When BritPop Ruled

I'm listening to my "BritPop Best" playlist on the iPod while working today, and every few minutes I'm knocked out by how good this stuff is. While the US was floundering in flannel, Suede, Pulp, Blur and Oasis gave rock a huge kick, along with bunches of great songs. There's Stones raunch, Beatles pop, Bowie glam and Ian Hunter poetry, sometimes all in the same song.

I guess I just wanted to give a shout out to the artists and a movement that are largely forgotten these days, with only Oasis getting much "press" at sh.tv. Suede, Pulp and Blur (other than "Song 2") barely registered in the US, and whatever commercial impact Oasis had here was spent by the time Be Here Now dropped out of sight.

At least in my little listening world, BritPop has been the most significant and durable wave to come along since the late 80s. Are there any other fans here? Anyone got a lesser-known BritPop artist or song to recommend?

 

1994/96 was a cool brit pop period.
I particularly liked Oasis,Pulp & Suede !

 

I caught the tail end of BritPop. I was a bigger Blur fan than Oasis. It wasn't until about 2000 that I gave a serious listen to what I think was the best band of the bunch (esp. at the tail end of the movement), Supergrass. I don't listen to Blur or Oasis anymore, but I still listen to Supergrass.

 

I liked Blur very much, finding them witty and incisive. But to me, Oasis sounded like The Rutles.

 

Hear, hear to this post and sentiment, keef00!

Britpop was probably the last mass-movement of pop that I got into wholeheartedly; the energy of these bands/artists was a breath of fresh air, as well as (contradictorily?) a nod back to the U.K. artists I loved as a kid (Beatles, Kinks, Small Faces, Bowie etc.) I was wholeheartedly sick of the whole grunge/alternative scene here, with all that whingeing by sad sacks like Cobain and Eddie Vedder. Oasis, Supergrass et. al. seemed to be the antithesis to the dark, heroin-induced depression of the Seattle crowd.

The mid-Nineties in London and Manchester had a bit of the feel of mid-Sixties London; a whole lot of energy, creativity and colour, in the arts and fashion as well as music.

Every serious fan of pop/rock should own (IMHO) (What's The Story) Morning Glory, Urban Hymns, Parklife and In It For The Money at the very least.

As far as the lesser-known goes, Nick Heyward had a fantastic rennaissance in the Nineties; he released three great Britpop albums which combined a savvy appreciation for the Beatles with Oasis-like guitar roar (the latter two in particular): From Monday To Sunday, Tangled and The Apple Bed. These are all, sadly, out-of-print as far as I know; but assiduous Amazon-sellers and CD fleamarket trawling should yield them without too much difficulty, I should think.

Martin Newell released two killer albums, channelling the Kinks (among others) through his own rustic d.i.y. sensibility. These would be The Greatest Living Englishman and The Off-White Album. Available still, I think, from Cherry Red in the U.K. if not at yer local CD boutique.

 

I fell head over heels for Britpop back then, sort of a "last fling" for pop. I'd read Melody Maker, NME, Q, Select evey week at the newstand, follow the British charts, watch the videos on Much Music's "The Wedge". I even bought a Shed Seven CD (the story of how Shed Seven got their name is the most boring in the history of rock & roll). I started to lose interest when the groups themselves lost interest (becoming moodier, more slovenly & grungier, taking longer & longer between albums, conceding the pop charts without a fight to the teen groups etc.).

 

Honorable mention should go to "There She Goes" by the Las (another Liverpudlian band), once of the greatest feel-good jangle-riff songs I've ever heard.

 

I loved almost anything from the Britpop era. Even bands that didn't make great LP's had two or three singles that were exemplary.

Some of my faves were Cast, The Bluetones, Elastica, Manic Street Preachers, The Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Whiteout, Menswear, The Charlatans, Therapy?, Ash, Pulp, I liked Suede a whole lot, but to me they were a bit pre-Britpop.

 

I still listen to Teenage Fanclub, though I'm not sure they really qualify as BritPop. They never stopped making great albums.

I loved Blur and Oasis, but got off the boat for both of them circa 13 and Be Here Now, respectively. It was fun buying the import singles, especially for Oasis, who actually put effort into making great singles - they weren't loaded with disposable b-sides.

The Deluxe Edition of The La's is a must-listen if you like that band.

 

Are there any good comps of BritPop? I bought the 1st 3 Oasis CDs and liked the 1st 2,but never picked up any other bands.

 

Great thread. Anyone else here seen the film Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit-Pop? It's terrific.

I love Pulp but I agree that they were sort of unfairly lumped in with the others...their first album came out in 1983! His N' Hers, Different Class, and This Is Hardcore are all stunning.

Supergrass is one of the only groups from this "movement" that has had staying power, unless you count the Manics, who sort of pre-dated this era as well. The greatness of Supergrass remains very much intact.

Really got into Suede a bit later, around the time I read their bio, Love and Poison, which just might be the best rock biography I've ever read.

As for the lesser-knowns, two that haven't been mentioned are Longpigs and Sleeper. The former gave us the great Richard Hawley on guitar, the latter included Louise Wener, who I always thought was underrated.

 

One of the most criminally underrated bands in history.

 

I highly recommend the doc 'Live Forever', as well.
It was great fun seeing Damon play the ukulele, amongst other highlights.

 

I think The Brit Box is a great starting point - 4 discs that include nearly everyone mentioned here so far, as well as many other greats and near-greats. It's more than just BritPop, but it's still a good intro to the genre.

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I was in college in the mid-90s, and part of the attraction was precisely that. Here was all of this amazing music (a whole genre) coming from the UK that nobody had else seemed to have any idea about. It was "ours" and it was wonderful. I had never head anything like Pulp's "Babies", and it blew my mind that a song could be like that, so exotic (to a Yank) but hitting so close to home.

The music was incredibly unknown in the US, even among those of us who were in college. Grunge still ruled the day and stuff like the Dave Matthews Band and Alanis Morrisette were beginning to pick up steam. It was strange to meet someone who knew what Britpop was, and when you did, it was like they were in the secret club with you. I remember seeing Blur at the Cotton Club (a tiny place) in Atlanta on their Great Escape tour, and tickets were $6, as if they were some Eagles cover band at a local sports bar.

I managed to see many of my favorites live during that era (Oasis, Blur many times and Supergrass), but missed out on Pulp and Sleeper. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention when they came to town, but I figured at the time that they just didn't tour the US.

Regarding Oasis, I always saw them as straight ahead rock. The only thing they seemed to have in common with the other bands that they were lumped in with were that they were young and British.

I think Blur did well in transitioning themselves away from Britpop and I really enjoy their later albums, especially Think Tank.

 

While Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker were definetely the most talented personas of the whole scene Oasis IMHO were the most overrated. Just like ELP gave prog a bad name in many ways Oasis turned a lot of people off the scene. Not that they were bad - the first 2 albums were really good, but overall they were way too monotonous plus seriously annoying. The Top 5 on the other hand consists of absolutely superb bands - Blur, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, Suede and Supergrass. Their best songs equaled almost anything from the 60's and 70's. Now the suprising truth (for american listeners at least) is that brit pop never actualy went away - there were always highly popular brit-pop styled bands in UK over the last 10 years not to mention now.

 

I think even Johnny Marr was envious of this tune.

 

A big vote for Pulp. Seeing them top Glastonbury and blazing through 'Common People' was a hairs on the back of the neck standing up moment.

One band that was forgotten is Heavy Stereo. The guitarist is now with Oasis but they were far more fun.

 

I remember seeing Pulp play support at a gig in the early 90s. I said to my mate after the gig "mark my words - that man (Jarvis Cocker) will one day be a star" - nice to be proved right !

I also liked The Auteurs "New Wave" CD from around this period (a bit of a forgotten gem that one).

 

Addendum: I just checked Amazon, you can get cheap used copies of most of the Nick Heyward albums I mentioned on there, used.

 

Hey, let's not forget about the most underrated band of the era : Mansun!

 

I might get jumped on for this, but another Brit-pop group I've always had a soft spot for is Ocean Colour Scene. If daft lyrics bother you, then you won't like OCS, but if that's the case, you probably don't like Oasis either! Anyway, OCS' Moseley Shoals is a brilliant album from this era.

 

You think so? They were/are pretty popular in the UK, as I recall. And they were one of those bands who struck me as a bit too English to really crack the North American market, similar to The Jam or pre-"whoo hoo!" Blur.

Anyway, I'll give a nod to a second-string BritPop act, Marion. Their album was pretty good, and they had a single called "Asleep" that's a total lost classic in my book; it had a great harmonica line that served as the melodic hook.

 

I know they tend to take a critical drubbing, but I've always loved Kula Shaker. Even liked their comeback album.

 

Well just about all of them suffered in the US for being "too British". The US general public has been pretty resistive to British music for a while now. It is rare now for a UK artist to have a #1 album in the charts. I recall that being much different in the '80s and prior.

But for the Britpop bands, I'd put Pulp and Blur (through their first 4 albums) as being especially foreign to US audiences, which usually doesn't translate to sales or popularity.