Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

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Dodgy were considered a bit of a boring band back then but I think they'd fit in quite nicely next to the Kooks, The Fratellis etc if they were around these days

And so, m'lud, the case for the opposition rests...

― Tom D., Thursday, 8 March 2007 13:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Quite so, but I also think Dodgy would kick the arses of said bands.

― the next grozart, Thursday, 8 March 2007 13:42 (seventeen years ago) link

you mean literally in an actual fight?

― blueski, Thursday, 8 March 2007 13:47 (seventeen years ago) link

You see, OCS:

Chris Evans, blokeism, straining sweaty brows, Real Ale guitar solos, king-sized boss waxings, Weller, the wretched Chris de Burgh B-side that is "Day Trip To Bangor" or whatever the bloody song was called, da-DA-di-ya-da-DA da-DA-di-ya-da-DA TFI Fucking Friday with special guests Sharleen Fucking Spiteri and Robbie Bastard Williams...

It's difficult.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 8 March 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Dodgy are like the band with the widest gap between the praise accorded to them in the nme/mm issues i read at the time and their actual quality.And consideing the blethering hype given to everyone and his dog in teh mid 90s that's saying something.

― Frogman Henry, Thursday, 8 March 2007 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

...but I can remember every song off Free Peace Sweet in an instant! Their songs are at the very least more unforgettable than not. Maybe I listened to them at the optimal age for retention, I dunno.

― unfished business, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link

"Good Enough" I used to love the first 3-4 times I heard it. After that I got sick. But the rest of the "Free Peace Sweet" album is still great. Including "In a Room" which has one of the best middle-eights ever composed.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link

And as for OCS, "The Day We Caught The Train" and "You've Got It Bad" are both great pop songs. "The Day We Caught The Train" is the kind of 70s-like complex composition that I really love, and I rank it among the Top 10 songs of the entire Britpop age.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

deciding factor: 90's Britpop >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 00's Britpop

― unfished business, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:49 (seventeen years ago) link

That's not exactly saying much.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

What is 00s Britpop anyway? I don't consider most of the Nu-Postpunk bands pop at all. Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs are both great though.

And, no, Coldplay and Travis aren't Britpop. Great, yes. Britpop, no.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 9 March 2007 10:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Current Britpop is the slew of shit the NME is still trying to sell us in the ten year wake of the 90s Britpop boom. So really what I'm saying is the UK press latched onto bands like Blur, Oasis and Pulp, found a gap in the market for these bands and created a scene and low and behold it worked. It worked for 3 years pretty much but soon as is with all good things the market got saturated by knock offs versions, poor follow up albums, media overexposure and a general trend for different music.Cue NME burying their heads in the sand: "This is awful! Let's pretend it's not happening! British guitar music is the only thing that sells this paper. It's our bread and butter, so let's get ourselves down the Hope and Anchor and see what we can dig up." And so off they go searching for some kind of Britpop holy grail - a band or scene that will once again make their paper look trendy again. And they come back with Terris, the Klaxons, the Coral and Tiger and invent microscopic non-genres in the vain hope that one of these bands will blow up and become huge. And sometimes it works - seemingly dull and unadventurous bands peddling out standard guitar/bass/drum sounds still shift a few papers among the nation's population of 19 year olds. Pete Doherty is the new Liam Gallagher, Kaiser Chiefs are the new Blur. Great, NME has succeeded - now let's hope this gravy train keeps going. But there's been something going on in the world outside. Times have changed yet national press and radio stay the same, playing bands with little aural scope who could have come out at pretty much any time from 1975 onwards while in real life it's the American indie bands who are striving for wonderment and experimentation. I wanted to say that there are other innovations happening on British soil that the NME is pretty much just ignoring and was going to use Dubstep as an example. But sadly I don't think the NME could ever take Dubstep very seriously. I was trying to think of some genuinely decent forward-thinking and innovative guitar-based music from the UK in the last 5 years and was very hard pushed.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 11:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I have to review the NME every week :-(

The very fact that the Kaisers are compared to Blur speaks volumes about what a shocking state we've gotten to. The difference in calibre, in experimentation, in quality, in ideas, in EVERYTHING, is absolutely staggering. TKC sound like they've heard that Phil Daniels vocal in Parklife and ditched everything else. Dudes, he wasn't even IN Blur for heaven's sake.

And as for your final point...

...well, we've got Oceansize, Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies, The Electric Soft Parade, Hood (Outside Closer), Mogwai (their fourth album), The Cooper Temple Clause (until their third-album sell-out), 65 Days Of Static, Elbow, My Computer, good ol' SFA, and Working For A Nuclear Free City, amongst I'm sure several others.

It all depends on what you mean by 'forward-thinking and innovative', but I reckon those above bands fit the bill nicely.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link

haha "Terris"

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

not sure why people would be looking at guitar-based music for 'forward-thinking/innovative' generally anyway because of it's age and ubiquity. at least Britain totally sucks at it these years it seems true.

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha, Louis I wasn't comparing the Kharzi Chefs to Blur, just saying they're the modern equivalent as far as relative popularity goes.

Your list of alternative bands is good - such a shame though that there are only a handful of these bands out at the moment and they do vary in quality, many of them still riding on Postrock's tatty coattails. People moan about Pitchfork all the time but at least they're actively going out and reporting on music as opposed to the NME who just seem to reach into a lucky-dip bag of demos by shit UK guitar bands and write tired patronising hyperbole about their choice, slap a sticker on the front of the album and it sells a million copies. Across the pond at least you've got the whole Noise/psych scene and freakfolk and other bands who don't really fit into a category but are at least trying to do something a bit different - the indie scene in the States is strikingly healthy compared to the zero-track-minded gumph coming out in the UK.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:39 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm not sure we're not very good at dance music, pop music or (postpost)modern art these days either.

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:44 (seventeen years ago) link

why people would be looking at guitar-based music for 'forward-thinking/innovative' generally anyway because of it's age and ubiquity.

The same thing is sadly happening with dance music. It's not a fresh-faced exciting youngster anymore either.

During the britpop era all the best uk bands were making dance music. None of the Britpop bands made an album as good as Leftism.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:45 (seventeen years ago) link

hey, I wasn't saying that YOU were comparing them, I was picking up on your point that others such as the NME were doing so, and hammering the nail home.

A few of those bands are quote 'riding on Postrock's tatty coattails', yes, but they've all put their distinctive spin on it. Oceansize for instance combine post-rock, progressive, electronic, pop, and metal until there really isn't a detectable genre present. Which is the way forward IMO.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Blur did, so did Pulp - but that's arguable I guess.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:49 (seventeen years ago) link

M****N *folds arms*

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:51 (seventeen years ago) link

I miss x-post notification.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Seriously, I have to fucking REVIEW the NME in my job as radio station music assistant manager. Reading the single reviews, I ask myself: are they taking the fucking piss? Music journalism is NOTHING LIKE this, this is stream-of-consciousness moron-fodder idiocy that name-drops other artists every other fucking sentence, seriously how the FUCK do they get away with it?

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:54 (seventeen years ago) link

>> the indie scene in the States is strikingly healthy compared to the zero-track-minded gumph coming out in the UK.

This has probably been true for the last 20 years. [/yankophile]

― Colonel Poo, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Across the pond at least you've got the whole Noise/psych scene and freakfolk and other bands who don't really fit into a category but are at least trying to do something a bit different - the indie scene in the States is strikingly healthy compared to the zero-track-minded gumph coming out in the UK.

There are tons of bands in the UK who are making good and interesting music that doesn't fit into a category. I don't which respective nation's bands you have in mind here, but it seems like you're going down a pretty reductive road with this line of thinking

― DJ Mencap, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:56 (seventeen years ago) link

A few of those bands are quote 'riding on Postrock's tatty coattails', yes, but they've all put their distinctive spin on it. Oceansize for instance combine post-rock, progressive, electronic, pop, and metal until there really isn't a detectable genre present. Which is the way forward IMO.

Haven't heard Oceansize yet. Your description has set off certain alarm bells though in the fear that this band will flaunt their so-called eclecticism in a bit of a tired way, forgetting to master the styles they're trying to combine while simultaneously forgetting to innovate at the same time... That's perhaps unfair since I haven't heard them yet, but I'll say this about 65DOS (who are a great band and great people too so I feel bad about criticising) that their new material is going to have to do more than sound like a pleasing mishmash of Squarepusher and Mogwai. From what I've heard about Youthmovies is they're trying awesomely hard to be Gospeed Y.B.E! And while there's nothing wrong with that, where is the UK's Animal Collective? Where are the Lightning Bolts and Black Dices and Joanna Newsoms and Devendra Banharts and Decemberists? Say what you will about these bands but at least they have a fairly unique sound to them and I think that's more important these days than going "it's a rock band - but we use drumloops too, it's bloody mental!".

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link

This has probably been true for the last 20 years. [/yankophile]

Don't really agree with this either. The nineties were an exceptional time for UK pop music and as far as the more challenging stuff is concerned, the UK has led the way in many other styles up until about five years ago what with Warp Records etc.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:00 (seventeen years ago) link

And can I say at this point I've got that annoying "RUBY RUBY RUBY RUBY" song going on in my head and it's making me want to stick unfolded paperclips into my eyes.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Youthmovies is they're trying awesomely hard to be Gospeed Y.B.E!

Someone is bullshitting you, this is so untrue it's laughable. They're basically math-prog with awesome singalong choruses and the occasional free-form sax solo. And great riffs!

Oceansize, fear ye not, are fucking fantastic at integrating all their influences into one coherent whole. This doesn't preclude their music from being very varied, but IMO they pull off almost everything they try with flying colours. Get Effloresce, it's probably the best album of the 00's. YA RLY

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay I will. I'll give Youthmovies another try too (even though that's one of the worst names for a band ever),

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link

The Beta Band were our Animal Collective, they got there first, they were better, and they died before they grew stale. :P

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:04 (seventeen years ago) link

and if there's one band that wanted to be GY!BE it was Hope Of The States, but they also wanted to be trendy-indie Britpop so they FAILED MISERABLY.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah I can see what you mean - they're not the same band at all but they had their philosophical similarities. But what I'm saying Louis is exactly that - the Beta Band split up in, what? 1999? It shows that the UK isn't bereft of imagination but is simply being elbowed out by generic indie rock stuff which is always being held up by the NME as the "best/most important/most talked about band this year/week/day", so obviously there is a perverse power held by this magazine over a large amount of music writing in the country and so music sales reflect that.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:09 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost to your previous AC/BB comparisoon.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Although I must say I have a lot of respect for some of the more outspoken ILMers (i.e. Geir, Lex, Snrub) because despite perhaps not fitting well with the rest of the clan taste-wise, it's great fun hearing their points of view.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

British music is all about James Blackshaw for me at the moment. But there's plenty of "weird folk/noise bands" in the uk now.

And you can buy it all from Volcanic Tongue in Glasgow(or mail order) or have a read at Foxy Digitalis.

Anyway i never understood this "we should buy british stuff" I don't give a shit where it comes from. Being from UK/Scotland doesn't make it any better for me. Finland and New Zealand have some awesome music just now. All that matters is that it's good music. The actual bands may differ between us, but I agree with The Lex, when he says it doesn't matter where the music comes from.
It only matters to NME because if its UK bands they can get interviews easier.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:14 (seventeen years ago) link

oh and JESU piss allover most things around just now. Wheres the NME and Kerrang front covers?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Funnily enough a lot of the forward thinking music is being made by guitars over in that rather large genre known as Metal.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't mind where the music comes from either, but since I live here I'd like to be able to read something that calls itself "New Musical Express" without retching up all over it. There's very little going on in the mainstream music press other than the NME (when it comes to rock/indie of course) and so they have a monopoly on what is critically acclaimed and what is ignored. This is really really stifling and it means that homegrown talent can never flourish if all that is allowed to exist are default indie rock groups.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link

If they made The Lex editor things would change.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:20 (seventeen years ago) link

it's great fun hearing their points of view.

surely this only lasts so many years/months/minutes re Geir. such a defiant but pointless broken record most of the time. i guess it'll always seem novel if you're new to ILM tho.

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Principally the circulation figures.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

(xpost)

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

oh lord, i forgot jesu. :-/

Kerr is right, metal is in many ways right at the forefront of musical innovation. *puts on The Wildhearts' Sky Babies, which sounds unbelievably fresh for 1995*

Also, The Beta Band themselves WERE NME front-page news at one point. Then they made 'The Beta Band' (i.e. they chose MUSIC not HYPE) and NME dropped 'em like a stone. They eventually passed away in 2004.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

the Beta Band split up in, what? 1999?

three years ago

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

aaliyah and destiny's child were nme cover stars, once.

though my attitude is no longer "nme should be putting X and Y on the front cover", more that "i hope nme ceases to exist while artists X and Y take over the world without it"

― lex pretend, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

a) which innovative metal bands are British again?

b) how is it innovative?

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

those are genuine questions out of curiosity btw

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I remember the Melody Maker letters page when 2 Unlimited were on the cover.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link

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