Britpop era follow up to successful albums poll

Shed Seven – Let It Ride, Reef – Rides, Lightning Seeds- Tilt, Sleeper – Pleased to Meet You and Catatonia – Equally Cursed & Blessed – I have no idea what any of these sound like.

I think I could take a pretty good guess.

We own 9 of them between us.

In It For The Money is a great album, I can't say that about any of the others here although the Blur, Pulp and Boo Radleys ones definitely have their moments. I bought the Manics and Suede when they came out (and the albums after!) but they're long gone from my CD shelves.

I bet every major UK city has at least one charity shop containing every single one of these albums.

I doubt even they have "Lustra"

Head Music was almost a great album, the title track and Elephant Man are dreadful and Savoir Faire was always going to take some stick. Even with the sterile sound, it was really just 2 or 3 clunkers that brought the album down.

I wonder if living in the States made it easier for me to enjoy Be Here Now. It's not as good as Morning Glory, but even that album isn't great, and it doesn't feel like that big of a qualitative drop to me. Oasis does big, dumb rock songs, and those first three albums seem of a piece inasmuch as they were Oasis making the most of their v. limited range.

In it for the money

I've been listening to this all week. This album reminds me of the onset of summer, somehow.

I was forced to listen to the whole of Morning Glory in the car the other day and I have to say it's one of the blandest hit records in the world. Everything about it points to the middle and the lyrics are just...

"Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know real soon"

Makes you think...

Oh, Oasis lyrics are inarguably the worst perversion of the English language ever. I basically have to pretend they're sing in Cocteau-speak or another language altogether.

"You see me, I've got my magic pie."

"they're singing"

That post would be the second-worst perversion of the English language ever.

The thing is, it's like savant babel English - absolutely anyone of a certain age can pretty much sing along to the whole record without questioning what the words mean. The words just roll (with it) off the tongue so easily. It's genius in a way. Walking slowly down the hall, faster than a cannonball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVc7ZB9DPGA

Between Blur and Elastica for me and I went for Elastica because The Menace doesn't get nearly enough love. Neither does The Great Escape for that matter but The Menace seemed the more urgent case.

Walking slowly down the hall, faster than a cannonball.

GHarrison's famous 'first acid experience' had him and Lennon driving at some slow speed and thinking they was going at 100mph. So, maybe not that one.

The rest, yeah.

xpost yeah, I voted that one.

What caused the arguable drop in quality between the Britpop 94-95 era and 96-98? Is it a matter that these bands had always been rubbish and that it was all hype? Or was there something else going on that made so many bands release lacklustre follow ups at this time?

drugs.

Mark G otm. Heroin and cocaine, specifically.

Suede, Elastica and Blur all did their fair share of both smack and coke. Oasis were notorious cokeheads. Members of Pulp and Ocean Colour Scene and one particular member of Supergrass liked a bit of the devil's dandruff. Paul Weller dabbled in coke alongside his Britpop mates in the '90s. Cast and Gomez were more stoners. The Boo Radleys were more into acid.

The cleanest band on the list above, funnily enough, is probably the Manics. And James Dean Bradfield was quite a heavy drinker. Even Sleeper were snorting lines in the toilets of The Good Mixer...

Oh yeah, Catatonia: Cerys Matthews ended up on heroin by the end of that. So many examples.

also you have a bunch of indiekids in adidas tops suddenly becoming popstars and then trying to / being asked to write records for the Smash Hits and Top Of The Pops crowd.
i think the records that survive are : the rock records that weren't ever part of the lurch from indie to mainstream; blur & supergrass who were always pop bands anyway, until later on at least; pulp & boos because those records are a conscious back-turning on the previous HITS!

Never really realised the extent of the coke and horse thing, but it totally makes sense. I remember that era of Britpop feeling so bloated and self-important.

Embrace are pretty much clean.

For horse tails of latterday Britpop, look no further than Marion. Fucking hellfire.

Oh god, yeah, Marion. It's incredible, because I saw them circa 1996 and they were very much 'together' onstage!

Britpop always felt like it was its own worst enemy to me. Cool Brittania and all that, believing in themselves and their time in the sun and then going on to do some self-indulgent, bloated, overwrought turd w/no sense of fun. The first albums tended to be really cute at least, if not actually great, and by their third, unless they had basically reconfigured everything, they were unlistenable.

'Cool Britannia' had fuck-all to do with the people making the music, and everything to do with the people writing about it. It went down better with some bands than with others. You'd be surprised at how many bands at the time hated terms like 'Britpop', 'Cool Britannia', 'Dadrock' and 'Noelrock', or just plain weren't arsed about being part of anything. Oasis took it to the other extreme, they literally lapped everything up, until they fell off the rails sometime post-Knebworth.

i saw marion at t in the park and they were great (as was the album) never heard the 2nd japan only album.

"always felt" = I was in the States again and this was how they were trying to market it.

HOW DOES IT FEEL
WHEN YOU'RE INSIDE

....ME

i wonder how much Pulp will win by?

97 Lovers.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

nice work ILX

whoah

>:(

bummer, I thought The Great Escape was gonna gather, well, much more votes than this

i knew i was right.

did not expect any albums to get 40+ votes

The fact that In It For The Money and This Is Hardcore were the top two doesn't surprise me at all. What surprises me is the MASSIVE spike in votes between 3rd place and 2nd.

This was a two-horse race for me between This Is Hardcore and In It For The Money, and after careful consideration I've went with This Is Hardcore.

Runners-up: The Great Escape, C'mon Kids...(snip)

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Friday, May 4, 2012 5:11 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

C'mon Kids is a very good album you guys!

It's got some brilliant stuff on it, but it's definitely not an album for everyone.

can't really complain about these results

lol @ vote for reef

who voted for sleeper

That top five is spot on. C'mon Kids is a great album, maybe my second favourite of theirs after Giant Steps.

i put it slightly after ichabod & i

i actually own Ichabod & I on vinyl, the Boo Radleys worst album. even something not yet fully realized as Everything's Alright Forever is miles better than their debut.

I am listening to Giant Steps right this very moment(!) ... 'Upon 9th And Fairchild' is feedbacktastic.

I voted for Sleeper as it's the only one on the list I own! Not a good album, though.