Brit Pop

i liked britpop in fact (oasis & blur) but what i didnt like was that people were taking them very seriously back then, like the new beatles...

Graham is great and all but my favourite Blur album is Think Tank.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkX1Up1vnc

imo all of the major bands that got labeled as britpop did some really good stuff in the mid-late 90s, mtv was nice back then.

Hm, well fuck, all these years I never knew Blur is actually an excellent band with great songwriting, better than a lot of the music I was into around that time. I can't believe how narrow the scope of my musical interest was during high school.

  On 11/15/2010 at 1:48 PM, blag said:

I feel that Blur are a complete load of fucking rubbish. They never had any consisteny in their career of what they wanted to be (other than famous).

 

Back to the point: Britpop yielded a few great albums.

 

Suede - Coming Up

Kula Shaker - K

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

Cast - All Change

 

 

However it was mostly about bands having a couple of overplayed singles populating albums' worth of mediocre songs.

 

eg:

 

Blur

Sleeper

Echobelly

Shit Seven

aye carumba! that doesn't make sense... I'm just struggling to figure your logic out. All those great albums you mention suffer the exact same problem as those you deride.

I was sure aswell that anyone without painted on ears figured out that the only reason to give the Manics the time of day around that time was for top separated-at-birth chuckles for the drummer and Paul Merton.

Never really got into Blur too much. Love this one though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXRVX1AKAew

Preferred Oasis for some of the gems they produced which are the less regarded ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjyobkpvgI

Loathe it! I look back on the mid 90's as a horrible period of time and it's mainly because of this music. Of course there was other good stuff being produced at the time but I was only a kid and didn't know about it.

  On 11/16/2010 at 9:48 PM, jeyemusik said:

  On 11/15/2010 at 1:48 PM, blag said:

I feel that Blur are a complete load of fucking rubbish. They never had any consisteny in their career of what they wanted to be (other than famous).

 

Back to the point: Britpop yielded a few great albums.

 

Suede - Coming Up

Kula Shaker - K

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

Cast - All Change

 

 

However it was mostly about bands having a couple of overplayed singles populating albums' worth of mediocre songs.

 

eg:

 

Blur

Sleeper

Echobelly

Shit Seven

 

aye carumba! that doesn't make sense... I'm just struggling to figure your logic out. All those great albums you mention suffer the exact same problem as those you deride.

 

I was sure aswell that anyone without painted on ears figured out that the only reason to give the Manics the time of day around that time was for top separated-at-birth chuckles for the drummer and Paul Merton.

Ok. I guess the albums I mentioned had their own character that ensured future listeneability. Coming Up was glam pop. Hit after hit after hit; with ballad interludes. K obviously has the whole 60s psychedelic rock/Indian vibe (although it may occassionally lose momentum). And it was like nothing else at the time. Everything Must Go has many good songs and the track sequencing works well, sounding cohesive, grand and timeless. All Change was just like a collection of awesome guitar pop. Jangly, the antithesis to the reliance of distorted power riffs.

I'm probably being a bit harsh on the other bands. But they really have nothing that grabs me other than their most popular singles.

I love britpop. BLUR IS AWESOME.

also, dog man star by Suede , whawhawhiwha

One of my faggot friends still listens to this stuff like it was released yesterday.

Shatner's version of common people! I believe his version more than the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0

  On 4/21/2011 at 6:13 AM, asymmetrical head said:

One of my faggot friends still listens to this stuff like it was released yesterday.

 

 

So what you are saying is that we are not allow to listen to old music

I liked the stone roses

  On 4/21/2011 at 2:24 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 4/21/2011 at 6:13 AM, asymmetrical head said:

One of my faggot friends still listens to this stuff like it was released yesterday.

 

 

 

So what you are saying is that we are not allow to listen to old music

listen to what you want. my friend is stuck in this time frame. still dresses like it, listens to the music from this era, doesn't give anything new a chance.

a lot of people are like this. you know, the 45 year old goths, The old dude that still dresses like david gahan and sported the same hairdo since 1988.

I still listen to lots of old school hip hop and electronic music from back in the day. but I don't encompass the lifestyle and trends of the particular time. I've moved on from that time and accpepted new things... Well except for the colloquialism!

Did The Verve count as Britpop? I suppose so... Urban Hymns was a fantastic album as a whole (regardless of the success that Bittersweet Symphony had). Their severely underrated 2008 album "Forth" is nothing short of stunning (rather psychedelic / shoegazey) and I still listen to it quite regularly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MN8FeAJ_HQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqBVRza4msI

  On 4/21/2011 at 10:09 PM, feltcher said:

Did The Verve count as Britpop?

I wouldn't have said so myself, they're maybe more in line with the shoegaze era (pardon my lazily namedropping genres). For example, tracks like this (which is amazing, even more so the 8 minute version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xIGyp9efXU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7O9lsVbjF4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Hu-tx1urg

only really like(d) the first album and ep

Yup The Verve did some good tracks.

Of course the 'Madchester' scene which was just before Brit Pop also threw up some gems.

Gotta hand it to the Mancs, they know how to knock a tune together.

yeah... that manchester stuff was cool. I remember liking Ride back then.

I liked Ride back in the day, I think that was when I was into Lush as well which was part of my whole 4AD fetish. I remember buying the Ride EP on vinyl, then on CD to save the 12". Drive Blind and Chelsea Girl are fucking amazing songs.

I did have the luxury of falling back on The Fall in those days though. I seem to remember MES stressing that he was from Salford during the Madchester days. I dabbled in the hoodies and flares for a while, but soon got bored and felt the need to kick against the pricks. And I still to this day cannot see the appeal of The Stone Roses.

lol. my sister dated mark gardener. Ride was great

  On 4/21/2011 at 11:37 PM, Caretstik said:

I liked Ride back in the day, I think that was when I was into Lush as well which was part of my whole 4AD fetish. I remember buying the Ride EP on vinyl, then on CD to save the 12". Drive Blind and Chelsea Girl are fucking amazing songs.

 

I did have the luxury of falling back on The Fall in those days though. I seem to remember MES stressing that he was from Salford during the Madchester days. I dabbled in the hoodies and flares for a while, but soon got bored and felt the need to kick against the pricks. And I still to this day cannot see the appeal of The Stone Roses.

The whole Stone Roses sorts of bemuses me to. Don't get me wrong I like them but I don't understand the great lofty, legendary heights they have been propelled to. I think I would like them more but all the hype sort of leaves me cold.

I can't hear any melodies or tunes in The Fall. I want to like them. I need to hear more perhaps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqovGKdgAXY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PdKGDMhau4&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twoO3xYRsz0&feature=relmfu

I know this will go down like a sack of spuds,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx9SD6-a_GY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YsWtWXpc30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e541LlNiTBY

The whole album is ace in my opinion. The b-sides from the era were just as good too. Then they became rich, bloated and boring.

First off, horribly saddened to hear The Fall and Pulp even being mentioned in the same breath in a "Brit Pop" thread,

The Fall of course are way beyond that kind of sub level categorization and are an unfathomable unstoppable shape

shifting genre monster machine who existed and destroyed such mindless pigeon holing years before don't you know?

Pulp had already been going for ever and simply adapted very smartly to what was happening.

Anyway, back to Britpop. I do have a giggle every time this supposed genre is brought up. It has of course

become mythological and a very powerful term in terms of UK music history but few people seem to stop to realise that

it was a lazy comical term (much like Shoegaze or Wombadelic) coined at the time by journalists to throw a net over a very shallow, small group of similar bands, many who had good intentions, many who were unfairly branded by it and many who were simply there to cash in on such nonsense. Hark back to the time when we had to rely mostly on 2 addictive music papers, when 7" singles from the States would take Weeks to arrive with no indication of satisfaction or quality and Torrents/SoulSeek were like the equivalent of someone saying "in 3045 the invisibility cloak shall go on sale". The smart music paper and choice of savy kids at the time being 'Melody Maker' of course but even that crashed and burned eventually.

Surely the fact "Brit Pop" immediately means Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Sleeper and Manic Street Preachers to most people

who were too young to be there to realise how much brainwashing was going on would ring some warning bells.

Brit Pop was an immediate, convenient and overused label and it really hurt the music scene at the time I reckon which was far from dull. The amazingly overlooked and vast lo-fi, experimental, noisy and electronic and techno scene in 1991-1997 would have been a pale shadow without John Peel who would begrudgingly play the obligatory new Oasis, Shed 7, Adorable single if he REALLY had too but would be far more interested in throwing Bikini Kill, Sebadoh, Badgewearer, Stereolab, Bang Bang Machine, Team Dresch, Aereogramme, Pavement,Trumans Water,Aphex,Unsane, Bongwater.(yes, I'm trying to think of ANY band who didn't even have to try to be better than the nightmare bands involved in "Britpop") even fucking Elastica at listeners as long as it wasn't chart bound and safe like fucking Sleeper.

It was an AWFUL stereotype to be branded with and every journalist at the time knew it. Unfortunately, like "the Video Nasties" in the 80's, it was catchy as hell and the Media embraced it, hence why these awfully shallow, jangly bands had hit after non hit and the likes of Seefeel, Slowdive and The Delgado's and countless more overlooked and misunderstood acts at the time, weren't recognised for ages after they released their innovative records. Fuck Oasis, their drunken pub "we're so fucking hard lads" swagger always annoyed me(Well I quite liked Liam though and I won't say Fuck Blur because they had genuine talent and at least had a dedication to innovate and change each record) Fuck the manics, (every record they released after Richie disappeared and all the drama that followed was some kind of overblown, self righteous, misguided, over analyzed, stadium wank fest hell.)

I'm glad Brit Pop is dead and no, don't be sorry you missed it when it was around first time. At least today there is a chance to escape faster from such horrors and finding great music and underground bands is so much easier online and you can move on to the next thing without fear of suffering under the weight of a thousand reviews of Suede concerts. Although I do find it an interesting parallel that today, artists such Boards of Canada, Aphex and AE are new Icons and have possibly a more obsessive and intrusive fan base than "Manic Street Preachers" had back then but at least it's understandable. Without the online explosion, can you imagine in a parallel time line if "Geogaddi" had been released at the same time as "Modern Life is Rubbish". I can guarantee it would have been overlooked until now and probably not had any chance of being used in "Supermarket Sweep" or "Pets Win Prizes".