Specs & Pricing

Basic Repertoire: Britpop
Andy Downing
The sudden rise and
fall of England’s
chipper musical and
cultural response to
grunge, and the trail
of sounds left behind
in its wake
Coined “Britpop” by Sound magazine in the late 1980s, the second wave of
British pop music was part of a U.K. cultural and musical revolution that helped
propel Tony Blair into office and made global stars out of a couple of pint-swilling, blue-collar blokes from
Manchester. Unlike England’s first artistic outburst, where artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones made
a lasting global impact, the second coming was more or less an afterthought in the United States, gaining little
traction outside of Oasis’ dueling Gallagher brothers and “Song 2,” an accidental hit by scene originators Blur,
which started its climb on the U.S. charts when the movement was well into its death throes.
But in 1990s England, the genre was of immense significance. With America dominating the artistic
landscape—be it fashion, film, or music—a generation of young Brits began pulling away and exhibiting a more
nationalistic sense of pride. This cultural backlash revealed itself in ways both subtle (Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker’s
“mooning” of moonwalking U.S. icon Michael Jackson at the 1996 Brit Awards) and obvious (April 1993’s cover
of Select magazine, which saw Suede’s Brett Anderson posing with a Union Jack background alongside the phrase
“Yanks go home!”), though most U.S. citizens were unaware of the hubbub.
The political import of the music is more easily catalogued, as Blair, then a young, fresh-faced politician
and not the dour lapdog he would become, latched onto the music, posing for photographs with Oasis’ Noel
Gallagher and other scene luminaries. In 1996, Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, even issued a statement
saying, “Something has shifted. There’s a new feeling in the streets. There’s a desire for change. Britain is exporting
pop music again. Now all we need is a new government.” Campbell’s vision came to fruition in 1997 when Blair
was elected Prime Minister.
With Britpop, as in most cultural movements, the first warning shots were fired long before the initial impact
was felt. The earliest of these long-range missiles was delivered by Manchester’s Stone Roses. The band’s selftitled
1989 debut [Silvertone] received near-unanimous praise from the British music press for songs like “I
40 December 2006 The Absolute Sound