Britpop Calling

[theblueboy]

I'm listening to a lot of Britpop lately on a bit of nostalgia trip and also to fill in some blanks in my knowledge from this time. Thought it would be fun to try to keep a log with some thoughts on the albums. Eventually I will do some sort of a chart.

Recs, thoughts, gripes all welcome.

[theblueboy]

I am going to try to avoid too much flag waving here. Britpop was probably two spoonfuls of fun to one spoonful of annoying. People outside of the UK (and those within it) who find it all a bit up itself are welcome to say so. I'm not too emotionally invested here (yet...)

[theblueboy]

Trainspotting by various artists
Year: 1996
BEA rank: 23,602

That was fun. One of the rare occasions where a film soundtrack sounds just as good when you are not watching the film. Maybe even holds up better than the film.

Strictly speaking not a Britpop album but quite a few Britpop bands on there and it's bloody well Britpop in attitude if you ask me.

Mile End by Pulp and Sing by Blur are among their best tracks. Still sound great. This album sounds really good from start to finish and flows nicely.

[theblueboy]

Different Class by Pulp
Year: 1995
BEA rank: 166

I have not figured out how to do nice big album pics yet

This one was ranked as Pitchfork's best Britpop album they did on a (slightly less than impressive) list a while ago.

I've heard it a few times before and liked the odd track but never got into it as a whole. Actually this time I enjoyed it more. The first few tracks were hard to get into though I like the lyrics to "Pencil Skirt". Really enjoyed the second half of the album though. "Something Changed" is really sweet and prompted a little bit of a boogie. "F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E." is pure drama and totally hits the mark and has the kind of ambition that very few Britpop bands could pull off.

Not one of my favourite Britpop albums yet but could get there. Pulp may be the campest Britpop band. Once you appreciate that I think they are a lot of fun.

[theblueboy]

Here is a link to Pitchfork's best Britpop albums I think it's ok. There are some helpful choices, but the top 10 is disappointing to me. It just doesn't seem to capture what Britpop was about. The Bends? Blur (the album)? Urban Hymns? Good albums but not especially Britpop to me.

[theblueboy]

Drawn to the Deep End by Gene
Year:1997
BEA rank: 8,209

There's not much I can say that can pluck this one from relative obscurity, but I enjoyed listening to it. For a while people were excited about Gene, but this came at the tail end of the classic Britpop years and I think it was soon forgotten about.

It's a straight forward enough album of tuneful guitar pop. What I ike about this is the big crunchy guitars (which still sound surprisingly impressive), along with consistently strong tunes that all seem to tug on the heart strings a little. I wasn't blown away but I thought the songwriting was impressive.

[theblueboy]

Elastica by Elastica.
Year: 1995
BEA rank: 1,890

I missed this one at the time though some songs are familiar to me. I think this was about as popular as Britpop got in America. Maybe because the punkier sound was more familiar to this audience (not so far from bands like Green Day).

After a few listens I am really getting into it. Even though I missed it at the time, this album really takes me back to the excitement of mid-90s Britpop. Great punk pop energy and strong hooks. Reminds me of Supergrass' debut, which is a good thing. "Connection" is a contender for the most exciting Britpop song of them all. Some songs are probably better than others but everything sounds good or better.

[theblueboy]

Conundrum for the day: is Britpop a genre?

I would say probably not. More of a scene than a genre. There's quite a lot of diversity in the sound and influences oon bands considered Britpop and some things strike me as being quite Britpop just becuse of the attitude of the bands and because they were around at the time.

I think Britpop was about making distinctively British sounding pop-music (well, duh!) and the bands clearly wanted to make upbeat, catchy music and get famous. It's often seen as a reaction against Grunge and Shoegazer and I think it is a reaction against the "seriousness" of a lot of the late 80s and early 90s alternative bands in general.

After listening to more serious albums for a bit, its quite refreshing to be listening to this stuff. To keep it interesting, I think I may need to broaden the scope of this diary though to take in some other 90s pop as well, particularly whilst I'm getting all nostalgic

[bobbyb5]

I remember that period for having a whole shitload of albums they were kind of like one hit wonders. Lot of them i remember really fondly. Not that they were the best or anything, I just really liked them anyways. I remember these ones the best. I had albums by all these people and I liked them:

Echobelly
Lush
Cornershop
Sleeper
Kula Shaker
James
Ash
Stereophonics
Spacehog
Dandys
Placebo
Suede
Dodgy
Black grape
Sneaker Pimps

And then of course there's the more famous big names. But I was just thinking of ones that may have been forgotten.

[bobbyb5]

This is a band that most people seem to hate, but this here is one of my favorite albums of all time. I like it better than any other britpop album. And it had a single that was actually a big hit in the States that made it onto radio and everything. And if I recall the album was a bigger hit here than any Oasis or Blur album. Although those bands were fairly popular here too


Resident Alien by Spacehog