Worst Of These Mid-Late 90s UK Bands?

I think it has to be Ocean Colour Scene

Seahorses.

But to be honest any band here whose name isn't a shorthand for 'irrepressible hilarity' is doing pretty well.

Stereophonics

I had to leave Gay Dad off to stop them running away with it.

I have to vote for/against Nazi Kula Shaker.

HOWEVER - no 18 Wheeler, no cred.

SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE

Cast, the Swinging Blue Jeans, The, of Britpop, would come a close second though by virtue of being so bloody BORING.

None of these bands have anything defensible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Dodgy probably should win because of Good Enough which is probably the worst song of the Britpop Years.

i could vote for all of these c*nts except maybe dodgy who i had a small soft spot for.

I still own a single or 2 by:

Dodgy
Sleeper
Gene
Bluetones
Shed 7
Longpigs

Every other band I hated even back in those dark days.

Actually I lied about the Bluetones, I sold Are You Blue Or Are You Blind on Ebay a few years ago.

for 10p?

Nah about £7 I think. It's the only one that's worth anything apart from the gig-only Slight Return 7"

bear gait.

Although yes the reason I still own Dodgy and Longpigs singles is that they won't even fetch 10p.

Haven't Dodgy already been co-opted by the Guilty Pleasures mob hyuk hyuk?

"The Riverboat Song" has a decent riff
Dodgy have enough inoffensive shit to give them a pass
"Slight Return" is a banger
Shed 7 are funny to pretend to like because they cause a lot of indie butthurtedness
Other than that, stfu, gas face.

Dodgy were sort of not-completely-shit pre-Free Peace Sweet. Also they're from Worcestershire.

Phil Collins thought Dodgy were the best Britpop band.

They were fucking shit live though.

This lot all had at least a few good songs, often more:
Dodgy
Shed 7
Travis
Longpigs
Bluetones
Gomez
Meanswe@r

These three I either had a vague soft spot for despite myself, or else don't know enough to comment:
Reef
3 Colours Red
Gene

These are all fucking shit:
Catatonia
Ocean Colour Scene
Stereophonics
Cast
Sleeper
Kula Shaker
Seahorses
Space
Supernaturals

Where's Embrace?

Phil Collins thought Dodgy were the best Britpop band.

-- Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 28 May 2008 16:13 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

None of these bands ever did a song a tenth as good as "Jesus He Knows Me"

Mod req question but is there any chance that LouJag will return before this poll ends?

LJ will be too busy dissecting Amy Winehouse lyrics for his degree

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7422730.stm

lol @ just having noticed "CHRIS EVANS" at the bottom of that cover

xpost just read that and that did briefly cross my mind!

Fucking Cantab Cool Police.

"The Riverboat Song" is worse than 9/11.

LOL never saw chris evans on it. I actually did watch TFI Friday everyweek.
x-post

Pretty sure Ljag's return is within the next five days.

Stereophonics. I thought you said this was going to be a difficult choice? Are you just baiting Geir here?

Bad, but too mediocre to be memorable in any way other than vague memory of some signature "quirk":

Catatonia
Cast
Reef
Seahorses
3 Colours Red
Shed 7
Space

One or two half-decent tunes in their repertoire (not that I'd choose to listen to them, I'd probably not turn them off id they came on the radio though):

Dodgy
Sleeper
Bluetones
Menswear
Kula Shaker
Space

Horrible:

Ocean Colour Scene
Stereophonics
Gene
Reef

No memory of whatsoever beyond vague recollection of seeing name in Melody Maker:

Gomez
Travis
Longpigs
Supernaturals

None of these bands ever did a song a tenth as good as "Jesus He Knows Me"

On the money. The tune for JHKM is at least memorable. For all it was supposedly a genre based on alleged "classic" "songwriting" "beatles" "are kid" it's very hard to actually call up any of these band's tunes beyond a couple of lines from the odd chorus. EG I cannot remember a single one of Cast's songs. Not one. And they were on the radio all the time. Also, you forgot the lightning seeds.

"The Riverboat Song" is worse than 9/11.

-- Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 28 May 2008 16:19 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

AFTER ALL THE THINGS YOU'VE SEEN
TELL ME WHY DOES YOUR RIVER RUN GREEN

Where is Silver Sun useless straight-to-MVE band?

I never got why Bluetones were so hated. Was it because they were seen as bandwagon hoppers?

I once watched Stereophonics at Glastonbury, in one of the rainy years and around the 11am slot, and pretended not to hate them to curry favour with the girl I was with. While watching them she dismissed my very tentative advances. Thinking about it this may well be a definitive low point in my life

I didn't know whether to put Embrace on it or not. All these bands were probably worse. I nearly put Placebo & Ash on.

Ocean Colour Scene. Special award to Sleeper's Louise Wener for being fucking irritating.

BLUE TONES - early warning of latent Thatcherism in belly of New Labour!

Also "Slight Return" was basically tonight Matthew we're going to be Aztec Camera.

Bands who I like to some extent:
Catatonia
Gene
Travis
Longpigs

Bands who are just there:
Cast
Dodgy
Sleeper
Menswear
Gomez
Kula Shaker
3 Colours Red
Space
Supernaturals

Bands who actively suck:

Ocean Colour Scene
Stereophonics (though Dakota was agreat single)
Cast
Reef
Seahorses
Shed 7

Reef are the worst of that last bunch, they don't even have decent haircuts.

I never got why Bluetones were so hated. Was it because they were seen as bandwagon hoppers?

3 Colours Red should really be in a different 'Britrock' poll, which I'm considering doing but for the fact that the bands that would feature don't get enough recognition on ILM

"You don't have to have the solution You've just got to understand the problem"

Fit this lyric in a song. No, that does not fit.

It's not fit either.

Octopus and Heavy Stereo fan will be disappointed with this list.

http://www.absoluteagogo.com/ultrapromo.jpg

3 Colours Red should really be in a different 'Britrock' poll, which I'm considering doing but for the fact that the bands that would feature don't get enough recognition on ILM

Do it!

Perfume, anyone? And how could we forget Northern Uproar? Or Hurricane #1?

lol Hurricane #1 were a particular hate of mine cos I was a big Ride fan pre-Britpop.

I've listened to The Bluetones several times over the last year, having not listened to them for about 8-10 years prior, and they're actually alright. Good guitarist, good drummer, by the second album actually doing some quite interesting not-Britpop-at-all-really things.

Gomez's first album was alright; again, not really Britpop. More Beck goes proper blues. I guess they were seen as "inauthentic student scum" though. One of their later albums, forget the title, is really good, very eclectic, great production, electronics and brass and pop hooks.

Embrace and Ash I guess both survived way beyond Britpop and kept knocking out charting singles for years afterwards.

Travis' first album was actually pretty good, when they still rocked a bit.

Longpigs had about three great singles on the first album. A mate swears blind the second album is a lost classic.

Shed 7 at least had some decent singles, Dolphin and a handful off the second record.

Homegrown by Dodgy is, I'd say, a pretty classic Britpop record; embodies a lot of the spirit of that without the nastiness, sounds very of its time rather than being totally retro, still hasn't dated that badly, great production, some awesome arrangements. Shame Free Peace Sweet is FUCKING HORRIFIC.

Kula Shaker amusingly goofy until nazi breakout.

Space are the most obnoxiously scouse act in history. And obnoxious scouse <<<<<<<<< obnoxious any other region.

disliking the bluetones and not hating them as much as you hate reef/OCS/stereophonics are not the same thing. I can't imagine a world with reef in it where someone hates the bluetones more. perhaps if there were a ranking systems rather than an OPO situation, it might have been different. but hey, that's polls for you. if a thread with 300+ answers doesn't explain stuff, maybe polls aren't the way to settle this shit?

^ ignore grammatical errors there, my abilities in that area disappeared along with my will to live somewhere upthread.

I actually thought Bluetones were worse than Reef. Each to their own I guess.

But presumably you thought someone else was worse still. you didn't vote for them, why assume someone else is going to?

do you understand how polling even works?

obviously not :)

Actually I've just been reminded why I hated The Bluetones. They were on the cover of Raw Magazine when it changed from an open minded Heavy Rock/Alternative/Metal mag to a full on Britpop mag. I loved that magazine and it lasted about 2 or 3 issues tops because of that change, and The Bluetones symbolizes the whole thing for me just like Limp Bizkit on the cover of the last Melody Maker does for others.
Obviously that's just for me though and no reason why anyone else should have voted Bluetones.

You guys just dont hate britpop as much as americans hate nu-metal.

ocs were robbed

no. no they really really really really really fucking weren't.

stereophonics never recorded a fun, silly, 7-minute rave-up like 'get away'. they sucked precisely 100% of the time.

i agree that OCS sucked precisely 100% of the time.

i forgot Dom hated Space so much. Whatever happened to Space? they've been forgotten more than the others.

Surely someone on ILM liked Space?

louis?

space allowed their keyboardist to write precisely one song ('Piggies') and it was by 10,000 miles the best thing they did, hence they suuuuuuuck (and yeah, their main body of work is craven)

wonder if they will be doing the chicken in the basket clubs in 20 years time

following in the footsteps of gerry and the pacemakers

I confess to liking Space at the time. Some of their songs anyway. Dark Clouds for sure. You and Me Against The World is on an old mixtape that's still in my car so I must've enjoyed it at one point. I also recall being annoyed that I could never find their second album. On reflection that seems like a lucky situation.

I cant even remember them having a second album. The singles must have bombed. I do remember one of the band leaving though.

the second album had 'diary of a wimp' on it which i really liked

dont recall that at all

Every single one of those bands on that list were absolute turgid clunkers.

I scanned down the list in ten seconds and they were all there.

Copper Girl by 3 Colours Red was a good song though. Sorry

i think with the exception of seahorses (who are one of the worst groups of all time) and longpigs (who i've never heard), all these bands have one song (or more) i like. in most cases it's only one though.

Kula Shaker -- as indefensibly silly as they were -- were WAY better than most of these crappy bands, and Gene's debut was great.

funnily enough esoj, i thought love is the law by the seahorses was good (everything else was crap).
I actually saw the seahorses at the glasgow garage before the single was out. Love Is the Law was the only song anyone had heard.

tbh i can't remember how it goes!

alex otm about gene, love that first album

it sounded like it was off the second coming. I love that album but if you didnt then you wont care for love is the law.

space allowed their keyboardist to write precisely one song ('Piggies')

didn't he get one techno-noodle whoosh-out per album too? I liked Space at the time. They had the schoolkid whose mum let the Teardrop Explodes rehearse in her house in 'em.

haha!

i found the 1st space cd single "neighbourhood" that i got for 50p from Impulse Records in Hamilton. I barely remember it. I mostly rememember female of the species and that horrid track with catatonia.

the ballad of tom jones is funny if you're 13!

im glad i wasnt 13!

Worst Of These Mid-Late 90s UK Bands?

Just wanted to point out that shortly after this sequence of posts I encountered a British counterpart at work who was at this Glastonbury appearance and proclaimed it to be the greatest concert experience of his life; it took everything I had not to laugh in his face what with my memory of this clip.

the seahorses vocalist was by far the worst in britpop

mind you, the worst singing in that clip is the drummer

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha the chorus on that Glastonbury link is still fucking hysterical

yeah and the worst part is by the drummer. I thought it was chris helme until i realised he had stopped and it was the drummer who was even more out of tune.

hahaha I am having the exact same reaction I had the first time I played this; WHY IS IT STILL GOING

so you can hear the solo!!

The drummer out of Space died recently, i think. (he was the Teardrops anecdote guy wasn't he?)
heard Catatonia's Road Rage on the radio today, somewhat surprisingly.

who on earth was playing that?

every now and then I stumble across or search out this thread and listen to that wretched Seahorses video

it is always hilarious, and then tedious

you talking about ilx?

every now and then I stumble across or search out this thread and listen to that wretched Seahorses video

it is always hilarious, and then tedious

― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Thursday, October 20, 2011 3:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me OTM

link? fucked if I'm going through this whole thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18w84rpaqlg

Some quality vocals there

Not sure i've ever actually heard some of those notes before?

Oh god, this shit again!?!

'Tis the season!