| Britpop | |
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| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Mid 1990s, United Kingdom |
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| New wave of new wave | |
| Other topics | |
Britpop was a mid-1990sBritish-based music culture movement that emphasisedBritishness. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchyalternative rock, with significant influences from Britishguitar pop of the 1960s and 1970s. Britpop was considered a musical reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the American-ledgrunge music of the time, and Britain's ownshoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the largerBritish popular cultural movement,Cool Britannia, which evoked theSwinging Sixties and the Britishguitar pop of that decade.
Britpop was a phenomenon that highlighted bands emerging from theindependent music scene of the early 1990s. Although often seen as a cultural moment rather than a distinct musical genre, its associated bands typically drew inspiration from the British pop music of the 1960s, theglam rock andpunk rock of the 1970s, and theindie pop of the 1980s.
The most successful bands linked with Britpop wereOasis,Blur,Suede andPulp, known as the "big four" of the movement. The timespan of Britpop is generally considered to be 1993–1997, and its peak years to be 1995–1996. A chart battle betweenBlur andOasis (dubbed "The Battle of Britpop") brought the movement to the forefront of the British press in 1995. While music was the main focus, fashion, art and politics also got involved, withTony Blair andNew Labour aligning themselves with the movement.
During the late 1990s, many Britpop acts began to falter commercially or break up, or otherwise moved towards new genres or styles. Commercially, Britpop lost out toteen pop, while artistically it segued into apost-Britpopindie movement, associated with bands such asTravis andColdplay.
Though Britpop has sometimes been viewed as a marketing tool and more of a cultural moment than a distinct musical genre,[1][2][3] there are musical conventions and influences the bands grouped under the Britpop term have in common. Britpop bands show elements from theBritish pop music of the 1960s,glam rock andpunk rock of the 1970s, andindie pop of the 1980s in their music, attitude, and clothing. Specific influences vary:Blur drew fromthe Kinks and earlyPink Floyd, Oasis took inspiration fromthe Beatles, andElastica had a fondness for arty punk rock, notablyWire[citation needed] and both incarnations ofAdam and the Ants.[4] Regardless, Britpop artists project a sense of reverence for British pop sounds of the past.[5] The Kinks'Ray Davies andXTC'sAndy Partridge are sometimes advanced as the "godfathers" or "grandfathers" of Britpop,[6] though Davies disputes it.[7] Others similarly labelled includePaul Weller[8] andAdam Ant.[9]
Alternative rock acts from theindie scene of the 1980s and early 1990s were the direct ancestors of the Britpop movement. The influence ofthe Smiths is common to the majority of Britpop artists.[10] TheMadchester scene, fronted bythe Stone Roses,Happy Mondays andInspiral Carpets (for whom Oasis'sNoel Gallagher had worked as a roadie during the Madchester years), was an immediate root of Britpop since its emphasis on good times and catchy songs provided an alternative to the British-basedshoegazing and American basedgrunge styles of music.[11] Pre-dating Britpop by four years, Liverpool-based groupthe La's hit single "There She Goes" was described byRolling Stone as a "founding piece of Britpop's foundation".[12]
Local identity and regional British accents are common to Britpop groups, as well as references to British places and culture in lyrics and image.[1] Stylistically, Britpop bands use catchy hooks and lyrics that were relevant to young British people of their own generation.[11] Britpop bands conversely denounced grunge as irrelevant and having nothing to say about their lives. In contrast to the dourness of grunge, Britpop was defined by "youthful exuberance and desire for recognition".[13]Damon Albarn ofBlur summed up the attitude in 1993 when after being asked if Blur were an "anti-grunge band" he said, "Well, that's good. If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge."[14]
In spite of the professed disdain for the genres, some elements of both crept into the more enduring facets of Britpop.Noel Gallagher has since championedRide and once stated thatNirvana'sKurt Cobain was the only songwriter he had respect for in the last ten years, and that he felt their music was similar enough that Cobain could have written "Wonderwall".[15] By 1996, Oasis's prominence was such thatNME termed a number of Britpop bands (includingThe Boo Radleys,Ocean Colour Scene andCast) "Noelrock", citing Gallagher's influence on their music.[16] JournalistJohn Harris described these bands, and Gallagher, as sharing "a dewy-eyed love of the 1960s, a spurning of much beyond rock's most basic ingredients, and a belief in the supremacy of 'real music'".[17]
The imagery associated with Britpop was equally British and working class. A rise in unabashed maleness, exemplified byLoaded magazine,binge drinking andlad culture in general, would be very much part of the Britpop era. TheUnion Jack became a prominent symbol of the movement (as it had a generation earlier withmod bands such asthe Who) and its use as a symbol of pride and nationalism contrasted deeply with the controversy that erupted just a few years before when former Smiths singerMorrissey performed draped in it.[18] The emphasis on British reference points made it difficult for the genre to achieve success in the US.[19]
John Harris has suggested that Britpop began whenBlur's fourth single "Popscene" andSuede's "The Drowners" were released around the same time in the spring of 1992. He stated, "[I]f Britpop started anywhere, it was the deluge of acclaim that greeted Suede's first records: all of them audacious, successful and very, very British."[20] Suede were the first of the new crop of guitar-orientated bands to be embraced by the UK music media as Britain's answer to Seattle's grunge sound. Their debut albumSuede became the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the UK.[21] In April 1993,Select magazine featured Suede's lead singerBrett Anderson on the cover with a Union Flag in the background and the headline "Yanks go home!" The issue included features onSuede,the Auteurs,Denim,Saint Etienne andPulp and helped start the idea of an emerging movement.[22][23]
Blur were involved in a vibrant social scene in London (dubbed "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" byMelody Maker) that focused on a weekly club called Syndrome in Oxford Street; the bands that met up were a mix of music styles, some would be labelledshoegazing, while others would go on to be part of Britpop.[24] The dominant musical force of the period was thegrunge invasion from the United States, which filled the void left in the indie scene by theStone Roses' inactivity.[23]Blur, however, took on an Anglocentric aesthetic with their second albumModern Life Is Rubbish (1993).
Blur's new approach was inspired by a tour of the United States in the spring of 1992. During the tour, frontmanDamon Albarn began to resent American culture and found the need to comment on that culture's influence seeping into Britain.[23]Justine Frischmann, formerly ofSuede and leader ofElastica (and at the time in a relationship with Albarn) explained, "Damon and I felt like we were in the thick of it at that point ... it occurred to us thatNirvana were out there, and people were very interested in American music, and there should be some sort of manifesto for the return of Britishness."[25] John Harris wrote in anNME article just before the release ofModern Life is Rubbish: "[Blur's] timing has been fortuitously perfect. Why? Because, as with baggies and shoegazers, loud, long-haired Americans have just found themselves condemned to the ignominious corner labelled 'yesterday's thing'."[14] The music press also fixated on what theNME had dubbed theNew Wave of New Wave, a term applied to the more punk-derivative acts such as Elastica,S*M*A*S*H andThese Animal Men.
WhileModern Life Is Rubbish was a moderate success, Blur's third album,Parklife, made them arguably the most popular band in the UK in 1994.[21]Parklife continued the fiercely British nature of its predecessor, and coupled with the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain in April of that year British alternative rock became the dominant rock genre in the country. That same yearOasis released their debut albumDefinitely Maybe, which broke Suede's record for fastest-selling debut album; it went on to be certified 7× Platinum (2.1 million sales) by theBPI.[21][26][27] Blur won four awards at the1995 Brit Awards, including Best British Album forParklife (ahead ofDefinitely Maybe).[28] In 1995, Pulp released the albumDifferent Class which reached number one, and included the single "Common People". The album sold over 1.3 million copies in the UK.[29]
The term "Britpop" arose when the media were drawing on the success of British designers and films, theYoung British Artists (sometimes termed "Britart") such asDamien Hirst, and on the mood of optimism with the decline ofJohn Major's government, and the rise of the youthfulTony Blair as leader of theLabour Party.[30] After terms such as "the New Mod" and "Lion Pop"[31][32] were used in the press around 1992, journalist (and nowBBC Radio 6 Music DJ)Stuart Maconie used the term Britpop in 1993 (though recounting the event in aBBC Radio 2 programme from 2020, he believed it may have been used in the 1960s, around the time of theBritish Invasion).[33] However, journalist and musicianJohn Robb states he had used the term in the late 1980s inSounds magazine to refer to bands such asthe La's,the Stone Roses andInspiral Carpets.[34]
It was not until 1994 that Britpop started to be used by the UK media in relation to contemporary music and events.[35] Bands emerged aligned with the new movement. At the start of 1995, bands includingSleeper,Supergrass andMenswear scored pop hits.[36] Elastica released their debut albumElastica that March; its first week sales surpassed the record set byDefinitely Maybe the previous year.[37] The music press viewed the scene around Camden Town as a musical centre; frequented by groups like Blur, Elastica, and Menswear;Melody Maker declared "Camden is to 1995 whatSeattle was to 1992, whatManchester was to 1989, and whatMr Blobby was to 1993."[38]
A chart battle between Blur andOasis, dubbed "The Battle of Britpop", brought Britpop to the forefront of the British press in 1995. The bands had initially praised each other but over the course of the year antagonisms between the two increased.[39] Spurred on by the media, they became engaged in what theNME dubbed on the cover of its 12 August issue the "British Heavyweight Championship" with the pending release of Blur's single "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll with It" on the same day. The battle pitted the two bands against each other, with the conflict as much about British class and regional divisions as it was about music.[40]Oasis were taken as representing the North of England, while Blur represented the South.[23] The event caught the public's imagination and gained mass media attention in national newspapers,tabloids and television news.NME wrote about the phenomenon:
Yes, in a week where news leaked thatSaddam Hussein waspreparing nuclear weapons, everyday folks werestill getting slaughtered inBosnia andMike Tyson was making his comeback, tabloids and broadsheets alike went Britpop crazy.[41]
Billed as the greatest pop rivalry sincethe Beatles andthe Rolling Stones,[42] it was spurred on by jibes thrown back and forth between the two groups, with Oasis dismissing Blur as "Chas & Dave chimney sweep music", while Blur referred to their opponents as the "OasisQuo" in a deriding of their alleged unoriginality and inability to change.[43] In what was the best week for UK singles sales in a decade, on 20 August, Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies against "Roll with It" by Oasis which sold 216,000, the songs charting at number one and number two, respectively.[44][45] Blur performed their chart topping single on the BBC'sTop of the Pops, with the band's bassist Alex James wearing an 'Oasis' t-shirt.[46] However, in the long run Oasis became more commercially successful than Blur, at home and abroad.[43] In a 2019 interview, Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher reflected on the chart battle between the two songs, both of which he saw as "shit", and suggested that a chart race between Oasis' "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and Blur's "Girls & Boys" would have had greater merit. He also noted that he and Blur frontman Damon Albarn – with whom Gallagher had enjoyed multiple musical collaborations during the 2010s[47][48] – were now friends.[49] Both men have noted that they do not discuss their 1990s rivalry,[49][50] with Albarn adding, "I value my friendship with Noel because he is one of the only people who went through what I did in the Nineties."[50]Noel Gallagher has also described Blur guitaristGraham Coxon as "one of the most talented guitarists of his generation."[51]
In the months following the chart battle,NME states, "Britpop became a major cultural phenomenon".[44] Oasis's second album,(What's the Story) Morning Glory?, sold over four million copies in the UK – becoming thefifth best-selling album in UK chart history.[52] Blur's third album in their 'Life' trilogy,The Great Escape, sold over one million copies.[53] At the1996 Brit Awards, both albums were nominated for Best British Album (as was Pulp'sDifferent Class), with Oasis winning the award.[54] All three bands were also nominated for Best British Group and Best Video, which were won by Oasis.[54] While accepting Best Video (for "Wonderwall"), Oasis taunted Blur by singing the chorus of the latter's "Parklife" and changing the lyrics to "shite life".[43]
Oasis' third albumBe Here Now (1997) was highly anticipated. Despite initially attracting positive reviews and selling strongly, the record was soon subjected to strong criticism from music critics, record-buyers and evenNoel Gallagher himself for its overproduced and bloated sound. Music critic Jon Savage pinpointedBe Here Now as the moment where Britpop ended; Savage said that while the album "isn't the great disaster that everybody says", he commented that "[i]t was supposed to be the big, big triumphal record" of the period.[23] At the same time, Blur sought to distance themselves from Britpop with theirself-titled fifth album,[55] assimilating Americanlo-fi influences such asPavement. Albarn explained to theNME in January 1997 that "We created a movement: as far as the lineage of British bands goes, there'll always be a place for us ... We genuinely started to see that world in a slightly different way."[56]
As Britpop slowed, many acts began to falter and broke up.[57] The sudden popularity of the pop group theSpice Girls has been seen as having "snatched the spirit of the age from those responsible for Britpop".[58] While established acts struggled, attention began to turn to the likes ofRadiohead andthe Verve, who had been previously overlooked by the British media. These two bands – in particularRadiohead – showed considerably more esoteric influences from the 1960s and 1970s that were uncommon among earlier Britpop acts. In 1997, Radiohead and the Verve released their respective albumsOK Computer andUrban Hymns, both widely acclaimed.[57]Post-Britpop bands such asTravis,Stereophonics andColdplay, influenced by Britpop acts, particularly Oasis, with more introspective lyrics, were some of the most successful rock acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.[59]
Retrospective documentaries on the movement includeThe Britpop Story, aBBC programme presented byJohn Harris onBBC Four in August 2005 as part of Britpop Night, ten years after Blur andOasis went head-to-head in the charts,[60][61] andLive Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, a 2003 documentary film written and directed by John Dower. Both documentaries include mention ofTony Blair and New Labour's efforts to align themselves with the distinctly British cultural resurgence that was underway, as well Britpop artists such asDamien Hirst.[62]
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After Britpop the media focused on bands that may have been established acts, but had been overlooked due to focus on the Britpop movement. Bands such asRadiohead andthe Verve, and new acts such asTravis,Stereophonics,Feeder and particularlyColdplay, achieved wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.[65][66][67][68] These bands avoided the Britpop label while still producing music derived from it.[65][69] Bands that had enjoyed some success during the mid-1990s, but were not really part of the Britpop scene, included the Verve and Radiohead.[65] The music of most bands was guitar based,[70][71] often mixing elements of British traditional rock (or British trad rock),[72] particularlythe Beatles,the Rolling Stones andSmall Faces[73] with American influences. Post-Britpop bands also used elements from 1970s British rock and pop music.[71] Drawn from across the UK, the themes of their music tended to be less parochially centred on British, English and London life, and more introspective than had been the case with Britpop at its height.[71][74][75][76] This, beside a greater willingness to woo the American press and fans, may have helped a number of them in achieving international success.[66] They have been seen as presenting the image of the rock star as an ordinary person, or "boy-next-door"[70] and their increasingly melodic music was criticised for being bland or derivative.[77]
The cultural and musical scene in Scotland, dubbed "Cool Caledonia" by some elements of the press,[78] produced a number of successful alternative acts, includingthe Supernaturals from Glasgow.[79]Travis, also from Glasgow, were one of the first major rock bands to emerge in the post-Britpop era,[65][80] and have been credited with a major role in disseminating and even creating the subgenre of post-Britpop.[81][82] From EdinburghIdlewild, more influenced bypost-grunge, produced three top 20 albums, peaking withThe Remote Part (2002).[83] The first major band to break through from the post-Britpop Welsh rock scene, dubbed "Cool Cymru",[78] wereCatatonia, whose single "Mulder and Scully" (1998) reached the top ten in the UK, and whose albumInternational Velvet (1998) reached number one, but they were unable to make much impact in the US and, after personal problems, broke up at the end of the century.[68][84] Other Welsh bands includedStereophonics[85][86] andFeeder.[87][88]
These acts were followed by a number of bands who shared aspects of their music, includingSnow Patrol from Northern Ireland andElbow,Embrace,Starsailor,Doves, Electric Pyramid andKeane from England.[65][90] The most commercially successful band in the milieu wereColdplay, whose debut albumParachutes (2000) wentmulti-platinum and helped make them one of the most popular acts in the world by the time of their second albumA Rush of Blood to the Head (2002).[63][91] Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" (from their 2006 albumEyes Open) is the most widely played song of the 21st century on UK radio.[89]
Bands likeColdplay, Starsailor and Elbow, with introspective lyrics and even tempos, began to be criticised at the beginning of the new millennium as bland and sterile[92] and the wave ofgarage rock orpost-punk revival bands, likethe Hives,the Vines,the Strokes,the Black Keys andthe White Stripes, that sprang up in that period were welcomed by the musical press as "the saviours of rock and roll".[93] British groups in this vein, includingthe Libertines,Razorlight,Kaiser Chiefs,Arctic Monkeys andBloc Party,[94] were viewed by some as a "second wave" of Britpop".[66] These bands have been seen as looking less to music of the 1960s and more to 1970s–1980s punk, new wave,[95] and post-punk, while still being influenced by Britpop.[94] Despite these developments, artists such asTravis, Stereophonics andColdplay continued to record and enjoy commercial success into the late 2000s.[63][86][96]
At the beginning of the 2010s, a wave of new bands emerged that combined indie rock with the Britpop of the 1990s.Viva Brother launched an update on Britpop, dubbed “Gritpop,”[97][98] with their debut albumFamous First Words, although they did not receive significant support from the music press. In 2012,All the Young released their debut album, Welcome Home. Later, bands such as Superfood[99] and the Australian bandDMA's[100] joined the revival, with DMA's debut album receiving favorable reviews.[101][102]
In the mid-2020s, a new group of artists began drawing inspiration from the energy and iconography of mid-1990s Britain. Notable examples includeNia Archives, whose debut albumSilence Is Loud features a Union Jack on its cover, andDua Lipa, who explored Britpop influences in her albumRadical Optimism.AG Cook’s triple albumBritpop reimagines the genre’s aesthetic, featuringCharli XCX and a warped Union Jack cover.Rachel Chinouriri’s albumWhat a Devastating Turn of Events notably incorporates Britpop influences, aiming to recreate the visual and sonic aesthetics of the Britpop movement. Chinouriri cited bands like Oasis andThe Libertines as key inspirations.[103][104]
Artists of the genre have dismissed the "Britpop" term.Oasis bandleaderNoel Gallagher denied that the band were associated with the term: "We're not Britpop, we're universal rock. The media can take the Britpop and stick it as far up the back entry of the country houses as they can take it."[105]Blur guitaristGraham Coxon stated in the 2009 documentaryBlur – No Distance Left to Run that he "didn't like being called Britpop, or pop, or PopBrit, or however you want to put it."[106] Pulp frontmanJarvis Cocker also expressed his dislike for the term in an interview withStephen Merchant onBBC Radio 4'sChain Reaction in 2010, describing it as a "horrible, bitty, sharp sound."[107]
In 2020, with attention turning to all "landfill indie" acts of the 2000s, Mark Beaumont of theNME argued that the term Britpop had been devalued, ignoring all the cultural aspects that had made the scene so important, with the term becoming a "catch-all" for "any band that played guitars in the 1990s."[108][109]
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