Judge Reinhold

One time in my youth, my friends and I went to see 'Beverly Hills Cop 3' at the Odeon cinema in Stoke. It goes without saying that it's a pretty shit film, and at our post-film visit to McDonald's, one of my friends, let's call him Lou Diamond Phillips, was unusually angry about the film. And he seemed to be taking his blame out on Judge Reinhold in particular. "Fuck the Judge," Lou kept saying. "Fuck the Judge!"

Quite why Lou Diamond Phillips had it in for Judge Reinhold I don't know; in the 'Beverly Hills Cop' films, he's little more than a sappy side-kick for Eddie Murphy. Really, Eddie Murphy or the film's director should be the one getting the anger.

"Fuck the Judge!"

Anyway, a few weeks later, we were round at another friend's house watching TV, flicking through the channels, when a certain Judge Reinhold popped up. "Fuck the Judge," Lou Diamond Phillips said again.

On that day we made a pact that we have to say, out loud, even if there's other (non-pact member) people around, "Fuck the Judge". And this is if we're together as a group or on our own.

I still believe in the pact, although there was a several long gaps without sightings of Mr Reinhold, owing to a deterioration of the quality and size of films that he frequents presently, though he did guest in a few episodes of 'Arrested Development', much to my sweary delight.

Introducing The Band

Towards the end of high school, before we all went our separate ways in life, my friends (who I shall call John, Paul, George and Ringo) and I decided that we needed to form a band.

The fact that none of us could play any instruments was going to hold us back. I had a guitar, and one of my friends had a younger brother who had three guitars and a drum kit, which worked out perfectly as there were five of us, although we were a bit guitar heavy. As Ringo was the member of our "gang" we always picked on and made him do the things no-one else wanted to do, we made him the drummer.

Much time we spent together as a band that summer, mainly arguing over what the band's name should be. I wanted the band to have no name, so that we could be the ultimate non-conformists. No-one agreed with me. John and Ringo wanted the band to be called "Meat and Four Veg", Paul wanted us to be called "The Ascent" and George wanted "The Hill Street Gang". Paul relented and backed me as he preferred no name to "Meat and Four Veg" but George refused to back down, leading to deadlock and the band officially having no name. Which is what I wanted anyway. John and Ringo still insisted on telling people we were called "Meat and Four Veg".

Our jam sessions consisted of us all being together, playing what we wanted, when and how we wanted. As none of could play, the usual constraints of music, like chords or melody, didn't apply to us, so we could create improvised, free-form rock epics. Or just all individually play what we wanted until we got bored.

And what happened to the rest of my band? Well, they only went onto become known as Oasis, you might have heard of them… not really, none of them ever picked up an instrument again and now have assorted middle class jobs that pay them too much money.

Britpop: The End

I've finally come to the end of my Britpop retrospective, after spending many pounds buying and several months listening to a whole bunch of albums, and many hours watching YouTube clips. I could have gone on forever really, but I really can't be bothered, and I think I covered all the important stuff really, but there were some artists I didn't cover, The Verve, Embrace, Kenickie and Catatonia probably being the main ones.

MP3s not pictured

The Verve pre-dated Britpop by several years and broke through as Britpop ended, so I didn't include them. Embrace and Catatonia I would consider as post-Britpop bands really, even though they are often included by some people. As for Kenickie, they were a band I loved at the time and will do a look back on them at a later date.

Overall, I enjoyed looking back at what was essentially the music of my youth. There were few surprises, most things were pretty much as I remembered them, good and bad.

If one thing was noticeable, it was that there were a lot of good singles, but most of the albums were fairly average.

Despite having reservations when I began, I would now conclude that Britpop was a good thing. No big cultural movement has really happened in Britain since then; the coverage Britpop got was fairly remarkable, and given what has happened to the media in Britain since then (few remaining independant radio stations, the decline of the music magazine industry, the lack of music coverage), one is unlikely to happen again. With all the coincidences involved with the rise of Britpop, such as the arrival of satellite TV, the move towards the mainstream of "alternative" comedy and the seeming return of British nationalistic pride, it makes it all the more amazing. If for no other reason, Britpop will probably be the last in the line of youth cultural movements (following things such as rock 'n' roll in the fifties, the swinging sixties, punk etc) to really sweep through Britain in such a big way, though I'll be happy to be proved wrong. The closest thing we have had recently I guess is the increasing obsession with celebrity culture and the rise of reality TV.

The Nearly Men

Before I finish my Britpop retrospective, I should mention some of the bands that didn't make it, or I just couldn't be bothered to buy any of their albums.

Dodgy were a poppier, summery sounding band, and were shit. They are regularly perceived as one the reasons Britpop was shit by haters of the period, and were seen as one of the dadrock-type bands that Chris Evans championed.

Like Dodgy, Reef were a band tainted by their Chris Evans associations, making their name when one of their songs was used regularly on "TFI Friday". Coming from the West Country, the band had a large regional fanbase, but seemed only to be liked by retro rock fans elsewhere in the country.

Sheffield's Longpigs were actually not that bad, having a couple of good singles and half-decent debut album. That said, I couldn't be bothered to buy the album again. The band are most notable today because they featured Richard Hawley on guitar, though when I was at school, it was rumoured that singer Crispin Hunt was originally from my home town of Leek (in Staffordshire), and formed the band when he went to university in Sheffield, though I've never been able to confirm if this is true or not.

Northern Uproar were one of the most hated of all Britpop bands. Seen as being a poor man's Oasis, due to kind of looking and sounding like a worse version of them, and the band were constantly mocked by music magazines and fans alike.

If one Britpop band were hated more than Northern Uproar, it was Shed Seven, though this was probably related to the fact that they were a lot more successful than Northen Uproar and a lot more people had heard of them. Singer Rick Witter's name became Britpop rhyming slang, and lots of stories went around about how the band got its name (because the singer was one of a family of seven that were born and lived in a shed, being my favourite). Like Northern Uproar, they were a crapper Oasis.

Scotland's The Supernaturals had a couple of poppy hit singles, then disappeared again. I can't really add any more than that.