Britpop era follow up to successful albums poll

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.

131 voters?!

I had no idea ILM loved Supergrass. That kinda rules.

Suede got the most discussion and no votes! Must be bad...

Upon 9th and Fairchild is also dubtastic - makes me think of a cold blue-lit kitchen floor at 3am.

C'Mon Kids beat the Great Escape! Nice one ILX (not that I don't like GE)

Wow. I love half of This Is Hardcore but it's very weak in places. Even Owen Hatherley, who's a total Pulp stan, is critical of it in his Uncommon book. A lot rests on the title track and The Fear. But then there isn't a truly great album on the list and this is ILX so…

Don't tell that to the pulp fanatics on ilm!

TV Movie and I'm a Man are the only songs on This Is Hardcore that I don't really rate that much.

I wonder how well Mansun's Six would have done if it had been included.

I doubt very much it would have taken votes from Pulp but it may have split the Supergrass vote but we will never know.

I still cant be arsed doing the 90s dance/trip-hop version of the poll mainly because of all the dance polls lately that everyone moaned about. But if anyones brave enough go for it

You should get in line for a britpop tracks ballot poll instead, there's clearly demand for it. 'Special/Blown It (delete as appropriate)' ftw, put right some injustice.

not a chance

I have that second Marion album, Algerian Goalkeeper, got it for a couple of quid (at a record fair I think). Not listened to it for ages but liked it enough when I got it.

I own 15 of those albums and have previously owned one or two more. I'm getting tempted to make a playlist.

Was just the right age to be really into these bands, was 11 when I started reading the NME in 1994, so was timed perfectly for Britpop to be a big thing to me.

My vote went to 'Nu-Clear Sounds' because Ash where my favourite band pretty much the whole way through secondary school, and if I was to listen to an Ash album right now I'd gravitate towards that. Some really lovely "ballads" on there. I remember "Jesus Says" knocking me back a bit when I first heard it though.

i feel bad now for not voting but i thought pulp was going to win by such a landslide my vote didn't matter! i can't believe some of these got more than one vote (black grape?!)

i didn't know marion had a second album, but i loved the first

I remember being puzzled why it never got any publicity when it seemed like all their contemporaries made it big on that trajectory. I only saw them do one interview on MTV, where Jaime was really muted and even sat down while everyone else was standing.

It wasn't 'til much later that I found out about the swan-stealing &c.