Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

xpost:

Yup, I'll readily confess to not giving a shit about politics until I was 17.

I didn't give much of a shit, or even pay attention to politics at that time.

that is one of his points that no one gave a shit and continued to not give a shit and now politics has been removed from pop and that these people are now in charge everywhere.

i remember 9/11 it as if it were yesterday, the pavements still littered with spent fireworks, Tony Blair's rousing speech calling for OMOV to be seriously debated at the spring party conference, Cerys Matthews playing a Waylon Jennings joint when she was filling in for Jo Whiley on Radio 1

frantically combing Usenet for Spyro the Dragon cheats

this bit is otm.

: "back then, this stuff seemed more like a reaction against recent British music, which had been dreadful, rather than Nirvana, who everybody liked)

The Select cover was quite a bit before Oasis etc took off and doubt most people buying britpop had seen that cover. The narrative I recall was that this was "better music with commercial ambition" rather than "neds atomic dustbin/sultans of ping/kingmaker shite".

There was tons of great music being made in the UK prior to this. Was Brit-pop a reaction against that too or just neds/sultans/kingmaker?

perhaps a clue can be found in the early Marion single "Fuck Off Neds/Sultans/Kingmaker"

Or more specifically:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKGz2l6Erg

Weird that Neds/Sultans/Kingmaker aren't included in that lot.

Plenty of them liked Nirvana, Pavement and so on, and plenty liked dance music too. I agree that the main target was really the Neds/Carter axis, which I haven't seen anyone rushing to defend recently.

xp I don't even think it was predominately a retreat into nostalgia, NV. I remember a sense of excitement that this - and all the other mid-90s music that doesn't fall into a neat box and which, as many people have said itt, liked alongside Britpop - was all happening now. Sure there was a fetishisation of certain 60s elements (mod fashion, World Cup 1966, Michael Caine in Alfie, etc) but that wasn't the main driver.

What's missing from the anti-Britpop pieces I've read is any explanation for why so many people found it an exciting development at the beginning, except "lol people are idiots/racists/Blairites".

if i'm being a snarky little monkey i guess it's more about the 20-years-on nostalgia now than the phenomenon at the time, DL, which i agree was more complex than any of the totalizing narratives being written this year can deal with

Britpop had its discontents from the moment Select published that cover, it wasn't like the nationalistic elements weren't questioned at the time, it wasn't like the whole "scene" wasn't primarily a critics' argument rather than a brand that the kids bought into as it happened. but a horrible, dominant regressiveness was born out of the era i think - alongside other pathways, sure. and for people who like a good narrative, i think there are lots of better ones that could be woven out of commercial mildly alt UK music of the mid 90s

in some ways i think the notion of Britpop preserved the worst possible Whiggish reading of the history of pop music in the UK, and gave it orthodox clout, even as it pushed the other narratives into more interesting (and hidden) places. something in me seriously jibes at the 15 year journey from "We Oppose All Rock and Roll" to "Tonight Matthew, I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star"

It was listening to XFM to wake up to in London in the early 90s, and another execrable Carter USM single, that made me decide to give up on indie. I had better things to do with my time. I tuned my car radio to pirate jungle stations because it sounded exciting. It was friends playing me bands like Suede, Blur, Teenage Fanclub that made me take notice of indie stuff again.

xp Oh sorry, I mixed up my nostalgias.

,, and meanwhile, back in the Jungle...

i recall t n the park 95 and everyone calling it the summer of britpop even though none of those bands were on mainstage tricky and the prodigy and foo fighters i think were on there. But back then you still had the raw/kerrang reading people along with the nme/mm reading crowd but they werent that different. The Prodigy really were big amongst both sets and continued to be. Underworld (who were terrific) played just before the shamen in the dance tent (massive attack headlined the same time as prodigy on mainstage. the nme tent where all the britpop bands played was full of 15 year olds (supergrass was a huge massive crush in that tent) most of those bands ended up playing the mainstage in 96. But even in 96 you got people watching other non britpop indie bands (i got a few ppl i met to go see Afghan Whigs and there was tons of pavement tshirts) as well as britpop and everyone was into dance music. esp the old roses/mondays fans. Everyone was waiting on Oasis' "Screamadelica" and when be here now dropped everyone was gutted and tbh a lot of us got off the oasis bus. But somehow they got bigger and OCS ,Travis and the dadrock got huge and the younger fans of these hated dance music. It wasnt "real". This all happened around 1997. Coinciding with Blair & cool Britannia @ #10.
That is how I remember it.

So why did it (brit indie) go really conservative by 1997 and never really recover?

I'd post a zillion counterexamples to that^^^ last statement, but that would mean engaging with this entire tedious debate

im not talking about music noones heard and only you liked

Ultrasound were not a great band

oh no only 999.99999etc squillion bands you didn't discount there

I'd rather hear Grey Cell Green and Sheriff Fatman than any song by Blur or Oasis.

Well please inform me of a squillion uk indie bands post 1997 who were amazing?
50 will do though, i know you love lists.
I will agree that say six by seven were good, not great, but good. Im sure there will be a few others we agree on but they didnt have the impact of their peers like coldplay or the libertines did. Or landfill indie. And landfill indie was basically britpop part 2

Brian thats still setting the bar low

In answer to the thread q, I think it is time. for a Pee-valuation

And landfill indie was basically britpop part 2

― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Monday, April 28, 2014 9:21 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, landfill indie was much, much more horrific than Britpop in my opinion. The worst landfill indie bands seemed like they were going for an extremely diluted version of the very tail end of Britpop or post-Britpop.

In summary then, Britpop was shit music which was a reaction against shit music and left shit music in it's wake.

xpost:

I mean, jesus christ, imagine Scouting For Girls appearing in 1996. I'm confident that they would have been laughed at and mocked even then.

Oh im not arguing that it wasnt worse. Of course it was! There was still a couple of good britpop bands at least.
Scouting for girls did appear - Catch 'Bingo'

So why did it (brit indie) go really conservative by 1997 and never really recover?

― ۩, Monday, April 28, 2014 9:02 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's no short answer to this. Obviously, after the massive success of (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, record companies were selling massive amounts of albums (at a time when albums were ludcriously expensive to buy, too), and I guess they wanted that to continue at any cost, by signing bands that they felt they could push onto the same audience, regardless of whether they were any good or not.

The established bands either moved on and did something different, produced sub-par follow-up albums or took a while to make a follow-up record, which meant that in their absence, a lot of newer bands cropped up to tide things over or try to "keep it going".

The dad-rock bands, like Cast and Ocean Colour Scene, were dead on their arse by the beginning of 1998 if I recall.

Not up here. They were fecking massive. Ocs still pulled great crowds here long after til they split. They were far bigger than say blur

Pretty much every ocs fan i ever argued with used the "how can you not like them steve cradock is an amazing guitarist'. They crossed over to the mainstream stadium rock crowd up here despite never playing one (except as support to oasis)

I checked out of the Britpop party the day after Diana's funeral, although that actually had to do with the fact that my first son was born that day

Cast were as popular until they changed their sound on the third album and it flopped. Ppl actually though john power was the second coming of john lennon lol

Alan McGee retired and it all went to hell.

and along comes Tom to remind us of other musics.

xxxpost:

You're kidding me? Jesus christ! It was a completely different story here... I never really heard anyone claiming to be a fan of Cast after their second album. Incredibly, I still come across Ocean Colour Scene (who haven't split up, btw!) fans from time to time, but not very many of them. But I'd say, on the whole, from their 4th album One From The Modern(?) onwards, they were definitely playing to the hardcore fans and nobody else.

was brimful of asha big in the US? I was at a Britpop night (I know, flag post is there >>>) in the US and no-one seemed to recognise it. In the UK it was everywhere.

It was a staple at my indie dance club 2000-2004.

Cast were as popular until they changed their sound on the third album and it flopped. Ppl actually though john power was the second coming of john lennon lol

― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Monday, April 28, 2014 9:52 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, come on! Nobody thought John Power was the second coming of Lennon! Hehehehehe! A lot of goodwill was applied to Power though because of The La's, though. I remember their second album, Mother Nature Calls getting savaged in the press at the time. And rightly so, it was a turd.

album was SPIN's #1 of the year.

xxpost

I'd personally put 'Brimful of Asha' down as a post-Britpop thing.

Turrican i knew ppl who did.
Btw ocs hardcore fans were massive. They still sold out gigs here whenever they played last.

But i am sure it was unique to scotland

When cast first appeared they were good live. Very loud. They supported oasis and played titp95. Then that terrible album came out all polished and you realised the lyrics were awful. It sold shitloads tho as did the second. They were the biggest tshirt band at titp95 by miles

I know ocs and cast outsold the great escape up here by a long way

to me Britpop is Blur (Parklife and Great Escape era only), Oasis, anyone else doing oi-oi type larks (Supergrass) and that's p much it, so it's quite narrow and in no way defines 90% of the """indie/alternative""" stuff I was listening to.

Listening to all the Nows of the 90s surprised my nostalgia by confirming that 'good' 'britpop' was very, very short-lived - a couple of years max - and that chart music in Britain hit an absolute nadir in 1999 (Texas, Robbie Williams, Stereophonics, Semisonic)

Suede were strictly for the indie kids. Even manics and the verve outsold them tho manics still had the rawk crowd then

Ugh texas. We thought we got rid of them by 1991 how wrong we were. Fuck you chris evans

Can we blame chris evans and tfi friday and his virgin breakfast show for it going so shit post 96?
I know he had some good bands on but he broke the really bad dadrock bands

The other thing about 1994 onwards was that it wasnt just indie or alternative was struggled here but kerrang launched nu metal in 1994 too and those bands got bigger and bigger and all the uk rawk bands copied them. So late 90s did seem bad all-round until napster and i was able to hear what i missed ( a lot of post rock and american stuff here the uk mags ignored) the stuff i did like was new stuff by old faves like spiritualized,mercury rev,flaming lips. Stoner rock was the new stuff i listened to back then otherwise it was old stuff i was discovering .