Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

goodoldcause

24 April 2014 7:13pm
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I remember Britpop as a huge relief. Sure, there was a lot of hype and some of the bands weren't able to live up to it. But the time before Britpop, the early 90s, was so dull. Lots of manufactured pop and half-hearted US imports.

Britpop was a much-welcome burst of energy and a resurgence of interesting guitar-led bands, many of them still hugely under-rated. Just go back and listen to anything from that period by The Bluetones: it still holds up.

half-hearted?

lol bluetones

There was some good stuff, there was some bad stuff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/uk/02/landfill/img/landfill_map.gif

good stuff ithappens.

and i say that as a defender of the nwonw groove that britpop killed, and despite the fact i still listen to the menswe@r album on a regular basis.

I thought menswe@r were a pile of arse even at the time!

ha .. yeah .. i know.
everyone did.
but the album is a case of session musicians making a fine glam pop album.
(i never ever believed that anyone in the band had any input other than the vocals)

are menswe@r the monkees of the 90s then?

good call .. i would totally put them in that category.

except for the fact that they never got a chance/skill to progress out of that corner, unlike the monkees.

Britpop saved the 90s from being a Spice Girls wasteland

it also invented the idea of a band with guitars being any good in the 90s, apparently

That bastard Cowell has ruined EVERYTHING....look at where we are now compared to the days of Northern Uproar

In the britpop timeline I had started getting into Miles, was loving the golden age of rap and house/techno, certainly didn't need none of that garbage. It's like the art equivalent of going to see Rothko, Warhol + Nauman and then pretending that Howard Hodgkin, Peter Blake and Damien Hirst are anything but the talentless arseholes that turned up.

It's like the art equivalent of going to see Rothko, Warhol + Nauman and then pretending that Howard Hodgkin, Peter Blake and Damien Hirst are anything but the talentless arseholes that turned up.

You fucking young british people.

i thought i cd read those comments for the lulz but there was no lulz, just deep sadness, then despair, then the rising urge to take off and nuke the country from orbit

this would be a lovely place to discuss the oasis reunion

Meh. There was some good stuff, there was some bad stuff.

There was some good stuff, there was some bad stuff.

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican), Thursday, April 24, 2014 7:56 PM (2 hours ago)

....

the piece isn't about whether people from the British indie scene made any worthwhile music between 1994 and 1997, it's about the way scenes are formed and consumed, about the way media representation interacts with public consciousness, the way pop music discourse in the UK has got stupider and narrower over the last 20 years. there was good points, there was some bad points.

The first good point was when some worthless prick nearly expired from heroin use, but ah then he pretended that he detoxed with night nurse and survived. When reminiscing about old scenes, when your your first thought is "I wish that fucker had died" there is something gravely absent from the music.

Really liked then and still like: Blur, The Boo Radleys, Pulp, Suede, Supergrass, Super Furry Animals, Manic Street Preachers,
Radiohead (because they were lumped in with this circa The Bends), The Stone Roses (pre-dated Britpop but were also lumped in), The Verve (yes, they were a shoegaze band, but Urban Hymns was definitely a "tail-end of Britpop" record and appealed to that audience).

Don't mind: Ash, The Bluetones, Elastica, Marion, Oasis (1994-1996), 60ft. Dolls, Sleeper, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Idlewild, Mansun,
early Dodgy, The Auteurs, the first Catatonia album, Geneva, Placebo, Primal Scream, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Paul Weller solo (I make no apologies for it).

Ngghhhhhhhhh: Cast, Me Me Me, Northern Uproar, Oasis (1997 onwards), Ocean Colour Scene, Kula Shaker, Longpigs, The Seahorses, Space,
The Supernaturals, Travis, Bernard Butler (solo), Kenickie, The Lightning Seeds, Stereophonics.

Never cared about even at the time: Black Grape, The Divine Comedy, Echobelly ('Great Things' aside), Gene, Heavy Stereo, Menswe@r,
My Life Story, Powder, Salad, Shed Seven, These Animal Men, Thurman, Dawn Of The Replicants, Dubstar, Embrace, Feeder, Gay Dad,
The Gyres, Hurricane #1, Nilon Bombers, Octopus, Perfume, Puressence, Rialto, Snow Patrol, Symposium, Theaudience, Toploader,
The Charlatans ('The Only One I Know' aside) and many many more...

hmmm. more like Britpoop.

The first couple Divine Comedy albums are sooooo good. They just fill me with joy. xp

I know we on the Guardian will liveblog most things, but the Mirror has spent this evening liveblogging Liam Gallagher tweeting the letters O, A, S, I and S

good luck great britain

this would be a lovely place to discuss the oasis reunion

― imago, Thursday, April 24, 2014 10:55 PM (33 minutes ago)

the what now

The problem that I generally have with retrospective articles that focus on Britpop, is that they assume a lot of things: while I generally remember an optimistic mood and hot summers in the mid '90s; I never read Loaded, I've never found myself in the situation where I've been pissed out my mind with an arm around a best mate bellowing 'Don't Look Back In Anger' out of tune, there were a lot of bands I didn't care for at the time, and I didn't solely listen to Britpop bands - there were a lot of things going on.

know we on the Guardian will liveblog most things, but the Mirror has spent this evening liveblogging Liam Gallagher tweeting the letters O, A, S, I and S
http://blog.smartbear.com/wp-content/uploads/imports/job%20well%20done.jpg

Oasis was a band I never quite understood how they were a) so popular, and b) compared to the Beatles so much. Kinda boring songs, annoying vocalist, sounded nothing like the Beatles.

Britpop in general seemed like a breath of fresh air to me in the 90s, wherein British bands played music that seemed at least somewhat influenced by British music I actually liked (XTC, Kinks, Beatles again), but then really only listened to Blur, Elastica, some Supergrass.

I just don't like this insinuation that people who listened to Blur and Suede in the mid '90s also dug Northern Uproar and Menswe@r... in my case, fuck no! I fucking loved 'Firestarter', 'Hyper-Ballad' and R.E.M.'s New Adventures In Hi-Fi though, for example.

actually, it seems that supergrass have avoided a lot of current britpop hate, which perhaps gives hope that beyond the debut, they were a band beyond such a narrow minded genre.

i.e. of all the supposed britpop bands, supergrass are the one band i still listen to, and enjoy.

x-post

Well yeah, and as I wasn't a British person while it was going on, it was super easy to not just listen to Britpop (or any other single genre for that matter). In fact, even at the time, I always thought the term was a bit ridiculous. What does it mean? Rock bands from Britain? Can you call that a genre? It just seemed like an umbrella term for UK indie rock, like calling a genre that featured Neutral Milk Hotel, Fugazi and Wilco Ameripop.

I said on my fb about how the older fans of britpop (aka the roses/primals fans) loved dance music and how we all thought oasis "would do a screamadelica" on their 3rd album , and how said dance acts supported oasis and were seen as britpop along WITH the spice girls (Geri's union jack dress), robbie williams etc but post 1997 going to #10 Cool Britannia the kids chose to go with "real music" and now Britpop has come to mean only white guitar pop. ffs i went to gigs with friends who were into britpop and baggy and grunge but also ravers, goldie fans, massive attack, prodigy, underworld, leftfield,aphex fans. 1995/96 wasnt as bad as what followed. (if its tl;dr - what turrican said)

"I know we on the Guardian will liveblog most things, but the Mirror has spent this evening"... wah wah wah Even if I am stuck in a station with one pound odd in my pocket, never buying this fucking garbage again.

classifying the manics as britpop seems kind of off, even their softer post-1994 material doesn't really have much in common with any of the rest of those bands.

xxxpost:

Yup, I also thought (even at the time) that the term 'Britpop' was ridiculous. In my mind, I definitely wasn't lumping all of these bands together as one thing... to me, there was a whole slew of stuff happening and I was mentally filing it into 'music I like' and 'music I don't', the same as any year.

rmde xp

turrican are you british?

i like indie rock and roll

I said on my fb about how the older fans of britpop (aka the roses/primals fans) loved dance music and how we all thought oasis "would do a screamadelica" on their 3rd album , and how said dance acts supported oasis and were seen as britpop along WITH the spice girls (Geri's union jack dress), robbie williams etc but post 1997 going to #10 Cool Britannia the kids chose to go with "real music" and now Britpop has come to mean only white guitar pop. ffs i went to gigs with friends who were into britpop and baggy and grunge but also ravers, goldie fans, massive attack, prodigy, underworld, leftfield,aphex fans. 1995/96 wasnt as bad as what followed. (if its tl;dr - what turrican said)

― ۩, Thursday, April 24, 2014 10:59 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ This.

I mean, I know a lot of folks that loved the first couple of Oasis records (they sold a shitload, so obviously I would) that also loved Massive Attack, Prodigy, Underworld, Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Bjork etc. etc. etc.

fucking hell, all that different stuff?

endless variety

actually, it seems that supergrass have avoided a lot of current britpop hate, which perhaps gives hope that beyond the debut, they were a band beyond such a narrow minded genre.

i.e. of all the supposed britpop bands, supergrass are the one band i still listen to, and enjoy.

― mark e, Thursday, April 24, 2014 10:45 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still have a lot of time for Supergrass, and even though 'Diamond Hoo Ha' was hardly their finest album, I still think they had plenty more in them.

lolll xp

fucking hell, all that different stuff?

― you poll a lot, but you're not saying anything (Noodle Vague), Thursday, April 24, 2014 11:08 PM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm being general, but you get the point :)

well NV as you know fine well something happened and "indie" fans went from iking all forms of dance music and hip hop to craig david lookalike on the toilet on Melody Maker and nme readers only wanting guitar music.
1997 seemed to be when it happened too in my mind.

classifying the manics as britpop seems kind of off, even their softer post-1994 material doesn't really have much in common with any of the rest of those bands.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, April 24, 2014 11:01 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It does, but circa Everything Must Go and 'A Design For Life', they were definitely lumped in with the Britpop lot.

The first couple Divine Comedy albums are sooooo good. They just fill me with joy. xp

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic)

Liberation, Promenade and Casanova is possibly my favourite album run of the 90s.

I still have a lot of time for Supergrass, and even though 'Diamond Hoo Ha' was hardly their finest album, I still think they had plenty more in them.

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican)

Such a great band. Just listened to the first two albums today and enjoyed them a ridiculous amount.