Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

I hate to break it to you jim, but the scatman has gone to the great jazz club in the sky.

Oh no! Say it ain't so!

He's scatting for Jesus now.

FUCK

RIP Big Fella. Heaven needed some dude with a big moustache.

"Scat Paradise" (EP) [*] (1995) #45 Japan

^^^ This was epic

Scatman John RIP

Shocker

The show's bosses...

"bosses"?? lol britspeak

its an american term tho, like poobah

Christopher Biggins
Guru Josh
Someone out of the Longpigs who isn't Richard Hawley
Someone out of Hepburn
A COMEDIAN you've never heard of but the BBC have this deal they can't get out of

Calum Waddell

Really am counting down the days until Calum turns up as a talking head on some BBC3 list show.

ILILX?

Dressed in a banana suit.

Why is Norway performing so well culturally in the 00s?
Why are their musicians willing to be more creative?
Does a smaller country facilitate music to thrive more easily compared to other larger European countries?

We surely have our share of really bad copies of English/American teen pop/MOR. It's just that you guys never get to hear that shit. It stays all over the radio here, without ever reaching abroad.

(Even if Idol is a completely ridiculous concept that does music no good, the acts that have come out of the Norwegian Idol are probably better than the average Idol act though - Margaret Berger has even released two excellent albums)

Let us discuss the group "Boys Wonder".

http://downwithtractors.blogspot.com/2008/01/boys-wonder-shine-on-me-expanded-second.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pagLNqe_eUg
http://www.myspace.com/boyswonder

OG proto britpop from 1987!

I mean, they weren't actually good or anything... but, still.

But this is not run of the mill rock’n’roll, it is decidedly English in flavour. Big Ben’s cockney vocal charm reflects everything that was essentially English about Anthony Newley, early Bowie (‘Love You Till Tuesday’) and the Small Faces on ‘Lazy Sunday’, while the hard and loud guitar pop has been compared to the finest moments of this country’s yob rock: The Who, Slade and the Sex Pistols. The national identity of their music is very important to the Boys.

“We want to sound as English as possible,” explains Ben. “A lot of people think it’s hard to sing in an English accent but I don’t find it hard at all. I think it’s more exciting… we’re from London and we want to get that London sound.”

http://www.chrishunt.biz/features38.html

I have only the vaguest memory of this shower, but I think they did get quite a bit of coverage when they were current? The singer in his get-up was something you saw a lot for a month or two back in the day. I suppose they were a bit proto-britpop in retrospect. Music was a bit nowt-nor-summat thought.

Weirdly, I just came across them again on youtube myself. They seemed to be featured in every single issue of i-D magazine between 86 and 88... but no one was 'aving it.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/8/6/1325942/boys%20wonder.mp3

http://premium.fileden.com/premium/2007/8/6/1325942/boys%20wonder%20dean%20final.mp3

Very interesting! I can't figure out why I don't remember this band at all.
I'm not sure whether I think they're all that good or not, but I can see how they would have seemed markedly different to what else was going on at the time.

That myspace is puzzling. Who would set up a page about this band just to zing them?

Boys Wonder!

At the Panic Station all dayer, they played. During an interval between the afternoon and evening sessions, a different band played on top of an awning that was the front entrance of Dingwalls. They were average. Then Boys Wonder backed their bus into the square playing uptop themselves, the drummer shouting abuse to the other band's drummer, at which point the bus pulled off. To which the other band downed tools and set after them.

At which point, an entirely different band jumped up to the awning and upped tools, and were actually great.

Meantime, the two drummers reappeared knocking bells off each other.

At which point, someone got the third band off the top for insurance reasons (I believe this was Jake Shillingford, who was a git (prob still is) for not letting me stand in the lobby while the interior was megahot and I was only 8.5 stone in those days due to an ongoing illness which eventually got operated on, anyway back to the tale) so they climbed down.

Meantime, the two drummers reappeared again, arm in arm, off to the bar to buy each other pints.

We just say what we think, look food, play loud and if people like it – fantastic!”

They must have been hungry and got distracted!

"That myspace is puzzling. Who would set up a page about this band just to zing them?"

lbzc m.o, no?

(I believe this was Jake Shillingford, who was a git (prob still is) for not letting me stand in the lobby...

-- Mark G, Thursday, 10 July 2008 09:45

Funny you should mention him because My Life Story is one of the bands these guys remind me of.

and so, here it is; the definitive list of the ultimate 90s genre :

NEW RELEASE

Ooh... it seems like only yesterday we were young & carefree, with our Union Jack T's, alco-pop fuelled Camden nights and that TV show Top of the Pops was crammed with power-chord loaded indie-pop heroes... Tuning in once more, in these grim recessionary times, it all sounds like rather a lot of fun. With the 2012 charts roadblocked by flappy corporate pap and well-schooled posh pop, there's something very refreshing about these geezers, scallies, art-school types & ravers uniting in a very disparate-but-it-worked way to create what became Britpop. Download, play loud and sing along... and be pleasantly suprised as you realise you know pretty much every song. Anthems indeed - Brit Pop will make you smile. So before the Queen's Crew pull rank with her Tea Party and the Olympic Posse get shouting, wave the Union Flag and salute the real good times.

FULL Running order
CD 1
Blur - Parklife
Pulp - Common People
The Verve - Sonnet
Suede - Animal Nitrate
Embrace - Come Back To What You Know
Elastica – Connection
Cast – Sandstorm
Shed Seven - Going For Gold
Catatonia - Road Rage
Paul Weller - Sunflower
Space - Female of the Species
The Farm - Groovy Train
Inspiral Carpets - This Is How It Feels
EMF - Unbelievable
The Mock Turtles - Can You Dig It?
Morcheeba - Tape Loop
Dubstar - Anywhere
The Soup Dragons - I'm Free
Fatboy Slim - Gangster Trippin'
New Order - Fine Time
PF Project Featuring Ewan McGregor - Choose Life
CD2
Supergrass - Alright
Radiohead - Just
Underworld - Born Slippy (NUXX)
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping
The Supernaturals - Smile
Ash - Goldfinger
Doves - Pounding
Garbage - Stupid Girl
The Lightning Seeds - The Life Of Riley
Terrorvision - Tequila
The Levellers - One Way
Travis - Driftwood
Babybird – You’re Gorgeous
The Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends
The Thrills - Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)
Mansun - Wide Open Space
Feeder – Buck Rogers
Gomez - Whippin' Piccadilly
Stereo MC's - Connected
Jesus Jones - Real Real Real
James - Sit Down

90 minutes of hell, or a bearable b-b-q soundtrack ?

This track list should be a poll. There are a few good songs here, but so many contenders for ear bleeding misery.

There's a maximum of four things on that list i wouldn't run screaming from these days. Oddly, i'm listening to some Czech pastiche Britpop at this very moment and really enjoying it.

i suspect radio 2/x factor hero dermot o'dreary has been using this list for the last 5 years and emi have just paid him a few quid for the list.

what i love is that @ reading '90 the stereo mcs "joked" about how they were the only hip hop act of the festival.
and here their outburst is confirmed.

baggy beats do not count as hip hop

what are the Thrills doing on there. that doesn't seem right.

What is all this baggy / Madchester stuff doing on a "BritPop" comp? Inspiral Carpets? EMF

And stuff that is way too early to be BritPop? The Sundays?

And stuff that was in the original BritPop Select issue - St Etienne, The Auteurs - is nowhere to be seen?

The Thrills were considered Britpop? 2003 seems pretty late for most of that tracklist.

the thrills were considered Britpop? crap.

fixed.

well, yeah. i just never thought they were lumped in with britpop.

^^

as has been pointed out, the thrills along with many many others.

such a mad random list.

still, if i went to a bbq this summer and this was playing in the background i would be in a relatively good mood.

Nice one ithappens
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/apr/24/britpop-cultural-abomination-music-blur-oasis

Matt Scott

24 April 2014 7:11pm
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0

terrible article from a jealous virgin

Probably not going to pay close attention to he comments on that one.

goodoldcause

24 April 2014 7:13pm
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40

I remember Britpop as a huge relief. Sure, there was a lot of hype and some of the bands weren't able to live up to it. But the time before Britpop, the early 90s, was so dull. Lots of manufactured pop and half-hearted US imports.

Britpop was a much-welcome burst of energy and a resurgence of interesting guitar-led bands, many of them still hugely under-rated. Just go back and listen to anything from that period by The Bluetones: it still holds up.

half-hearted?

lol bluetones

There was some good stuff, there was some bad stuff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/uk/02/landfill/img/landfill_map.gif

good stuff ithappens.

and i say that as a defender of the nwonw groove that britpop killed, and despite the fact i still listen to the menswe@r album on a regular basis.

I thought menswe@r were a pile of arse even at the time!

ha .. yeah .. i know.
everyone did.
but the album is a case of session musicians making a fine glam pop album.
(i never ever believed that anyone in the band had any input other than the vocals)

are menswe@r the monkees of the 90s then?