Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

all released at least one song i like! ok...not Shed 7...or OCS...

This is still true! In 6 years time are people going to be talking about the Vines, Datsuns, Libertines etc as the most exciting music being made in 2003? Er....bollocks are they.

But re: Tom's point - the pop is the important thing. Pulp & Blur especially released fantastic pop records during the 'Britpop' period that would have sounded fantastic regardless of whatever scene they were attached to. Obviously most of the really good guitar music being made 94-96 wasn't considered 'mainstream' Britpop - eg SFA, Boo Radleys, Gorky's - but what's new? At what point in the last 25 years has there not been great British guitar music, and when has the best stuff ever been the most widely celebrated?

So: Britpop as a 'scene' or 'movement' is worthless - a marketing device, basically. Some good records were made, lots of shit ones were too. It is entirely unremarkable.

the thing that annoys me the most about the 'Live Forever' film is how the makers are repeatedly quoted as inferring that the 80s were just awful and Britpop/the 90s made everything better again and i just want to slap them for being so fucking wrong

looking back on Britpop some terrific singles came out, a few great albums but for 'rock critics' its albums that count. But i guess its the whole flag waving thing that embarrasses everyone. I just wonder how Scottish people felt about 'Britpop'. I cant imagine scots waving union jacks with vigour somehow (or the welsh)
Steve M , the 90s and the 80s had as many great singles/bands/albums as the 60s & 70s. And the same amount of rubbish. Sometimes you just need to dig deeper. Clearly the person responsible for 'Live Forever'film didnt.

I wonder why Britpop remains so unloveable. Similar scenes like Merseybeat and Glam (if you discount the great groups involved in both) had loads of chancers and mediocre music, but they had some kind of charm, some sense of fun. I think Britpop is hated for its cynicism, the blatant but ironised careerism of the participants. Nobody was grateful.

i'm trying to disprove thi, but no joy yet...

Stevem I mean they're inherently good even if the record is rubbish - they're like tiny micro-universes of pop where you can glimpse strange alternate realities in which the usual rules do not apply.

ha, never mind that Chandrasonic was a fan of The Byrds at this time (according to NME end of year singles round-up panel)

It will be interesting to see how much junk in the past decade makes the 100.

last time around they did it was October 93 http://www.rocklist.net/nme_writers.htm

[i,e pre britpop era, i define the Britpop era as April 94 onwards (death of Cobain, focus on Britain: first Oasis single and the english culture of Parklife)

i quite like the idea of Britpop as Messiah/sacrifical lamb - crucified for our sins...but that needs developing.

Anyway, weren't Echobelly Britpop? And Sonia was GREAT and 'Call me Names' is a top song, and far better than any ADF song on the same subject. So they are talking bollox.

Britpop wasn't flag waving anyway. I was there. And from what I remember it was people of all creeds and colours dancing to Sleeper in the indie discos. In fact, I was the only Brit in the student flat from January - May 1996, so any notion that Britpop was racist is ignorant pish.

And the 'new lad' thing... well fair enough, but that was just Oasis and don't think many of their beer guzzling, lardass fans would have been into the effetism of Pulp, The Divine Comedy, Suede et al.

I have fond memories of the period. I enjoyed many of the bands (yes, as it has been well documented, even Sleeper) and still rate Pulp as one of my three fave bands of all time. I agree there was a lot of toss came from Britpop, but so what? Cherish it for albums such as 'Coming Up' (the only Suede that is likely to be classed as 'Britpop' IMO), 'Definately Maybe', 'Different Class' and '1977'. I still love The Bluetones as well. I thought 'Science and Nature' was a great album.

But anyway, I'm sure many will want to rip me a new asshole for defending Britpop. But that article is toss. Chris Evans may have been many things, but he was not Howard Stern, who is as bigoted and fuckwitted and pig ignorant as even the more braindead George Bush voter.

Shed Seven get a hard time of it, and although I'm not too familiar wasn't Chasing Rainbows quite good? Better than Coldplay anyway...

Try to remember Nick Berry's "Every Loser Wins", which is always handy in such moments.

Simply know what I like - and like many of the songs and albums from that period. It reminds me of a pretty special time in my life so, oh, please forgive me for not being all snobbery and instead relying on some 'excitable sweariness'.

I hope one day music will mean the same to you - be it good, bad or indifferent.

and Dave M, understand that the hatred for Britpop is more to do with the fact that you were buying into this idea of 'Brit Culture' that didnt include a whole load of other things that were arguably just as important, meaningful and reverential as 'Cool Britannia' e.g. the development of club culture in the UK following the illegal raves fallout and urban dance genres, rise of garage etc. - fair enough if thats not your bag tho, but if you were only into it for the 'whole Anglophile trip' then itd be shame if you had not realised there was/is a lot more to youth culture in Britain than whatever bands were being championed by NME and Radio 1 at that time

D'oh! *flees* ;-)

I bought The Libertines album to day and, erm, contrary to what was said earlier... I think it sounds really good. Pretty much builds on the singles I had heard. The Vines are cack and despite what NME might tell you they are a poor live band that drove people away in their crowds when they played Gig on the Green (they have to be one of the worst live acts I've ever seen).

these people did not know about: bark psychosis, laika, scorn, o.rang, flying saucer attack, insides, disco inferno, techno animal etal as championed by the Lizard and The Wire magazine.

the younger britpop generation knew nothing about the late 80s music as documented by Simon Reynolds in Blissed Out book, their music experiences/ knowledge did not include post-punk /industrial music.

Who cares? How snobby and elitist can you get? I know nothing of the bands you mention - but big fucking deal. I bet you know very little of cinema history does that mean that I have a write to castigate you for enjoying the latest Hollywood blockbuster when you may be unfamilair with the work of Kurosawa, Welles, Hitchcock, Lang, Griffiths et al?

And for England please dig your head out of sand and read Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland into that. Hence BRITPOP. Christ, there are four countries in the UK you know.

"Britpop failed because it was a misguided and futile attempt to ignore the fact the the Rolling Stones were the only thing of any worth to come from Britain in the last 50 years"

Hmmmmmmmmm. I can't be arsed answering that actually.

You spelled 'writ' wrong.

It began in weird places. All the bands from London (and waving a Union Jack around is seen abroad as a signifier of London) were people who'd spent the mid-late 80s in art/architecture/humanities courses; some of them had been going to gigs in the capital since they were in high school and were fanzine people, lots of them packed boxes in Rough Trade, and answered phones in recording studios and record companies (yo Damon, yo Emma Anderson). They were friends with the shoegazers and 80s indie people and had lots of post-punk records, Smiths, Cure, Bunnymen, 4AD, Creation, Rough Trade. American stuff mattered too - Pavement, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Happy Flowers, Bikini Kill. They also knew their Bowie and Roxy and could find a backstory of influence going back 30 years without hitting geezer-record territory (that came later when it was trendy). They were not averse to acid house, no siree. Everyone clubbed at Syndrome and Kinky Disco and went to see St Etienne, Pulp and the World of Twist. Blur were no longer Seymour and had a GIGANTIC live following.

In about '92 Blur were having Cornershop and Huggy Bear open for them - after plasticity of debut, they wanted to be more indie-arty - and Graham went out with Jo Huggy for ages. Justine was watching carefully (I met her for the first time at the Astoria for the Blur/Cornershop and the second time at a Bratmobile show). Suede were Britpop from the second they broke; intelligent application of influences and a mouthy interview. Everyone went to Blow-Up and Smashing and that's where Pulp started meeting fashionables and Menswear were recruited by Smashing's promoter Adrian.

Monobrow came from the North in 1993 and the Oasis element is really the second wave with yer evil Wellah thing going on and OCS and beer lads. Blame Johnny Marr's little brother Ian for getting them to his brother's manager before AMcG ever got hold of them. Understand why Damon made fun (he's wanky) and everyone else just yawned and passed the tinfoil (when it started going wrong for wave one, in 95/96).

& you do not have to sell that many to get a #1 LP these days, most weeks have a new #1 LP.

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Team Aston Villa
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a great bunch of bamo's

Liquid Gold
Peak: #1
Weeks on Chart: 1

So there's your answer xps

I've always been a big Shed Seven fan (mock me as much as you like). Liquid Gold is indeed orchestral greatest hits re-recordings with a couple of new tracks. Two connected things contributed to their chart-topping this year. For one, they released both albums in different formats: one with bonus tracks, one with a live CD, one with a download of an acoustic re-recording of their debut. Second, they have a strong fanbase of suckers who get all those formats. I also could not help myself but get two versions of A Matter Of Time and three versions of Liquid Gold.
It may seem somewhat abusive of their fans but they have a great relationship with their fanbase. I see examples of people posting on a Facebook fan page that they only had paper tickets for a gig and accidentally left them at home, then the band responding and helping them get in the venue - things like that. And the band does a lot of work in promoting themselves & playing well received shows; the fans love the new material.

"Weeks on Chart: 1"

I was going to say that the UK Charts website seemingly doesn't list the actual albums on the artist page. But they do! You just have to scroll down a bit. And yes, Liquid Gold made its debut at number one and then left the charts the week after:
https://www.officialcharts.com/albums/shed-seven-liquid-gold/

I admire their focus. Like a sniper. They had one goal, and they achieved it with minimal waste. It's about sending a statement.

Liquid gold is... just gold, isn't it? There isn't a separate word for the liquid state of gold. It's not like ice, water, and steam. Boiled gold is gold, solid gold is gold, liquid gold is gold. And the reason for this is that water is a part of everyday life, whereas gold is rare.

Liquid gold is poppers, m8.

it's gold, it's hot, it's poppers. I'm sold.

No, listen to David "Kid" Jensen. This... is Liquid Gold...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KsK1ybDZ44

"We didn't think it really going to happen but we were playing a residency at Caesar's Palace in Luton and the song came on and everyone was dancing so we were really surprised when it took off the way it did"

xp knew exactly what the video would be and was not disappointed, they should do a comeback LP and call it Shed Seven (apart from the xylophone chest guy who died a few years ago)

poppers and dancing yourself dizzy are not mutually exclusive ime

Not just a pun on Solid Gold?

This might be old news to some, but I hadn't heard about it before. This went round yesterday...
https://i.imgur.com/ycpBC1i.png
in which comedian April Richardson bumps into Brett Anderson at the airport, and isn't it cute how nice he is as well as good-looking (it is!), but then there's a comment "Also I am very lucky to have encounters like this but also very unlucky in that I married the absolute worst Britpop guy" and follow-ups...
https://i.imgur.com/rAk4HCv.png
...and easy googling leads to this article (trigger warning: psychotic shitbag) in which she describes in excruciating detail how Martin Rossiter is not a very nice person at all.

Sorry that is pretty bad formatting.

Well fuck, that's even worse than the Bluetones guy, and the Mansun guy.

Eurgh, do I even want to read that, then. (Did I hate Gene? Hell yes. Did I want anyone to be have been a victim of any of them? Fuck no.)

It was mentally exhausting to even read that, hope she eventually manages to recover from the experience.

do I even want to read that

I wouldn't bother. Summary: he's a gross and damaged abuser.

Since someone I’m very close to knows her, she was privy to all that stuff a long time ago, and since it wasn’t my place to mention it I never did but yeah, that guy is a straight up piece of shit.

Looking him up on Wikipedia, seems Gene just reformed:

https://www.nme.com/news/music/gene-to-reunite-for-first-live-show-in-over-20-years-3847624

I was never a fan, but their tour manager was a friend of my stepmother, so I saw them play a few times in the late 90s.

usually-good youtube channel trash theory has posted a 'roots of britpop' type overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WQBHboYFj4
"The 8 Songs To Blame For Britpop" posted 12 dec 2025