Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

Also, Blur seemed to coat itself in vague political signifiers on their Britpop albums. Whether or not they were actually political, or just tourists, is a more significant question to raise than if it been about, I don't know, M People.

Pulp also, people always claim they were on the 'right' side of this divide, as opposed to Blur, somehow more compassionate and less snarky, but does Common People really make sense? I mean, it's an amazing composition, but isn't there something condescending and problematic about the narrator basically telling a young woman that he will always be more real than her, because she can always 'call her daddy'?

Dodgy were from Hounslow IIRC

Bromsgrove, actually

Common People: A lyrical discussion/dissection

And what about “Common People”? What about it? Yes, these pallid working class types, they dance and drink and screw because there’s NOTHING ELSE TO DO. Dammit, JC, how would YOU know?

That's what you take from that line??

angry at the slightest suggestion that anyone's problem might not be a problem with them, but a problem with Britain.

But that isn't Blur at all. I know Damon contradicted himself a lot but he did say this when Parklife came out: "It annoys me when we're accused of having this nostalgic romance with a mythical lost Britain. Where are these songs about how great the country is? Nearly every one is tempered with cynicism and aggression."

And what about “Common People”? What about it? Yes, these pallid working class types, they dance and drink and screw because there’s NOTHING ELSE TO DO. Dammit, JC, how would YOU know?

That's what you take from that line??

It's pretty patronising when you think about it and it is reflected in some of his other songs, e.g. "Fat Children" where he compares underclass kids to maggots.

xpost Not going to argue, Marcello, because there's a lot of truth in what you say. But there's never been a golden age of journalism where a great many pieces were not written to order by editors, because the editor wanted that piece. It was ever thus and always will be. The web means they just get seen by and discussed by an awful lot more people now.

But I'm not ashamed of the fact that journalism is a job (in my case a staff job, which circumscribes my ability to say no to things), not an art. I'm not ashamed that I can turn round a cogent 900 words on a wide variety of subjects in a very short time. The pieces I'm proudest of are those where I've out something of myself into them, and worked on them for a long time. But I wouldn't get the chance to do them if I couldn't also do 900 words to short order. And I will not be made to feel ashamed of having that ability. Your pieces are brilliant, Marcello, but they're also very personal, written for you, and if anyone else like's them that's a bonus. I don't have that luxury. I can't write 12,000 words on an album, because it would take up too much time I have to spend doing other things, because the ratio of readers to effort would be too poor, because that's not what newspapers do.

idk, i think Common People is a song that sits on fault-lines (or mirror-cracks) - the narrator's class-anxious, can't settle himself somewhere, sort of claiming the real, sort of horrified by it, self-dramatising - I think that's some of its real power, its unwillingness to be fixed. There's quite a complicated unpleasantness to Pulp-in-their-prime, that yes, I think Jarvis-as-national-treasure types don't always look straight at -but it's part of why I keep coming back. Messy.

which is all well and good but it has just occurred to me to wonder if Cameron and/or Osborne has ever done a drunken (or coked up) crowd singalong with it. How many weddings have they been to where it was played?

OTM. It's the messiness and neurosis about class identity that makes Common People so compelling, especially in contrast to the pretty horrible Mis-Shapes.

(ithappens xp)

Well, you’re talking about journalism there, which as I’ve said many times before is an entirely different calling from being a writer like what I am. I couldn’t do what you do because I’ve never had any journalistic training, same as you couldn’t do what I do for a living because you’re not, as far as I know, a trained NHS professional. Just because I have to *DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY JOB ONLINE EDIT* on a daily basis doesn’t preclude me from going home and writing; indeed it gives me the means to do so. No need to feel ashamed of the skills that you do have and I never suggested that you should.

The TPL pieces ARE very personal but they’re not written for me. I could tell you who they’re written for and why they’re written but frankly that ain’t nobody else’s business. You’re right about the poor readers-to-effort ratio, though.

I’ll stop here and get off the bus, though, because then this thread becomes about me and my sodding blog again, rather than Britpop.

Anyway, I'm not seeking a row. I just think it's sometimes helpful for people to remember that jobbing journalists do jobs. Just like jobbing builders, plumbers, NHS professionals and so on.

And you know I'm an admirer of TPL.

might not have done anything of note or value for a good decade and a half

Synchronize is killer and the Nancy Sinatra songs were good

appreciate setting the cut off at Pickled Eggs & Sherbert though

Is Jarvis a "national treasure" anyway? I get the impression no-one gives a toss about him these days.

but isn't there something condescending and problematic about the narrator basically telling a young woman that he will always be more real than her, because she can always 'call her daddy'?

Whoa!

The lyric contains "Common people, like you" but in reply the phrase "Common People like me" is never used.

xp I think he might have peaked as a n/t two or three years ago, & that was largely Observer world.
)

x-post: Uhm, yeah, it is? In the second chorus, right?

But if the good thing with Jarvis is the messiness and his neurosis about class, then why can't we use the same excuse to like Damon?

I said "yeah?
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people,
you want to see whatever common people see,
you want to sleep with common people,
you want to sleep with common people,
like me."
But she didn't understand,
she just smiled and held my hand.

btw has anyone read this? it was mentioned in Taylor Parkes' article

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4irVuZamOhA/TURdDyvl-pI/AAAAAAAAFg0/Fp0pfcEblfQ/s1600/A%2BPhonogram%2BRue%2BBritannia%2BTPB.jpg

Ah, you missed out a question mark, which does make a difference and is what I was meaning.

But, fair point.

Can you remember where the R. Young article was, Tom? I'd like to read what he had to say. A brief google failed to turn anything up. No doubt his lambasting had the zeal of the convert.

Ummmm, I think it was in a review about some book about indie music, a history of indie music or sumthin' ... it was from 2006 or thereabouts, didn't strike me as his finest moment

xpost - I think The PG:Singles Club is better, but it's definitely worth a read. Back in the day (say 97 or so), it took me about a month to realise that David Kohl, Brem X Jones, and Gillen were one and the same…

I'm not sure I understand the significance of 'like me' in this discussion...

Appreciate that Jarvis's lyric could be interpreted a number of ways. I know, also, how much of a cop-out this might sounds, but I'm often wary of over-analysing lyrical minutiae in pop songs because it's likely that a songwriter can only do so much as the song allows. Writing a song is different from writing an opinion piece or even poetry because you're constrained by factors like metre, length, rhyming scheme and what simply sounds best when rolling off the tongue or belted out in a chorus, so it's not like all songwriters deserve to have their work scrutinised every which way. All too often you have to make concessions.

*might sound

What I mean is, it's unlikely Jarvis sat down one day and said 'I want to write a song about class and sex tourism', wrote out a load of lyrics detailing his exact succinct thoughts on the subject and then wrote a tune around it. It's probably the other way round, and writing smart lyrics like this is tough enough as it is without having to consider ambiguous and implicit meanings that may or may not be construed from outside interpretation. You can do your best, but no matter what you're going to be open to having them picked apart when written down.

aiui the 'like me' question in this thread turns on whether Jarvis is saying that he is a Common Person, or whether he's effectively quoting the Greek girl back at herself with a raised eyebrow of amusement, confusion or disbelief ('You think I'm a common person? well, let me explain…'). (obvs the latter imo)

I'm often wary of over-analysing lyrical minutiae

NOT ME

I'm often wary of over-analysing lyrical minutiae
NOT ME
But she didn't understand, she just smiled and held my hand

Lyrics are designed to be sung anyhow. The way a lyric is sung can change the whole meaning of the song. I actually prefer Bill Shatner and Joe Jackson's interpretation of 'Common People' because I feel Jarvis mutters a lot of the lyrics and it wasn't until I heard the Shatters version that I even understood the all the words.

But… he doesn't have to consider the outside interpretations. He just has to write the lyrics: they may be part-defined by the tune, by the rhymes, by accident - but selecting or intuiting something that feels right or funny, that fits, he makes a thing complicated, probably beyond his conscious intentions (and that's leaving aside the band's part in it all). We sit here and argue about it; we build new meanings and relate it to our lives in fresh ways; eventually we get sacked when the network admin realises how much time we're spending reading ILM at work.

Jarvis published his lyrics in a nice Faber & Faber volume, so they must be meant to be taken somewhat seriously. Here's his brief note on Common People from that book:

http://i.imgur.com/8WoRZys.png

Always find it interesting that, although they seem to be the act most people like out of it, they were eventuallychamstrung with the Britpop label - unlike Blur and Oasis. If you plot a timeline theres no big act more synonymous with the rise and fall of Britpop.

Best Pulp album is well after Britpop imo

Yeah, but people really started to jump off the bus at that point. Help the Aged was successful but their staying power declined. Unlike Blur and Oasis, crappy Be Here Now or not

It's interesting that nowadays Britpop is firmly defined as Blur/Oasis and others. It's easy to imagine a 1990s without Oasis, which would then mean (surely?) no Shed Seven, no Cast etc., at least not under the Britpop umbrella.

The Select union jack cover, in spring 1993, long before anyone had heard of Oasis, had Suede, St Etienne, Denim, Pulp and the Auteurs on the cover. Most of these are not even particularly guitar-y, and they're barely rock. The middle three especially were definitely onto something similar - that I very much liked at the time - and it's weird that history has bracketed them with Cast and Northern Uproar.

The Britpop Now BBC programme in 1995 still didn't have any of that straightforward northern guitar rock: Blur, Elastica, The Boo Radleys, PJ Harvey, Menswe@r, Echobelly, Gene, Supergrass, Sleeper, Marion, Powder, Pulp. Quite a bit of shit, right enough, but PJ Harvey!

OK so on a micro level britpop ws nearly something soecial/inclusive? Shit. St Et ws my fav band in those days, one of them now

I'd argue that it's impossible to imagine the (mid-to-late) '90s without Oasis.

http://www.literatura.hu/irok/szimbol/images/Stefan-George.jpg

I always felt like "Common People" was a pretty direct critique on how art students/rock kids/etc. worship the working class and do so in a patronizing way that embraces and justifies their own nihilism. Basically dressing up self-indulgent 20s hedonism as something profound and authentic because the lower classes do this. Nobody in the club drinking/dancing/screwing is really lower class, it's just full of these entitled elitists judging each other.

The best part of 'Common People' for me is the part they actually edited out of the single version!

Pretty sure theres an entire thread devoted to analysing the lyrics of "Common People" in excruciating detail

why not do it in this thread that is so worthwhile buoyant and inspiring

even more so, now you've made your contribution :P

1) Oasis - Roll With It
2) Blur Country House
3) Ocean Colour Scene - Day We Caught The Train
4) Dodgy - Good Enough
5) Kula Shaker - Hey Dude
6) Cast - Live The Dream
7) Powder - Afrodisiac
8) Supernaturals- Smile
9) Catatonia - Mulder & Scully
10) Space Feat Cerys - The Ballad Of Tom Jones
11) The Divine Comedy - Something for the Weekend
12) My Life Story - 12 Reasons Why I Love Her
13) Sleeper - Inbetweener
14) Lightning Seeds - 3 Lions
15) Babybird - You’re Gorgeous.
16) Bluetones - Cut Some Rug
17) Reef - Place Your Hands.
18) Shed Seven - Dolphin.
19) Longpigs - She Said.
20) Catch - Bingo.
21) Embrace - All You Good Good People.
22) The Levellers - What A Beautiful Day
23) Jocasta - Change Me
24) Nilon Bombers - Superstar
25) Ether - Best Friend
26) Mainstream - Step Right Up
27) Midget - All Fall Down
28)18 Wheeler - Crabs
29) Robbie Williams - Angels.
30) The Verve - Lucky Man
31) Manic Street Preachers - The Everlasting
32) Suede - Head Music
33) Thurman - English Tea
34) Northern Uproar - Town
35) Menswe@r - Stardust
36)Smokin' Mojo Filters - Come Together
37) Ruth - I Don't Know
38) The Seahorses - Ypu Can Talk To Me
39) Republica - Drop \\dead Gorgeous
40) Rialto - Monday Morning 5.19
41) Travis - More Than Us
42) Stereophonics - More Life in a Tramp's Vest
43) Hurricane #1 - Only the Strongest Will Survive
44) The Charlatans - How High
45) Puressence - This Feeling
46) Feeder - Buck Rogers
47) Terrorvision - Tequila.

47 of the shittest songs of the era. One song per band max. Anything else to be added?

― ۩, Tuesday, April 29, 2014 1:22 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm looking over this list again, and I think there's worse songs by some of these bands. I definitely don't think 'Lucky Man' deserves to be on this list, and I like 'Inbetweener'. Sorry!

dancing drinking & screwing are all highly enjoyable activities what the hell else would you even want to do, hooray for being poor

is my takeaway

I'm looking over this list again, and I think there's worse songs by some of these bands.

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican)

Agreed.

Blur - Top Man/ Mr Robinson's Quango
Oasis - All Around the World
Cast - Guiding Star
My Life Story - Strumpet
Divine Comedy - Shouldn't be on the list..oh ok I've Been to a Marvelous Party
Sleeper - Nice Guy Eddie
Menswe@r - We Love You
Shed Seven - Bully Boy
Kula Shaker - Crispian Reading From The Mahabharata
Feeder - High
The Bluetones - Autophilia (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Car)
The Charlatans - Tough one, did they have any terrible songs in the 90s? How High definitely isn't one.

Robbie Williams - Strong

feeder - high got added in its place remember
http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/0y0gMIOGyKaqj70K3eEprx

Mr Robinson's Quango has to be Blur's worst song, surely?

i would defend the bluetones on the whole. they get a bad rap.

you couldn't make it up