By unpopular demand, I have chucked another five of my slightly embarrassing pop interviews up on Medium. Actually, by this stage (Jan-Feb 1995) they’re slightly less cringe. Scotland’s M8 magazine was about to go full rave so there’s final two pieces for them: Michelle Gayle (compliments me on my soft hands), and Jamiroquai (gives as good as he gets, it’s fair to say). Then I started knocking stuff out for a studenty Glasgow mag called Bigwig. Even less money in it (ie none), but a chance to have a chinwag with My Life Story, the Boo Radleys and Salad. I still have a few more of these to ‘drop’ in the coming months until it sort of sputters out in autumn 1996 after a disastrous encounter with Suede. As I have told even my best pals, the only way you get to hear the full horror of that Suede interview, which I’ve never shared with anyone, is to read on to the end of the series.
#AddTheWordsDueToThePandemicToASongTitle
Courtesy of Britpop Legend/Landfiller (depending on your opinion) and entertaining Twitter poster Adam Devlin guitarist with the Bluetones, I thought the creative minds of the Afterword might find this a bit of craic of a weekend evening…
“Here’s a fun game you can all play at home. Simply add the words ‘due to the pandemic’ to a song title.
e.g. The Only Living Boy in New York, due to the pandemic.
#AddTheWordsDueToThePandemicToASongTitle”
Attack of the Grey Lantern by Mansun – 21st Anniversary Deluxe Edition
What does it sound like?
Not terribly much like a DC comics concept album, though that was apparently the original intention. There are recurrent themes and characters, but don’t let that put you off. Mostly there are a lot of good tunes, and a surprising amount of interesting sounds that some of their more straightforward Britpop contemporaries lived without. This has a hand full of hits (Wide Open Space, Taxloss, Mansun’s Only Love Song) with singalong choruses, good tunes and a fair dollop of humour. The hidden track Open Letter to the Lyrical Trainspotter (“The lyrics aren’t supposed to mean that much, They’re just a vehicle for a lovely voice”) show them able to laugh at both themselves and us at the same time. There is a very British preoccupation with vicars in drag (Stripper Vicar and Dark Mavis).
The songs aim for the epic, and generally get there, which might get a bit wearing but they avoid that because there is a lot going on in the background. Bass lines that remind me of Air, melodies that skirt “Walk on By”, interesting bits of almost hip hop. I wasn’t a fan before but repeated plays made me enjoy it » Continue Reading.
The anti-Britpop playlist
It’s fair to say I was no fan of Britpop. Yes I accept it was a ‘thing’, it’s true you couldn’t go anywhere in Manchester without hearing Oasis blaring out of every shop/pub – I saw them live supporting The Boo Radleys(!) and they were very good but I soon tired of them (unlike The Boos who are due a reappraisal sometime). I’ve no great nostalgia for the mid 90s. It annoys the feck out of me every time I hear certain music hacks of the era going on about what a great time it was and how we were all coked off our noggins at the Good Mixer listening to Blur, Pulp, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Sleeper, Mensw@ar and *nothing else* – I don’t know about you but I wasn’t listening to any of that stuff by choice. I got talking to a mate the other day about what we were listening to while studiously avoiding Powder or indeed anything Chris Evans was ‘bigging up’ and I’ve made a playlist of what I can remember circa 1994 to 1997 – so what were you listening to?
Britpop: An Accidental Convergence Of Nostalgia
madfox on Britpop
AN ACCIDENTAL CONVERGENCE OF NOSTALGIA
How Suede, Blur, Oasis and Pulp came to define the UK’s youth-driven commercial music scene in the 1990s
“Britpop” is a term commonly used to group together up to a dozen musical acts which emerged in the UK in the early years of the 1990s and which would reach their creative and commercial peaks later that decade.
It’s tempting to regard these bands – chief among them Suede, Blur, Oasis and Pulp – as being part of some coherent movement. But this was not really the case: on closer inspection, there are significant differences in the musical and lyrical styles of each band, and in the social backgrounds, political interests and cultural fashions attached to them. Indeed, the key players could be seen to represent several of British popular music’s favourite genres from the past – 1960s beat, 1970s glam and pub rock, 1980s art-school pop – while a number of the also-rans dipped their toes in surf, folk rock and punk.
Britpop is a collection of divergent bands who just happened to become active or achieve recognition around the same time – when the extreme poles of grunge and rave » Continue Reading.
