By Pete Donahue

When I was in sixth grade, I was probably the only kid who could differentiate Liam Gallagher’s singing voice from his brother’s. While most of my friends were listening to Green Day’s Dookie, and Mariah Carey, I was enjoying an English band unknown to my friends called Oasis. My father raised me on a steady diet of proper UK pop, with XTC, The Jam and The La’s being the sounds around the house growing up. As my father’s music taste was rather anglophilic, 1994’s Definitely Maybe was an album I started to take more notice of the country’s contemporary music sound. Little did I know the band and the album would be part of a beginning to one of music’s biggest music movements and, if you ask me, one of the most interesting.

The word “Britpop” surfaced as early as May, 1994 in popular culture as UK publications The Face and The Guardian described the country’s growing number of new bands. In September of that year, The Guardian declared: “We have never had it so good. We are in the middle of a Britpop renaissance.” Shortly afterwards, NME and Melody Maker were using the new word often. While some debate what the word actually means, it wavers somewhere between describing the sound of British bands using their music to celebrate everyday Englishness, to what Melody Maker saw as “good music of British origin.” Either way, the phrase must hold some relevance as influential music publications use it today (though the original definitions seemed to have been shelved in favor of using the word to describe pretty much any kind of rock music from the UK).

Before Britpop came along, the UK in the 80s went through a sort of cultural rough patch. The Tory-led government struggled to solve a poor economy and crime, while pop music was rather drab. Loads of generic synth-driven, overly-commercial bands dominated the charts and as seminal UK bands like The Jam and Joy Division were no longer. The Smiths were the saving grace against all that was bad, including the conservative “Thatcherism” approach of the government. Then bands like New Order led a dance craze, ultimately leading to the “Madchester” scene that saw bands like Happy Mondays and Stone Roses rise to prominence. Sometimes called “baggy rock” because of the popular trouser fit of the time, the scene, seemingly enjoyed synonymously with ecstasy, also began to fade away just like the Stone Roses had.

The early 90s music scene appeared rather bleak in that the world had grown fond of American grunge music. Bands like Nirvana were atop the charts, but their music certainly didn’t have the same appeal as other pop stars such as Kylie Minogue. Those opposed to the genre would complain of the negative lyrics and seemingly apathetic attitude. Those opposed to the American genre included the likes of Blur’s Damon Alburn.

One may argue the BritPop movement started with Damon Alburn’s aspiration to channel The Kinks’ social commentary of English life into Blur’s own songs. The band’s first two albums, 1991’s Leisure and 1993’s Modern Life is Rubbish are more pre-cursors to the BritPop movement, as the lyrics didn’t quite paint the picture of the current culture. Before 1995’s smash Parklife, the band actually did enjoy some success: their previous albums had gone gold in the UK and produced great singles like “She’s So High,” “There’s No Other Way,” “Popscene” and “For Tomorrow.” But it was Parklife’s massive success that helped ignite a new movement.

Alburn and his boozing bandmates released Parklife as a vehicle to comment on the patchwork society of the country. The album features an interesting blend of influences, from disco (“Girls and Boys”) to 60s art pop (“Tracy Jacks);” chief songwriter Alburn seemed to celebrate all that was good and bad about the times. But it wasn’t just Parklife that launched the new music movement.

Suede’s second album, 1994’s Dog Man Star shines as not only one of Britpop’s finest, but one of British music’s finest. Featuring classic tracks like “We Are the Pigs,” “Heroine” and “The Wild Ones,” Brett Anderson’s doomy, Bowie-esuqe vocals fronted a wonderful guitar-based sound that picked up where The Smiths left off in terms of making music for the outcasts in us all. Formed by Anderson, bassist Mat Osgood and guitarist Justine Frischman, the eventual quintet earned heaps of praise and fame with their 1993 self-titled debut album. Packed with incredible songs like “So Young,” “Animal Nitrate,” “The Drowners” and “Metal Mickey,” the album earned Suede the Mercury Prize of the year, thus ushering in one of the country’s hottest bands.

As Blur and Suede had already established themselves as well-known and successful British pop bands, Oasis’ 1994 debut LP Definitely Maybe stormed onto the scene with a very different sound than the likes of Alburn and Anderson’s groups. With heavy T-Rex and Sex Pistols-styled guitars and ambiguous, psychedelic lyrical imagery harking back to the later years of The Beatles, Oasis and their holier-than-thou attitude displayed an incredible amount of (rightful) confidence as the band skyrocketed up the charts. Signed by Creation Records owner Alan McGhee (who is also responsible for helping bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream take off), the band made the label very wealthy and very important to the BritPop movement.

Alongside the heavyweights of the movement, two more bands are important to BritPop’s rise: Elastica and Pulp. The former, fronted by Damon Alburn’s girlfriend, Justine Frischman (who found her services no longer needed in Suede), took spiky, angular pop-punk and injected their fun sound into the UK charts, as the band went gold in three countries thanks to their 1995 debut album. (As Frischman is an ex-girlfriend of Anderson, it made for juicy headlines in the music press as rival band leaders Alburn and Anderson continued to squabble through the press for several years). Jarvis Cocker-fronted Pulp had been around since the mid-80s having formed in Sheffield, but it wasn’t until their 1994 album His ‘n’ Hers that the band started to achieve chart success to go along with the praise they had often received. As the band wore their working class routes proudly on their sleeves, Pulp recorded one of the definitive BritPop anthems in “Common People” off their stellar 1995 LP Different Class. A wonderful commentary on class structure in the UK of the time, it cemented Pulp as one of the most important bands of BritPop.

As Blur, Suede, Oasis, Elastica and Pulp are the most relevant and celebrated acts of the BritPop movement, it is worth noting there were others who, despite not achieving as much success as the heavyweights, are still worth mentioning. Artists like Supergrass, Cast, Super Fury Animals, St. Etienne, Stephen Duffy and Ocean Colour Scene also made names for themselves in the mid-90s. Former Jam frontman Paul Weller also released the great Wild Wood in 1993 and later his seminal Stanley Road LP in 1995, an excellent album channeling his memories growing up working class in the UK.

As 1994 and 1995 produced a number of great releases, hence the BritPop movement was born. As the aforementioned groups enjoyed growing fame, high album sales and loads of concert tickets sold, a major emphasis started to be placed on success. How well an album sold or how high a single charted literally meant everything to the music industry at the time. And let us not forget the media’s massive hype and coverage over Blur changing the release date of their “Country House” single to compete directly with Oasis’ “Roll With It.” Hardly are the singles the band’s best works, but considering the hype over Parklife and the upcoming (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, it’s no surprise the attention paid to these particular two songs. While the regular music publications such as Q, Melody Maker and NME devoted countless pages to covering the “battle,” the event had spilled over into mainstream news media, with the BBC quick to report on all the latest updates on 1995’s biggest competition. The event still looms as the definitive moment of BritPop, with Ocean Colour Scene guitarist Steve Craddock recently telling Mojo “Britpop to me was just the fight between ‘Country House’ and ‘Roll With It’ for the number one single, which was a daft little playground fight.”

While Blur won the battle, Oasis has essentially won the war by selling more albums throughout their career. While Blur released The Great Escape in 1995 to heaps of critical praise (and has since gone triple platinum in the UK), it wasn’t the giant that was Morning Glory. With their new album, Oasis had become a bona fide arena act…in the United States! Indeed, Oasis managed to do what plenty of great UK rock bands have not – major success in the United States. The Britpop movement seemed like a train heading hundreds of miles and hour. The biggest bands in the country had each put out a classic album and success was aplenty. With such success came the usual rock star cliches – cocaine use seemed rampant among almost all the top musicians. While members of bands like Elastica fell to heroin, the Gallaghers and Blur’s Alex James are among the many who have not hid their former penchant for the powder. In fact, Noel Gallagher recently revealed in an interview with NME that he’d spent over a million pounds on drugs and “loved every minute of it.”

Perhaps the artists were living the high life because they knew it would never be as fun again? As George has said, “All Things Must Pass.”

By 1998, BritPop was no longer seen as a celebratory movement. Oasis’ follow-up to the incredibly successful Morning Glory, 1997’s Be Here Now, came across as a bloated affair to some critics, receiving mixed reviews that questioned the heart and soul that made the band who they were originally. Painfully long songs, too much guitar excess…to much “rock star?” It appeared that the posh life style Noel and company had enjoyed had caused their creative juices to stutter. While Be Here Now isn’t a bad album, the quality of classic pop songs simply isn’t there. Especially compared to Morning Glory.

Blur had since abandoned their British influences in favor of American alternative, lo-fi guitar band influences such as Pavement. 1997’s self-titled album was welcomed by critics, but from a creative standpoint, it appeared the pop darlings who were at the forefront of BritPop were a completely different band. One need not look further than “Song 2,” which sounds more like Nirvana than The Kinks.

After Suede’s successful 1996 album Coming Up, singer Brett Anderson had spiraled into a massive drug addiction that strained relationships within the band. Their once-famed live appearances had dwindled and the band would return with 1999’s Head Music to only moderate success and mixed reviews. Plus they had started experimenting with more electronic elements to their music, hardly the stuff that made Suede the finest replacement of The Smiths in the early 90s.

Elastica went through lineup shuffles thanks to various heroin addictions and new music didn’t surface until 2000’s The Menace. Five years between albums is certainly tough for fans to keep interest, especially considering the band’s first album is considered a classic. Critically, Pulp fared the best in post-1997 BritPop, with their 1998 album This Is Hardcore peaking at #1 in the UK and ultimately earning the band their third straight Mercury Prize nomination. But with a cocaine addiction and a growing disdain for the constant celebrity lifestyle, Jarvis Cocker stayed away from the limelight. Personal problems or not, the public seemed to have moved on to the likes of The Spice Girls and Radiohead, as This Is Hardcore sold nowhere near as well as His ‘n’ Hers.

Bands that enjoyed moderate success through the BritPop movement had also faded quickly. Groups like the Boo Radleys, Ocean Colour Scene and the genuinely awful Menswear simply couldn’t come up with the hits to stay relevant and either split up or were reduced to lesser known status. Bands like the Spice Girls, Chemical Brothers and Prodigy were the new stars of UK music, all hardly the pop that made the United Kingdom the coolest place on the planet.

Another seemingly telltale sign BritPop was officially dead was the eventual disappointment of the Tony Blair-led New Labour party. The party latched onto their country’s hot music scene for their own personal gain. As bands like Blur and Oasis helped promote England as the world’s hippest hotspot, Blair and co. saw the perfect opportunity to exploit a growing movement followed by plenty of young voters. Making appearances at music award ceremonies, inviting people like Noel Gallagher to 10 Downing Street, and basically using music to advance his agendas ultimately exposed Blair as just another politician.

Whether you believe Britpop is just a name the music press dreamed up to sell more content or an actual genre, one cannot deny the importance those few years in the 90s held with contemporary music. From a music standpoint, I hardly feel Pulp and Oasis sound enough alike to be lumped into the same genre. However, I’m also aware of how lazy journalists can get when classifying the hottest trends. Either way, I consider the UK’s “Cool Britannia” movement to be one of my favorite eras. I hope I’m not the only one and if such is the case, how about giving Parklife or Definitely Maybe a complete spin at the ridiculously loud volume it deserves?

Recommended Reading and Viewing:

READ

Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (2004) by John Harris – An excellent, thorough history of Britpop told by the eyes of a great music journalist. Harris secures exclusive interviews with the likes of Frischman and James, while having collected loads of other material for the book. Highly recommended (Note: Earlier versions of the book are called The Last Party).

Bit of a Blur: The Autobiography (2008) by Alex James – The Blur bassist’s autobiography is not only loaded with great stories, but shows James’ strong ability as an author.

Suede: Love and Poison: The Authorised Biography (2005) by David Barnett – The official written history of Suede, with exclusive interviews with the band (except Bernard Butler) and people important to Suede’s history, including Smiths drummer Mike Joyce and comedian Ricky Gervais.

Forever the People: Six Months on the Road with Oasis (1999) by Paolo Hewitt – A great, fly-on-the-wall account of a wild period of time with the biggest band in the world at the time. Hewitt is a great writer, too, and obviously earned the trust of the band. If you like the book, I recommend some of Hewitt’s others, including his recent book on Paul Weller.

Vanity Fair Magazine (March 1997) – Their “Cool Britannia” issue boasted the headline “London Swings! Again!” and features Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit draped in a Union Jack flag on the cover. An interesting feature led by David Kamp sought the newfound resurgence in English culture, from not just a musical standpoint, but various venues- film, fashion, art, architecture and politics. The article can be read here

WATCH

Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop (2003) – Don’t like reading? This John Dower documentary is a must (actually, watch it even if you like reading). Featuring exclusive interviews with the Gallaghers, Damon Alburn, Jarvis Cocker, plus artists and even fans. It has so many hilarious lines, but also some pretty heavy stuff. Take note of Jarvis Cocker’s attitude towards the era and where it landed him. Bonus features include even more interview footage and some other goodies.

Oasis – Live by the Sea (2002) – A raw live concert filmed in at Southend Cliffs Pavilion in 1995. Here we see the Gallagher Boys unapologetically rough, but the concert also shows how great the band is when it all comes together.

Oasis …There and Then (1996) – Stunning Oasis concert with footage from both Earl’s Court and Maine Road gigs. This is audio and visual evidence of what Britpop was at the top of it’s game.

Starshaped (2004) – Interesting documentary with footage from their early days in 1990 through several key points in the band’s career, including their 1992 Glastonbury appearance and various other European music festivals through 1994, capturing some the the band’s great moments.

Blur – The Best of Blur (Music Videos 1990-2000) (2000) – Some music videos of the Britpop era get overlooked and thankfully this DVD reminds us of some of the best ones. From the Benny Hill-like “Country House” to the silly “Coffee & TV,” the collection also gives us a visual aide for some of Blur’s best songs.

Later… with Jools Holland – Cool Britannia (2004) – A collection of Britpop’s best featured on the legendary British live music show hosted by Jools Holland. Though the DVD features more recent UK bands like The Libertines, it also features classic performances from Britpop’s heavy hitters, plus bands like Radiohead, Stereophonics, The Verve, Travis, Primal Scream, Embrace, Feeder and Doves. Well worth the watch.