Brit Pop

I just copy pasted your post and sent it to my Mexican Brit Pop Friend.

  On 4/22/2011 at 9:36 AM, Dissolvedpaul said:

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".

This is nonsense.

Never been a huge fan of britpop although I dont mind some of it, for example Think Tank by Blur is a great album, hello by the way :)

Come on, for a drunken rant, there was only a wee bit of nonsense in it. Ok, reading back, I can see where I didn't quite express the parts I wanted to a bit more eloquently but in summing up, I was simply trying to say it was a very shallow, self congratulatory scene that focused on a couple of bands and a lot of other great music at the time was largely overlooked. Britpop became overkill in the media and to answer the original topic question, IMO, yes it was pretty bad.

  On 4/22/2011 at 11:10 PM, Dissolvedpaul said:

Come on, for a drunken rant, there was only a wee bit of nonsense in it. Ok, reading back, I can see where I didn't quite express the parts I wanted to a bit more eloquently but in summing up, I was simply trying to say it was a very shallow, self congratulatory scene that focused on a couple of bands and a lot of other great music at the time was largely overlooked. IDM became overkill in the media and to answer the original topic question, IMO, yes it was pretty bad.

fixed

Remember Select magazine?

I always felt like common people was a rip off of the clash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA8LWKiOTGI

so i never understood the praise that song gets.

I think blur was a pretty good thing out of the whole britpop thing, eve tho at the time i "rooted" for Oasis.

anyway.. nothing wrong with britpop at all.

  On 4/22/2011 at 2:39 AM, jefferoo said:

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

blur.

[youtubehd]gcDfUSsAHDs[/youtubehd]

ahh, i love youtube.

[youtubehd]flUnDtO7_gI[/youtubehd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vval4sx6Ido

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo4HFJLky_8

  On 4/23/2011 at 2:29 AM, marf said:

Remember Select magazine?

Yep and Vox. And Melody Maker. And of course that was the era of Loaded too.

I stumbled across "He's Dead" by Suede a few days back, really like it. Not a fan of any of there other stuff though, figures that it's a B-side