'. There's a smack of Oasis to some of the Ashcroft-penned tracks on Urban Hymns, but the group compositions on that record like 'Catching The Butterfly' aren't really what I'd personally call Britpop. They certainly weren't Britpop prior to that, and neither were the Manics for that matter.

I remember them. You read Kerrang too?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Saturday, June 29, 2013 12:00 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah. I never had Cable down as a Kerrang-type of band, to be honest. Especially considering what was going on in metal during the mid '90s, with Korn and Deftones etc.

i love the 60 ft doll album. tis ace.

― mark e, Saturday, June 29, 2013 12:03 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Didn't they put out two albums? I recall 60ft. Dolls being one fucking frantic live band, that's for sure.

voted Blur, Pulp, Suede, SFA, Boo Radleys and of course Mansun, the band that took Britpop in a wonderful new direction only to discover that someone had chopped the rope bridge behind them

all of those bands were capable of stellar experimentation as well as great songwriting. all had restless imaginations.

re 60 ft dolls ..

pretty sure they only managed to release the one album ..

i seem to recall that the second album was promo'd and reviewed, but never released ...

they didnt get called Britrock either (Kerrangs answer to Britpop ie terrorvision,feeder, A, Skunk Anansie etc)

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Friday, June 28, 2013 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I forgot Reef LOL

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Friday, June 28, 2013 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dear god...

Terrorvision's career trajectory is certainly something, isn't it? Make one painfully piss-weak rock album with a single ('My House') that sounds like it could be by Ugly Kid Joe (Formaldehyde), make a more poppier follow-up record but remember to actually write some half-decent songs (How To Make Friends & Influence People), try and do the same again but with lesser results and establish themselves as a perennial festival band with a sense of humour (Regular Urban Survivors), make a record that nobody gives a shit about (Shaving Peaches) until someone remixes 'Tequila' and it becomes a surprise hit, then think "oh god, this is the direction we should be following guys!" (Good To Go)...

you sure you didn't read Kerrang?

you sure you didn't read Kerrang?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Saturday, June 29, 2013 12:24 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Absolutely positive! Certainly not while Britpop was in full flight, anyway. I don't think I even read an issue of Kerrang until 1999 or 2000! I don't think you particularly needed to read Kerrang to be exposed to Skunk Anansie, Terrorvision or Reef, anyway. Very hard to watch any music channel at the time without hearing a track from Paranoid & Sunburnt or Stoosh on there... and 'Place Your Hands' was as ubiquitous as ANY track from Blur or Oasis at the time, if not more, not to mention 'Naked' was on the Minidisc advert if you remember!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDCwCtZPpUw

The second 60ft Dolls album came out (I have it...) but was on what appears to be their own label rather than BMG like was originally intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O9vBHOGDjc

I remember The Wannadies and The Cardigans were around at the time, too. I wouldn't call either of those Britpop either (neither band were British, for a start), but I still remember them being around and appealing to people who were 'into' Britpop. I think songs by both ended up on what were meant to be Britpop compilations too, weirdly.

xpost:

What the fuck, AG, I can't remember that! Mustn't have seen that episode!

i saw the wannadies before teenage fanclub at t in the park 96? They were a lot heavier live. Was quite impressed by them. TFC were awesome.

Despite them being a lot heavier live I kinda link stuff like wannadies and cardigans in with TFC jingly jangly indie type stuff rather than britpop.

I really should dig out that poster I have from Phoenix Festival '96, which shows every band which was on every stage over the four days, it gives a broad picture of what was going on at the time. Headliners were David Bowie, Neil Young, The Sex Pistols (who'd reformed for that Filthy Lucre tour) and Bjork.

Teenage Fanclub were a strange one for me, they were a band I started checking out and listening to after the Britpop thing was long dead. I definitely know I wasn't into them at the time.

in 96 even afghan whigs, screaming trees, soundgarden,pearl jam , smashing pumpkins were doing well here. So all in all music was still pretty great for me in that period if not britpop itself (tho i did like a few of the bands obviously) it was the late 90s that was pretty dire and I was pretty much only buying older music(funk,jazz classic 80s indie/hardcore/punk/60s/70s canon and lesser known) or albums by bands i already liked or trying to get more leftfield stuff. Was pretty much done with dance music too. Tho once I got the internet I discovered all the IDM/post-rock/math rock/alt-country/black metal type stuff i missed out on and rediscovered a love for doom metal and metal in general and got into even weirder stuff. I felt people in 94-96 were a lot more diverse in tastes than 98- 2000.

Yeah, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins were definitely still both doing very well here in '96... I remember pretty much all the singles released from Down On The Upside got regular airings on the music channels here, and Smashing Pumpkins were at the very peak of their popularity here too ('Tonight Tonight' was a Top 10 hit single here, I think?). R.E.M. weren't doing too badly either, to say that Monster got a bad reception - New Adventures In Hi-Fi went to #1 on the album chart.

I totally agree with you that the late '90s weren't so hot, though. 1998 and 1999 especially didn't feel all that great to me. Some of the Britpop lot were putting out more interesting records by that point (This Is Hardcore, Six, 13), but there didn't seem to be decent NEW bands around. I don't think it truly started to pick up again until maybe 2001/2002... it definitely had by 2003.

Spiritualized ,Mercury Rev, Qotsa were making the better music at the end of the decade but like you said, qotsa apart, new bands werent doing so great (and of course some older fans hated Spz and Mercury Revs output at this time because it was selling!)

didnt muse and coldplay start around 99/2000? thats when it got really bad

Until landfill came along making that seem like good times

I'm just trying to think of what the more anticipated/acclaimed releases were at the turn of the century... there was At The Drive-In and Kid A (which was coolly received by some initially)... and a lot of nu-metal. That's what I remember the most about the fucking late '90s: nu-metal.

xpost:

Yup, Muse and Coldplay made their debuts around that time too. It was the whole Radiohead thing... OK Computer had sold a fucking shitload and had had bucketloads of critical acclaim, so the 'old' Radiohead sound was seen as the "next thing". So what we ended up with was Muse, Coldplay and Travis... then, of course, Radiohead took a different path with Kid A, leaving Muse and Coldplay to steal the fans of 'old' Radiohead that weren't thrilled with their new direction.

Cant have the US-ilxors missing out
Nu-Metal re-assesed?

I remember really bad rock bandwagon jumpers Headswim abandoning grunge then britrock for an ok computer goes rock sound.

To be honest I don't really get the Pulp thing - for a lot of people saying they transcended or were at least the good part of the mid 90s thing, I think they're completely synonymous with Britpop, to the extent that Oasis and Blur were able to be successful either before or after that particular bubble - but surely the point of Pulp was that they were supposed to as well, lording it above the likes of Menswear, Northern Uproar, and god knows who else. But no, once the Britpop thing dried up so did Pulp, at least commercially. I've never really got this. I think they're incredibly dated for the reasons stated.

I never got Pulp until I heard and really liked Jarvis Cocker's first solo album. I still can't say I love 'em, though.

Britpop destroyed whatever was interesting about the Manics IMO...they weren't 'of' it but the climate didn't really help them (artistically etc etc)

If in doubt - turn the guitars down and fill it up with strings

Has there been an ATP style Britpop festival yet? Bound to be money in that, sadly.

A Britpop stage at T In The Park with Ocean Colour Scene headlining would go down a storm
*sighs at scotland*

This forum introduced me to the horror that is Reef. My last trip to the UK, I heard "PLACE YER HANDS ON MY 'OLE" in almost every bar/club I went to. I have no idea how I avoided that monstrosity for so long. I'm sad I didn't keep avoiding it.

Britpop destroyed whatever was interesting about the Manics IMO...they weren't 'of' it but the climate didn't really help them (artistically etc etc)

― Master of Treacle, Saturday, June 29, 2013 5:00 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't say Britpop destroyed what was interesting about the Manics, I'd say there was enough that was interesting about them to enable them to stand out somewhat in 1996 circa Everything Must Go. Oasis and the rest of the Britpop lot weren't really tackling subjects such as Kevin Carter, Willem De Kooning etc. Plus, the fact that Everything Must Go was a big seller helped people get exposed to their earlier work.

What ruined the Manics artistically (although not commercially), but only for a short while, was success. Suddenly they became this commercial proposition and the feeling was that they were trying to sustain that a little bit with This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, which I found quite bland and disappointing when it came out. I think they were flailing about searching for a direction circa Know Your Enemy and Lifeblood, but I personally think they got back to what they did best with Send Away The Tigers and Journal For Plague Lovers. Of course, it wasn't the same, but so many years had elapsed by that point it would have been stupid to think they could have made Generation Terrorists or The Holy Bible again.

A Britpop stage at T In The Park with Ocean Colour Scene headlining would go down a storm
*sighs at scotland*

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Monday, July 1, 2013 3:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

With Travis as support? :P

As posted on Post pics of the best/worst Battle Jackets and ILM will mark them out of 10

http://www.caughtinthecrossfire.com/uploads/2013/09/URBANOUTFIITERS_LEATHERJACKET_PUNK.jpg

i had a weird dream recently with no significant or memorable imagery, but it was sort of soundtracked by the opening bars of Reef's 'Put Your Hands Up', except played on a tuba instead of guitar.

i struggled to derive any meaning from the dream

First time as tragedy, second time as fizzy drinks.

http://www.nme.com/news/blur--2/74863

I thought this would be about Embrace reforming

If we ignore him, he might go away (Alex not Ned, that would be harsh).

Oh, Alex. You're richer than fucking god. You don't need the money; you are literally just doing this to be an utter irredeemable tit.

You only exist, just to punish me for youthful crushes, don't you? Like the embarrassing high school boyfriend that will never quite go away.

Please go away, Alex. Just go away. I have no more attention for you.

Poll: Alex's fizzy drink vs Dave's music and 'tales from his career' radio show vs Damon's solo album.

(winner will probably be Graham)

The store I work in sells *my little pony* pop so I for one welcome Britpop - especially since pop is the true word for fizzy sweet drinks. We never got any of his cheeses over here so I won't hold my breath for any Britpop though :(

Nah, it's some drunkened "Enough I just had an idea!" idea.

this juxtaposition amused me greatly

http://i.imgur.com/HyozHtb.jpg

They should call it "Josef K" then.

You know what we don't hear enough of on BBC Radio? Britpop, that's what.

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/bbc-to-toast-20-years-of-britpop

and so it begins

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/apr/03/britpop-kurt-cobain-20-years-nirvana

oh, and menswe@r have reformed ..

The further you get away from any musical movement, the more the women involved will have been erased from that movement. It's really depressing.

BB : good point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM--uprhvBg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVaSixLy8U

As this thread has reared its head again, perhaps it's time to post the Britpop Nuggets compilations I put together last year.

https://haonowshaokao.com/2015/09/20/britpop-nuggets-part-one-some-people-are-born-to-dance/
https://haonowshaokao.com/2015/09/28/britpop-nuggets-part-two-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-tolerate-northern-uproar/
https://haonowshaokao.com/2015/10/22/britpop-nuggets-part-three-long-live-the-uk-music-scene/

All I can say is fucking hell at this.
Not a single female artist on this list and I think 2 black people at most

http://charts.radiox.co.uk/2018/

Okay then, what female and black artists would you have personally chosen to include in a list that is predominantly a particular strand of '90s guitar music?

Catatonia? Sleeper? Bloc Party?

6 songs from this decade in the list; 3 of those are by Catfish And The Bottlemen.

women can't play guitars and minorities don't want to, obv

also I would have personally chosen to have anyone who contributed to this list given a full aurectomy

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41RQ61M68EL.jpg

i would imagine that the target audience for Radio X's "Best of British" list will be outraged by this lack of diversity

too many fookin pansy songs

Well yeah, it's a shit list and listening to solely this kind of stuff these days is, like, I dunno, having a "bread only" diet or something. However, it's clear that the audience of this particular station are into a specific type of music, and the simple fact of the matter is that there weren't all that many women or minorities making that sort of stuff.

Yes, the omission of at least Elastica is glaring, but hardly anyone gives a shit about Catatonia, Sleeper, Echobelly, Salad, Powder etc. in 2018.

How many other niche stations would describe their thin slice of songs being polled as "The Best British Songs Of All Time" (their capitals)?

maybe the sort of pompous niche station that would use "for the music fans" as a tagline

The sort of pompous niche station that is under the impression that '90s indie = all British music.

I still give a shit about Salad!

https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/salad-undressed

15 oasis songs on a best 100 of british music

there's not even 15 good oasis songs tbh (and i like oasis)

An across-all-decades, across-all-genres Top 100 of tracks by bands from the UK would be far more interesting and diverse, but that's not what this list is. It's basically a list for a specific type of music fan that hasn't moved on from the mid to late '90s.

FOOKIN BRITPOP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_KyYs0Ipy0

please watch that

& I still give a shit about Sleeper

Good on yer, me too.

Had one of those Shine compilations and put it on not that long ago. So terrible that I threw it in the bin and I never do that to cds.

There was a 'britpop' theme hour on Vintage last night, so I put it on...

Shed 7, Kula Shaker, Sleeper, Bluetones, Pulp, Boo Rads, oh god who else? I think I sacked it after the second Shed 7 started..

Pulp was good, as were the Boos. Sleeper were OK. The rest were cor blimey pants. Clearly not a best-of, I'd guess it was of a piece with that Shine comp.

Actually, the Kula track (Mystical machine gun) wasn't bad in itself, but then again there were other reasons why they were awful which were not to do with the music as such.

Actually, the Pulp was part of the Sheffield special which was on after, all of which was excellent.

To return to the original thread question, sure:

https://thequietus.com/articles/28775-martin-green-presents-super-sonics-40-junkshop-britpop-greats-review

that looks like a decent comp despite not much of it really being Britpop.

I really wanted to make a 'weird side of Britpop' playlist, but found it was harder than I imagined

a comp of the good stuff around at the time of Britpop that britpop fans ignored would be better playlist

This is why I address the question directly a couple of times in my review, you see. (It's a flag of convenience for this comp in the end, though Green's liner notes make a solid case for each.)

That comp has lots of good ones on there, but really the Britpop tag doesn't belong on it. There needs to be another name for 90s guitar-based indie music from the UK that doesn't sound like the dirge Beatles because that's what Britpop means now. Compiling a "weird side of Britpop" is impossible because if something's a bit weird then it's not Britpop.

#reclaimbritpop

i think we could sort this out by excluding from Britpop any act that didn't appear on the front of a music publication with some kind of Union Jack draped round them

I don't know who half the names mentioned in ned's article are but both bis and Urusei Yatsura are definitely not britpop and weren't considered such at the time

kenickie were so great

feel like anything too influenced by American music can't be britpop

(american 90s indie was much better than uk equivalent and britpop was bad. British indie music in the 90s was better when it was influenced by American music. this is my theory)

I have very mixed feelings about the uk indie landscape in the 90s but no interest in basically any us indie ever, so going to have to disagree with you on this one

Contempt for Britpop is far less widespread in North America as far as I can tell. I always thought it was cool in a mildly exotic kind of way.

there's plenty of good UK indie from the 90s but there's a whole industry built around nostalgically boosting the worst bits of britpop now, so guess it's not worth reassessing until most of the target audience for that are dead or otherwise economically inactive

just revisiting Urusei Yatsura and had forgotten quite how much they were ripping off sonic youth and pavement. almost at teenage fan club-big star levels

absolutely, that was their whole thing. can't remember another group who did that successfully, apart from blur for a bit maybe

as with the fannies/big star, pavement/the fall and gene/the smiths, if you liked them then the similarities seemed insignificant. i still get pachinko and kubrick in town in my head from time to time.

This here stuff was my jam back in the day. I barely had 10p to rub together let alone spend on quirky-looking CD singles so I must have absorbed half of these via mixtape, or retrospectively once Napster etc came out and I wanted to spend a weekend downloading a Velocette b-side.

xp. i am a huge fannies fan and never minded the indebtedness to big star (I heard teenage fanclub years before big star so it was a bit of a surprise when I first heard the latter)

So, that Quietus review I did of Super Sonics inadvertantly led to another piece of mine for them, and frankly I was thrilled to be able to do this -- a full feature interview Johnny, Chris and Matt from Menswear

https://thequietus.com/articles/29097-menswear-nuisance-review-anniversary

Heh, I always figured the Wire influence was secondhand and the concept of Daydreamer was "let's write an Elastica song".

Curious track listing.

There's definitely a good compilation in stuff from the time that wasn't Brit Pop - Seefeel, Bark Psychosis, Butterfly Child, Insides, Spoonfed Hybrid, Disco Inferno ... and I'd have included Pram.

Perhaps my timing is wonky, though.

idly wondering if this is the only substantial* genre** where the only things of interest to be said about it are extra-musical - the sociopolitical context, the business model etc

* not the best word but reaching for "as opposed to micro-genres"
** another wriggly and not-quite-right word but hey

I really enjoyed Marcello Carlin’s then play long entries on the Britpop years but tgf I kind of like this music. Feel like there’s a lot to say about the great escape but I don’t particularly like that album.

I love The Great Escape and MC was fantastic on it.

I tried writing about it - informally but lengthily - before. On the Blur forum. And scared everyone away.

I want to add that the brain worm I posted tonight isn't really predicated on liking or not liking (some of) the music - I don't really but people do and that's fine

But something I'm not quite articulating to myself even about the metaness of the genre, assuming nostalgia and small c conservatism can be meta

Brit, such an ugly word and world

I wonder if someone who's not British might have something fresh to say about the music? Here in Canada it was received without a lot of the contextual trappings, but probably didn't seem as "exotic" as it might have to the rare American who was tuned in past a handful of Oasis hits.

From my 10-12 year old vantage point it was completely invisible in the US at the time apart from Oasis. Blur seemed genuinely very strange to me until “Song 2” came about.

Sometimes I check out also-fans/stragglers like Baby Bird and I’m like “wow this is extremely British”

also-rans

There was actually a small Britpop scene in Toronto, a handful of bands that were inspired both by the contemporary UK acts and the veteran bands that they emulated. A local group named Admiral got notable press here but only seem to have released a couple of EPs in 1996 and 1997.

I heard (the London!) Suede and early Blur far more often on my college radio station than 1995-1996 Blur-Suede-Oasis.

Toronto still seemed to be living in the Britpop era when I lived there in the 2000s. TBF it was the more the Blur/Suede/Pulp/Mod end of things rather than Oasis. I remember hearing a CBC documentary about Britpop where they mentioned how Chris from Menswe@r would corner every customer ever at the Good Mixer and tell them about his "new band Menswear" and I was like, yep, that happened to me too (although I only popped in because it was next to Mega City)

It's quite funny and all

https://neilk.substack.com/p/on-oasis-the-gallaghers-d4abcb889d59?fbclid=IwAR1rZKrpZpBWLLTRRzeJ9u5U6qifVFU94D1qM3sH5PLZXG8JxJtL3ZMYq-Q

As much as I hate lads rock the counter argument would be: did Britpop stop anything from happening? Trip-hop, dance music, etc. All charted. The music weeklies were dying too and they didn't dominate the coverage.

very little if anything to disagree with there, but also I was driving the other day and Rock & Roll Star came on the radio and I found myself enjoying it a great deal.

Saw one of their videos sitting in a cafe a couple of weeks ago and it was fine. I wouldn't buy it. Think I'm more inclined to think in a "right, this ok thing came out of this abhorrent culture, what next?" than aping bog standard middle-class outrage at it.

it is high time for a re-assesment of the Britpop movement

Posted 10th May 2001.

A few months before that fateful day that two planes etc.