It was the best of times, it was…the very best of times. It’s just a shame it was given such a dreadful name.
“It’s a stupid word, in’t it, Britpop,” mused Jarvis Cocker back in 1995, from his vantage point at the newly coined Britpop epicenter. “Britpopnow!” he scoffed. “It’s just something for journalists to write about. But there’s no denying there’s now more chance of decent stuff getting in the charts, it’s come out from the margins of (withering look) ‘indie’, which is obviously great.”
History has not been kind to Britpop, hazily recalled as a dreary, retro, musically worthless blip, a black and white landscape dominated by beery blokes forever blubbing on a Beatles box set. Alright, some of that was true and the Gallaghers must take the heat. But for the next two weekends in London, when Pulp play Finsbury Park (July 1) and Blur play Wembley Stadium (July 8,9), a reappraisal will surely emerge: widen the lens and the mid-90s Britpop era was dominated, in fact, by gifted songwriters, fluorescent orange rayon shirts and a kaleidoscopic spectrum of maverick spirits indeed barging in from the margins and redefining what a No.1 pop star could be.
It began, as revolutions usually do, as a reaction, in this case to the early 90s American grunge years, a kitsch-pop mentality bending towards the light as London defiantly swung against the incoming, glam-free, existential angst. Across the city me and my friends, mostly 20-something women who’d fled the provinces for London, were part of a chaotic rabble of creative dreamers – journalists, bands, music PRs, photographers, designers, independent record label personnel and sundry opportunistic chancers, all drinking together and plotting together under the electric-pink neon signature sign of the Astoria’s ‘Keith Moon Bar’.
A creative belief system merged with fearless audacity, hedonism and uncontrollable laughter
Dressing up, jokes and irreverence were redefining the atmosphere, club nights in pubs shooting up like beanstalks in a barren British landscape: whether Blow Up at Camden’s Laurel Tree, cradle in ’93 of yet another Mod Revival, where punters danced on the pool table alongside members of Blur, Elastica, Gene, riot grrl fem-punks Huggy Bear and the besuited toddlers who would become Menswear, or The Heavenly Social at the Albany pub, Great Portland Street, in ’94. Here, the Chemical Brothers were launched, then Dust Brothers, their euphoric acid-techno-hip-hop DJ sets elevating flailing punters onto windowsills, a tiny basement room where poppers was gleefully pumped into the atmosphere. Equally delirious was Club Smashing on Regent Street, billed as a home to “freaks, ghouls and trannies”, while the lit-up ‘Billie Jean’ dancefloor would eventually appear in Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ in 1995. Ecstasy, meanwhile, was everywhere (at £20 a tab), the cocaine bonanza imminent, in a London which felt, as it had done so often before, like the centre of the cultural universe.
And that was before the immortal music turned up. For we Britpop revellers, the biggest musical entities were now also the best, ’94 and ’95 alone bringing us Oasis Definitely Maybe, Blur Parklife, Pulp His ’N’ Hers, Portishead Dummy, Massive Attack Protection, The Prodigy Music For The Jilted Generation, Oasis (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, Blur The Great Escape, Pulp A Different Class, Supergrass I Should Coco, Leftfield Leftism, Elastica Elastica, the Chemical Brothers Exit Planet Dust, Tricky Maxinquaye, Radiohead The Bends, Black Grape, It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah!, Goldie Timeless, The Charlatans The Charlatans… Most of these albums were No.1, made by maverick minds who were similarly dubious about the “Britpop” labelled era, the one they were all now spectacularly flourishing in.
In September ’95 I interviewed Chicago’s rock ‘n’ roll reality dodgers Urge Overkill in Los Angeles, a trio of dedicated Anglophiles who’d finally inched into the mainstream themselves via their spaghetti-swing cover of Neil Diamond’s ‘Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon’ from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. They were Britpop scholars, who’d particularly loved Supergrass’s insanely chipper ‘Alright’ that summer, who intermittently roared, with narcotic intention, “I should coco!” before pirouetting off to the loo.
“The last time we were in Britain, it was Glastonbury all over the country,” marvelled lead singer Nash ‘National’ Kato, a retro-kitsch caricature in a tailored white suit, plunging blonde hair and enormous white oval shades.
“Something is happening that’s really cool, the vibe, and it’s not happening here [in America],” he noted. “It’s more than just cool bands, it’s a cyclical thing. In between ’91 and ’92, people forgot that rock music was supposed to be fun: it went from ‘feel my pants’ to ‘feel my pain’ and now the guard is changing again. So, would you like to feel my pants? From London, of course.”
This was also the year Tim Burgess from The Charlatans toppled down the lengthy stairway of a Soho boozer, emerged onto a pavement, splayed himself on top of a stranger’s car bonnet bawling ‘Champagne Supernova’ and couldn’t remember where he lived. Not even that he lived in London. Years later, in 2011, we’d recall the lunacy of that day. “The 90s were our 70s, really, weren’t they?” he cackled, a man who encouraged friends (evidently very good friends) to blow cocaine up his backside in those demented mid-90s days.
Where there wasn’t one band, solo artist or superstar DJ who defined the Britpop era, there was an attitude that did, an autonomous, DIY, creative belief system merged with limitless ambition, fearless audacity and the life-affirming properties of hedonism, friendship, and uncontrollable laughter. No wonder Noel Gallagher once said, about the very purpose of Oasis, “it’s a celebration of the euphoria of life”. Liam, of course, had his own take: “Oasis is all about freedom.”
It was Pulp, though, who created the most musically affecting moment of them all: ‘Common People’, at the close of their Glastonbury ’95 impromptu headline appearance (after a bike accident scuppered the Stone Roses). Towards the song’s crescendo, as the stabbing keyboards began building-building-building and Jarvis delivered those furious words, “Watching roaches climb the wall/If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah!”, 100,000 human beings were lifted into the air, hollering in unison, po-going as one, a crackling kinetic force field threatening to catapult the festival straight into outer space. Then, as the triumphant Pulp left the stage, Underworld’s newly released ‘Born Slippy (NUXX)’ flickered out towards us, its hypnotic opening notes giving way to the pulverising kick drum and the crowd, now, went even more berserk, 200,000 legs pumping like pistons, arms in the sky, delirious, sobbing, with the joy and surrender of transcendental abandon. And in that moment, of that night, that summer, with this crowd, this music, and this generation, it felt like the freaks, geeks and weirdos were winning again, a moment in history as inspirational, significant, and revolutionary as any of the counterculture movements had been to the generations before. We didn’t know it, then, but this would be the last great rock ‘n’ roll era, the last reckless, carefree party. At least, though, we had one more rollicking year of it: Orbital, Lush, Manic Streets Preachers, Dodgy, Jarvis wafting his backside at Michael Jackson at the Brit Awards ’96…
1997 changed everything, Radiohead’s brilliant, portentous, prophetic OK Computer signalled the party comedown, the drugs turned heavy (heroin and ketamine turned up), while the drooping Britpop flag bearers were now Hounslow’s weedy Bluetones. That year, Blur’s fabled bon viveur Alex James sat in his once spiritual London home, the Groucho Club, and contemplated the end of those preposterously heady years. “Me and Graham used to get drunk together, that’s all we did, take acid and go on the radio and just blow raspberries because it’s funny,” he reminisced. He pondered why he believed, so much, in booze and narcotic oblivion. “It’s the chaos, the recklessness, the way everything becomes so random,” he decided. “Suddenly you’re all in a taxi going to . . . Belgium! It should never be the main thing, but there’s nothing like being drunk and irresponsible and brilliant, is there?”
There’ll be maverick minds but culturally and financially few will be able to be drunk, irresponsible and brilliant
Next year, it will 30 years since Britpop emerged and culture, naturally, is unrecognisable. Music is no longer at the centre of youth culture, The Phone is, while our beleaguered Generation Z are media-catastrophised, apocalyptic thinkers who see a planet on fire, know the world is run by crooks and have their mental health tested daily by the digital age which formed them. Theirs is the generation of TikTok influencers, social justice warriors and activists, of “multi-hyphenate” artists and non-binary musicians, plotting their own version of the revolution, with youthful energy to burn. As Nash Cato noted, everything is cyclical, and today it’s back to “feel my pain”. There will be maverick minds among them, especially in London, perennial cradle of the youthquake, but today, both culturally and perhaps especially financially, few are quite so willing, or able, to be drunk, irresponsible and brilliant.
The music industry, meanwhile, as the money disappeared in the streaming era, has chased its own tail for years, forever replicating the last hit, the last fleeting phenomenon, seeking not the new but the bankable and dependable, the very opposite of the maverick outsider. But the wheels of the cycle will turn, in some kind of new direction, bringing some kind of new reaction, once again.
Meanwhile, these upcoming Pulp and Blur shows might just change some young people’s lives, show them that the revolution isn’t just about rage, justice and the toppling of institutions. It’s also about the power of like minds converging, about a colossal sing-along celebration with your friends, community and city. It was last summer when Pulp announced this reformation tour and Nick Banks, their chipper drummer, tweeted: “Stay calm, hug your #pulp records and dream of going mental sometime in 2023.”
Oh, go on then.
