One of the more memorable TV moments of Britpop was the TV show "Britpop Now", broadcast on 16 August 1995, which also happened to be my 17th birthday. I'd just come back from working in France and I remember watching the show then drinking French beer and champagne that I'd brought back with me for the rest of the night. Nice.
The show featured live performances from 12 Britpop acts, some of whom were already big names and some who were seen as up-and-coming bands, though some of the bigger Britpop bands did not appear, like Oasis or Suede for example. I don't know why Oasis didn't appear, though it probably had something to do with their big egos. And the fact it was presented by Damon Albarn. Suede had already distanced themselves from Britpop, which would explain their absence. I really don't know why Ash weren't on (they were pretty big) and it's interesting that The Verve were not here; although their big success would come in 1997 with 'Bittersweet Symphony', they had released two good (and critically acclaimed) albums before this show was made and were surely more deserving of a place on the show ahead of some who made it.
Anyway, the line up on the show (and YouTube links) was:
Oasis, Suede, Ash (and perhaps The Verve) aside, this was a pretty good representation of Britpop at the time, though there are one or two some strange choices, especially Powder, who only ever released three singles (thanks, Wikipedia), and were never really liked or hyped by anyone. Marion, too, had only released three singles by the time this show was made, none of which sold particularly well, though to be fair, they weren't that bad. The appearance of The Boo Radleys is also rather odd, not only did they not play the one song ('Wake Up Boo!') that anyone other than their fans would know, but the band were also rather outspoken on their dislike of Britpop.
How is the show? It actually holds up pretty good, aside from Damon Albarn's presentation. The Boo Radleys song is by quite some distance the worst, and 'Afrodisiac' is wrongly spelt by the BBC as 'Afrodiziak', but this is a decent selection of songs. Geographically, though, it does say quite a bit about Britpop and one of its failings. Nine of the twelve artists were southerners (odd member aside), with The Boo Radleys and Marion from the north-west and Pulp from Sheffield, suggesting that Britpop was perhaps more of a southern/London scene than a fully British one. But that's a different discussion for a different time.
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