Britpop

The tradition & historical record

Britpop was a British music and cultural movement that emerged in the 1990s. Musically, it produced bright, catchy alternative rock that drew heavily on the traditions of 1960s guitar-based British pop, with lyrics that emphasised national identity and offered commentary on British culture and society. The movement was seen as a reaction against the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the American-led grunge and the more introspective shoegaze scene in Britain. It helped bring British alternative rock into the mainstream and became a key part of the broader Cool Britannia phenomenon, which echoed the spirit of the Swinging Sixties. Britpop also marked the rise of bands emerging from the independent music scene of the early 1990s. Although often described as a cultural moment rather than a strictly defined musical genre, its leading bands shared influences from 1960s British pop, 1970s glam and punk rock, and 1980s indie pop. Manchester's indie scene — including groups such as the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Happy Mondays — is often cited as an important precursor to Britpop's musical development. The acts most frequently labelled by the UK music press as Britpop's "big four" were Oasis, Blur, Suede, and Pulp. The period of Britpop's popularity is generally considered to have lasted from 1993 to 1997, with its peak years between 1995 and 1996. ¹

Though Britpop has sometimes been viewed as a marketing tool and more of a cultural moment than a distinct musical genre, there are musical conventions and influences the bands grouped under the Britpop term have in common. Britpop bands show elements from the British pop music of the 1960s, glam rock and punk rock of the 1970s, and indie pop of the 1980s in their music, attitude, and clothing. Specific influences vary: Blur drew from the Kinks and early Pink Floyd, Oasis took inspiration from the Beatles, and Elastica had a fondness for arty punk rock, notably Wire and both incarnations of Adam and the Ants. Regardless, Britpop artists project a sense of reverence for British pop sounds of the past. The Kinks' Ray Davies and XTC's Andy Partridge are sometimes advanced as the "godfathers" or "grandfathers" of Britpop, though Davies disputes it. Others similarly labelled include Paul Weller and Adam Ant. Alternative rock acts from the indie scene of the 1980s and early 1990s were the direct ancestors of the Britpop movement. The influence of the Smiths is common to the majority of Britpop artists. The Madchester scene, fronted by the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, James and Inspiral Carpets (for whom Oasis's Noel Gallagher had worked as a roadie during the Madchester years), was an immediate root of Britpop since its emphasis on good times and catchy songs provided an alternative to the British-based shoegazing and American based grunge styles of music. In 1991, James's song "Sit Down" reached number two in the UK charts, with Flavorwire writing the song "predates the Britpop label, but it presaged the quintessentially British sound that would explode in the '90s. Entire festival crowds used to sit down during the chorus of this song". ¹

John Harris has suggested that Britpop began when Blur's fourth single "Popscene" and Suede's "The Drowners" were released around the same time in the spring of 1992. He stated, "[I]f Britpop started anywhere, it was the deluge of acclaim that greeted Suede's first records: all of them audacious, successful and very, very British." Suede were the first of the new crop of guitar-orientated bands to be embraced by the UK music media as Britain's answer to Seattle's grunge sound. Their debut album Suede became the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the UK. In April 1993, Select magazine featured Suede's lead singer Brett Anderson on the cover with a Union Flag in the background and the headline "Yanks go home!" The issue included features on Suede, the Auteurs, Denim, Saint Etienne and Pulp and helped start the idea of an emerging movement. Blur were involved in a vibrant social scene in London (dubbed "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" by Melody Maker) that focused on a weekly club called Syndrome in Oxford Street; the bands that met up were a mix of music styles, some would be labelled shoegazing, while others would go on to be part of Britpop. The dominant musical force of the period was the grunge invasion from the United States, which filled the void left in the indie scene by the Stone Roses' inactivity. Blur, however, took on an Anglocentric aesthetic with their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993). Blur's new approach was inspired by a tour of the United States in the spring of 1992. During the tour, frontman Damon Albarn began to resent American culture and found the need to comment on that culture's influence seeping into Britain. ¹

A chart battle between Blur and Oasis, dubbed the "Battle of Britpop", brought Britpop to the forefront of the British press in 1995. The bands had initially praised each other but over the course of the year antagonisms between the two increased. Spurred on by the media, they became engaged in what the NME dubbed on the cover of its 12 August issue the "British Heavyweight Championship" with the pending release of Blur's single "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll with It" on the same day. The battle pitted the two bands against each other, with the conflict as much about British class and regional divisions as it was about music. Oasis were taken as representing the North of England, while Blur represented the South. The event caught the public's imagination and gained mass media attention in national newspapers, tabloids and television news. NME wrote about the phenomenon: ¹

Yes, in a week where news leaked that Saddam Hussein was preparing nuclear weapons, everyday folks were still getting slaughtered in Bosnia and Mike Tyson was making his comeback, tabloids and broadsheets alike went Britpop crazy. Billed as the greatest pop rivalry since the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, it was spurred on by jibes thrown back and forth between the two groups, with Oasis dismissing Blur as "Chas & Dave chimney sweep music", while Blur referred to their opponents as the "Oasis Quo" in a deriding of their alleged unoriginality and inability to change. In what was the best week for UK singles sales in a decade, on 20 August, Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies against "Roll with It" by Oasis which sold 216,000, the songs charting at number one and number two, respectively. ¹

In the months following the chart battle, NME states, "Britpop became a major cultural phenomenon". Oasis's second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, sold over four million copies in the UK – becoming the fifth best-selling album in UK chart history. Blur's third album in their 'Life' trilogy, The Great Escape, sold over one million copies. At the 1996 Brit Awards, both albums were nominated for Best British Album (as was Pulp's Different Class), with Oasis winning the award. ¹

Retrospecti… ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Britpop”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Britpop is music genre; 1990s UK pop culture movement, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 23 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²