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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#88, #89, etc: Whiteout!
#91 the list of crap Scottish bands Alan McGee signed deserves its own Wikipedia page.
I’m slightly but not entirely intoxicated as I write this, so apologies for incomprehensibleness.
* Pulp (Duh. Reponsible for both one of my favourite songs of all time (as poetically written about in the first R&J entry and one of my favourite fesitval headliners of all time, Hyde Park)
*Blur (Hit and miss but you simply cannot fault their true classics)
*Suede (Animal Nitrate, Trash, Beautiful Ones and a ton of tracks I’ve yet to discover)
*Supergrass (Alright is a bit too much overplayed but ‘Moving’ always raises a smile)
*Elastica (Connection being the theme to Trigger Happy TV fills me with pre-teen nostalgia)
*Ash (love Shining Light, don’t massively know their other tracks but am willing to listen)
*Divine Comedy (Everybody Knows and National Express are both epic. Again need to hear them more)
*Oasis (Next)
*Bluetones (Entirely on the basis of Slight Return which I love)
*Catatonia (both Mulder & Scully, Road Rage and their duet with Space are excellent listens)
*Mansun (first heard Wide Open Space through the Perfecto remix but original’s great too)
*Lightning Seeds (Life of Riley and a huge future bunny)
*Space (Female of the Species, but a few others of theirs are pretty cool too)
*Cast (solely for Sandstorm)
…and one I foolishly missed in the vote, Ocean Colour Scene, if just for The Day We Caught the Train.
Britpop did nothing for me as a child. The sounds were weird and loud and I didn’t understand what half the singers were singing, only a future Blur bunny standing out from the crowd to my 6 year old self. I discovered most of these songs in my teenage/early 20s years a decade later, otherwise it was the much less revered future late-90s musical scene that became “my” generation of music, one that’ll probably get 1s or at the most 2s from everyone but I’ll be bigging it up to the high hills. I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want…
I’m going to try to put together a ‘Britpop Nuggets’ CD but I’m wondering where to draw the bar, obscurity-wise. Blur/Oasis/Pulp/Suede are too well-known worldwide, but even they could be represented with a good quality b-side or album track. Also I think it’s best to limit things to ’94-’96 if possible. Basically, I don’t want it to turn into ‘Shine’. Any thoughts?
#93 – I think you’re unduly pessimistic regarding the S**** G**** and even late 90s stalwarts like B*W******, but time will tell. (exit pursued by bunny)
The Seahorses seem particularly under-discussed. As #75 jokes, “The band the Roses could have been” – surely, surely, surely that’s why people are overlooking them, and their clutch of magnificent singles? Amongst a small circle of friends, 1 of us has always thought highly of “You Can Talk To Me”; 1 “Love is the Law”; 1 “Blinded by the Sun”. Highly being somewhere between Desert Island Discs and All Time Top 100.
I found it pretty hard to discern on the basis of “any good at all” / “NOT any good at all”. There’s a little bit of good in everyone (here), and they have all had more hits than I have had.
94: Fill it with the lengthier, reflective, usually gloomier tracks that no Shine compilation would ever touch. It’d still be very much britpop, but not as anyone thinks of it. Start with:
Blur – Essex Dogs
Pulp – Sheffield: Sex City
Suede – High Rising (they have a ton of these)
Mansun – Special/Blown It (Delete as Appropriate)
Kula Shaker – Sound of Drums
add the odd garagey thrash or other unchirpy oddity:
Supergrass – Lose It
Oasis – Columbia
The Verve – A Northern Soul
and you’d have a very fine cd imo. And no need to pretend you like Kenickie – you people, honestly.
Kenickie absolutely deserve their current placement as they are one of the 24 BEST BANDS OF ALL TIME
[i]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]
HAC boss Nic was filling in for his ex on bass when the H’birds supported the Lemonheads on their first tour, as she was then preggo’d up with the lead singer’s sprig; thus sparking Dando’s interest in the shop, label and scene. (Lemonheads’ Rockin’ Stroll was later about, and the video stars, the fruit of said union.)
95: I went to a very early Seahorses gig. I couldn’t believe it, all the Roses bits that I’d liked and thought were Squire’s aesthetic had been forensically distilled off, leaving this lump of tar. It was like watching a child determinedly break its only toy.
Even worse than the lumpen music was the look. Everyone bar Squire looked shit; nobody else could even remotely approach cool; there could never be any way to change them. Squire must surely have known this and it was deliberate legacy-trashing; the alternative, that he never knew why the Roses were good, is too grim to contemplate.
Yet Love Is The Law has a decent long solo (if you’d never heard the trick before) and Blinded By The Sun is pretty good on any measure. I believe there was a second album, though whether anyone has ever heard it I do not know.
98 yeah – only toy. Great analogy. I knew a guy who was v into The Roses, but not much of a gig-goer. When he finally fancied seeing a band live, The Seahorses were his starting point. Fair to say the disappointment put him off live acts forever. I’ve got the album, and it’s not very good. But were they any good AT ALL? Unquestionably.
There were a number of bands who had their peak/lifespan conveniently tie in with the Britpop time frame. First up the unimaginatively named Brit-rock scene with bands like Skunk Anansie, Ash, Reef, Terrorvision, The Wildhearts, 3 Colours Red. Then you have Madchester survivors like the Charlatans and James enjoying a second wind. You could even include the funk-fuelled Ferrari-driving hat wearing bunny to that list. All of them were British, all with a melodic pop leaning, but were they Britpop?
#96 Surely Supergrass’ unchirpy oddity is Sometimes I make you sad.
@100 – Britrock! There were some awesome British Rock acts in the 90s (I’d lump in Ash, Therapy? and the Manics and Idlewild in with them, too). We get VERY close to talking about Terrorvision, and that whole scene-that-wasn’t means an awful lot to me. Suffice to say, I’m sure I can find an excuse to mention it SOMEWHETE.
The Divine Comedy are opening a lead over Oasis, making it appropriate to reference the narrator’s rant at the end of “Middle Class Heroes”.
#98 The Seahorses were responsible for one of the worst gigs I’ve ever been to. John Squire kept pouting and making Rock God poses during his tedious solos, the rest of the band were devoid of charm, and by the time the whole thing was over lots of Roses fans left the venue with their heads bowed (me included). It was such a depressing experience, and one I’ve never quite forgiven Squire for. I’m still not sure what exactly he was trying to prove.
They had a couple of halfway good singles, “Blinded By The Sun” had a certain haunting quality about it – but even that sounded like the final track The Bluetones would have pulled from their LP in the hope of getting a very minor chart placing.
I’ve still got a couple of Seahorses CDs sitting in a shoebox somewhere at the back of my wardrobe, I could pull them out to see if they deserve a reassessment, but I’m sure I’m not being overly unfair.
I voted for Pulp, Blur, Suede, Supergrass, Elastica, Super Furry Animals, Ash, The Divine Comedy, Oasis, Lush, Bluetones, Catatonia, Mansun, Lightning Seeds, Longpigs, Space, and would have voted for Kula Shaker if I’d noticed them (for their first album). Scarily, I own the entire back catalogue of all of them apart from SFA’s last few albums and Mansun and Kula Shaker past their first (Grey Lanterns is brilliant, but their follow-up left me flat; one album of KS seemed sufficient).
Tried Kenickie once and didn’t like ’em much, despite adoring LL’s vocals on Mint Royale’s “Don’t Falter”. Bought Menswear’s album and sold it. Bought the Seahorses’ and sold it at the earliest possible opportunity. Heard the Boo Rads’ early stuff and never bothered with their Britpop phase. Liked a few Sleeper singles but for some reason never investigated further; probably should have voted for them anyway for “Sale of the Century”. Not a big fan of Shaun Ryder’s sound. Not sure if I’ve ever heard Gene, OCS, Echobelly, Cast (despite liking The La’s), My Life Story or Northern Uproar. A few tracks by Shed Seven seem to have snuck into my MP3 collection via a friend’s mix CD, and are about to be pruned. Marion! I forgot to vote for Marion! My Great Lost Britpop discovery of a few years ago…
I guess what I’m saying is, This Is My Music. Wish more of them had scored UK number one singles so we could talk about them directly on Popular instead of obliquely.
#73 – re Bis… I don’t know if they really slotted in with Britpop. Their earlier material seemed like some hangover from Riot Grrrl and twee indie, and then later they actually began to sound like the blueprint for the noughties indie sound, and haven’t necessarily received the respect due to them for that, or the blame depending on your point of view. They got Andy Gill in to produce “Social Dancing”, and the single “Eurodisco” in particular (which should have been huge) almost seems like a harbinger of a coming storm. When one particular bunnyable act became briefly huge, I’m amazed they didn’t feel horribly cheated (although Manda Rin is apparently a huge fan of them).
There’s also been a lot of tittle-tattle over the years about how the band were given a rough ride by an (unnamed) IPC journalist and his friends purely because Manda Rin failed to respond to his advances. She’s never commented herself so far as I know, but it does make me wonder if there were hidden depths of dodginess in the rather more laddish music press at this point. Certainly, the whole “female fronted band” dismissal of certain acts felt very uncomfortable to me at the time, as the very same journalists were seldom criticising bands who had charismatic male lead singers with faintly wooden members behind them. (Can’t remember The Fall getting slagged off for having Smithblokes in the ranks… or Shed Seven getting stick for their Wittermen…)
MARKETING FAIL
It had come to my attention that there is no ‘None of the above’ option
I assumed this was the purpose of the WELLER feature and voted accordingly :D
Seriously worried that I might be the only person voting for “all of them.” The problem is, anything with caterwauling guitars + a huge chorus x British sarcasm (however forced) = a delight to my 15-year-old tastes (had many ideological problems with the school nu-metal fans so decided to like the most angular, sarcastic, ironic stuff rather than Papa Roach saying I Hate Myself And I Want To Die, without the good/funny/ironic bits. Though the arse-end of this genre is probably just as witless as the baggy-shorted lot from across the pond.)
I’ll have to come back to this later when I’ve binged on all the above acts. I’m really not too scared even to listen to Northern Uproar, though feel free to tell me if you’ve any precautions for wading into the restricted fallout zone.
Ok, it’s strictly speaking New Wave of New Wave, but S*M*A*S*H – I Want To Kill Somebody is one of my favourite British “indie” tracks of 94-96… Buzzcocks/Slaughter and the Dogs as styled by the manic caution of the Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time.
#100 I wouldn’t say James enjoyed a second wind. More like, they inexplicably made an album that sounded like Shed Seven and lacked everything that made them great. I saw them a few years ago at a festival and they played nothing from that period, quite tellingly.
A bit harsh, the above. The songs were OK, it’s just that compared to Laid, Britpop seemed to be an unwelcome influence.
#106 “None of them”….
As a control group, would have been interesting to see what people felt about contemporary non-Britpop acts.
What else were people listening to at the time? Tricky? Goldie? Pearl Jam?
[…] pop culture website, Freaky Trigger, published a poll about Britpop bands yesterday, which got me thinking about the genre and its cover […]
#111 Portishead, I think. And in my case, at least, also Sophie B Hawkins.
Alisha’a Attic?
“What else were people listening to at the time? Tricky? Goldie? Pearl Jam?”
First two sure, Portishead yes, also Wu Tang and their various members, Gravediggaz, Palace Brothers/Music, Handsome Boy Modelling School, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, TLC, Swans, The Fall, Disco Inferno, Scott Walker, Aphex Twin, Skullflower, Prince, The Pharcyde, Tortoise, Stereolab, Cardigans, Manics, Kool Keith, Stina Nordenstam, DJ Shadow, Daft Punk, Nick Cave, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Hanson, Prodigy, Company Flow, Ben Folds Five, Spice Girls, All Saints, Gang Starr, Chemical Brothers, a lot of jungle and hardcore pirate radio… the fresh, questing music that was out there (as well as some bright, fun pop).
I’ll concede that’s a pretty masculine list for the most part, but in terms of musical interest and excitement I’d say that the majority of those acts were vastly superior to any of the ones in the poll (with the possible exceptions of Pulp and SFA, the only ones I’d have voted for if this had been a typical ‘which would you give 6 or above to’ poll*).
Britpop seemed to me comfort music for those scared of the bright new sonic world which was rendering foursquare guitar pop/rock bands creatively irrelevant. Now we all have our comfort music but really, the unbelievable dullness of most of those groups was something else. Trundle-trundle-jangle-jangle-oh fuck it’s Oasis with their clodhopping, fun-free take on Slade-THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP-wow, Wire are good! Let’s rip them off but make it boring-wow, The Jam are good! Let’s try and write a song like one of their crap ones….
*I know that Blur tried out a lot of different things and probably deserve better from me, but they just rub me up the wrong way. I should have given them a vote here though, so sorry about that.
I used to work with the bass player out of Salad, very nice chap.
Well the glaring omission from this list is obviously Shampoo :) Pop punk sensibilities, pissed on Oasis and Blu in Japan and did what the fuck they liked despite Brit Media ignoring them. Well underrated and summed up the whole mid 90’s damn well, took no prisoners and fucked off when the job was done. Respect!
“What else were people listening to at the time? Tricky? Goldie? Pearl Jam?”
Tricky, Bjork, Aphex, Smashing Pumpkins, Buckley, Radiohead (Fake Plastic Trees was on the Clueless s/track!), Pavement and, since I was in the US, a lot of industrial: NIN’s Downward Spiral from 1994 was having massive reverberations, so, e.g., Filter’s Hey Man Nice Shot was all over the place, (still fun) third rate Nine Inch Nails from Gravity Kills and Bowie was all over the soundtrack to Se7en, and Bowie and NIN’s joint tour was huge. My local wunder-band was (math rock, post-rock) Don Caballero (whose super-Drummer Damon Che would come out at the beginning of gigs and oh so dramatically *nail* his kit to the stage). And on the RnB side of things: TLC, TLC, TLC.
Oasis fans who think I’m being harsh may be amused to hear that drunks are belting out ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ outside my window. That’ll learn me.
Shocked by the poor showing for Sleeper, easily the best band of the era after Pulp. They even managed TWO songs on the (dare I say: epoch-defining) Trainspotting soundtrack.