I think there's another category, being Proto-Britpop: The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Lightning Seeds, The Smiths etc. Basically bands which sound Britpop and inspired it but weren't necessarily part of it.
I've always thought of 'Britpop' as anything cool and British from the 90's rather than a musical genre, like for me there's something very Britpop about The Premier League or Trainspotting for example. As you say in the video, there's clear differences in the bands musically and why I've always found the competition between Blur and Oasis so strange from a music standpoint. They're making different music for different groups of people so should exist parallel to each other rather than clashing so distinctly.
The clash was largely manufactured from what I could tell except in the sense that, in the so-called Battle of Britpop, the two bands were competing for the #1 spot on the charts with their singles. Otherwise, you're not wrong. Blur and Oasis had different audiences and different messages.
@@reillywalker195 Yeah, I guess being opposites both culturally and musically set up a nice rivalry for everyone to get invested in. I've just never got why the two's music is always put against each other, Blur vs Pulp seems a much better comparison for me.
Maybe go to the very start? Joy Division/New Order, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Stone Roses. Plus a bit of Madchester following on from that. Just my opinion. All the bands that James mentions in the video covers most of the 90s artists worth checking out.
Noel Gallagher always stated oasis were not Britpop and Liam recently tweeted he thought it was 'blousey' which is why he distanced himself from it. I remember Noel saying in an interview oasis were pop rock or 'pock' but usually just described as Rock.n Roll
rock shops in the states didnt even had male tshirt with the Oasis logo, they only made for females, the pop anthems really put them in to the girl band category (especially since everithing on this side was harder than any british rock was putting)
Very good video James. You summed it up pretty well I thought. Would just like to add, Stuart Maconie who wrote for the NME was the man who came up with the term, "Britpop". ;-)
Really interesting video, James, and thank you especially for the shout-out to Wales. Classification always follows in the footsteps of art, as you clearly know, and no sooner is a classification put forward than exceptions will be pointed out. Speaking as a Welsh working class musician, devoted to the Manics, two things occur to me. First, the definition of 'working class' has changed. On Question Time last year, a plumber spoke from the audience to say he thought £80K a year was too low for a higher tax rate. There are many people (me included) who think £80K a year is a lot of money. But many people who would identify as working class now earn that much. The poverty line seems to have moved up. Few fear actual starvation any more, thank goodness. Second, the class structure is different in each of the four nations of the UK, with England being both the most dominant country and, in class structure, the most unusual. In Wales, it used to be possible to say, pretty confidently, there was no middle class and for that reason most artists were by definition working class--a category that included most of the population. So all the Welsh artists you name are obviously working class whereas not all of the English ones are. (In fact, many bands pretend to be working class to increase their cred. The Stones are an obvious example). Britpop as you say is a four-nation thing. I'm so glad you pointed this out. It's a tricky subject. Fortunately, music often transcends national boundaries.
Cheers Steve, yes I agree, there’s definitely more levels and layers to it - this is just my take and kind of an overview I suppose! Interesting what you say re Wales and the class system their, but speaking for Yorkshire, anyone on 80k pa and claiming to be working class would be laughed out of the pub haha
Britpop, Indie Rock, British Rock, all incredible music. #takebackthecharts Also, I'd include Radiohead as 90's Indie Rock for the characteristics of middle class, pessimistic, society etc.
Yeah Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’ album is easily in my top 10 of the 90s. I felt like they slightly went down the rabbit hole a bit after that album though
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar OK Computer was a lot more experimental / original yeah. I still liked it though and some good later tracks like 2+2=5, There There, Knives Out and Motion Picture Soundtrack (the version Thom does on the Meeting People Is Easy video was better than the album version) but they went a bit too into the drum machine realm and veered off the beaten track as you say and they should've brought more The Bends style vibes back in but I suppose they had their own style lol!
Interesting how Radiohead, arguably the most artistically important British band of the decade, was never even considered part of either movement and actively tried to distance themselves from both by incorporating influences from jazz and krautrock
Yeah Radiohead were always uncategorisable... first two albums were indie rock, but after that, it just became 'radiohead' haha they almost had their own genre
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar I think they may be on the verge of becoming a parody now though -skittering beats, mournful piano, wailing vocals... they've been churning it out for twenty years! Still love them though.
I was a teen in the naughties and caught the back end of oasis from Heathen Chemistry onwards.. so I guess i sort of inherited the love of 90's music which sort of had a nostalgia for me as I was probably conditioned to that genre as I was a 1991 baby.. without knowing! But having somebody categorise it like you have is helpful and paints a picture that I simply couldn't do just listening back! Loving the content by the way
I completely agree with your classification. Even as a teenager from France, I could feel that strong division but I didn't know where it came from, just that there were British bands under the umbrella of Britpop that I loved, and others not so much, and it was always for the same reasons. The ones I didn't like (your "pop rock" category) always shared the same characteristics. Now when I reflect on that, I think the two sides of Britpop really don't have much in common, not musically anyway. They came from Britain around the same time. They were both a reaction to things from somewhere else (grunge being one). And they were both rooted in British culture, but that is very broad. They both picked a set of different British influences, and created something new out of it. The Beatles and classic British rock from the 60's is a common denominator. But for the "Indie rock" Britpop, punk was very influential. And even grunge I would dare say. For the "pop rock" Britpop, David Bowie and other influences that I'm less familiar with. You ended up with two very different styles. On a side note, I would not have included in Britpop any of the bands from the late 80's, even though the influence on 90's Britpop was there. I think the term "Britpop" came with Suede, then Blur followed by Oasis (I may be wrong on that).
Hi Romain, thanks for that. Yeah the class divide really did come through in the 90s music scene - and the two sides didn't have tons in common, it's true. Although as time passed they did grow together in musical style briefly for a few years before lurching off in different directions again post-2000
Great video James! Your points are all very well thought out and presented. It’s interesting to see the Bluetones described as ‘the most northern southern band’ as while I tend to gravitate toward the northern bands, the Bluetones are the main exception. Keep up the great content!
I think Pulp is a tricky one, because the sound was quite arty and poppy, but some of the lyrics are really a tribute to working class people. Common People really stands against class tourism and wealthy people who complain and pretend to be something else. Anyway i totally agree on the love songs point, it's really the gap between some kind of self indulgent pop and a really self aware rock'n'roll.
Funny you didn't mention Radiohead, which is to me the perfect exemple of what you call pop-rock. In the end, i think there were bands who aspired to be like David Bowie, and bands who wanted to be the new Beatles. It's a very different thing.
Yeah Pulp were a funny kind of crossover act in alot of ways... I guess I categorized them as I did because they were not really much of a part of lad culture and they used a ton of synthesizers... But I still like them alot as a band. Radiohead too, were a bit of a crossover act, but in the opposite way to blur. Their 'Bends' album was brilliant and very guitar driven, but they didn't really speak for working class people in their songs, tending lyrically more towards the very bleak and cynical stuff found in the more southern bands... There's always going to be bands breaking the mold I suppose haha
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar I really like Pulp, i think it's a clever and witty band, good spirit. I do like The Bends as well, but i always had the feeling it's not as spontaneous as other guitar driven records of the time. Thom Yorke admitted that he tried to copy Jeff Buckley on several tracks, and some of the angry tracks such as My Iron Lung always had a overplayed/try-hard feeling to me. So i have mixed feelings on this one, but i still enjoy most of it.
I was a student at Uni just outside London when Britpop blew up and it was a great time personally for going to gigs and clubs. I went to Blow up at the Good Mixer a couple of times and saw Blur regularly, in Colchester and London, them being my local band. Some of them used to hang out at my fave pub in Col and i knew of people who knew them. Never really got into Oasis....didn't rate the lyrics or the singer....though the music was ok. What peeved me off with Damon in the end was his comments about the Colchester of the 80's/90's as being "hideously white".....it was like he was crapping on the big hometown support he was more than happy to get at the time. In the end, i look at them as talented, middle-class chancers that hijacked working class subculture to get ahead.
Yeah you could be right re the class thing. I always saw Supergrass as fairly authentic southern working class in their songwriting though - 1st album especially
Britpop had the same cutthroat method as shown with Simon Cowell over the last 10 years. A Britpop band would be given one album deal, be milked and then dropped by the record companies. When I read The Charlatans book back in the late 90s about their journey. They were laughed and mimicked a lot by The Stone Roses and the media. The Roses saw Tim Burgess as a mini Ian Brown and the media used to refer The Charlatans song The Only One I Know as The Only Song I Know. The Charlatans had everything and still came back from 2 passing of life in the band to last longer than The Roses and Oasis. Except for the impact of Oasis in the mid 90s, I do think The Charlatans and Cast with not that far behind Oasis especially with their tunes. It was quite funny that Cast and Supergrass both had a single with the name "Alright" around the similar time too. Never did class Chemical Brothers nothing more than a dance band. It did get silly with Britpop as it became more about making money than the music. Fair play to Mike Flowers I'm sure he made a few bob from his Wonderwall version and got Noel richer too. I'm pretty sure that Mike Flowers did get to number one in the charts but Oasis only got to number two with Wonderwall. Mike Flowers just had that more 60s laid back feel to it. James great video once again. You do forget that Wales were once a wee powerhouse of music during the 90s. Just glad I'm experienced the 90s during my teens and early 20s. It was when music finally came back to people who had on much going for them. I just couldn't imagine what it's like to be a teenager since the 2000s, probably a material world nightmare. The 90s you had the vinyl, tape cassette, compact disc and even the mini CD disk for a while. Nothing better than a Sony Walkman, rubbish earphones and Oasis album cassette to walk in the 90s sunshine with. I do think the Embrace debut album was a breath of fresh air for a while. I haven't listened to that album in ages but soon enough a fee tracks on there had string arrangements too. Radiohead The Bends album I never listened to in the 90s. Oasis rant with Radiohead just put me off Radiohead during that time. I think it was around 2005 was the first time I listened to that album. Absolute great album indeed. High and Dry with Fake Plastic Trees two beauties like.
I grew up in the 90s also and enjoyed listening to all these bands, they heavily influenced my playing today. I would of included Radiohead maybe even it's own subdivision of Britpop. But it was a special time and I enjoyed all of it! Keep up the good content, cheers 🎸
Just found your channel and binge watching some older videos. Spot on analysis and I find the demographics in youth culture fascinating so glad you included it. Btw where are you from?
Your analyses of Britpop seem fairly spot-on to me as a Canadian from 1995 who mostly rediscovered and stumbled upon it later in life. It's curious how you note that the "indie" side of Britpop stayed away from love songs when some of the fan favourite songs of those bands-"Slide Away" and "Talk Tonight" by Oasis and "History" by The Verve being good examples-are sentimental love songs. What you said isn't false in the slightest, but it shows how focusing too much on one part of an artist's work can make you lose sight of their entire image.
Thanks Reilly. Yeah each band did seem to have maybe one love song (occasionally more) in their sets - You Do Something To Me by Paul Weller is a good example. But they were usually far less common than the songs talking about day to day life stuff I guess
A perpetually fascinating subject. They're two of my favourites, but I've always thought of Radiohead and The Verve as being outliers amongst the rest of the Britpop scene in the 90s. It was also interesting to see bands change their sound (or not!) from album to album, such as Blur going from the pop rock "The Great Escape" to a stripped down, almost grunge-led eponymous effort just two years later.
Yeah you're right about Radiohead and Verve - but for those two I definitely count Bends & Urban Hymns as being part of the indie rock thing, even if both bands were really just in their own genre somewhat
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar Verve started out as psychedelic and a heavy type of shoegaze band almost. Almost grunge leaning in some ways. Definitely indie rock. After '94 they started to change everything about their style.
Great question. I actually wonder if the Scottish bands fit this at all (the non English examples were all Welsh or Northern Ireland). Also Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream are super hard to classify too. The other band i was thinking of is Doves, are they the last of the great indie rock bands before things went a bit folk?
Just discovered this chanel few weeks ago, don't normally comment on YT channels, but I really like this guy and what he is doing, how do I become a patreon???
Sean, thanks so much man. If you're interested in getting more involved, you can find out about the #takebackthecharts master plan here - ruclips.net/video/nOyUk-_18Qo/видео.html And chip in to get your name in the CD here - gofund.me/0a9497ef
I think this is possibly the most spot-on analysis of the Britpop umbrella. Both sub-divisions, I find also intertwine well. For example, my Britpop playlist can have Sleeper next to Shed Seven, Bluetones next to Pulp and it transitions seemlessly. My only quirk with Britpop categorisation is the Manics as, quite simply the likes of the Generation Terrorists, G.A.T.S. and The Holy Bible sits almost in a genre of it's own. Everything Must Go, in my opinion, sort of got lumped in to Britpop as it was more radio-friendly and happened to coincide with the height of the Britpop movement.
Yeah it’s an interesting point about the Manics. They really were a one off because they had the indie rock sound, but holy hell were their lyrics bleak!! They shifted style a bit too from album to album, a bit Bowie-ish in that regard
Missed a few good bands out there from the era, such as Inspiral Carpets, The Farm and James ect...all in all late 80s into the 90s there was some fantastic indie bands about..and being in my early 20s from Manchester it was a great time to be alive!
For me and what I think Brit pop is… British pop-rock of the early to mid 90s, that was guitar based but sometimes a touch of electronica. It was upbeat, energetic, hook driven music, that captured the more positive liberated sub culture of the time. Similar in that sense to the rave movement, hence crossover acts like the Prodigy. You had Brit pop kids at raves, and visa-versa. They were the two musical movements of that sub-culture. It was kicked off at the beginning of the 90s by The La’s and happy Mondays etc.. and defined by groups like oasis and blur, obviously, but also Pulp, Suede, James, The charloittans. It hit its peak in 95, on the doc line in 96 was dead by 97. After which there was an era/genera of post Brit pop. 90’s Brit rock acts that were definitely not Brit pop such as Radiohead and the manics lead music out of Brit pop in to post Brit pop. Those two manics albums in 96/98 and Ok computer nailed the coffin shut on Brit pop but the beginning of the end was The bends in 95. The reason I’d say, is the Brit pop audience grew up and as they did they wanted music with more substance. If you listen to the Bends you can hear all of the big groups of the post Brit pop era, which I define as the period between Brit pop (97) and the new indie movement (03), such as Stereophonics, Travis, Coldplay, Muse.
Hi James , I really like your videos. I would divide Britpop in 3 categories: Pop rock (same as yours), British trad rock (inspired by Beatles, Who, Small Faces ecc like Oasis, Las, Cast, Bluetones, OCS) and Indie rock (more alternative rock sound like Manics, Idlewild, Ash, Whipping boy, Teenage fanclub first albums, ecc).
Hi Alex - that's cool. Yeah there's definitely no set or fixed thing about my categories! And yeah your 3rd category for Alt Rock I definitely can see that one
nice analysis, i also think certain bands can be divided into traditional rock (OCS, Oasis, Cast) and progressive/experimental (Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Verve, Blur)
Great video on an interesting subject!! Weird thing is i was 15 in 1992, and so if you weren't on the GNR, Metallica or Nirvana wave, you were into 'indie'. In 92 there was no Britpop, but there was indie which i never really understood at that time. Neds Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, James etc, to me they all sounded a bit wishy washy or shoe gazy, baggy jeans n t-shirts long floppy curtain hairstyles etc, so to me when Oasis, Supergrass, Cast came on the scene it felt and sounded different, like guitar rock was back in the mainstream and sounding fresh! I agree with Damon Albarn in a way, that we as Brits had got all worked up over Nirvana and maybe were overlooking what good stuff we had. I do remember 93 being the year of Suede and the Levellers and loads in school being into them. It was just a great decade to be young❤
In agreement who several other comments here, the so-called "genre" of Britpop was rejected by all the main players both at the time and today, including both Gallaghers, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, Brett Anderson and Nicky Wire. They have all at some point said things like "nah we weren't Britpop mate, we did our own unique thing" which is entirely valid, they were all unique additions to British 90s culture, and the idea of their creative work being lumped with that of their contemporaries, just because they happened to be released at the same time, must be perpetually frustrating. However, meaning no disrespect to all of these incredible musicians, I don't think it really matters whether they consider their music to be classed as Britpop or not. The listener will categorize it however they want to. And the fuled competition certainly didn't hurt their sales did it? 😁 Because of how the word was, and still is promoted by the music press, radio DJs, nostalgic club nights, Spotify playlists etc it is now so embedded in the public consciousness that it will never die, and nor will each band's association wih it. Great video though, makes for a fascinating discussion!
Yeah I agree, despite them all disliking the label... it stuck! And hey, after all, it doesn’t lessen their mega impact on British music in any way does it
I've never really thought of it in subcategories before but it makes total sense! while I think the divide is clear I think britpop was at its best in the few songs that bridge the crossover between the two categories
I believe that a large majority of the bands that were classed as Britpop were underrated and shadowed by Oasis and Blur who kinda took the limelight away from them.
What about these bands who all had albums back in the 90s: Teenage Fanclub, Divine Comedy, Terry Hall, Portishead, Denim, Belle & Sebastian, The Sundays, Heavenly, Saint Etienne, Trembling Blue Stars, BMX Bandits, The Gentle Waves, Comet Gain, Stereolab, Broadcast, Lush, Ride, Pale Saints, Moose, Curve, Rialto, Tindersticks, Portishead, Adventures in Stereo, and James.
Thanks James, I think your categorisation is fascinating and pretty accurate having grown up with all these bands too. The outlier bands for me in the 90s were probably Radiohead, Gomez, and the Beta Band who were kind of anti Britpop and inspired more by say Pink Floyd than the Kinks (origin of your pop rock groups), Stones or Beatles. ALL three were guitar bands in the 90s but their song structures were totally different to the indie rock groups (even The Bends has stuff on it like Street Spirit, Planet Telex, and Black Star which is totally different to what the northern groups were doing at the time)
I always saw Britpop as a particular type of indie rock defined by an often shameless fixation with sixties British guitar bands. Things like the inclusion of mellotrons, the unmistakably British accents of the vocals and riding mopeds in music videos seemed to me to be a way of double underlining in red the fact that these bands were reviving the classic sound of British popular music. That’s not to say British indie rock before this hadn’t sounded British, but the Britpop contingent seemed to really really want to sound and appear almost cartoonishly British, perhaps as a reaction to a lot of the popular guitar music that had happened previously such as hair metal and grunge, which were inescapably American. Even British bands in these genres tended to sing in American accents (see: Def Leppard, the Little Angels, Bush etc). I’ve always found Britpop to be something of a mixed bag. Some bands, despite the revivalism, were still able to show some originality and write good songs. Others really were just regurgitating Beatles and Stones records with little if any fresh input of their own.
If you were part of the indie, rock, Britpop club scene then all these bands were played together on any given night, so not divided. Even a bit of grunge and American bands would also get played as a counterpoint. Even at festivals it was all grouped together. With Blur's Country House its about the bands manager
Yeah, growing up in those times they were all mixed together as a melting pot. It was actually the NME who pointed out the North v South thing at first. I dunno. Personally, I still listen to both types
I think something important to mention with the British indie rock scene of the 90s is all the great shoegazing bands that preceded and bled into Britpop; My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Lush, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, Pale Saints, most of which (except MBV and Pale Saints who were from Ireland and Leeds respectively) were from the South of England, yet had a bit more of a bleak, and melancholic sound to them, with major focus on love and heartbreak, not to mention a major focus on guitar.
Kinda interisting than in the states some people think of Blur as the rock band and Oasis as the pop band based on their signature hits (Song 2, Wonderwall/DLBIA)
People argue against the term Britpop. But I'll say they're all similar in that they didn't sound American. They never called Bush Britpop. Britpop had a bit of nationalism perhaps. They didn't try to be American.
At knebworth, I remember loads of people in the audience boo-ing the Chemical Brothers (not so much the Prodigy) and sitting down. Terrible slots- middle of the day. I was the only one dancing, assisted by my own chemicals.
I've only recently discovered Longpigs. I'd put them up against any of more well-known Britpop bands, but keep in mind, I'm from the US and was not aware of the cultural movement occurring in the UK, but I damn sure knew then, as now, that Oasis were so frikken good.
Dear Britpop dad. I enjoyed your views. My favourite band of the era where Pulp and they sang songs about dissatisfaction in working class lives more then any of the other acts so it does seem a bit unfair putting them on the "flowery" side. Also Paul Weller did the most saccharine love song of the nineties with "You Do Something To Me", that song could give you diabetes. It's interesting as well that you place Super Fury Animals in the rock part when they would rock a TB303 as much as Daft Punk. Loving the videos BTW. Check out my "guitar band" albeit a skiffle band Black Kes, we are keeping the dream alive. Your good friend JT
Hi JT, just followed on Spotify 👍👍 Yeah don’t get me wrong, I love Pulp! I saw them live at V96 and they were awesome. And yeah there were some love songs here and there amongst the rock fraternity... but they were quite rare compared to the pop world!
Totally agree with 'Britpop' being more of an umbrella term. I remember Tori Amos, Garbarge & Alisha's attic being on Britpop lists. And what could be more different than Chemical bros & Kula shaker at Knebworth! It was actually the guitar bands putting a load of electronic mixes on their singles that made me lose interest in the genre.
A very good and interesting video on the 90s music scene. However, some of these bands belong to the 1980s. The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, along with many others were tarred with the Madchester brush. And were definitely well known before this explosion of music. Sally Cinnamon is a classic. The Smiths ended even before Madchester and Johnny's younger brother "discovered" Oasis. He even appeared on top of the pops as/with Electronic, even though he could not play an instrument. (I know people who were in class with him at school).
Agree with the below statements that "britpop" was another journalist label that ended up covering a huge amount of cultural things from fashion and tv to music. The music was actually various genres (if you like a label) from pop through indie, rock to edm dance, trance ect (remember Pulp actually started in the late 70's) . Also the Northern working class vs southern middle class was rubbish. If you actually look, the split between financial backgrounds of those bands was the same no matter which region of the UK they originally hailed from. It was all irrelevant, ultimately they where all independent bands with their own style. Some we liked, some we didn't.
I wish I could, that would be tons of fun, but they’ve never been released so it’s very hard to get at the individual stems, WTSMG has loads of bits and pieces out there, but Be Here Now? Virtually nothing, Sad times.
One thing about the whole britpop caper that wound me up was when bands changed their sound to pander to the britpop boom - i was a mere tween at the time but hearing bands like Ride and Lush drastically change their sound got me an angry wee fella.
Yeah it's always difficult when bands compromise who they are to jump on a bandwagon. What makes it even more difficult is when they inadvertently produce great music by doing so hahahahahahahs (screamadelica by primal scream being a good example of this)
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar absolutely. Completely understand the need to shift units by fitting into trends. More often than not it goes wrong tho and ends up causing a backlash from the band/artists followers. It just so happened with 2 bands i loved at the time and it wound me up to no end. Yeah too invested for a 12 year old no doubt, shoegaze/dream pop was not hip but britpop now was. Understand it completely i just didnt like what it did to some bands and the output that came from it was cringeworthy - even at the time. I cant imagine what that Ride album sounds like now, i would never listen, also someone put Ladykiller on at a house party i was at a few years back and i lost my shit because the person clearly had no clue who or what lush were before that garbage. I have a problem, i know lol
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar possibly starts in 93 but I was thinking sheer domination it has to be 94-97. Rap took over in 98 with DMX and JayZ then Eminem came in. I don’t think any rock album or artists since 97 oasis was selling like X Jigga or Em
I’m American so I sort of get why there had to be a north vs south divide in Britpop. I totally get how Blur & Suede rejected Seattle Grunge, to give the public something people could identify with. But Oasis then had the confidence in themselves to be the biggest band of the time. Once Cobain was gone, nothing we had here was ever going to be as big. But as you say, the north south divide might be which side you were on. But the success might have had its price. Pulp, Oasis, Suede & Blur found this out the hard way. All the other bands as good as they were could never be the legends. They made an album or 3 and vanished. By the time it was 98/99, people wanted something else. The Strokes or White Stripes. And 9/11 had shaken things up in the new century.
Tough one to define . For me it started as reaction to US grunge domination in the early 90s and dance music at home . This meant all Guitar bands that sounded British got lumped together . Do think there is probably something in your definitions but it’s not quite so cut and dry . Ace Thought provoking discussion though 👍
Yeah I agree - it was a large umbrella term. On the ground however most people just go '90s British guitar bands' - although again, that is still a massive umbrella term covering loads of genres
The new Labour movement got tied up with britpop right ? I was too young at the time to remember but I remember seeing Noel on tv in Downing Street. Maybe that’s why people conflate britpop
Being from the states I just figured it all as Brit-Pop. :p Of course not the chemical brothers or the prodigy. And I'll probably get hate for this, but a lot of the late 80s 90s british bands, kind of sounded the same to me. Unless if was more punk like elastica or even garbage.
Lol it's all good. Yeah I think being right here in the UK in the middle of it, you got both sides of the coin - the music being one side, and the various cultural movements being the other. Without the context of the music it is possible to, sadly, lose some of the meaning
I think Britpop refers to a period of time rather than a definable sound i.e. 94-96 and it's so narrow I wouldn't have referred to a lot of those bands mentioned there as Britpop i.e. stone roses, the la's, stereophonics or manics......but I would have labelled Oasis, Cast, Embrace, bluetones, dodgy, as well as the southern "pop" bands as Britpop. Weirdly even though the charlatans and verve were around before and after, they never seemed part of that scene. I think your definition is probably the best way of looking at it as I hated the word "Britpop" and still do!
I do divide the genre in that way but i would switch the names around. I think that your indie rock is the more popular and therefore 'pop'. I might be a bit bias tho as I prefer your pop rock.
So where to the likes of Daisy Chainsaw, The Longpigs or Salad fit in to the Britpop/Britrock categories, or even bands like These Animal Men or Kingmaker. Difficult to define them. Then if you bundled a band like Lush, they straddled ans pulled from many a Genre: Shoegaze, Alternative rock, Dream pop, Britpop, Noise pop, Jazz, Alternative/Indie, Pop, Hip-Hop/Rap
I wish we could lose 'Brit-pop', it was a crap name given unthinkingly by some nameless journalist at the time just before anyone could come up with something decent. It said nothing about the type of music played. I would describe Oasis and Charlatans etc as Soft, Soul Rock and maybe blur should have a term describing their 'punk-lite' type of nature, idk. So I would get rid of Brit-Pop completely myself, it made it sound like a shiny product and a sort of unified movement, which it never was.
Yeah it is. Blur were funny because they went back and forth style-wise. Parklife was one way, Great Escape was the opposite, then the self-titled album was similar to parklife again. Was interesting
I like some of the britpop bands like Blur, Plup, Supergrass, Suede were brilliant, but unfortunately 1990s britpop did ruin indie music in general During the same time you had 3 Colours Red, Therapy?, Manic Street Preachers, Wildhearts, Placebo, Feeder, Skunk Anansie, Ash, Idlewild, Symposium, Stereophonics, Terrorvision were in Britrock camp and them you had other bands like Cable, Mogwai, Bob Tilton, AC Acoustics, Ligament, Elevate, Quickspace Supersport, prolapse were just doing there own thing in the indie rock community.
I think there's another category, being Proto-Britpop: The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Lightning Seeds, The Smiths etc. Basically bands which sound Britpop and inspired it but weren't necessarily part of it.
madchester
@@benwilkinson815 Not all of it but Madchester was definitely a huge imput
Yeah it goes all the way back to the grandfathers of Britpop in the 60s too, the Beatles, Stones, Kinks etc
I've always thought of 'Britpop' as anything cool and British from the 90's rather than a musical genre, like for me there's something very Britpop about The Premier League or Trainspotting for example. As you say in the video, there's clear differences in the bands musically and why I've always found the competition between Blur and Oasis so strange from a music standpoint. They're making different music for different groups of people so should exist parallel to each other rather than clashing so distinctly.
The clash was largely manufactured from what I could tell except in the sense that, in the so-called Battle of Britpop, the two bands were competing for the #1 spot on the charts with their singles. Otherwise, you're not wrong. Blur and Oasis had different audiences and different messages.
@@reillywalker195 Yeah, I guess being opposites both culturally and musically set up a nice rivalry for everyone to get invested in. I've just never got why the two's music is always put against each other, Blur vs Pulp seems a much better comparison for me.
Yeah it got really whipped up by the NME who kind of initiated the north vs south thing.
I think the term that encompass all is cool britannia, britpop was a music term.
When I listen to I Oasis, I hear loud and noisy rock music with elements of psychedelic and shoegaze and has absolutely nothing to do with Britpop.
really appreciated that wales shoutout
cheers mate🏴
No worries dude! 👍👍👍
Can you make a playlist with all the great britpop musician/band for someone coming into the scene?
Hi Joseph, I’ll do something soon, watch this space
Maybe go to the very start? Joy Division/New Order, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Stone Roses. Plus a bit of Madchester following on from that. Just my opinion.
All the bands that James mentions in the video covers most of the 90s artists worth checking out.
Inspiral Carpets, Charlatans, Happy Mondays, James, The Farm, The La's, Stone Roses, Joy Division, Primal Scream, The Verve..few there
Noel Gallagher always stated oasis were not Britpop and Liam recently tweeted he thought it was 'blousey' which is why he distanced himself from it. I remember Noel saying in an interview oasis were pop rock or 'pock' but usually just described as Rock.n Roll
Yeah it’s funny how many of the biggest bands hated the Britpop label! but it stuck, nonetheless
i love this channel. you do such a great job. keep up the great work. johnathan
Cheers Johnathan and welcome!
I always think of Definitely Maybe as indie rock and What’s the Story Morning Glory as pop rock
Apart from morning glory
very interesting observation!
rock shops in the states didnt even had male tshirt with the Oasis logo, they only made for females, the pop anthems really put them in to the girl band category (especially since everithing on this side was harder than any british rock was putting)
Very good video James. You summed it up pretty well I thought. Would just like to add, Stuart Maconie who wrote for the NME was the man who came up with the term, "Britpop". ;-)
Yeah a few people have mentioned him! Cheers Simon
Really interesting video, James, and thank you especially for the shout-out to Wales. Classification always follows in the footsteps of art, as you clearly know, and no sooner is a classification put forward than exceptions will be pointed out. Speaking as a Welsh working class musician, devoted to the Manics, two things occur to me. First, the definition of 'working class' has changed. On Question Time last year, a plumber spoke from the audience to say he thought £80K a year was too low for a higher tax rate. There are many people (me included) who think £80K a year is a lot of money. But many people who would identify as working class now earn that much. The poverty line seems to have moved up. Few fear actual starvation any more, thank goodness. Second, the class structure is different in each of the four nations of the UK, with England being both the most dominant country and, in class structure, the most unusual. In Wales, it used to be possible to say, pretty confidently, there was no middle class and for that reason most artists were by definition working class--a category that included most of the population. So all the Welsh artists you name are obviously working class whereas not all of the English ones are. (In fact, many bands pretend to be working class to increase their cred. The Stones are an obvious example). Britpop as you say is a four-nation thing. I'm so glad you pointed this out. It's a tricky subject. Fortunately, music often transcends national boundaries.
Cheers Steve, yes I agree, there’s definitely more levels and layers to it - this is just my take and kind of an overview I suppose!
Interesting what you say re Wales and the class system their, but speaking for Yorkshire, anyone on 80k pa and claiming to be working class would be laughed out of the pub haha
Britpop, Indie Rock, British Rock, all incredible music. #takebackthecharts Also, I'd include Radiohead as 90's Indie Rock for the characteristics of middle class, pessimistic, society etc.
Oh yes, the most pessimistic of them all lol! I don't really find them that but their lyrics are a bit dark but my god, great songs.
Yeah Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’ album is easily in my top 10 of the 90s. I felt like they slightly went down the rabbit hole a bit after that album though
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar OK Computer was a lot more experimental / original yeah. I still liked it though and some good later tracks like 2+2=5, There There, Knives Out and Motion Picture Soundtrack (the version Thom does on the Meeting People Is Easy video was better than the album version) but they went a bit too into the drum machine realm and veered off the beaten track as you say and they should've brought more The Bends style vibes back in but I suppose they had their own style lol!
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar more like they got better. Kid A and In Rainbows are masterpieces
@@georged4578 A Moon Shaped Pool too
Interesting how Radiohead, arguably the most artistically important British band of the decade, was never even considered part of either movement and actively tried to distance themselves from both by incorporating influences from jazz and krautrock
Yeah Radiohead were always uncategorisable... first two albums were indie rock, but after that, it just became 'radiohead' haha they almost had their own genre
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar I think they may be on the verge of becoming a parody now though -skittering beats, mournful piano, wailing vocals... they've been churning it out for twenty years! Still love them though.
I was a teen in the naughties and caught the back end of oasis from Heathen Chemistry onwards.. so I guess i sort of inherited the love of 90's music which sort of had a nostalgia for me as I was probably conditioned to that genre as I was a 1991 baby.. without knowing! But having somebody categorise it like you have is helpful and paints a picture that I simply couldn't do just listening back! Loving the content by the way
Cheers R Boy, hey if you were born in 91 you can claim that music too haha
Judging by the first couple uploads i've just watched i think i've just subscribed to a gem of a channel, keep up the good work!
Thanks so much Liam and welcome!
I completely agree with your classification. Even as a teenager from France, I could feel that strong division but I didn't know where it came from, just that there were British bands under the umbrella of Britpop that I loved, and others not so much, and it was always for the same reasons. The ones I didn't like (your "pop rock" category) always shared the same characteristics. Now when I reflect on that, I think the two sides of Britpop really don't have much in common, not musically anyway. They came from Britain around the same time. They were both a reaction to things from somewhere else (grunge being one). And they were both rooted in British culture, but that is very broad. They both picked a set of different British influences, and created something new out of it. The Beatles and classic British rock from the 60's is a common denominator. But for the "Indie rock" Britpop, punk was very influential. And even grunge I would dare say. For the "pop rock" Britpop, David Bowie and other influences that I'm less familiar with. You ended up with two very different styles. On a side note, I would not have included in Britpop any of the bands from the late 80's, even though the influence on 90's Britpop was there. I think the term "Britpop" came with Suede, then Blur followed by Oasis (I may be wrong on that).
Hi Romain, thanks for that. Yeah the class divide really did come through in the 90s music scene - and the two sides didn't have tons in common, it's true. Although as time passed they did grow together in musical style briefly for a few years before lurching off in different directions again post-2000
Great video James! Your points are all very well thought out and presented. It’s interesting to see the Bluetones described as ‘the most northern southern band’ as while I tend to gravitate toward the northern bands, the Bluetones are the main exception. Keep up the great content!
Thanks Paul! Much appreciated
Another great video, take back the charts
That's the plan! #takebackthecharts
I think Pulp is a tricky one, because the sound was quite arty and poppy, but some of the lyrics are really a tribute to working class people. Common People really stands against class tourism and wealthy people who complain and pretend to be something else.
Anyway i totally agree on the love songs point, it's really the gap between some kind of self indulgent pop and a really self aware rock'n'roll.
Funny you didn't mention Radiohead, which is to me the perfect exemple of what you call pop-rock.
In the end, i think there were bands who aspired to be like David Bowie, and bands who wanted to be the new Beatles. It's a very different thing.
Yeah Pulp were a funny kind of crossover act in alot of ways... I guess I categorized them as I did because they were not really much of a part of lad culture and they used a ton of synthesizers... But I still like them alot as a band.
Radiohead too, were a bit of a crossover act, but in the opposite way to blur. Their 'Bends' album was brilliant and very guitar driven, but they didn't really speak for working class people in their songs, tending lyrically more towards the very bleak and cynical stuff found in the more southern bands...
There's always going to be bands breaking the mold I suppose haha
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar I really like Pulp, i think it's a clever and witty band, good spirit.
I do like The Bends as well, but i always had the feeling it's not as spontaneous as other guitar driven records of the time. Thom Yorke admitted that he tried to copy Jeff Buckley on several tracks, and some of the angry tracks such as My Iron Lung always had a overplayed/try-hard feeling to me. So i have mixed feelings on this one, but i still enjoy most of it.
I was a student at Uni just outside London when Britpop blew up and it was a great time personally for going to gigs and clubs. I went to Blow up at the Good Mixer a couple of times and saw Blur regularly, in Colchester and London, them being my local band. Some of them used to hang out at my fave pub in Col and i knew of people who knew them. Never really got into Oasis....didn't rate the lyrics or the singer....though the music was ok. What peeved me off with Damon in the end was his comments about the Colchester of the 80's/90's as being "hideously white".....it was like he was crapping on the big hometown support he was more than happy to get at the time. In the end, i look at them as talented, middle-class chancers that hijacked working class subculture to get ahead.
Yeah you could be right re the class thing. I always saw Supergrass as fairly authentic southern working class in their songwriting though - 1st album especially
"Hideously white" - sounds like a middle-class comment....
James could be deemed indie pop - even though they formed way back in '82, they were a big part of the Britpop era.
Britpop had the same cutthroat method as shown with Simon Cowell over the last 10 years. A Britpop band would be given one album deal, be milked and then dropped by the record companies.
When I read The Charlatans book back in the late 90s about their journey. They were laughed and mimicked a lot by The Stone Roses and the media. The Roses saw Tim Burgess as a mini Ian Brown and the media used to refer The Charlatans song The Only One I Know as The Only Song I Know. The Charlatans had everything and still came back from 2 passing of life in the band to last longer than The Roses and Oasis.
Except for the impact of Oasis in the mid 90s, I do think The Charlatans and Cast with not that far behind Oasis especially with their tunes.
It was quite funny that Cast and Supergrass both had a single with the name "Alright" around the similar time too.
Never did class Chemical Brothers nothing more than a dance band. It did get silly with Britpop as it became more about making money than the music. Fair play to Mike Flowers I'm sure he made a few bob from his Wonderwall version and got Noel richer too. I'm pretty sure that Mike Flowers did get to number one in the charts but Oasis only got to number two with Wonderwall. Mike Flowers just had that more 60s laid back feel to it.
James great video once again. You do forget that Wales were once a wee powerhouse of music during the 90s.
Just glad I'm experienced the 90s during my teens and early 20s. It was when music finally came back to people who had on much going for them. I just couldn't imagine what it's like to be a teenager since the 2000s, probably a material world nightmare.
The 90s you had the vinyl, tape cassette, compact disc and even the mini CD disk for a while. Nothing better than a Sony Walkman, rubbish earphones and Oasis album cassette to walk in the 90s sunshine with.
I do think the Embrace debut album was a breath of fresh air for a while. I haven't listened to that album in ages but soon enough a fee tracks on there had string arrangements too.
Radiohead The Bends album I never listened to in the 90s. Oasis rant with Radiohead just put me off Radiohead during that time. I think it was around 2005 was the first time I listened to that album. Absolute great album indeed. High and Dry with Fake Plastic Trees two beauties like.
Cheers Tabee thanks for that
James cheers as well.
I grew up in the 90s also and enjoyed listening to all these bands, they heavily influenced my playing today. I would of included Radiohead maybe even it's own subdivision of Britpop. But it was a special time and I enjoyed all of it! Keep up the good content, cheers 🎸
i feel like based on how little popularity Radiohead had in Britain until Ok Computer, they’re exempt from being labelled “Britpop.”
Thanks for watching 👍👍
Radiohead were post-Britpop.
Indie rock is superior in every way, every day of the week for me. great video again James
Cheers Ben, I admit I preferred the rock end of the spectrum myself!
Just found your channel and binge watching some older videos. Spot on analysis and I find the demographics in youth culture fascinating so glad you included it. Btw where are you from?
Your analyses of Britpop seem fairly spot-on to me as a Canadian from 1995 who mostly rediscovered and stumbled upon it later in life. It's curious how you note that the "indie" side of Britpop stayed away from love songs when some of the fan favourite songs of those bands-"Slide Away" and "Talk Tonight" by Oasis and "History" by The Verve being good examples-are sentimental love songs. What you said isn't false in the slightest, but it shows how focusing too much on one part of an artist's work can make you lose sight of their entire image.
Thanks Reilly. Yeah each band did seem to have maybe one love song (occasionally more) in their sets - You Do Something To Me by Paul Weller is a good example. But they were usually far less common than the songs talking about day to day life stuff I guess
A perpetually fascinating subject. They're two of my favourites, but I've always thought of Radiohead and The Verve as being outliers amongst the rest of the Britpop scene in the 90s. It was also interesting to see bands change their sound (or not!) from album to album, such as Blur going from the pop rock "The Great Escape" to a stripped down, almost grunge-led eponymous effort just two years later.
Yeah you're right about Radiohead and Verve - but for those two I definitely count Bends & Urban Hymns as being part of the indie rock thing, even if both bands were really just in their own genre somewhat
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar Verve started out as psychedelic and a heavy type of shoegaze band almost. Almost grunge leaning in some ways. Definitely indie rock. After '94 they started to change everything about their style.
Britpop vs Grunge. Nevermind vs WTSMG. 1991 vs 1996. Reading vs Maine. That would be something!
Huh... interesting idea!
James I'm wondering what genre you would place the likes of Mogwai, Belle n sebastian And Arab Strap,
I honestly don’t know! they don’t fit very neatly into a pigeonhole do they
Great question. I actually wonder if the Scottish bands fit this at all (the non English examples were all Welsh or Northern Ireland). Also Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream are super hard to classify too. The other band i was thinking of is Doves, are they the last of the great indie rock bands before things went a bit folk?
Absolutely spot on! Loved the 90’s, amazing music, apart from the shandy drinking southern bands 💪🏻🙌🏻
hahahahahahahahahaha well I bloody loved Paul W, Supergrass & the bluetones... but they were definitely not soft pop rock
Just discovered this chanel few weeks ago, don't normally comment on YT channels, but I really like this guy and what he is doing, how do I become a patreon???
Sean, thanks so much man. If you're interested in getting more involved, you can find out about the #takebackthecharts master plan here - ruclips.net/video/nOyUk-_18Qo/видео.html
And chip in to get your name in the CD here - gofund.me/0a9497ef
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar yes mate I have followed that journey got me hooked so be looking to help out as much as I can, great stuff. Cheers
Grazie.keep It up mad4it!
Thanks so much for your support :)
Really appreciate it
I think this is possibly the most spot-on analysis of the Britpop umbrella. Both sub-divisions, I find also intertwine well. For example, my Britpop playlist can have Sleeper next to Shed Seven, Bluetones next to Pulp and it transitions seemlessly.
My only quirk with Britpop categorisation is the Manics as, quite simply the likes of the Generation Terrorists, G.A.T.S. and The Holy Bible sits almost in a genre of it's own.
Everything Must Go, in my opinion, sort of got lumped in to Britpop as it was more radio-friendly and happened to coincide with the height of the Britpop movement.
Yeah it’s an interesting point about the Manics. They really were a one off because they had the indie rock sound, but holy hell were their lyrics bleak!!
They shifted style a bit too from album to album, a bit Bowie-ish in that regard
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar *Radiohead has entered the chat*
Missed a few good bands out there from the era, such as Inspiral Carpets, The Farm and James ect...all in all late 80s into the 90s there was some fantastic indie bands about..and being in my early 20s from Manchester it was a great time to be alive!
Well done, mate.
Thanks uniWerks!
For me and what I think Brit pop is… British pop-rock of the early to mid 90s, that was guitar based but sometimes a touch of electronica. It was upbeat, energetic, hook driven music, that captured the more positive liberated sub culture of the time. Similar in that sense to the rave movement, hence crossover acts like the Prodigy. You had Brit pop kids at raves, and visa-versa. They were the two musical movements of that sub-culture. It was kicked off at the beginning of the 90s by The La’s and happy Mondays etc.. and defined by groups like oasis and blur, obviously, but also Pulp, Suede, James, The charloittans. It hit its peak in 95, on the doc line in 96 was dead by 97. After which there was an era/genera of post Brit pop.
90’s Brit rock acts that were definitely not Brit pop such as Radiohead and the manics lead music out of Brit pop in to post Brit pop. Those two manics albums in 96/98 and Ok computer nailed the coffin shut on Brit pop but the beginning of the end was The bends in 95. The reason I’d say, is the Brit pop audience grew up and as they did they wanted music with more substance. If you listen to the Bends you can hear all of the big groups of the post Brit pop era, which I define as the period between Brit pop (97) and the new indie movement (03), such as Stereophonics, Travis, Coldplay, Muse.
Hi James , I really like your videos. I would divide Britpop in 3 categories: Pop rock (same as yours), British trad rock (inspired by Beatles, Who, Small Faces ecc like Oasis, Las, Cast, Bluetones, OCS) and Indie rock (more alternative rock sound like Manics, Idlewild, Ash, Whipping boy, Teenage fanclub first albums, ecc).
Hi Alex - that's cool. Yeah there's definitely no set or fixed thing about my categories! And yeah your 3rd category for Alt Rock I definitely can see that one
Trad Rock was unkindly described as 'Dad Rock' at the time...
nice analysis, i also think certain bands can be divided into traditional rock (OCS, Oasis, Cast) and progressive/experimental (Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Verve, Blur)
Yeah I agree. You could probably put Radiohead into that second category too
Very true
You're the best James thank you for your insight. I learned about SuperGrass from your channel. From US.
Great video on an interesting subject!! Weird thing is i was 15 in 1992, and so if you weren't on the GNR, Metallica or Nirvana wave, you were into 'indie'. In 92 there was no Britpop, but there was indie which i never really understood at that time. Neds Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, James etc, to me they all sounded a bit wishy washy or shoe gazy, baggy jeans n t-shirts long floppy curtain hairstyles etc, so to me when Oasis, Supergrass, Cast came on the scene it felt and sounded different, like guitar rock was back in the mainstream and sounding fresh! I agree with Damon Albarn in a way, that we as Brits had got all worked up over Nirvana and maybe were overlooking what good stuff we had. I do remember 93 being the year of Suede and the Levellers and loads in school being into them. It was just a great decade to be young❤
Agree with most of this but I would put Elastica in the Indie rock side as they have quite heavy guitars. Keep up the great work!
In agreement who several other comments here, the so-called "genre" of Britpop was rejected by all the main players both at the time and today, including both Gallaghers, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, Brett Anderson and Nicky Wire. They have all at some point said things like "nah we weren't Britpop mate, we did our own unique thing" which is entirely valid, they were all unique additions to British 90s culture, and the idea of their creative work being lumped with that of their contemporaries, just because they happened to be released at the same time, must be perpetually frustrating.
However, meaning no disrespect to all of these incredible musicians, I don't think it really matters whether they consider their music to be classed as Britpop or not. The listener will categorize it however they want to. And the fuled competition certainly didn't hurt their sales did it? 😁
Because of how the word was, and still is promoted by the music press, radio DJs, nostalgic club nights, Spotify playlists etc it is now so embedded in the public consciousness that it will never die, and nor will each band's association wih it.
Great video though, makes for a fascinating discussion!
Yeah I agree, despite them all disliking the label... it stuck! And hey, after all, it doesn’t lessen their mega impact on British music in any way does it
I've never really thought of it in subcategories before but it makes total sense! while I think the divide is clear I think britpop was at its best in the few songs that bridge the crossover between the two categories
Yeah a few people have suggested that What’s The Story Morning Glory was one of those crossover records actually, which is an interesting suggestion!
I believe that a large majority of the bands that were classed as Britpop were underrated and shadowed by Oasis and Blur who kinda took the limelight away from them.
The Charlatans, Cast, Seahorses, Bluetones - so many incredible acts, I agree
Spot on the with that statement.
Really helpful vids could you do a walk through of noels live at budokan 1998 champagne supernova solo please x
Where are you from in England James?
I'm from Yorkshire 👍👍
What about these bands who all had albums back in the 90s: Teenage Fanclub, Divine Comedy, Terry Hall, Portishead, Denim, Belle & Sebastian, The Sundays, Heavenly, Saint Etienne, Trembling Blue Stars, BMX Bandits, The Gentle Waves, Comet Gain, Stereolab, Broadcast, Lush, Ride, Pale Saints, Moose, Curve, Rialto, Tindersticks, Portishead, Adventures in Stereo, and James.
Thanks James, I think your categorisation is fascinating and pretty accurate having grown up with all these bands too. The outlier bands for me in the 90s were probably Radiohead, Gomez, and the Beta Band who were kind of anti Britpop and inspired more by say Pink Floyd than the Kinks (origin of your pop rock groups), Stones or Beatles. ALL three were guitar bands in the 90s but their song structures were totally different to the indie rock groups (even The Bends has stuff on it like Street Spirit, Planet Telex, and Black Star which is totally different to what the northern groups were doing at the time)
I agree with your assessment!
Hreetings from Italy!! I learn a lot about music thanks to an endependent radio which shares here "alternative" and not Commercial music!! Thanks
Cool stuff 👍👍
Nice
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar Yeah.. Greetings from Maranello!! 👍🚗🚀
Question from a middle aged man
Did ‘Indie’ become ‘Indie Rock’ or is Indie Rock just a genre of Indie?
I always saw Britpop as a particular type of indie rock defined by an often shameless fixation with sixties British guitar bands. Things like the inclusion of mellotrons, the unmistakably British accents of the vocals and riding mopeds in music videos seemed to me to be a way of double underlining in red the fact that these bands were reviving the classic sound of British popular music.
That’s not to say British indie rock before this hadn’t sounded British, but the Britpop contingent seemed to really really want to sound and appear almost cartoonishly British, perhaps as a reaction to a lot of the popular guitar music that had happened previously such as hair metal and grunge, which were inescapably American. Even British bands in these genres tended to sing in American accents (see: Def Leppard, the Little Angels, Bush etc).
I’ve always found Britpop to be something of a mixed bag. Some bands, despite the revivalism, were still able to show some originality and write good songs. Others really were just regurgitating Beatles and Stones records with little if any fresh input of their own.
I think Britpop is just a generic term for bands around at the time, pretty much like Emo. Few of them actually sound alike.
True, it seems to just mean British bands from the 90s
How about Placebo, Radiohead and Lush are they also considered part of the Britpop movement?
If you were part of the indie, rock, Britpop club scene then all these bands were played together on any given night, so not divided. Even a bit of grunge and American bands would also get played as a counterpoint. Even at festivals it was all grouped together. With Blur's Country House its about the bands manager
Yeah, growing up in those times they were all mixed together as a melting pot. It was actually the NME who pointed out the North v South thing at first. I dunno. Personally, I still listen to both types
I think something important to mention with the British indie rock scene of the 90s is all the great shoegazing bands that preceded and bled into Britpop; My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Lush, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, Pale Saints, most of which (except MBV and Pale Saints who were from Ireland and Leeds respectively) were from the South of England, yet had a bit more of a bleak, and melancholic sound to them, with major focus on love and heartbreak, not to mention a major focus on guitar.
Yeah true. It think the shoegaze scene definitely influenced britpop
Some bands came out in the 1980s and didn't make it till the 1990s Brit pop era like Manics, Texas and Pulp always felt this was a weird.
Yeah early Manics stuff is very 80s hair metal influenced I always thought
Kinda interisting than in the states some people think of Blur as the rock band and Oasis as the pop band based on their signature hits (Song 2, Wonderwall/DLBIA)
Bands like Shed 7 Manson and Embrace were more like somewhere in the middle of the 2 categories
People argue against the term Britpop. But I'll say they're all similar in that they didn't sound American. They never called Bush Britpop. Britpop had a bit of nationalism perhaps. They didn't try to be American.
At knebworth, I remember loads of people in the audience boo-ing the Chemical Brothers (not so much the Prodigy) and sitting down. Terrible slots- middle of the day. I was the only one dancing, assisted by my own chemicals.
They say the real godfather of britpop is ray davies of the kinks
Yes I've heard lots of people say that. Talented geezer
I've only recently discovered Longpigs. I'd put them up against any of more well-known Britpop bands, but keep in mind, I'm from the US and was not aware of the cultural movement occurring in the UK, but I damn sure knew then, as now, that Oasis were so frikken good.
Good documentary this 👍
Dear Britpop dad.
I enjoyed your views. My favourite band of the era where Pulp and they sang songs about dissatisfaction in working class lives more then any of the other acts so it does seem a bit unfair putting them on the "flowery" side. Also Paul Weller did the most saccharine love song of the nineties with "You Do Something To Me", that song could give you diabetes. It's interesting as well that you place Super Fury Animals in the rock part when they would rock a TB303 as much as Daft Punk. Loving the videos BTW. Check out my "guitar band" albeit a skiffle band Black Kes, we are keeping the dream alive.
Your good friend
JT
Also have you seen Creation Stories yet? Well worth a look.
Hi JT, just followed on Spotify 👍👍
Yeah don’t get me wrong, I love Pulp! I saw them live at V96 and they were awesome. And yeah there were some love songs here and there amongst the rock fraternity... but they were quite rare compared to the pop world!
Not seen Creation Stories yet, didn’t know it was out yet
I think your right!😉👍
👍👍👍🎸🎸🎸
Britpop never existed apparently. Everyone associated with Britpop today says they were never part of it... Oasis and Blur included.
Yeah it’s mad isn’t it, so many top level bands hated that label... and yet it has stuck
as a southerner i agree with that classification or though i think catatonia lent towards the pop category.
Totally agree with 'Britpop' being more of an umbrella term. I remember Tori Amos, Garbarge & Alisha's attic being on Britpop lists. And what could be more different than Chemical bros & Kula shaker at Knebworth! It was actually the guitar bands putting a load of electronic mixes on their singles that made me lose interest in the genre.
Yeah I never viewed any EDM bands as being Britpop, just because they were mates with the Gallaghers!!!
I would add The Verve in Indie Rock group
Wish you can teach how to play Blur songs as well.
A very good and interesting video on the 90s music scene.
However, some of these bands belong to the 1980s. The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, along with many others were tarred with the Madchester brush. And were definitely well known before this explosion of music. Sally Cinnamon is a classic.
The Smiths ended even before Madchester and Johnny's younger brother "discovered" Oasis.
He even appeared on top of the pops as/with Electronic, even though he could not play an instrument. (I know people who were in class with him at school).
Agree with the below statements that "britpop" was another journalist label that ended up covering a huge amount of cultural things from fashion and tv to music.
The music was actually various genres (if you like a label) from pop through indie, rock to edm dance, trance ect (remember Pulp actually started in the late 70's) .
Also the Northern working class vs southern middle class was rubbish. If you actually look, the split between financial backgrounds of those bands was the same no matter which region of the UK they originally hailed from.
It was all irrelevant, ultimately they where all independent bands with their own style. Some we liked, some we didn't.
Can u do all the tracks recorded for D'you know what i mean
That would take 10 years just to procure them all lol
You mean be here now
I wish I could, that would be tons of fun, but they’ve never been released so it’s very hard to get at the individual stems, WTSMG has loads of bits and pieces out there, but Be Here Now? Virtually nothing, Sad times.
So basically:
indie pop = 👎
Indie rock = 🤘
Hahahaha I like both myself, but I admit indie rock is the style I actually relate to personally and the kind of music I write too
One thing about the whole britpop caper that wound me up was when bands changed their sound to pander to the britpop boom - i was a mere tween at the time but hearing bands like Ride and Lush drastically change their sound got me an angry wee fella.
Yeah it's always difficult when bands compromise who they are to jump on a bandwagon. What makes it even more difficult is when they inadvertently produce great music by doing so hahahahahahahs (screamadelica by primal scream being a good example of this)
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar absolutely. Completely understand the need to shift units by fitting into trends. More often than not it goes wrong tho and ends up causing a backlash from the band/artists followers. It just so happened with 2 bands i loved at the time and it wound me up to no end. Yeah too invested for a 12 year old no doubt, shoegaze/dream pop was not hip but britpop now was. Understand it completely i just didnt like what it did to some bands and the output that came from it was cringeworthy - even at the time. I cant imagine what that Ride album sounds like now, i would never listen, also someone put Ladykiller on at a house party i was at a few years back and i lost my shit because the person clearly had no clue who or what lush were before that garbage. I have a problem, i know lol
@@derekgray644 Hahahahahahaha you've got to be passionate about your music... I feel that
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar haha yeah mate, and ever so slightly emotionally unstable apparently lol. Cheers man.
I think britpop just means how British music dominated popular music from 94-97. Completely led by oasis
I'd agree, but I'd stretch the dates a little wider, '93-99 for me (you could even say earlier if you counted the La's, which came out in 90)
@@JamesHargreavesGuitar possibly starts in 93 but I was thinking sheer domination it has to be 94-97. Rap took over in 98 with DMX and JayZ then Eminem came in. I don’t think any rock album or artists since 97 oasis was selling like X Jigga or Em
I think Grunge may have played a part in the term Britpop being coined to unify the british army against the american bands that broke after Nirvana.
I’m American so I sort of get why there had to be a north vs south divide in Britpop. I totally get how Blur & Suede rejected Seattle Grunge, to give the public something people could identify with. But Oasis then had the confidence in themselves to be the biggest band of the time. Once Cobain was gone, nothing we had here was ever going to be as big. But as you say, the north south divide might be which side you were on. But the success might have had its price. Pulp, Oasis, Suede & Blur found this out the hard way. All the other bands as good as they were could never be the legends. They made an album or 3 and vanished.
By the time it was 98/99, people wanted something else. The Strokes or White Stripes. And 9/11 had shaken things up in the new century.
I'm American and never asked but often wondered wtf a Magic Pie is.
No one remember Black Grape?
Tough one to define . For me it started as reaction to US grunge domination in the early 90s and dance music at home . This meant all Guitar bands that sounded British got lumped together . Do think there is probably something in your definitions but it’s not quite so cut and dry . Ace Thought provoking discussion though 👍
I would say your right great video ❤️ but think brit pop will always associated Oasis and there sound
Yeah there’s no getting away from the fact that, despite the big bands not really liking the ‘Britpop’ label, it has well and truly stuck!!
i feel like if you try and think of a “britpop” sound it literally just doesn’t exist. every band was far too different.
Yeah I agree - it was a large umbrella term. On the ground however most people just go '90s British guitar bands' - although again, that is still a massive umbrella term covering loads of genres
The new Labour movement got tied up with britpop right ? I was too young at the time to remember but I remember seeing Noel on tv in Downing Street. Maybe that’s why people conflate britpop
Yeah Noel was invited to 10 Downing Street by Tony Blair, and he went along with Alan McGee. Mad times
ya nailed it
Being from the states I just figured it all as Brit-Pop. :p Of course not the chemical brothers or the prodigy. And I'll probably get hate for this, but a lot of the late 80s 90s british bands, kind of sounded the same to me. Unless if was more punk like elastica or even garbage.
Lol it's all good. Yeah I think being right here in the UK in the middle of it, you got both sides of the coin - the music being one side, and the various cultural movements being the other. Without the context of the music it is possible to, sadly, lose some of the meaning
I think Britpop refers to a period of time rather than a definable sound i.e. 94-96 and it's so narrow I wouldn't have referred to a lot of those bands mentioned there as Britpop i.e. stone roses, the la's, stereophonics or manics......but I would have labelled Oasis, Cast, Embrace, bluetones, dodgy, as well as the southern "pop" bands as Britpop. Weirdly even though the charlatans and verve were around before and after, they never seemed part of that scene.
I think your definition is probably the best way of looking at it as I hated the word "Britpop" and still do!
I do divide the genre in that way but i would switch the names around. I think that your indie rock is the more popular and therefore 'pop'. I might be a bit bias tho as I prefer your pop rock.
fair play, I actually like both styles
Hmmm it's a tough one.
You don't have to have the solution
You've got to understand the problem
I've always considered the term Britpop meaningless & never use it.
Yeah it has become so broad that it almost means nothing
This should be a college course.
I agree!
Aren't oasis closer to the rock end of things
So where to the likes of Daisy Chainsaw, The Longpigs or Salad fit in to the Britpop/Britrock categories, or even bands like These Animal Men or Kingmaker. Difficult to define them. Then if you bundled a band like Lush, they straddled ans pulled from many a Genre: Shoegaze, Alternative rock, Dream pop, Britpop, Noise pop, Jazz, Alternative/Indie, Pop, Hip-Hop/Rap
I saw Daisy Chainsaw at our local mainstream high street club in the middle of the week. It was hilarious. They were off their tits.
You make a valid point. Longpigs and Salad definitely britpop. Not top tier but definitely in there.
I wish we could lose 'Brit-pop', it was a crap name given unthinkingly by some nameless journalist at the time just before anyone could come up with something decent. It said nothing about the type of music played.
I would describe Oasis and Charlatans etc as Soft, Soul Rock and maybe blur should have a term describing their 'punk-lite' type of nature, idk. So I would get rid of Brit-Pop completely myself, it made it sound like a shiny product and a sort of unified movement, which it never was.
Yeah it's a funny thing, most of the bands rejected the name, but it just stuck nonetheless
parklife is well a lads album
Yeah it is. Blur were funny because they went back and forth style-wise. Parklife was one way, Great Escape was the opposite, then the self-titled album was similar to parklife again. Was interesting
When I listen to Oasis, I listen to hard and loud rock music with elements of psychedelic and shoegaze and has absolutely nothing to do with Britpop.
Surely you can’t call Stone Roses and The Smiths BritPop?
I guess every genre always has songs.or.acts.that are.either hard-core or pop.
60 Ft Dolls missing from your Welsh list.
I like some of the britpop bands like Blur, Plup, Supergrass, Suede were brilliant, but unfortunately 1990s britpop did ruin indie music in general
During the same time you had 3 Colours Red, Therapy?, Manic Street Preachers, Wildhearts, Placebo, Feeder, Skunk Anansie, Ash, Idlewild, Symposium, Stereophonics, Terrorvision were in Britrock camp and them you had other bands like Cable, Mogwai, Bob Tilton, AC Acoustics, Ligament, Elevate, Quickspace Supersport, prolapse were just doing there own thing in the indie rock community.
Shine 3
James you missed out James