Echobelly

Echobelly were a notable Britpop band. Having an Indian, female singer and a black, female guitarist made them stand out from the crowd of white indie boys.

The band would make five albums in total, though I'm only featuring the band's first two (successful) albums here.

Everyone's Got One (1994)

Echobelly's first album is a really rather good indie record, elevated by singer Sonya Madan's intriguing lyrics, referencing her tough upbringing, and with gender and sexuality as common themes.

This is consistently good from start to finish, though lacks a killer song or two to make it a five star album, but this is a very interesting album and still sounds good today.

Rating: 4/5

On (1995)

Echobelly came up with some of the killer songs their debut album lacked ('Great Things', 'King of the Kerb' and 'Dark Therapy') but lost the consistency that made it such a strong album.

The big songs here are bigger than on the first album, but there is a few more slower songs that don't really work, 'Dark Therapy' aside. Overall, this is still a pretty decent album but not as good as the first one.

Rating: 3/5

Marion: "This World And Body"

Released: 1996

Macclesfield's Marion were a hotly-tipped Britpop band who never achieved the predicted success many felt the band deserved.

Often compared to other north-west bands like Joy Divison and The Smiths, Marion's sound was dark and fesity, with some crunching guitars mixed with delicate slower songs, and it works really well on this album.

The first half of the album is excellent with not a single bad song, and highlights like 'Sleep' and 'I Stopped Dancing', the best song here.

The second half of the album is slightly messier. 'Toys For Boys', 'Time' and 'Your Body Lies' are all good, but the other three songs are quite poor and really slow the album down.

Overall though, this is a good album and show why the band attracted early hype. Rumoured drug problems and disagreements with their record label probably explain why the band made only one further studio album, in 1998. 

Rating: 4/5

Gene: "Olympian"

Released: 1995

There used to be a story told about Gene singer Martin Rossiter that he would ring up radio stations and pretend to be Morrissey. It's probably not true, but it says something about the perception that people had for Gene wanting to be like The Smiths.

That said, there are many worse bands you could want to be like, and Gene did a pretty good job on channeling The Smiths on their debut album, even having a Smiths-like cover picture.

Sounding more like latter-day rather than the earlier jingle-jangle Smiths, the comparisons are obvious, from the sound, look and lyrics. that said, this is a very good album, and rises above the comparisons to be a good album in its own right, rather than just a poor pastiche.

'Haunted By You', 'London, Can You Wait?' and 'Olympian' are the standout songs in a  consistently good album, let down only by a few of the slower songs that verge on the mediocre.

Even though Morrissey and The Smiths were a massive influence on Britpop, Gene were probably the only notable band of the time where the influence was so obvious, and it did mean that Gene carved out their own little niche in the Britpop era, and had a small, but committed following.

However, like a lot of Britpop bands, there was diminishing returns from the band after their debut album, with subsequent albums getting gradually worse, and not being worth a listen. This, though, is very good and is definitely worth checking out.

Rating: 4/5

Salad: "Drink Me"

Released: 1995

Salad were something of a devisive group in the Britpop era, at least amongst people who had heard of them, which sadly wasn't that many.

I remember reading one review of a Salad single in the NME or Melody Maker which was just one line along the lines of "I hate Salad".

As for the music itself, Salad are one of those indie groups whose music that words such as "angular" and "spiky" are commonly used. And to be fair, that would be a fair description of a lot of the songs on here, full of punchy guitar riffs and cool female vocals.

The weak points on the album are the slower songs, which don't really work at all. Fortunately, there's not too many of them. The lyrics are also particularly weak and pointless, but you don't notice them so much on the more uptempo songs.

The highlights are the first three songs on the album, 'Motorbike to Heaven', 'Drink the Elixir' and 'Granite Statue', though 'Your Ma' and 'A Man with a Box' are also pretty good.

Overall, this is a pretty good album, and is something of an undiscovered gem of the Britpop era. With a bit of editing (i.e. leaving off some of the weaker slower songs), it could have been even better, though it's worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5/5

P J Harvey: "To Bring You My Love"

Released: 1995

P J Harvey had already released three albums when this was released. The first album, "Dry", had a lo-fi alt-rock sound and was very erratic; her second album, "Rid of Me", expanded her sound and was better; her third album, "4-Track Demos" consisted of, you guessed it, 4-track demos, mainly of songs from "Rid of Me", and was actually pretty good.

For this album, the sound was expanded further, from grungy rockers ('Long Snake Moan') to Spanish-sounding jingle-jangle ('C'mon Billy'), and a hell of a lot inbetween.

Despite being all over the rock map, this album is consistently good from beginning to end, and holds together really well, despite the constant changes of pace and sound; there really isn't an dull or uninteresting song here.

The absolute best songs are 'Meet Ze Monsta', 'C'mon Billy', 'Long Snake Moan' and 'Down By The Water'; considering this album only contains ten songs, and I can instantly list five of them as brilliant says something about the quality here.

In my opinion, this is still one of the best albums of the 1990s, let alone the Britpop era, and still sounds great today, and hasn't aged at all. This is still the best album P J Harvey has made in a very good career, I think, though that's not to say anything bad about her albums that came after this. This is really an essential purchase for any rock music fan.

I actually bought this album in France in the summer of 1995, and my CD claims to be an "edition limitée", though as far as I can tell, the only extra thing in it is a second booklet inside the CD containing a massive 6 pictures (by Valérie Phillips).

Rating: 5/5

Britpop On TV

The success of Britpop benefitted not only from the shake-up at Radio 1, but also from the arrival of several TV programmes, and the emergence in Britain of satellite TV in the early 90s.

I've already mentioned 'Britpop Now' and 'TFI Friday', but the most important music show in Britain was, of course, 'Top of the Pops' [TOTP]. TOTP was obviously based around what was successful in the charts in the time, meaning that it only reflected Britpop as it became more successful. That said, in 1997, when Chris Cowey took over as producer of the show, he instigated a live performance policy for artists appearing in the studio. In 1994, the BBC also launched 'Top of the Pops 2' [TOTP2], which, as an archive show, allowed (in theory) more space for newer artists on the main TOTP.

A major addition to music TV in Britain was 'Later... with Jools Holland', which began in 1992. It's clear looking through the list of episodes that from Series 4 in late 1994 up until about the end of Series 8 in late 1996, there was at least one "Britpop" artist on just about every episode.

Channel 4 responded with their own short-lived live music TV show, 'The White Room', which ran for 3 series throughout 1995 and 1996. This show was even more Britpop-heavy than Jools Holland's, though is perhaps best remembered for Iggy Pop performing 'Lust For Life' in see-through trousers. Host Mark Radcliffe introduces Iggy by asking "Will he get his knob out?" Producer Chris Cowey then moved to TOTP in 1997.

BBC also had music magazine show 'The O-Zone', which had been running since 1989 (and ran until 2000). In 1995 however, the show got re-launched with Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss as hosts. The show was primarily pop-based, though it did feature Britpop bands much more from 1995 onwards.

In 1992, Sky acquired the rights to show the new Premier League football. This lead to a massive increase in Britain to the number of people getting satellite TV, which in turn lead to increased viewers for MTV and VH-1, the two available music channels at the time. I can certainly remember Britpop videos being played extensively at the time, especially Oasis and Blur. I do not need to see the video for 'Wonderwall' or 'Don't Look Back In Anger' ever again.

All of these things happening definitely contributed to the public awareness and success of Britpop. Some were already there of course, and some were created or changed to reflect the success of and public interest in Britpop. And if you compare this time with the lack of music programming on terrestrial TV today (only Jools Holland and the odd show on Channel 4 remain), it is an indicator that a movement like Britpop could possibly never happen again in Britain, which is kind of sad.

Ash: "1977"

Released: 1996

Northern Ireland's Ash built their name on a series of punky, exuberant, youthful - and sometimes verging on the novel(ty) - hit singles, and so by the time they released this, their first album proper, it was a pleasant surprise that they embraced a slightly more mature and expansive sound, especially given that two-thirds of the band were only 19 at the time of the album's release.

The album kicks off with 'Lose Control', the best song on the album, opening with the sound of a TIE fighter (from Star Wars), and a definite example of their maturing sound, followed by the excellent singles 'Goldfinger' and 'Girl From Mars'. The first half of the album continues solidly until track six, another really good hit single, 'Kung Fu'.

The second half of the album starts well with 'Oh Yeah', another good single, but then takes a distinct downturn in quality. The best song of the last five is the rather weak single 'Angel Interceptor'; the other four songs here are rather mediocre and mean the album goes out on something of a downer.

That said, this is a pretty good album, and is by some distance the best the band would make; their follow up albums are rather tepid, though each one contains a few hit singles meaning that their later singles collection ("Intergalactic Sonic 7"s") is very good. It's well worth a listen though and is certainly one of the better and more interesting albums of the Britpop era.

Rating: 3.5/5

Mansun: "Attack Of The Grey Lantern"

Released: 1997

Mansun took many people by surprise when they released their debut album. The band had released several good if fairly straightforward but slightly quirky indie rock singles, so when "Attack Of The Grey Lantern" arrived, full of strings and electronic touches, as well as it being close to a concept album in terms of lyrics and narrative, it came a a pleasant shock.

The album itself is really rather good. The five songs released as singles are all very good, and there's only a couple of weaker songs among the rest. The album flows really well, even when changing from string-laden songs (like opener 'The Chad Who Loved Me') into quieter, partly-electronic songs (like track two, 'Mansun's Only Love Song').

'You, Who Do You Hate?' and 'Naked Twister' are the weaker songs, but they don't detract too much from what is an excellent and fairly ambitious album. This was a real highlight of the latter days of the Britpop era.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Boo Radleys: "Wake Up Boo"

Released: 1995

The Boo Radleys had been around, and been press darlings, for a while, but achieved their greatest success with this, their fourth album, off the back of hit single 'Wake Up Boo!'.

I never really understood the appeal of The Boo Radleys. I got their album previous to this one and hated it, and I didn't like this one much more. Other than 'Wake Up Boo!', which is an admittedly brilliant, upbeat single, there's not a single other song on this album that I like, despite this supposedly being the band's "pop" album. It's pretty much just one big mess of substandard, messy songs with little in the way of tunes or direction.

I mentioned before on the 'Britpop Now' post how The Boo Radleys how the band were heavily critical of Britpop, yet appeared on that programme and released the poppiest album of their career at the height of Britpop, which, if anything, makes me dislike this band more than I already do; if you're going to criticise Britpop, then don't jump on the bandwagon.

I'm being generous giving this album one out of five purely because 'Wake Up Boo!' is such a good song. Proof that anyone can write one good song if they try for long enough.

Rating: 1/5