Britpop: 20th Anniversary: BBC celebrates...

[Ian Townsend]

....starts this Sunday on BBC 4 and BBC generally.

I was never in love with very much of it musically to be honest. It's incredible how it's newsworthiness to the North London media tribes back then has enshrined it today over and above anything else that happened musically from 1994.

In case you're unaware of it here's 10 Ways Britpop changed modern manhood

[Expiry2011]

A bit like Nirvana, I was too busy with dance music to get too much into Britpop - at least not in a serious way
I really like Pulp and have three of their LPs but in the main most of the bands Echobelly, Shed Seven, Dodgy, Boo Radleys etc. were just songs on the radio
I always thought of it a bit like indie-dance - a made up title to sell music magazines
Good things: the period at the end of Britpop where bands became more experimental - the Beta Band and the Bees
The demise of flared trousers - phew!

Bad things: Coked up knob ends
The assumption that I'd never heard the Beatles much less the Kinks, Small Faces etc
Chris Evans




And I'm afraid that Oasis turn me off completely!

[eine]

You should cut down on your pork life mate, etc.

Don't forget NWONW!

[ginghamkitchen]

You should cut down on your pork life mate, etc.

Don't forget NWONW!

My band were in their dubious pomp between NOWOW and Brit Pop, so we used to say we were NWONWONW.

[babycart]

My band were in their dubious pomp between NOWOW and Brit Pop, so we used to say we were NWONWONW.

or maybe proto-Brit?
Especially if you called women "birds" and walked a bit like like monkeys.

[ginghamkitchen]

or maybe proto-Brit?
Especially if you called women "birds" and walked a bit like like monkeys.

Well, we were from Essex.

Thinking about it, I'd say we were Britolithic.

[Mang]

Yes, lots of other things happening in '94. I was obsessed with "Mars Audiac Quintet" and searching out Tony Hatch albums from charity shops. At Blow Up in Camden you would hear Blur etc. upstairs whilst the Karminskys spun their esoteric stuff downstairs so there was kind of a crossover - plus every gig I went to at that point I would seem to hear Lord Sitar's "I Can See For Miles". As with most scenes the really great stuff was soon drowned out in a mire of blandness. And let's not forget that for all the chutzpah of their first few singles Oasis' legacy will be "Wonderwall" and all the hideous borerock that came in its wake: Embrace, Coldplay, Elbow...

[ginghamkitchen]

Yes, I shared the Stereolab obsession. That only abated once I started to track down the records that Stereolab were influenced by and realised that they were mainly excellent at pastiche, and it started to feel a bit by the numbers. I didn't hold it against them, though, I just took my cues from the originals.

Super Furry Animals are another group of the time that transcended what else was going - their first three albums and all the singles / b-sides are superb, without being party of any type of movement.

[Filthy Rich]

Heard Supersonic by Oasis the other day on a pub jukebox. It was maybe six or seven in the evening of a (for me) beery Saturday and it had obviously been put on by a group of fairly young hipsters who all stood up and joined arms and did a kind of drunken shouty singalonga-dance sort of thing. The song definitely sounded good and made me think that I don't know another band that went downhill so quickly from their peak, a flash in a pan that was over the second it began and yet which lived a seemingly interminable pointless zombie afterlife. On Supersonic the nonsense lyrics sounded inspired but in no time they were replaced by lazy rip-offs which I'm surprised they weren't embarrassed to sing. I still preferred them to Blur though.
I was struck by how young the dancers were, I can't imagine that Oasis mean much to many twenty year olds now. Perhaps it's cos of this 20th anniversary thing, it's hard to think of another reason.

"It's incredible how it's newsworthiness to the North London media.. "

Jesus Christ Ian, you're a teacher for heaven's sake!

[SirSlim]

....starts this Sunday on BBC 4 and BBC generally.

I was never in love with very much of it musically to be honest. It's incredible how it's newsworthiness to the North London media tribes back then has enshrined it today over and above anything else that happened musically from 1994.

In case you're unaware of it here's 10 Ways Britpop changed modern manhood

Does it magically become "good" after 20 years has passed?

circa 1994 was all about unlicensed Radio Tip Top and Club Indigo at Madame Jo Jos for me.

[ginghamkitchen]

Does it magically become "good" after 20 years has passed?

Yes, of course, with the exception of Terry Pratchett's work and the death of Peter Cushing.

[Ian Townsend]

Jesus Christ Ian, you're a teacher for heaven's sake!

What did I do wrong?
'Newsworthiness' is a valid term, no?
Where's Hugh!

[Ian Townsend]

Loved 'Park Life,' though I think they joined the words up for it to be Parklife. (Treading on eggshells here)
Loved Suede's 'Still Life.'


I think that was about it for me.

[Paul-K]

i didnt get brit pop at all, sounded like a load of wimpy students pretending to play music. mainly for teenage girls.
though i did recently hear an Oasis song and thought it sounded ok, maybe the past 20 years have washed all the stupidity out of my ears. i remember at the time thinking that all oasis songs sounded ripped off from old songs though.

[babycart]

In case you're unaware of it here's 10 Ways Britpop changed modern manhood

i´d say over half of those could just as easily be "How casuals/Italia 90/ plasma TVs/Loaded magazine Changed Modern Manhood".