Scott Plagenhoef's "Rise and Fall of Britpop"

By the time Brit pop was happening I was 16 and more into Berlin-era Bowie, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, and Throbbing Gristle. Contemporary Britain was not as interesting as the England of 1976 that Jon Savage had presented in England's Dreaming. 70's punk rock was far more compelling than anything happening in London. A year or two later Green Day blew up and it because a big money making extravaganza. Techno Showed up in 1995 and it was over...

I found the presentation of the context of 80's indie ideology to be interesting. There is obviously a continuum there, but I had never taken the time to trace the lines. It might have a few flaws, but I think it is a valuable overview if nothing else. I learned plenty from it myself. I am about to find out if Disco Inferno is any good. ;)

i know all those words but this makes no sense

Which, I dunno, is strange to me now, because it's almost completely vanished from my head that there was a point where I really liked Gene. In fact, I remember sitting in a coffeehouse in Michigan with a bunch of friends, and this guy Sergio had just come back from the UK, and in this serious world-changing tone he explained how he'd seen this band called Oasis, and they didn't have a record yet, but they were going to be __________. No skepticism from me.

One thing to note: it took me a while after that to realize how different this all looked from an American perspective. For most of the people I knew, the big Britpop bands didn't seem hugely separate from the more abstracted non-Britpop ones. Listening to Blur, listening to 4AD stuff, listening to any British music, it all felt like a continuum, which was another part of why the cultural aspect of Britpop flew right overhead -- I picked up on jungle and trip-hop from those weeklies in the same way I bought the Menswear record. (It's sort of cute, but Ned's insane for liking it as much as he does.) No politics attached, which made it all a lot funnier.

Hey!

I think the article's pretty strong on the Britpop heyday (which I tried to ignore at the time) but I’m not very convinced by the way the article deals with (what Scott calls) “the traditions of the UK’s underground music traditions”. I think it's kind of summed up by Nabisco's phrase above: "...I was most interested in 80s British indie - Smiths, Cure, New Order, Bunnymen". I would have laughed at that as a definition of British indie in, say, 1987 and I get the feeling that it's that sort of broad-brush picture Scott's using. This bit, in particular, would need looking at and re-thinking:

"...As Britpop became more and more popular, however, it soon repositioned its ground zero influence as 1963, as opposed to its earlier almost fanatical rejection of the 60s rock canon.

The earliest Britpop groups had a sphere of influence that stretched back to the early 70s that incorporated the more arty side of leftfield rock and pop: glam, Sparks, 10cc, Wire, Magazine, Two-Tone, the Smiths, My Bloody Valentine. They didn’t associate populism with quality either in those they admired or their own work but weren’t adverse to the charts or hamstrung by the hand-wringing over fundamentalist ethoses as their 80s indie progeny. Later, this would be almost entirely the opposite. Part of the blame is that the previous attempts by the British to refine American music usually dressed sounds that were closer to their rhythmic roots. This time they took already whitewashed copies of originals and made yet another copy."

I disagree with this in lots of ways, and here are a few: (a) the whole "averse to the charts" thing is a dreadful old canard, (b) Oasis were every bit as fundamentalist as pretty much any indie act from 85-88, I'd say (c) I don't think Britpop in the 90s was about refining American music (d) a lot of the people who came out of (at least one part of) the 80s indie world into Britpop were deeply interested in 60s pop and rock, that was the route out of a shrinking and disappointing indie world for a lot of them (er, us). I recall Caff fanzine telling us to get ready for the folk rock revival, and how Caff was the first place I ever saw hipsters (hipsters in a good way, you understand) going on about the Beach Boys.

Assuming Scott meant ‘predecessors’ rather than progeny (I always like to say that I don’t like the Velvet Underground because they’re too influenced by the Pastels, but I don’t think that’s what Scott’s doing here), at least half of his ‘first wave’ of Britpop: Pulp, Saint Etienne, Blur, Suede, Elastica, the Auteurs, World of Twist, Denim were connected one way or another with a line of mod/60s obsessed British pop which can be traced from the first mod revival of the late 70s though Treacy / Ball / Whaam / Creation /etc etc… that’s a tradition which would never have had anything to do with the Cure or the Bunnymen (except perhaps in their earliest days). Much of Britpop is clearly in that tradition, and it’s possible to see Britpop as a brief and dramatic time in the sun for that world. Which begs the question: what was different? “Better songs in the mid-90s is not an admissible comment.

(these are all the same point, actually) (also scott may well have dealt with it/them, i haven't read the piece yet as am at work)

(sorry mike!)

It's just one of those movements that has really been discussed to death at this point (I think that has more to do with why this thread isn't taking off, considering we've just recently had two threads within the past month about Britpop.) and it's hard to have a fresh outlook that hasn't already been discussed as in the Last Party or Live Forever or whatever else.

I was dipping in the Creation book last night at my mate's house as we were burning demos. I really need to give that a thorough read one of these days.

"BritPop" with a capital B seems kind of like the pimple head bursting through of a lot of things which were ruminating around at the time and just before. Too bad so much of what we saw was just the puss.

Dunno about the Levellers clones bit. In 85-87 our indie enemies were tedious post-Bunnymen rockers, and thrashalong hardcore boneheads, and goths. Mark's right in that the key to this - or one of the keys - is the difference between each of the various paths out of punk. Primal Scream may have been re-writing "Forever Changes" but they were deeply concerned that it was still punk rock. Anyone who read "Hungry Beat" or "Are You Scared To Get Happy", which was a lot of people in that small world, knew all about this.

just saw tim's post - ISNT ALL WHAT YOU WERE UP AGAINST, APTLY DESCRIBED AS LEVELLER MUSIC - THE HIGH TEDIUM OF IT ALL, NMA, ETC.....

i think the whole period of that time, *was* exciting ...

eg: the route *i* took out of this impasse, into wire etc (= cross point of afro- and world-pop, jazz, the avant-garde, post hardcore US alt-rock, what wd become electronica)

i wd still i think defend this as less OVERTLY reactionary than the creation line (HOWEVER, personal taste aside, why retro-fetishing ornette, say, is an improvement on retro-fetishing love i'm not sure i could say — tho ornette wz of course putting out NEW and GREAT rkds in the mid-80s) (in fact my boss at wire in those days, r.c00k, wz in fact much more pro retro-fetishing of 60s arcana than me)

I feel uncomfortable just calling all that stuff Leveller music Dooms, much as I am inclined to denigrate it. We'd label them all hippies in their various ways, but that too was mostly about marking ourselves out as the real inheritors of the punk, er, attitude.

(pls note when I say 'we' I'm really talking about my & my adolescent farm-indie friends all hopped up on fanzines and seven inch singles and taking it all much more seriously than the people who were ACTUALLY THERE probably did but then this is U&K too cf the whole history of pop ever)

'doomy grey grunge' offered up some interesting music; mudhoney, nirvana, etc. the fact is that britpop died when it was beginning to be associated with doomy grey britpop as well cf: oasis be here now. fuck. i have to get that awful album again.

(ie lack of grace and generosity in victory) (cf never mind the buzzcox ew spew)

http://www.drownedinsound.com/article.php?id=6949

(From a review of The Last Party)

I found nothing interesting in grunge. Not a sausage.

just think about jesus and mary chain and the massive uproar they caused at the time ... obviously something needed to be done about the music scene in britain as it was not comparable to the 80s american underground. which people don't often think about - but alan, primals, etc were good mates and opened for many of their shows of rain parade, butthole surfers, etc.

and the writer didnt even factor in the paisley underground - the other retro-movement that came out of la punk!!

you didnt find anything interesting in grunge because you werent a teen living in a small town without anything to do. fuck, if only cobain was around when i was twelve. grunge outlasted all that britpop crap and eventually influenced it: blur s/t.

You wanna bet? You have NO IDEA where I grew up.

The fact that I DID spent most of my teen years in a tiny town with nothing to do made me despise grunge all the more. I wanted to GET THE FUCK OUT and go somewhere interesting and vibrant, not wallow in slacker mire.

How much so was Britpop an oppositional movement, how much antagonism and us-vs-them was there? What caused the us-vs-them?

kurt is beautiful. he would have been my rock'n'roll jesus christ if he had been invented during my early adolscence. instead, i favoured perry farrell, primal scream and gibby haynes.

Too true. My mates were all into grunge from 1992 straight through 1996 with little variation or change, and Britpop was frowned upon by any of my friends who were really 'into' music (interesting that only one or two of my mates from that time who were into music still are, and how they've broadened out now). I remember getting In Sides by Orbital in April 1996 and thinking "fuck me, this is so much better than Cast/OCS/whoever, why are we still being fed that shit when stuff this beautiful exists?"

The JAMC spoke far more to me than Nirvana ever could, and they were more aesthetically and sexually pleasing to me.

If Kurt had had leather trousers, a decent haircut and some Phil Spector production, I might have given him a chance. But he didn't, and he's not interesting to me.

Don't even fucking THINK of bringing class into this, Doomie. Just don't even go there.

(provisional thesis: there is in fact NO ASPECT OF BRIT LIFE which isn't primarily shaped by past-sell-by-date "us-vs-them" argts)

Mark was your route the un-pop route available when you no longer needed to feel that the music was yours and you were the music because you'd done that already? It's also a schismatic difference in scriptural analysis isn't it:

Mark P: So what are you doing this for?
Subway Sect: We hate rock!
Mark S: Ah! I will listen to afro- and world-pop, jazz, the avant-garde, post hardcore US alt-rock, what wd become electronica
Tim: Ah! We will make POP for ourselves

Dooms, part of the sixties love also = Jam love, though, and they (the papers) told us that Orange Juice sounded like the Byrds!

Also, not sure about your "reaction to NMA et al" point re: early Creation stuff, my suspicion is that they were a convenient enemy for a ready-made idea.

(oops i did!)

w.very few exceptions i can't think of a pop/rock movement in the UK which didn't gain its force and energy from being a bohemian cross-class HAVEN (whatever its actual rhetoric) vs the more arid/barren class monoliths of its supposed foes (but again this wz always more true in rhetoric than fact)

the energy of most UK bands/groups with any lasting vigour derives from cross-class friction/dissonance WITHIN the band (i'm tempted to say all)

Tim I will have to think abt yr question on the bus.

and everyone knows that arthur lee and the byrds are the ONLY punk rock groups around! ; - )

I think I recall Foster badmouthing those people in Jamming! and Gillespie doing pretty much the same in the NME. Also you give paisley underground too much credit, the Jasminks were just as capable of going back to some of the 60s sources as the Rain Parade were (they told us Orange Juice were like the Byrds!).

We may be drifting OT just a tiny touch btw.

I would be glad, of course, to copy anything in return that I have that you might want.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Like I'd have anything you don't...

The Creation route wasn't much good - good intentions spoiled by really really lame bands like Weather prophets/BBPow/etc etc. Jasmine Minks were good though.

(reaches for smelling salts) in all my years, I had never remotely considered a connection between "Jet Fighter" and "Stuka." Goddamn, does this mean Steve Wynn/Dream Syndicate gets to be Lou Reed/VU after all? And were the Pandoras really the prototype for Elastica?

Then again, I did vote for Redd Kross as the 21st century Big Star...

of course i meant the early beginnings of primal scream/stone roses. and redd kross were my big star before i knew that big star exsisted. but now the scruff are...

*(= i am punXoR)

my idea of wire was i think pretty rigorously morleyist (except w.a penmanite attitude to "black" music?); as contrast simon r's morleyism at mm (= swellsyite attitude to "black" music haha)

Tom once very insightfully drew the distinction between those of us who make "pop" in our own image (i.e. we love pop as against rock so we make a world where what we love is more or less congruent to "pop not rock") and those of us who accept "pop" as a given genre. But he's gone to Glastonbury like a hippy so his opinion is void.

(or maybe tim can)

*Can't. I think I understand what he's talking about but not to the point of writing the blinking dictionary.

*if private, what is tim h doing on my lawn? get off sir, or i'll set the dogs on you, see if i don't!!

I am not on your lawn I am in the tube beneath it.