When BritPop Ruled

Charlatans UK first three albums are essential to me. Love the instrumental Feel Flows. They fell off in quality after Wonderland.

 

Going back to my first post and the request for "lesser-known" BritPop artists, you guys have certainly come through with the suggestions.

I've already ordered stuff by Heavy Stereo, Subcircus, Nick Heyward, Marion, and Cast after hearing the recommendations, and I'm pulling out my Supergrass CDs for another listen.

The best part about adding to your Britpop collection? It's cheap! I guess anytime you start digging through the last decade's "next big thing," you find all kinds of bargains. I bought 6 discs for a total of about $19, shipping included.

 

Get ready for the Nineties Revival!

Seriously, I love Cast, I'm on the lookout for the Heavy Stereo stuff, and I've not even heard of Subcircus (cool name!)

You all NEED Nick Heyward's Nineties stuff...I'm not fooling around here.

 

If you like Suede, you'll probably like Rialto too ...

 

Another absolute gem of a album I picked up after hearing one of their songs on a Q magazine freebie, was the eponymous Silver Sun album (1997). It's a great big pop album that has influences such as The Byrds and The Who and as such, reminds me a bit of Teenage Fanclub. Although Silver Sun didn't make it in the way that the Fannies did, make no mistake, they are every bit as good. The concluding song on the Silver Sun album, is a song called Animals Feet and when I play this album, I generally have to play that song about five times over, because it gets right under my skin. Really, really brilliant album!

 

They were-are a great group, like Dodgy it's a shame their records were never released in the USA.

I remember having to pay around $25 to get the Japanese Imports of their two albums but they were worth it. They got reunited a few years ago and have released two indie albums in 2004 and 2006. Their newer albums are not quite as consistent their first two but there are many catchy tracks.

http://www.silver-sun.co.uk/

 

Yes indeedy.

 

Oh, and I really should mention that the 20% off w/free shipping sale that wherehouse.com and secondspin.com have every other month or so has been a great way to get Britpop for cheap. Here's what I've gotten recently:

$1.84 Cast-All Change
$2.28 Echobelly-On
$2.53 Elastica-Elastica
$1.53 Eugenius-Mary Queen of Scots
$2.53 Happy Mondays ~ Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches
$1.34 Heart Throbs ~ Cleopatra Grip
$1.77 Heart Throbs-Jubilee Twist
$3.38 Kitchens of Distinction ~ Strange Free World
$2.28 Kula Shaker-K
$2.28 Lightning Seeds-Sense
$3.38 Lush - Lovelife
$2.53 Ned's Atomic Dustbin ~ God Fodder
$2.27 Rialto ~ Rialto
$1.52 Shed Seven-Change Giver
$2.18 Sleeper-It Girl
$1.93 Starsailor-Love is Here
$2.53 Teenage Fanclub ~ Bandwagonesque
$2.53 The Sundays ~ Reading Writing and Arithmetic
$1.69 The Sundays ~ Static & Silence

 

evanft, I think I have all of those except the Eugenius and Happy Mondays. Maybe a couple of others, I have something other than what you listed ...

The tracks I listen to most often are "The Underdogs" by Rialto (good release overall, best on your list, although their lyrics are not the greatest), "Dreamtime" by the Heart Throbs, "The Concept" by Teenage Fanclub and "Speakeasy" by Shed Seven.

The Echobelly album On is full of catchy songs in a style (grunge pop) that I'm not that fussy about, but I did put it in at #100 in the Top 100 LPs poll last summer. I'm pretty sure I listed Rialto as well ...

 

Yep. I remember buying those Suede 12".
The B-side to New Genertaion, Together, is argueably better than the A-side.
In fact, the two songs were billed as a double A-side.

 

Don't mean to threadcrap but just have to say that far from "foundering in flannel" the early-mid 90's was a golden era of rock, particularly in the US. Just under the surface of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, etc., were a slew of great bands making great music that hasn't been topped since, IMO.

Guided by Voices, Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, Afghan Whigs, Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Pavement,... just to name a few. These bands were putting out great album after great album the likes of which are few and far between these days.

More on topic, there were also the great 'shoegaze' UK bands like My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver.

Completely on topic, there was the Verve, whose 3 pre-reunion albums are all great (imporoving each time, IMO).

Throw in the heyday of rap with Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, etc.; electronic music like Chemical Brothers, Underworld, FSOL, Orbital, Aphex Twin; trip hop such as Tricky, Portishead,...

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the 90's was a true golden age of music, matched only by the mid-late 60's IMO (great time to be getting out of college and living in NYC too - spoiled me, having that much great music at that time). My theory for the rock part is that the success of 'grunge' encouraged record labels to nurture actual rock bands for once, resulting in all these bands getting exposure they normally wouldn't (unlike these days). Plus MTV playing actual music on shows like 120 Minutes to showcase a lot of it.

 

Great post--I totally agree. There was great music on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the 90s, and both sides were clearly feeding off each other. A listen to Blur's 1997 self-titled will provide just one example.

And on the subject of Britpop...I was listening to an old Bob Dylan Theme Time radio show yesterday. The theme was "coffee," and along with the classic Americana the show always delivers, there was Blur's "Coffee and TV"--how great it was to hear that!

 

What was important about the "Britpop era" was that the music was, well, popular. With actual people. For a brief time these artists sat at the main dinner table, instead of the "indie" card table. These bands were appearing on TV (in prime time, not just late at night), being written about in newspapers (not just the music press) & being played on the radio. There was a thing in Britain called the "indie record syndrome" where a record would debut in the top 10, receive no airplay, then plummet the next week. By the summer of 1995, singles by Blur, Oasis, Pulp & Supergrass would reach positions on the airplay charts that matched their positions on the sales charts.

 

I COMPLETELY agree - well, until 1995 that is. Starting in 96, it started to really go downhill, really fast IMHO.

I think you're absolutely right.
Kinda like in the late 70s. Record execs had no idea what was going on, so they would just sign bands in case one of them would be the one, resulting in a lot of great albums being released.

Absolutely right.
I remember, in 1995, Oasis had eight (!) singles in the British Top 40.

 

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but The Seahorses debut album, Do It Yourself, is a fantastic britpop album. A lot of Stone Roses fans turned on John Squire for what they saw as his selling out, but, so what if it's commercial, it's a great album. Squire has maintained his Jimmy Page/Zeppelin fixation that began with Stone Roses album, The Second Coming. Here though, the songs are more mainstream and fit in nicely with Oasis. This is a brilliant, sunny album.

 

Thanks again for all of the "lesser known' bands brought up in this thread. I've picked up a few of the discs, and some of them are really, really good.

Marion - I expected a band called "Marion" to be low-key, but these guys just rock all over the place.
Cast - I love the All Change disc... Sounds totally modern, but 60s British invasion influences are everywhere. Plus, they sound kinda like a Brit Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in places, especially on the opening track "Alright."
Subcircus - Need to spend more time with their Carousel disc, but the tracks "86'd" and "U Love U" jumped out right away.

 

For those of you who are interested in Britpop, you might be interested in picking up the current Mojo (magazine) Classic special edition, which has some of the most informative writing on the scene that I have read. From a couple of years ago, I can also recommend the NME Originals special edition of Britpop. It is a magazine which is crammed with NME interviews and features of the time and also has a very cool map of Camden Town, highlighting the Britpop places of interest, such as The Cool Mixer pub, which was frequented by many of the movers and shakers. I have been on a huge Britpop kick since buying the Mojo special edition and have been picking up good copy second-hand albums from eBay and Amazon. Yesterday, Carnival Of Light, by Ride arrived. The album predates Britpop, but features Andy Bell, who would go onto Hurricane #1 and eventually, Oasis. I’d heard Carnival Of Light was good, but it really is a terrific album. Today, Nuisance, by Menswear, arrived in the post. I’d always been put off by their name, but I have been pleasantly surprised at what a big, sunny pop record it is. Britpop definitely rules for me at the moment!

 

Irish scene at the time had some great bands:

Something Happens
An Emotional Fish
Ahouse
Fat Lady Sings
The (Golden)Horde

 

How about Aslan? I know they had been around awhile by the mid-90's, but it seems like they found their greatest audience around this time.

 

I don't think I've seen a mention yet of the Railway Children. Worth a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aHXQfdqA-Q