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Lunch » Tags » Music » Reviews » Britpop

Britpop

5 Ratings: 3.6

Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom.

Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. … see full wiki

Tags: Music, Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Music Genres

1 review about Britpop

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Britpop - Britains answer to grunge

Dec 4, 2009

by SoccerGossip

Rating:

In the early to mid 1990's Britpop ruled the airwaves in the UK, but was largely ignored by a US market dominated by grunge music. I was a big fan of many "grunge" bands like Nirvana (eventhough I though they were more punk with grunge clothing). But I can see why grunge and not "britpop" was popular. For one thing, eventhough Britpop seemed to be Englands answer to grunge, it was far to "English" for the US to handle. Too many songs about London and the North/South divide. I think the only song like that that was ever popular was The Pet Shop Boys "West End Girls", but I doubt anyone outside of London new that they were referring to the west end of London.

But the point of this review isn't to try and give excuses for Britpop's lack of exposure in the US, it's more to highlight the great bands that came out of that era.

Lets start with one of my favorite bands and probably the godfathers of Britpop (eventhough technically they weren't a Britpop band because they were around in the late 70's/early 80's): -
Going Underground by The Jam

Next lets move on to my favorite Britpop band of all time BLUR. They were brilliant, and before Damon Albarn broke up the band to start the Gorillaz, they put out some fabulous albums. They more than any other band were the epitome of Britpop. Parklife, there 1993 released album was even narrated by Phil Daniels who played the lead role in Quadrophenia. Britpop claimed to take its roots from the mods of the 1960's and Phil Daniels was a mod icon, so having him in there video was genius. I've heard they might be getting back together, I'll be first in line for tickets if this is true.
This one really takes me back... Parklife by Blur...

Now if you do a little research about Britpop, then they list Suede (or the London Suede in the US) as another big Britpop band. I never understood this as there sound was more psychedelic then anything else and you didn't hear any of the references to England or Britain that you did in other Britpop acts. I think they were just included as a Britpop act because they were popular at the same time...
Animal Nitrate by Suede

Next maybe the only female fronted Britpop band out there, but actually one that was probably one of the more popular in the US. Lead singer Justine was dating Damon Albarn of Blur at the time...
Connection by Elastica

The next Britpop act was supposedly nearly tapped up by Steven Spielberg to do a Monkees type tv show in the US, but things never panned out; They did have a great debut album though, but as with most other Britpop acts, they faded away into the English sunset...
Alright by Supergrass

Pulp had been around for a few years before they really hit it big with there 1996 album Common People. I must say though, it's in my top ten albums of all time. It's sheer arrogant brilliance. If you are into Britpop era music, then this one is only rivaled in my opinion by Blur's Parklife. Yet another band that didn't make it out of England...
Disco 2000 by Pulp

Lastly, I'll end with the one band that did actually sell some records in the US, Oasis. Though I do like the band, they had both good songs and some really crappy ones. In the summer 1995 they went head to head with Blur and both released singles on the same day to see who would sell more. Blur's "Country House" ended up pipping Oasis to the #1 spot, but the fact that you probably haven't heard that song shows you how well the song was received internationally... Oasis were just too obsessed with making songs that sounded like Beatles records for my taste, but the songs they wrote well, they really wrote well. But those Gallagher brothers were a bunch of pricks...
Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis

So if you get nothing else out of this review then listening to a few bands you'd never heard of before or even just hearing there band names then I've done my job. Unfortunately, most Britpop other than some Oasis tracks was ignored by American radio. At the time, in an era when so called "alternative" radio was looking for replacements for Nirvana they tended to play bands like Limp Bisket and Korn. If they could have only played Blur or Pulp instead...

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maromatic December 11, 2009

Oh goodie you included Disco 2000 ... one of my faves. Isn't (London) Suede back to just to being Suede again? Ahh... I love Brit Pop ... it's intelligent, danceable music. And I think I love brit pop more now than I did when I was a kid, staying up listening to Rodney Bingenhimer's show... Pulp... Menswear... all of it. Brit pop had that layer of classism like early punk. Maybe that's why it never was super popular across the pond... Hmm... But cheers, I hadn't thought about Elastica in a while ... gotta dig out that album. :D

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