We are now firmly into the BRITPOP YEARS on Popular, oh yes, so it’s time to consider its musical legacy in the only language we truly understand, viz. a ticky-box poll.
We have selected 32 bands who someone, somewhere, might possibly have once described as Britpop. Tick all the ones you like and by science we will be able to finally, once and for all, define terms like “Britpop D-List” and “second divison Britpop”. Isn’t that a noble endeavour? I thought so.
Which of these Britpop bands were Any Good At All?
- Pulp 8%
- Blur 7%
- Kenickie 6%
- Suede 6%
- Supergrass 5%
- Elastica 5%
- Super Furry Animals 5%
- Ash 5%
- The Divine Comedy 4%
- Oasis 4%
- Boo Radleys 3%
- Lush 3%
- Bluetones 3%
- Catatonia 3%
- Mansun 3%
- Sleeper 3%
- Black Grape 3%
- Lightning Seeds 2%
- Gene 2%
- Longpigs 2%
- Echobelly 2%
- Shed Seven 2%
- Space 2%
- Ocean Colour Scene 2%
- WELLER 2%
- Kula Shaker 1%
- Cast 1%
- Menswear 1%
- My Life Story 1%
- Marion 1%
- Seahorses 1%
- Northern Uproar 0%
Total Voters: 1,496
Poll closes: No Expiry
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Surprised myself by voting for the vast majority. “Any good at all” is a pretty low standard to set though.
Lowest I voted for was Marion, who were brilliant the one time I saw them live. Can’t understand why Longpigs aren’t higher up. Shed 7 got the tick for their excellent first couple of singles before they went crap. My Life Story are a good memory I don’t want to revisit for fear of ruining it. And Menswear, hated by all and sundry, put out three or four absolutely brilliant singles. I would venture that the venom directed against them indirectly led to the “less style more subtance” rockist bollocks we’ll get into in ’96 and ’97.
Missing band = Powder, surely the ultimate Britpop band, because –
* On Parkaway Records of Camden
* Only released music in 1995
* Appeared on “Britpop Now”
* Pearl married a Supergrass
* They just are
FWIW this is what wiki thinks, pretty close to Tom actually – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Britpop_musicians
#28 “Not sure I can pin down why not, but not.” Yeah this is always the reason given…is my point really.
Someone only invented the B-word so that people could argue what was and wasn’t it tho – nothing to do with the actual music.
Which of these bands have stayed together from that era up to the present day? I know Ash have – are they the only one?
#31 Agree about Longpigs. But then I don’t think of them as Britpop band so much as a British rock band who happened to be around at the time of Britpop.
Manics not Britpop because they were already successful and stylistically fully formed before Britpop. And also made no particular effort to court Britpop, did they?
Dubstar not Britpop because they were bascially Saint Etienne Mk II, so if Saint Etienne aren’t Britpop, Dubstar can’t be.
#32 I did attempt to prepare a list of reasons why the Manics weren’t, but every criteria that sprang to my mind was quickly ontradicted by the acceptance of another band sharing that criteria as Britpop. (Too *political* probably being the nearest to a category that still qualified, but seeing Pulp at the top of that list even draws that into question, to some degree).
I do think the concept of “Britpop” (and were there any Scottish acts deemed to be “Britpop”?) was far more about image/appearance than music.
last line doesn’t follow: dubstar could be britpop’s st et
#35 – Geneva, possibly?
34’s last line i mean
Were there any Britpop bands not from the Atlantic Archipelago at all?
#39 Wannadies (Brittpop)
#39 – for some reason there seem to be loads of Serbian bands that describe themselves as “Britpop” – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veliki_Prezir – but that probably doesn’t count.
The closest real example I can think of is Placebo, of Luxembourg / Swenden / pan-European-ness.
#39 And the Cardigans?
Cardigans? Maybe??
Jönköping is an excellent word.
#41 Of course all the usual observations about using Wikipedia as a source apply…. but it’s notable that the Serbian version of the Wiki page on Veliki Prezir makes no reference to “Britpop”: it describes them variously as a “rock group”, practictioners of “alternative rock”, and as an “indie rock group”…
Lush was brilliant until the end. There were even times I entertained the desire to hear the earlier stuff with the later production values.
#45 – There’s loads of ’em on here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Britpop_groups – but curiously what you’ve said seems to apply to them too (check out Eva Braun, Popcycle, Kristali…) I guess, boringly, it’s the work of a single editor.
Wannadies were a powerpop band who’d been going for a while pre-Britpop. That some Britpop bands were also powerpop doesn’t mean all powerpop groups were Britpop. Also, Wannadies’ signifiers were most un-Britpop (William Eggleston pic for album cover, for example. Fact that Per wossisface was a stoner, not a cokehead).
A couple of D-list contenders: Silver Sun (maybe too late?), whose first album I thought was great fun. And Laxton’s Superb, who had one lovely single.
They broke up for a bit during the 95-96 Britpop nadir, but A Northern Soul was released in 1995, so…
…The Verve?
#47 Hmm. Two of the groups you mention don’t even appear to have a Wiki page in Serbian. Will dig around some more at a later occasion….
(Hummingbirds’ “Blush” would have made a great Britpop-powerpop single, if they weren’t Australian, and they hadn’t released it quite a few years too early, to general lack of interest in the UK)
Blush was a great single! Hummingbirds feed more into the Smudge/Half a Cow scene that Evan Dando became so enamoured with, though. (I think at least one Hummingbird ended up in the Lemonheads, though I may well be wrong).
I’ve only listened to about 10 of the bands on the list (and a whole bunch I’d never heard of before) so can’t really contribute to this poll. I can, however, report that I’m on board with Marcello and others here in thinking that Lush’s final album Lovelife was rather good, esp. the stunning Last Night (which is closer to Trip-hop than to Britpop).
I recently put together a Spotify list of “stuff I remember fondly from the 90s”, and far more Britpop ended up on there than I had anticipated. Delving down as far as Elcka and Octopus.
Scandalously, the Milltown Brothers aren’t on Spotify.
On another note, I’ve just realised I voted for Ocean Colour Scene by mistake. Apologies.
The Bluetones always interest me. A band who I thought produced some great singles despite never really coming up with a consistent album. They had huge fanfares at the time from the music press, had a large hit with “Slight Return”, then very, very slowly their career faded, although it did just about outlive the natural lifespan of Britpop. “Keep The Home Fires Burning” picked up quite a bit of airplay and was a moderate hit in the early noughties, I seem to remember.
In terms of a Britpop nuggets compilation, this would indeed be great. I think Rhino Records tried something similar with the “Brit Box”, but the choices seemed woefully misguided to me the last time I checked.
Votes climbing very rapidly on this one. The most votes any FT poll has had, 520, has been open for over 2 years, and this one may pass it like a “Get Lucky” of polls
https://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2011/02/popular-90/
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https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/02/popular-86/ has more votes, 558, open for over 3 years
I wonder if Pulp’s lead reflects the fact that everyone thinks Jarvis as great, while Damon is a bit of a knob. Because surely Blur’s catalogue is better than Pulp’s?
“Any Good At All” allows no distinction between a 9/10 and a 10/10 catalogue :) The question is, which band would be more likely disliked?
I think yr wrong about their relative merits anyway, though.
For reference https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/1999/12/tom-ewings-top-100-singles-of-the-90s/
nooooooo
#35, #39 – How about Garbage? One Scot, three Americans, first album out in 1995?
#49 – I always think of Urban Hymns as the last great Britpop album, released about the same time as Be Here Now which is Britpop’s tombstone.