What Makes Britpop British?

What Makes Britpop British?

Introduction

Britpop was a British alternative rock and cultural movement characterised by the prominence of bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s which gained popularity in Great Britain in the mid 1990s.  Britpop bands were grouped together by the media first as a ‘scene’ and later as a national cultural movement even though these bands did not on the whole have a single unifying sound.  Generally, Blur and Oasis are considered the scenes most prominent acts, although other bands also gained its popularity associated with Britpop at various stages that  included Suede, Pulp, Ocean Color Scene, Supergrass, The Verve and Radiohead.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends.  Leading to the Madchester sound, Acid house and the rise of Hip hop had led to an renewed interest in groove and rhythm-led songs in British indie music.  As this event happened, the more “traditional” guitar music was sidelined.  Bands like the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine greatly influence the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s/early 1990s also went against the trend by producing long, psychedelic, repetitive songs.

However, during the time of the American invasion led by bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, an “anti-influence” was formed making some British acts sought to emulate the grunge sound.  With the advent of such American invasion, others continued to emulate the Madchester sound of the late 80s as part of the baggy movement.  During that time, much of the British music press remained as follower to more established and critically acclaimed US acts such as Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth.

               It would be enough to say that the British experience of pop music was quite different from the American.  Firstly, there were more holdovers from the music-hall era of pre-War entertainment (rather like vaudeville).  American songsmiths were imitated by pop crooners and bands.  Notwithstanding the wake of American music invasion, there was still a flash of inspiration and then it was exclusive to British teens alone like skiffle music that America had none of it. Then there came the wireless (American English: radio).  Although there were no top-40 AM stations in England all pounding a pop message to youngsters throughout the States, there was the benevolent BBC (“The Beeb”), which only progressively allowed rock and roll to contravene its airwaves.  Stationary ships like Radio Caroline or continental stalwarts like Radio Luxembourg carry most of the really good stuff came creeping across the channel via underground “pirate” stations.                  The American experience was particularly different from what the teenage Beatles grew up with in their own pop music culture.  In it is a list of groups and singers who entered and exited the pop charts of the UK from the fifties through the end of the sixties—the singers who influenced several generations of music listeners.  During the 1968, the list stops roughly when the British Invasion ceased to have an effect on the US.  There were groups in great quantities after this, but the wave had slowed, and it’s the wave, and its imperceptible precursors.  What was the Beatles’ environment and background? What might they have heard? And while we know what American music did for them, what did British music fail to do? Why did they retreat from skiffle, the Shadows, Adam Faith, and create a whole new world of harmonic complexity and beauty, just for them and us? Maybe by reading about that background—the styles the Beatles abandoned—you’ll be inspired to seek out some of it, and hear for yourself (dmac@math.ucla.edu).  

            Britpop refers to the overabundance of ’90s bands that drew more intentionally from the custom and tradition of the Beatles than any single movement.  Britpop was extremely commercial with bands that were creating the soundtrack to the lives of British youth even though the movement originated in the U.K. indie scene.  Despite the fact that the music has faded commercially, certain bands have endeavored to keep the genre alive ().

 

Roots and Influences

           

            There were a lot of influences that shaped Britpop groups.  Specifically, these groups were influenced by the British guitar music of the 1960s and 1970s.  In particular, these influences includes that from the two Rock and Roll trends of the British Invasion namely, the “rocker” cornerstones like The Beatles and The Rollingstones and their Mod contemporaries like The Who, The Kinks, and The Small Faces.  Moreover, glam artists such as David Bowie and T.  Rex and punk and new wave artists including The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, and The Buzzcocks were also quite influential during the 1970s and 1980s. 

 

            The direct ancestors of the Britpop movement were the Indie acts from the 1980s and early 1990s.  Specifically, these were the likes of The Smiths, Jesus and Mary Chain, and James.  Another large influence was the Madchester scene that was fronted by The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, and Inspiral Carpets (for whom Oasis’ Noel Gallagher had worked as a Roadie during the Madchester years.  It should also be noted that there were also indirect influences in the Britpop music.  These were the C86 bands that largely played poppy indie guitar music.  Such bands as Primal Scream and a lot more of the bands that would be grouped under the Britpop umbrella were originally started off as C86 bands. 

 

            Some elements of both crept into the more enduring facets of Britpop despite the professed disdain for both shoegazing and grunge among many at the time.  During the time, Noel Gallagher of Oasis has since championed Ride while Martin Carr of the Boo Radleys has pointed out Dinosaur Jr’s influence on their work. 

           

            It is still unclear where Britpop movement actually began even though the movement came to the fore around 1994.  The Stone Roses that was released in 1989 is sometimes regarded as the first Britpop album in view to its influence on the later acts.  Noel Gallagher even added that it was The La’s self-titled debut The La’s which was released in 1990.  However, others would claim that Gallagher’s own debut Definitely Maybe in 1994, Suede’s debut album Suede, or Blur’s breakthrough the Modern Life is Rubbish in 1993, deserve the distinction as the first Britpop album for helping to kick-start the movement. 

The long-running British tradition of tuneful, guitar-driven pop bands was originally established by the Beatles creating a tradition that was refreshed and updated every so often by new musical movements.  While this was true about the Beatles, Britpop refers to the legion of ’90s bands that drew more consciously from that tradition than ever before.  Britpop was unabashedly commercial despite the fact that the movement originated in the U.K. indie scene with its bands prized big, shiny, catchy hooks, as well as the glamour of mainstream pop stardom and the sense that they were creating the soundtrack to the lives of a new generation of British youth.  And it was very definitely British youth they were aiming at; Britpop celebrated and commented on their lives, their culture, and their musical heritage, with little regard for whether that specificity would make them less accessible to American audiences.

Britpop’s youthful enthusiasm and desire for recognition were reactions not only against the shy, anti-star personas of the early-’90s shoegazer bands, but also the dourness of American grunge and the faceless producers behind the growing electronic-dance underground.  Musically, Britpop drew from the Beatles, of course, but also from the pastoral sound of late-’60s Kinks, the mod movement (the Who, the Small Faces), ’70s glam (David Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music), punk and new wave (the Jam, the Buzzcocks, Wire, Madness, XTC, Squeeze, Elvis Costello), and the alternative guitar-pop of the Smiths.  All those artists were characteristically British — they crafted their images, lyrics, and sounds from a distinctly British frame of reference, which was why few of them became anything more than cult artists in the U.S. that also explain why Britpop functioned much the same way.

Apart from the above-stated influences, Britpop had its most direct and instantaneous roots in the Madchester scene that emphasized on good times and catchy tunes pointed the way around the shoegazer aesthetic.  The most important part of the foundation was the Stone Roses’ effortless pop hooks and rock star attitude but the true founding fathers of Britpop were Suede.  Suede’s self-titled debut became an unexpected smash with its fusion of glam-rock majesty and Smiths introspection that was released in 1993.  Suede paved the way for even bigger advancements and breakthroughs in 1994 by Blur (Parklife) and Oasis (Definitely Maybe) who quickly became Britpop’s two most popular superstars. With their success came a volatile and frivolous explosion of similarly inspired bands; Elastica, Pulp, Supergrass, and the Boo Radleys were among the biggest.  In 1996, Oasis became the only Britpop band to become authentic middle-of-the-road stars in the U.S.  However, due to Oasis’ poorly reviewed third album and Blur’s move toward American indie rock, the year 1997 brought the first signals that the Britpop boom was beginning to run out of steam.  Several individual bands kept going strong, and the less youth-oriented British trad rock movement kept its classicism alive even after the movement’s star began to fade ().

Britpop History (1990s)

(1991-1993) The Modfather and Modern Life is Rubbish

Paul Weller In particular, Paul Weller is praised as an initiator of the movement that began during this times.  With his solo records Paul Weller (1991) and Wild Wood (1993) are considered seminal forces for the movement, he initially lit up the Britpop influence.  Paul Weller earned the nickname “The Modfather” accounting to his influence over Britpop coupled with association with the Mod revival.  Weller has also performed with various Britpop bands as well as guiding the bands through his recordings.  Such examples were Simon Fowler and Damon Minchella of Ocean Colour Scene that have played in his backing band and Weller played guitar on Oasis’ quintessential Britpop track “Champagne Supernova“.

Blur was another key initiatior of the movement.  Blur brought the early media attention and chart success with their 1993 album Modern Life Is Rubbish while Weller brought the element of “Mod” culture to what would become Britpop. The album slowly shifted Blur’s sound away from shoegazing dance music of their debut Leisure to a quirky pop sound influenced by the likes of the Kinks. In hindsight, the writing and sound of Modern Life Is Rubbish contained many of the lyrical themes, chord changes, harmonies, and decidedly British singing which would later become iconically recognised as “Britpop”.

The Mod scene of the mid 1960s and early 1980s had a profound influence on a number of acts, most famously Blur, Ocean Colour Scene, Menswe@r and, to a lesser extent, Oasis, either in terms of musical influence (particularly The Kinks, The Who and The Small Faces) or fashion (the fortunes of Ben Sherman were revived overnight).

  (1994–1996) Britpop and Cool Britannia

The term “Britpop” had been used As early as 1987, the term “Britpop” had been already in use.  It had been used in Sounds magazine by journalist, Goldblade frontman and TV pundit John Robb referring to bands such as The La’s, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and The Bridewell Taxis. “Britpop” arose around the same time as the term “Britart” (which referred to the work of British modern artists such as Damien Hirst).  Nevertheless, it was not until 1994 when the term entered the popular consciousness, being used extensively by NME, Melody Maker, Select, and Q magazine.  The word subsequently entered the mainstream media.  Its influence was recognised by an article in The Guardian in which the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary declared “Britpop” as the new word which best exemplified 1995. “Britpop” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1997.

By featuring Suede’s lead singer Brett Anderson on the cover with a Union Jack in the background and the phrase “Yanks go home!” on the cover, Select Magazine helped the upswing in British pride in April 1993.  The issue included features on Suede, The Auteurs, Denim, Saint Etienne and Pulp.  Other Britpop acts dominated the music weeklies in the next three years (1993-1995) – Mansun, Elastica, Echobelly, Sleeper, Supergrass, Primal Scream, The Auteurs, The Boo Radleys, Pulp, Cast (a band formed by John Power, former bassist for The La’s), The Bluetones, Black Grape, Torrindale, Space and The Divine Comedy.  Some of them were new, others such as the Boo Radleys already established acts who benefited from association with the movement.

The first stirrings of recognition by the music press came in the form of what the NME had dubbed the New Wave of New Wave (or ‘NWONW’) after this, though this was originally applied to the more punk-derivative acts such as Elastica, S*M*A*S*H and These Animal Men.  The music press was initially hesitant to recognise what it regarded as lesser acts even though the latter two bands quickly disappeared from the limelight; in the first instance Oasis, Shed Seven and Whiteout, and continued to champion the more brash and punky groups.  However, the release of new material by both The Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets that year (having returned to form following poorly-received “post-baggy” records) saw the more melodic acts gain prominence.  Other baggy acts to slip back into mainstream acceptance during this period included Ocean Colour Scene and Shaun Ryder‘s post-Happy Mondays outfit Black Grape.

 There was a division of thoughts on British Fans as to which album truly kick-started the movement.  Oasis’ breakthrough debut Definitely Maybe (1994), Blur’s bombastic third album Parklife (1994) and Suede‘s self-titled debut Suede (1993) are all contenders. These albums defined the movement and paved the way for many other acts. Pulp’s His ‘n’ Hers (1994) also coincided with this trio of landmark albums but they would not achieve true mainstream success until 1995‘s Different Class. Britpop hysteria then rapidly gained media and fan attention in Britain, Western Europe and some parts of the North America.

British pride, media hype and imagery as it was about the particular style of music was the movement’s sole desciption.  The first of the new crop of guitar-oriented bands to be completely embraced by the UK music media as Britain’s answer to Seattle’s grunge sound was the Suede (known in America as “London Suede”). Their self-titled first album was released in March 1993, and became the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the UK. This title was later claimed by Oasis with Definitely Maybe.

Britpop movement reached its zenith during the year 1995.  Blur and Oasis as prime contenders for the title “Kings of Britpop” in the “Battle of the Bands”.  The “Battle” was headed by two groups spurred on by the media – Oasis’ brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher representing the North of England, and from Blur, Damon Albarn and Alex James representing the South.  This “Battle” was epitomised when, after some back-handed marketing, Oasis’ Single “Roll With It” and Blur’s “Country House” were released in the same week. The event caught the public’s imagination and gained mass media attention – even featuring on the BBC News. While this battle raged on Pulp took the number two spot with their most recognisable single “Common People” and Suede with their “Trash” and “Beautiful Ones“.

Blur won the battle of the bands, selling at about 274,000 copies to Oasis’ 216,000 – the songs charting at number one and number two respectively. However, in the long-run, Oasis’ album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory won the popular vote over Blur’s The Great Escape, outselling it by a factor of 4 or more. In the UK, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory spent a total of three years on the charts, selling over eighteen million copies and becoming the second best selling British album of all time. Oasis’ second album is considered by many to be the definitive Britpop album. In Britain and Ireland it became popular for a time when asked “What’s the story?” (lit. “How are you?”), to answer with “Morning glory”.)

The emergence of the young leader of the Labour party – Tony Blair seeb the new electioneering.  Blair then represented the new face of the dreams and wishes of the British counterculture and many acts like Oasis and Blur admired him.  Noel Gallagher also appeared on several official meetings and expressed his supports for Blair.

Along with Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Suede, The year 1995 saw critically and commercially acclaimed singles and albums released by other Britpop bands along with Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Suede which, collectively, captured the essence of the attitude and the Cool Britannia movement. Such bands included Supergrass (I Should Coco), Cast (All Change) and Radiohead (The Bends). The “Cool Britannia” movement was also symbolised in by the outwardly happy, poppy sing-along summer anthems of such bands as Dodgy‘s “Staying Out for the Summer”, Supergrass’ “Alright”, Sleeper‘s “Inbetweener”, The Boo Radleys’ “Wake Up Boo” and Echobelly‘s “Great Things”.

Because of its massive popularity at the time and because acts represented particular musical influence or movement in their music, the British media named the movement as the “Third British Invasion” which led to more or less media-generated conflicts between the bands, as was the case with previous bands and movements.

1995 also The Verve also released their second album, A Northern Soul in 1995.  Unfortunately, despite strong critical acclaim and the band split, the album failed to make a commercial impact.  They would reform in time for their seminal 1997 release Urban Hymns.

Even though the fallout from 1995 continued well into the summer of 1996, thanks in part to new releases from the likes of Ocean Colour Scene (Moseley Shoals), Suede (Coming Up) and Dodgey (Free Peace Sweet) and to a legendary, record-breaking two night show at Knebworth Park from Oasis.  With many of the nominees acknowledged as “britpop bands”, the 1996 Brit Awards were a celebration of britpop. The ceremony was also fuelled by the rivalry between Blur and Oasis. When Oasis defeated Blur to win the “Best British Album” Award, the Gallagher brothers taunted Blur by singing a drunken rendition of Blur’s biggest hit “Parklife“, with Liam Gallagher changing the lyrics to “Shite-Life”. Oasis also won the “Best British Album” award for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and the “Best Video Award” for “Wonderwall“. All three awards had been won by Blur the previous year. Meanwhile, Paul Weller won the “Best Male Artist” award (for the second year running) and Supergrass were acknowledged the “Best Breakthrough Act”, which Oasis had won the year before. The ceremony was packed with britpop artists, but it was Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker who stole the show by invading the stage during a performance by Michael Jackson and flashing his rear. Cocker was arrested but released without charge.

There were exceptions in the selection even though the majority of the bands associated with Britpop were Englush. Super Furry Animals, Catatonia, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics were Welsh. Others like The Gyres, The Supernaturals, Travis and Belle and Sebastian were Scottish. This even led native media to call the rise of Welsh Bands “Cool Cymru” and “Cool Caledonia” – a pun to “Cool Britannia”. There were also Irish acts such as – the Cranberries and Ash (from Northern Ireland) – and not to mention the infamous Gallagher brothers of Oasis, who were of Irish descent. In spite of accusations of Southeast bias (typified by Blur, Supergrass and the much-lamented Menswe@r), the movement and Britpop hysteria engulfed not just one province or city; it encompassed the entire region and established itself as a hegemonic and definitive British movement, both musically and spiritually.

With the 1996 film Trainspotting and its Britpop-centric soundtrack (featuring Blur, Elastica, Pulp and Sleeper), the movement also exercised a brief period of cultural hegemony through to Ocean Colour Scene’s music being used on Chris Evans’ TFI Friday and the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Some considered TFI Friday to be part of the televisual arm of Britpop. Other examples are Shooting Stars (which utilised large “Mod” logos as part of the set and featured many prominent Britpop musicians as guests), The Girly Show, The Word, The Fast Show and Father Ted.

  (1997–1999) Deceleration of the movement

The movement and hysteria started to subside during the late 1996.  The deceleration was due to high expectations not being met and artistic burnout caused by the drug-fuelled lifestyles of the bands.  Bands like Blur, Oasis and Suede gained much media attention for their use of alcohol and/or drugs.  Many releases would be ultimately disappointing, lacking the overall spirit and sound of the movement in the following year – 1997. The releases core initiators and leaders, Oasis and Blur, were key to the downturn in Britpop’s fortunes. Oasis’ third album Be Here Now, although attracting much hype and selling strongly, failed to stand the test of time and soon attracted strong criticism from critics, record-buyers and Noel Gallagher himself for its “overproduced” and “bloated” sound. Blur’s self-titled fifth album was very well received by critics, partly because it showcased stylistic evolution for the band, unlike Oasis. However, their new sound was not immediately well received by fans. The band – under the guidance of guitarist Graham Coxon rather than vocalist Damon Albarn – moved away from their old sound and their music began to assimilate American lo-fi influences, particularly that of Pavement, with frontman Damon Albarn telling the NME that the album was “English slacker”. It would take the release of Blur’s second single, “Song 2“, to win the record true commercial success and it soon shot back up the British charts.

Notwithstanding the established acts struggle, attention began to turn to the likes of Radiohead and The Verve, who had previously overlooked by media attention, which had previously centred on Pulp, Suede, Blur and Oasis, though Radiohead had found commercial success their 1993 single “Creep” and commercial and critical success with 1995s The Bends.  These two bands – in particular Radiohead – showed considerably more esoteric influences from the 1960s and 1970s, not as common amongst the earlier Britpop acts. When the movement showed signs of fading, Radiohead and the Verve released their respective 1997 landmark efforts OK Computer and Urban Hymns, both of which were and remain widely acclaimed.

Many acts began to falter as the movement began to slow down. Many acts found the pressure too great and split, or simply faded from the limelight even though some acts found success with more challenging records – such as Pulp’s This Is Hardcore, Supergrass’ In It for the Money and Cornershop‘s When I Was Born for the 7th Time -. Elastica fell victim to drug abuse and did not follow up 1995′s self titled debut until 1999. Menswear also failed to follow up their debut, Nuisance, and split. Others, such as Cast, Ocean Colour Scene and Shed Seven continued to release records well into the new millennium, but with rapidly diminishing commercial success. Similarly, many of the newer acts the record industry rushed to sign during the heyday of Britpop simply did not prove to be chart worthy.

The movement gradually fell apart as the decade drew to a close. Blur continued to move away from the movement with their subsequent releases, parting company with long-time producer Stephen Street and guitarist Graham Coxon in the process.  A couple of years after Coxon left he realigned with Street to record his most successful solo records.  Even though Oasis remained popular amongst their fan base, they entered a period of inactivity following Be Here Now.  They suffered the loss of founding members Bonehead and Guigsy in 1999 and drummer Alan White in 2004 while recording the follow-up in 1999, leaving only the Gallagher brothers as original members from the Britpop era. Suede released two more albums in 1999 and 2002, before eventually calling it quits in 2003. Pulp failed to follow up 1998‘s This Is Hardcore until 2001 with We Love Life after which they entered an extended hiatus from which they have yet to emerge. Radiohead, never the band most strongly associated with the movement, radically changed their sound with subsequent records and abandoned all semblance of the Britpop style. The Verve, after losing key guitarist Nick McCabe, also split, although their frontman Richard Ashcroft subsequently forged a successful solo career. Despite the “fall” of Britpop a few established acts like Oasis, Radiohead, Blur and Supergrass continued to make music and still are enjoying relative popularity among fans and critics.

The demise of Creation Records adequately summed up the period, arguably the driving force for much of the hype and hyperbole of the era, in 1999. Following the bubble created by Oasis which kept the label afloat, it entered a hubristic period which saw the commercially and critically unsuccessful signings of white Rastafarian Mishka and an ageing Kevin Rowland to the label.

 

(2000s) Legacy

Early line-ups of current bands in the ascendant such as The Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs (as Parva) and Hard-Fi (as Contempo), all formed during the late 1990s and early 2000s aside from the movement’s contribution to culture in general during and after the period. This can be seen as a continuation of the evolution of new bands and scenes from old, and the rapid turnover of ‘genres’, in the British music scene. Other acts like Coldplay, Travis, Athlete, The Strokes and Kasabian showed Britpop influences in their work.

 

 

Looking back at the birth of Britpop

In the first of a series of features, we look at how Britpop was born.  One band dominated the global alternative rock scene in the early 1992.

Nirvana had suddenly become the voice of a restless generation thanks to their seminal, seething album Nevermind and single Smells Like Teen Spirit, which were released the previous year.  Grunge was cool, Seattle was the rock capital and other US bands like Pearl Jam, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses were also enjoying mammoth success.

In the UK, the “Madchester” scene of the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays had burned brightly for a while but soon fizzled out.  In its wake came little more than the underwhelming, unambitious “shoegazing” phase.

‘Kill grunge’

With this backdrop, Blur – who had their first hit in 1991 amid the Madchester-inspired “baggy” craze, – set off on their second US tour.  The 44-city trek was a depressing experience. Bands that were not grunge were all but dismissed and Blur came to despise the disinterest and uniformity they encountered.  But the trip provoked a strong reaction. It inspired the band, they said, to begin a mission to “get rid of grunge”, “declare war on America” and make music that was identifiably English.

Other new British bands had similar, if less fervent, ideas.  Suede also celebrated their origins while railing against US influence whose debut single The Drowners came out while Blur was on that tour.  

Justine Frischmann had been in Suede and in a relationship with singer Brett Anderson – but left both to form her own group, Elastica, and get together with Blur frontman Damon Albarn.  And Pulp, who were getting noticed for wry songs about everyday life, had moved into the same London orbit as Blur, Suede and Elastica.  Reared on acts like David Bowie, The Jam, The Specials and The Smiths, these bands now set about reasserting their roots.

According to John Harris, author of The Last Party and presenter of BBC Four’s The Britpop Story, the troubles and influences of US bands seemed very distant. “It reminded people both of their own lives and also of the music that had soundtracked those lives (Harris, J. n.d.).”When someone came round the corner singing about dingy suburban England, losing your money on fruit machines and greasy spoon cafes, I thought ‘aha, yes, I understand’,” Harris says. “It reminded people both of their own lives and also of the music that had soundtracked those lives 10 or 12 years before.”

Suede’s debut album went to number one in 1993, Blur signaled their new start with Modern Life Is Rubbish and now-defunct magazine Select published a famous issue celebrating the new British bands. “They seemed to start talking about people’s lives in this country as they were lived and the things people were familiar with,” Andrew Harrison, editor at the time, remembers. “It just seemed to be a lot more powerful and potent.

“I was always a Blur girl, still convinced I’ll marry Alex James one day!” (). “And it also went with a much more interesting look. Who wants to shamble round in a third-hand lumberjack shirt when you can be wearing the great Fred Perry?”

It all plugged into British heritage and culture at a very creative time for the country, he adds – with Britart, films and designers also on a high.  Also in 1993, a clear-out of DJs began at BBC Radio 1, then the nation’s most popular radio station, replacing ageing, middle-of-the-road hosts and playlists with younger blood.  “It’s no coincidence that Britpop happened a year later,” John Harris says. “I don’t think Britpop could have happened without that.”

And there was an atmosphere of change in wider society as it became clear that the era of Conservative rule was coming to an end.  When a young, vibrant rock fan called Tony Blair took over as Labour leader in 1994, the sense of possibility and expectation grew.  Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994 finally finished off grunge as another British band was rapidly emerging – but not from the same southern art school origins as the likes of Blur and Suede.

Oasis merely wanted to pick up where the Stone Roses left off and be as big as The Beatles.  “Oasis was a no-nonsense rock ‘n’ roll band who wanted to roll around on a bed of £50 notes,” Mr. Harris says.

Confidence

Blur hit new heights with Girls and Boys and Parklife, social commentary dressed as pop hits as Oasis enjoyed hits with rousing anthems Live Forever and Cigarettes and Alcohol.  That set the scene for their chart showdown the following summer – and for a new crop of acts like Supergrass, Menswear, Sleeper and Dodgy to take the stage.

While others merely happened to come along at the same time, some of those bands were inspired by the confidence and success of the Britpop pioneers.  But they all became part of Britpop and helped the UK’s alternative rock regain its voice – for a while ( 2005).

 

Are we in Britpop’s second wave?

Bands like Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Suede and Supergrass gave British music one of its most successful periods for decades in the mid-1990s.  However, with the benefit of a decade’s hindsight, was it all just a dummy run for what could be Britpop’s finest hour?  British groups seem to be taking the world by storm again. Franz Ferdinand came from nowhere to sell more than a million copies of their debut album in the US alone.

Kaiser Chiefs have created enough buzz to perform at the Philadelphia leg of Live 8 borrowing a guitar-pop template that would have been at home in the heady days of 1994.  And Keane have become stars from Mexico to New Zealand, a band whose sound owes much to post-Britpop groups such as Travis and Coldplay,

Coldplay songs waft out of malls in Toronto, beachside bars in Bali and Moscow nightclubs.  They are arguably the biggest band in the world.  So are we seeing British groups reap the rewards of the efforts of bands a decade ago? “You could say that, but you’d be wrong,” according to Andrew Mueller, who was reviews editor of music weekly Melody Maker during the Britpop years.  “Coldplay’s success in the US has been, if anything, despite Oasis and Blur, not because of them.  “Coldplay have, instead, followed the U2 model – embrace the place, tour relentlessly, show up at every meet-and-greet you’re invited to, smile, be gracious, be humble and don’t complain that the Yanks don’t make tea properly.”

Much of the music from the Britpop period has not aged particularly well, Mr. Mueller says. “With that scene, as with others, a lot of really good stuff attracted imitation by a vast legion of ambulance-chasers and bandwagon-jumpers,” he says.

“Pulp’s Different Class and Blur’s Parklife still sound just dandy.  Whereas it is difficult to imagine anyone still listening to Menswear, Menswear guitarist Simon White now manages Bloc Party, one of the most acclaimed bands of the new indie crop, and says most Britpop bands were “not really that great”.

Record labels are again desperate to sign any acts with a certain sound like Britpop.  Any old band is getting a record deal if you’ve got some of the right influences.  The quality is really low at the moment if anything.  There is very little that will stand the test of time here.”

These bands today haven’t had the phenomenal status at home ().  Mark Sutherland, an ex-Melody Maker editor and NME staff member who is now news editor of BBC 6 Music, thinks this generation’s most successful bands have learned the mistakes of Britpop.  But he also says bands as popular as Coldplay are not as big as Oasis were in 1995.  “I think it’s hard to understand it unless you were there,” he says. “They were as big as any British band ever – as big as The Beatles.  “These bands today haven’t had the phenomenal status at home; they have been more concerned about the international market.”

For the reason that they did not need America, Blur and Oasis did not crack American.  Whereas even a band like Franz Ferdinand – who are thought of as being a bit more arty – are prepared to play that game.  Franz Ferdinand’s million-strong US sales would have been unheard of for mid-’90s also-rans such as Sleeper, Echobelly and Cast.  But Britpop may go down as Britain’s last great unifying music scene, says Jody Thompson, a former news editor at NME.

Maybe the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand can eventually match up to the 90s Britpop era but it’s hard to tell right now with only their debut albums to go by” (.).  “That’s not necessarily for it’s quality, but because of the political, artistic and social climate of the time as well,” she says.

“Britpop kind of music became the poster boy for a resurgence of British culture as a whole and all aspects became interconnected – like Damien Hirst directing Blur’s Country House video.”  Bands getting success now may find it lasts longer, she says. “But then it’s probably more liberating for the bands around right now anyway – they can develop at their own speed without the weight of the nation’s expectations on their output.”

 

Look Back in Anger

Noel Gallagher was once fond of telling this story ( 2005). It was July 1997: The monobrowed guitarist of the British band Oasis was at his home, swirling on acid, when his mail slot spit forth a magical letter with the return address 10 Downing Street—it was from the prime minister’s house. Gallagher had been an avid supporter of  campaign; as a show of thanks, he was invited to a cozy reception of party elites and supporters at  new residence. The evening yielded an unbelievable photo opportunity: the young, cherubic, and eminently trustworthy face of New Labour meeting the young, cocky rock star amid a huddle of bureaucrats. Gallagher asked how he managed to stay up the entire night to watch the election results. “Probably not by the same means you did,” Blair replied, gently nudging Gallagher about his famous cocaine habit. Gallagher thought it was hilarious.

Oasis’s third album, Be Here Now, was released the following month.  On the heels of the Downing Street encounter—and building on the band’s colonization of the U.K.’s pop charts—the record’s release became a national event. Here was the record that would push the homegrown, in-progress musical revolution known as Britpop to new heights. Here was the soundtrack to “Cool Britannia,” a faddish term that renewed British identity as more than bad teeth and world affairs also-rans. Unfortunately, Here was the sound of a bubble bursting. It was an exercise in cocaine vanity, replete with multi-multi-multitracked guitars, too much treble, and really, really long songs. Oasis would spend the next seven years shuffling in and out of the U.K. music tabloids; they had become old news without ever reaching maturity. We know, more or less, what happened to Blair. As time passed, he seemed to have less time to meet Gallagher in the middlebrow.

Outside of a few out-of-context hits from Blur and Pulp—as well as the universally familiar loutishness of Oasis—the core of Britpop had little effect on the American pop imagination. But in the U.K., Britpop and the idea of Cool Britannia it inspired brought forth a fascinating shift in what it meant to be young, British, and more often than not, white. It was power to the people in four minutes or less, it was uplift without the aid of America, and it was going to be bigger than the Beatles and God. Britpop is the subject of two wonderful retrospectives: journalist John Harris’s keenly researched Britpop! Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (Da Capo) and a hilarious documentary entitled Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop. Each attempts to convey this moment of extreme promise, and each pins the moment’s failure on the one man who was supposed to make everyone’s dreams come true.

Britpop as a unified idea emerged around 1994. There were two main commandments: Thou shalt love the Beatles, the Jam, the Smiths, Blur, and/or Oasis; thou shalt love them more than anything from America.  Often the artists themselves were aware of this zero-sum nationalism—Blur nearly named their second album England vs. America, before settling on the no less Brit-sounding Modern Life Is Rubbish. Wittingly or not, pop stars were doing the work of the ruling class: They were making it all right to care. Even if you didn’t like the music, the synergistic coupling of pop and patriotism offered a reason to keep your head high.

In the mushy discourse of charisma, the Tony Blair of the mid 1990s had given many young Britons the greatest reason for hope. Part of this was due to the well-manicured ties Blair and his made-over New Labour camp kept with the nation’s most credible pop stars—one of the most entertaining characters of Harris’s book is a plucky Labour aide who turns up at every gig wearing a suit. But much of it was just a general effervescence, a sense that something was in the air. In one particularly poignant scene of Live Forever, the journalist Jon Savage recalls seeing Oasis on Top of the Pops performing the heartening “Some Might Say” in 1995, right after Labour had trounced the Tories in the council elections: “I remember watching them and I just cried. Somehow, by accident, by design, somebody captured the mood of the moment with a song.”

The proudly working-class Gallagher was the kind of apathetic young person that 18 years of Conservative rule had created. In February 1996,  attended the Brit Awards. When Oasis sauntered onstage to accept an award, a blissful Gallagher exclaimed, “There are seven people in this room tonight who are giving a little bit of hope.” He named all five members of the band, the president of their label, and Blair. “If you got anything about you, you go up and shake  hand. Power to the people!” (Gallagher later revealed that he was on two drugs at the time of his impromptu speechifying.) You could not manufacture this kind of publicity, and  ran with the baton. Later that year, Alastair Campbell,  press secretary, wrote: “Something has shifted, there’s a new feeling in the streets. There’s a desire for change. Britain is exporting pop music again. Now all we need is a new government.”

In April 1997, Blair won the general election. He had remade Labour by calling it “New” but moving it toward the center. And he had revitalized it by aligning himself with the hard-playing working-class lads and the by-thy-bootstraps dreams of their pop idols. Though the ideas were inherently conservative, it wasn’t until years later that the photo op came into full view. The lightning of youth collided with the needs of the elected, and all the kid got was a gracious handshake.

Today, Downing Street signifies a far more serious scandal. The recently leaked Downing Street memo contains the minutes of a secret 2002 meeting of high-ranking U.K. officials. One of the items discussed was the American attempt to “fix” intelligence data on Iraq to conform to military objectives. The story hasn’t exactly made waves stateside, but in the U.K., it became a symbol of the nation’s tumbling prestige and a sad remark on Blair’s pliancy.

There is nothing worse than the relinquishing of cynicism for idealism, only to return to cynicism. One hears this slow retreat toward disappointment in the latest album from Oasis, entitled Don’t Believe the Truth. It’s a surprisingly great record that alternates between Liam Gallagher’s rainbow-chasing love songs and Noel’s middle-aged tales of disappointment. It is hard to imagine a band known for such corny, infinite cheer as “Live Forever” and “Wonderwall” sounding so deflated. “The Importance of Being Idle” struggles to find peace of mind in loneliness, while the Velvet Underground-riffing “Mucky Fingers” wonders about all “the lies you’ve learned.” The twirling “Part of the Queue” finds Noel escaping to the city, only to find that the city isn’t so great after all.

According to , there was one thing Gallagher wanted to ask Blair that day at 10 Downing. “I did ask him about the Liverpool dockers,” Gallagher remembers, referring to a group of striking workers who were dismissed for refusing to cross a picket line in 1995. “His words were ‘We’ll look into it.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you probably will, won’t you?’ And that was the end of that.” (2005).

 

 

 

 

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