Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY LETS NOT GO THERE!

They are the worst kind of reactionary politics IMO.

I would take an ADF interview any day!

(a) Skiffle was over by 1958.
(b) No skiffle = no Britpop (from Cliff/Shadows/Beatles onwards). An absurd and ridiculous statement.

well I can't remember that anything they said could be 'racist' but I'll pull out a couple of the old NMEs and check (I prob won't do this actually).

plur!!

PLUR!!!!!!!!1!

do you see!!1

It's important to highlight the connection between the British/London riot grrrl scene and Britpop. When Blow Up (then Londinium) first started the main attendees were members of Comet Gain and Huggy Bear. Paul Tunkin would always play Stereolab's "Ping Pong" and JSBX "Afro" at the club, nowhere else in London would do this. I started going there with a mate of mine who eventually formed Menswear, he also used to attend lots of riot grrrl gigs with me. The original Menswear was a 4 piece, their drummer at the time now drums for The Beatings via Heck and a few other bands whose names escape me. All of them, except for my mate, came from Southend, they went religously to The Pink Toothbrush in Raeliegh and saw tonnes of great bands play there. They weren't clueless fuckwits (well, maybe Chris was).

Suzy seems like she was right up there with the head scenesters, I on the other hand have never been. But I've been at the right places at the right time.

They're overlooked but Smash were a very important bridge between Riot Grrrl and Britpop. You have to realise, for a year or so before 1994/5, there was no indie, just bland pacific northwest inspired metal like Alice in Chains. Seeing Smash play for the first time at The Monarch was one of the most exciting things in my life (at that time).They ignited sparks for everybody that being political, being British, providing your audience, this was so important but nobody did it. TNWOTNW was quite a limp scene, it never took off but I'll stand by it, no Smash = no Britpop. You could say, No riot grrrl = no NWOTNW = no Britpop.

On the dance music side of thing, lots of people were going to Megadog at a pub in Seven Sisters (can't recall it's name) and The North London Polytechnic. I'm not sure how many of these people were also going to Blow Up, Smashing or Fantasy Ashtray but I couldn't have been the only one. London was a million times more exciting a decade ago than it is now, everything going on now, in my opinion, just seems derivative of that moment in time.

I liked The Heavenly Sunday Social, it was like the grand celebration for a clique of people who'd been broad minded and gone out of their way to experience different aspects of London. It was the first place I'd ever been to were you could have a chat at the bar to a guy wearing a Pastels t-shirt whilst a DJ was playing Masters at Work. That seems like nothing out of the ordinary now but back then it was mind-blowing, like there's loads of musically broadminded people out there and they all seem to have decided to come here.

Then the drugs kicked in and people suddenly seemed to care more about how much they earned and what they could spunk their money on rather than the music.

But shit, nothing will beat hearing "Cigarettes and Alcohol" being played at The Albany for the last Sunday Social, it was amazing. As with any scene, the build up was fantastic and I doubt the film will cover that because there was no scene to categorise at that time, just satellites that converged into one horrible monster.

I'm sure they mean well, but having a rant at Britney for not being poitical enough is beyond silly.

hahahaha!!!!!!!

this thread is a gift!

Yeah, cheers Gareth, it turned into The Powerhaus for a bit after the one in Angel shut down. Saw The Make Up and The New Bad Things play there but not much else.

Ohh I never liked SMASH or These Animal Men. No matter what they said were still too much like Camden Lurchers for me.

Silverfish to thread! Whatever happened to Milk, anyway?

Mr Shields was misquoted, there - he was in fact talking about the early sixties trad jazz movement.

Yes and no. Skiffle, in its original form, was certainly over by 1958. BUT... Skiffle's main performer, Lonnie Donegan, started the 60s by releasing heavily Music Hall influenced singles like "My Old Man's a Dustman" and "Does Your Chewing Gun Lose It Flavour" - songs that were a lot more typically English-sounding than skiffle ever was. The Music Hall influences that were later to appear in the music of The Kinks, The Beatles, Queen and Madness (and, ultimately, Blur) may not have happened if it wasn't for those hits.

Sure, the British has Music Hall top hits like Mike Sarne's "Come Outside" and Temperance Seven's "You're Driving Me Crazy" in the early 60s too, but those were seen as one-off novelties, while Donegan was actually a major and important innovator name in pre-Beatles English popular music.

1) Dog Man Star - Suede
2) Different Class - Pulp
3) Vauxhall and I - Morrissey
4) The Masterplan - Oasis
5) Elastica - Elastica
6) Parklife - Blur
7) The Sound of McAlmont and Butler - McAlmont and Butler
8) Tellin' Stories - The Charalatans
9) 1977 - Ash
10) The It Girl - Sleeper

1. Free Peace Sweet - Dodgy
2. Radiator - Super Furry Animals
3. Homegrown - Dodgy
4. The Great Escape - Blur
5. Parklife - Blur
6. It Doesn't Matter Anymore - Supernaturals
7. (What's The Story) Morning Glory - Oasis
8. Moseley Shoals - Ocean Colour Scene
9. Fuzzy Logic - Super Furry Animals
10.Coming Up - Suede

Note that I don't count Radiohead as Britpop. If I did, then "OK Computer" would be at the very top of the list - beating even Dodgy at their best.

in America the only people who possibly cared about these acts effected bad English accents and dressed badly

Have we met?

You mean, just like several of the earliest Nuggets bands 30 years earlier?

But those guys were emulating the Rolling Stones, not bloody Blur.

Not at the start. The earliest Nuggets bands were emulating The Beatles. Listen to The Knickerbockers, The Gants or The Choir. Not a lot of Rolling Stones there, for certain.

not bloody Blur.

Sadly not, as 93-95 era Blur was clearly much better than 63-65-era Stones. :-)

Anyway, the Britpop bands didn't emulate Blur either. In fact, apart from obscurities such as Menswear and Octopus, no other Britpop bands sounded quite like Blur.

There were a lot of Oasis copycats around though.

The silver age was 1988-1991 My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, etc.

After the death of shoegazing, lo there was a famine in the land of British pop. And into the valley of death stepped the Melody Maker, with their feeble attempt to manufacture "Suedemania". But the kids saw that Suede were shit, and a feeble attempt to copy the Smiths to boot, and then Bernard Butler quit the band, and the future of British pop looked bleak indeed. And into the valley of death stepped Blur, whose debut album was a weak blend of shoegazing and baggy/Madchester. But then Damon bought a Kinks album and declared that modern life was rubbish. And then Oasis appeared. And Blur and Oasis begat Pulp, and Sleeper, and too many other boring bands to count. And then an era of mediocrity reigned across the isle of Albion from 1994 - 1997.

Hopefully future generations will look back and realize that Massive Attack, Bjork, the Chemical Brothers and the entire dance scene was what was really happening during the Britpop era, and not the idiotic "feud" between Blur and Oasis.

*hums "Losing My Edge"*

shoegazing is getting much better press

Goddammit! I should have written that article! But that would have meant pitching to Hilburn and there are things I will not do.