Britpop Revisited

Weren't things so much better when you were young? The weather was better, films were better, TV was better, and the music was, of course, better.

I was young during the Britpop years. I remember Blur vs Oasis, Jarvis Cocker getting onstage at The Brit Awards during a Michael Jackson performance of some god-awful song or other, I remember Euro 96, and I remember the feeling that anything was possible and that England was the coolest place on Earth. Again.

Obviously, I was young and stupid then, and years of the crushing monotony of working for a living in the real world in the intervening time have made me question how good some of the things from that time really were.

Lots of people claim to have invented Britpop, from NME/Melody Maker writers to Radiohead, Blur and Suede. Most of those same people also say they destroyed Britpop too, so I don't know what to think of their claims. Certainly, I think the resurrection of manufactured pop bands like The Spice Girls and pop artists like Robbie Willams embracing the Britpop sound probably did more to kill it off than Suede getting a keyboard player did.

As someone who was there at the time, I think the Britpop "era" really began in 1994 when Oasis released "Definitely Maybe" and Blur released "Parklife". I'm not reallty sure how it came about before that, but given that it the preceding years, we'd already had madchester, acid house, shoegaze etc meant it was only a matter of time before one of the music "movements" took off in a big way, and it was probably more luck than judgement that Britpop was the one that crossed over, although the fact that it was generally poppier in sound helped too, I think. Damon Albarn claims it came about because of a negative reaction to the grunge scene in America, which he famously called "disgusting", but the British music scene generally operates and progresses in a way that generally ignores what's happening in America at the same time, so I think he's talking shit personally.

Obviously, the biggest Britpop bands were Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp. Interestingly, Blur and Pulp had both been around for a while before Britpop but got their biggest success during that period. In the wake of these bands we got the likes of Sleeper, Supergrass, Ocean Colour Scene et al and the career resurrections of artists like Paul Weller and Echo & The Bunnymen as well.

The answer is "no".

Like all parties it had to end, and it had done so by the end of the 90s, to be replaced by "The New Acoustic", and the rise of shite like Coldplay, Travis, David Gray, Keane etc, though I'm sure people who were teenagers then probably look back at that time the same way Britpop teenagers look back at the mid-90s. There's been something of a Britpop revival of sorts in recent years (or at least a nostalgia cash-in) with Blur, Pulp and others reforming and touring again, and pieces in magazines like The Word looking back at the period.

Having lived through that time, I definitely have fond memories of it, though not necessarily as one might expect. Lots of my favourite music is from the mid-90s, though it's mainly American acts like Liz Phair, Tiger Trap, Belly, The Breeders and others; these artists were slightly ignored in Britain because of the time's obsession with Britpop, which is a bit of a shame really. There was some excellent TV ('Northern Exposure' and 'The X-Files' - both American - in particular), but you could say the same about TV from just about any age. I doubt that people will be buying 'This Life' box-sets ten years from now. And while people like me love Alan Partidge, kids of today will love 'The Inbetweeners' just as much.

I think what made the Britpop years so memorable was that the music coincided with other things (purely by chance?). The removal of the Tories after so long in power, the creation of the Premier League and Euro 96 and the perceived resurrection of British cinema (especially with 'Trainspotting') all helped to create what was in effect a perfect storm, several things that people really wanted and enjoyed all happening at the same time, topped off with a handy soundtrack of successful British artists. The fact that because of these things (especially Euro 96), it also became OK to be patriotic again in Britain (after years of "Britishness" being associated with far-right racist groups) added to the general good feeling of the time

Anyway, I'm gonna be revisiting a lot of Britpop music over the coming weeks to see/hear how it holds up...