I grew up hating Blur; affected, effete, bourgeois southern softies, bête noires to the authentic working-class heroes of Oasis, a band I so loved as a teenager. From the perspective of my adolescent self, Damon Albarn and his coterie of mockney class tourists peddled a condescendingly sophisticated brand of arty rock music, in comparison to […]
Blur albums, ranked (part I) Read More »
I consider myself something of a connoisseur when it comes to synthpop, and yet I had never listened to or really knew much about Alphaville’s debut album Forever Young until quite recently. I was familiar with the title track and some of the singles, of course, but I assumed that these were merely one hit
Forever Young by Alphaville (1984) Read More »
I was a mere 12 years old during the heyday of Britpop, so I only came to an appreciation of its doyens much later, in my mid-20s, long after their creative powers had irretrievably faded. But what I didn’t fully grasp until relatively recently was the extent to which Britpop had been done before –
The Birth of Britpop: Five Essential Albums Read More »
Radiohead are not my favourite band (though they’re in the top five), they’re not the most historically significant in rock history (though they’re in the top five), but I can see that, maybe, they are the best. They made nine albums, one of which is a dud, two of which are pretty great, and fully
OK Computer by Radiohead (1997) Read More »
There’s no doubt that the doyens of Britpop got plenty of airplay and sold millions of records, but it was ex-Take That stripper Robbie Williams who rendered the genre’s mischievous, sarcastic, glammy, but also aggressive and obstreperous ethic into something smoother, more radio friendly, more accessible to a broader market. In the US, grunge was
Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette (1995) Read More »
Brett Anderson was Britpop’s androgynous sex pest, Damon Albarn its brattish mockney jester, the Gallagher brothers its scowling rock’n’roll hardmen. Jarvis Cocker, meanwhile, was the witty, dishevelled, malnourished academic, raging against class injustice while finding time to shag thirsty undergraduates in between gin-soaked lectures. It’s a tale as old as time, and Jarvis played his
Different Class by Pulp (1995) Read More »
Britain in 1995. The Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War is but a distant memory, the Islamic terrorism of the coming decade a mere twinkle in Osama bin Laden’s eye. Grunge has been vanquished, Kurt Cobain has passed on, but Princess Diana is very much alive. Chris Evans has his own Friday night cartoon
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis (1995) Read More »
“If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge”. Suffice to say, a lot of aspiring British musicians, including Damon Albarn, were understandably proud of their small, miserable, rain-swept island’s foundational contribution to rock music, and they were less than pleased about the invasion of flannel-wearing, heroin-addicted American rockers, descending
Parklife by Blur (1994) Read More »
The success of Nevermind and the buzz around Nirvana created ample opportunities for similarly dishevelled and disgruntled guitar acts to reclaim the upper reaches of the charts from the strutting sirens of 80s synth pop. Far from recognising kindred spirits and potential allies, though, the newly anointed King Kurt imperiously impugned their motives, insinuating in
Ten by Pearl Jam (1991) Read More »
From the perspective of guitar bands, Nevermind blew the bolted doors of commercial success off their hinges and, predictably enough, Nirvana’s imitators and aficionados speedily flooded through the newly opened breach and into the charts. Alice in Chains, however, were no Nirvana clones. Yes, it was inevitable that they would be lumped in with the
Dirt by Alice in Chains (1992) Read More »