Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

They were no Rialto

I think I remember Rialto for being comp to Scott Walker, maybe?

Romo was pretty much just Simon Price, iirc. Although the music was broadly terrible, the reaction to it seemed worse than the original push behind it. The relationship with Britpop was mostly oppositional.

Cinerama did what Rialto attempted to do many miles better

At around this time, a first anniversary party was held for Club Skinny headlined by Crush, the band of former Byker Grove TV stars Donna Air and Jayni Hoi. However, continued tensions in the scene led to the discontinuation of both Skinny and Arcadia in July 1996. Romo activities continued at the individual bands' concerts (although one Plastic Fantastic concert at Dingwalls from this time ended in a mass brawl after a hat was thrown onstage).[40]

fuck throwing a hat

27th of April is the Fuck washing a hat day.

― Mark G, Friday, 21 January 2011 12:26 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol crush
sounded like a republica tribute act iirc

Rialto's thing was having two drummers, and the guy from Kinky Machine

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/27/britpop-and-me-looking-back-not-in-anger-eva-wiseman

Britpop was our moon landing, except janglier. It was our Summer of Love, our Nelson Mandela's presidential years, our fall of the wall.

The full line is

Britpop was our moon landing, except janglier. It was our Summer of Love, our Nelson Mandela's presidential years, our fall of the wall. It was the awkward suburban girl's Wonderful World of Colour. The never-kissed's big bang.

Xposts I said that?

Last post here: Classics Found: Fuck Washing a Hat

They were no Rialto

― Master of Treacle

Really liked Rialto at the time. When they got dropped just before the album came out I remember paying £20 for it on Import in HMV. So much money wasted on CD's from that time. Everything Bennet ever released, albums and single by Mover, Joacasta, 18 Wheeler and Ether. Anyone remember Ether? The guy's voice was just ridiculous!

http://youtu.be/HmnhsHtqzKk

Yeah, I had one of their songs on a compilation, think I ended up in email correspondence with one of them?

ugh just listened to it and it's horrible

hated Rialto too

actually no, I'm confusing them with someone else...

rofl 18 wheeler

nothing can be worse than
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Geh_zrt2Ps

I was doing work experience at a record shop when the Ether album came out. After a few days the owner said they couldn't pay me but I could have a couple of new CD's instead. The first album I picked was their album (as I'd enjoyed a couple of singles) That is a decision that still haunts me today. Luckily my second choice was Pulp's This is Hardcore.

Xposts Thanks, bizarro gazzara.

Nice to see the day is being observed.

xp Monaco, that's who I'm confusing Rialto with

Re catch

I don't recall that totp perf, but he looks exactly as I assumed.

Reminds me of listening to xfm where they played it over and.

Awful.

xpost Don't know which is my favourite 18 Wheeler moment. Them being forced to play some Labour event and being introduced by Tony Blair as Wheeler 18 or Alan McGee claiming their last album was going to be the new Screamadelica.

The worst of these bands (that will occasionally get stuck in my head) is Ruth. (Sorry to remind everyone of them.)

There used to be a website probably over 10 years ago at this point called "This is Romo" where you could listen to Sexus and Plastic Fantastic and the like. They were all pretty bad, but the DexDexter song was ok. I still love the Orlando record, but I also have Fosca records, so...

I sort of like Rialto and their 2-drummer attempt at sweeping romanticism, but they lyrics were way sub-Suede/Pulp.

*their lyrics. Ignore the grammatical mess there.

I'm pretty sure someone once mentioned this band Ruth and i said "Who?" and a video was posted.

But I cant remember. So I'll just say who? (again?)

Joacasta kind of invented Muse. I bet Tim Arnold is pissed off about that.

Ruth appeared on Blue Peter, performing their song Fear Of Flying. I imagine someday they'll be on a box set with the likes of The Smiles, The Young Offenders and Laxtons Superb. Or perhaps music will have been abolished by then

And also with The Poppyheads of 'Wake Up America", 'fame'

Ruth were a very late in the day Britpop act who had one hit single with a track called 'I Don't Know', struggled to follow it up and then got dropped. They then re-named themselves The 45's, got another record deal, couldn't get a hit and got dropped again. Then Matt Hales, their lead singer, became Aqualung (of 'Strange and Beautiful' fame).

After that, he started co-writing tracks for Boyzone, Jason Mraz, Paloma Faith etc.

Ruth talking about mental health on the National Lottery...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3IXutwwI8

Anyway, fuck Ruth, anyone remember Speedy!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abIWxxzXxvY

nope

no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i15ALD6fsUU

worst band ive ever seen in my life T In The Park 1995 NME Tent. They were so bad they made me think the next band I saw (Cast) was good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er7gZ5j37qA

Just reading the Taylor Parkes piece on The Quietusatm, I havent finished it and yes its great but these does anyone else feel with a lot of these anti-Britpop that it is getting the blame for things that its not neccesarily its fault? Yes it was bound up in the time, the zeitgeist and it reflected the neo-liberal ethos of the time. but to say that the cover of "parklife" in walthamstow dog track is somewhow indicative of the rise of gentrification is a bit of a stretch. most of these bands were just straight up indie bands who got branded with the tag - frank and walters would have been a britpop band if they werent from cork f'instance

actually its a fantastic article! well worth a read

http://thequietus.com/articles/15092-blur-parklife-anniversary-review

Self-congratulatory anti-Britpop screeds are now just as annoying and simplistic as rose-tinted Britpop nostalgia imo but the Taylor Parkes one goes so much deeper, bothers to study individual songs rather than make grand generalisations and admits that he was a participant.

My problem with the Taylor Parkes article is that it assumes so much from Britpop, and Blur particularly. There's something almost gleefully revisionistic about these anti-Britpop articles in that many of them don't even get the facts straight in the first place. They blame Britpop for everything that was shit about the '90s - even going so far as to say that it was Britpop which helped the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, which is complete bollocks since BP was pretty much over by the time he came in. From the outside looking in, it's very easy to say to people of my generation - people who never counted themselves as English, who grew up away from London, who were aware of the Beatles and the Kinks but didn't really listen to Britpop bands because they sounded like the Beatles and the Kinks, who enjoyed bands like Blur, Pulp, the Boo Radleys for their musical diversity, not their conservatism, who also liked American bands and dance music and hip-hop, who only felt 'a part of something' because we happened to be young and liked to go to indie nights and dance and snog each other in our Doc Martens as opposed to because of something Stuart Maconie said on the Evening Session - It's easy to look at the surface-level media-led shit that sprang up around the arse end of Britpop and turn around 20 years later and go 'HAH, see I told you it was all SHIT', when really I think that's rather inaccurate and missing much of the point and I'd more readily side on Eva Wiseman's little piece than Parkes's in-depth and well-written but ultimately unfair drubbing.

I thought it was very poorly written. F-word this and F-word that; fine, you can swear as much as the average Gallagher brother. So what? Does that make you better than them? Also, far too discursive and rambling instead of addressing the topic at hand and a competent editor would not have spared their secateurs cutting the piece down. Funny how he has a go at “Girls And Boys” supposedly attacking the working class and as usual gives Pulp the free pass. Not listened to the first song on His N’ Hers recently, then?

Meanwhile, did the death of Diana really “kill” Britpop? If anything spelled out the end it must ARGUABLY have been the advent of the Spice Girls. Look! Colour, fun, humour – everything that Britpop isn’t (any more). No mention of them. Riot Grrl gets one passing, rather disdainful mention. If Elastica did anything he doesn’t mention it. And of all the Britpop loudmouths to alight upon, he decides to have a go at…Louise Wener.

The differential diagnosis would therefore include the possibility that this writer has a problem with women.

Oh, and as far as Blair and Blairism are concerned, the Britpop boom essentially happened under a Conservative government.

You mean the Iraq War wasn't ignited by Blur's version of 'Lets Go Down the Strand', what are you saying here Marcello?

Not the Spice Girls, really.

My opinion being: The Spiceys could co-exist with the Britpop quite happily. One alternate 'DOBP' theory was Louise Wener, funnily enough, was in the studio doing her third album and getting a preview of Robbie's "Angels" and realising that the Mainstream could actually do this "Britpop anthem" thing better than Oasis now, so time to pack up and prepare for the taxi home. (I believe the Glitter Band had the same feeling when they saw the Sex Pistols live, back in 1976).

My theory of the end was when Blur produced "Tender", a sure-fire number one, only Britney Spears stopped them with "one more time, baby" and it was like the end of "1066 and all that" : "America was clearly top nation, and Britpop came to a full stop"

Cheers, chief.

Good theories there. I'm sure Robson and Jerome are thoroughly fed up with having to take all the blame.

even going so far as to say that it was Britpop which helped the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, which is complete bollocks since BP was pretty much over by the time he came in.

Blairism didn't start the day he won the election you know. In fact his period as leader of the opposition (July 1994 to May 1997) is almost exactly the lifespan of Britpop, and that's when he axed Clause IV, launched New Labour, etc. You can't complain about TP's false assumptions if you're making some of your own.

Marcello is more on-point. It is rambling, and at times unclear what he even means by "Britpop" (which, like "hipster", now appears to mean Things The Writer Doesn't Like) and TP's problem with women has been noted before. I still think it's one of the better anti-Britpop rants I've read recently, if only because it's pegged to analysis of a specific album.