THE BRITPOP ERA

A mouvement in
the Middle of the
Nineties in the UK
How the youngsters had fun in the 90s?

• The youngsters could be devided in 3 parts:

• Those who weren’t music fan at all.
• Those who were fan of electronic music like disco
music, acid-house, and so on. They spent the Friday-
Saturday nights in clubs. They were on alcool or on
Extasy, or on nothing at all.
• Those who were fan of guitar music, they spent the
free nights in clubs of usually big cities and summer
festivals, and they were on alcool, LSD, heroin,
cocain, or mostly on „grass”. Or nothing ..?
Imported music from US
In the first part of the 90’s, before the
expension of internet, the teenagers
captured music from the MTV.
What could we watch there that days?
Among Madonna, Mariah Carry, Whitney
Houston, Prince, Vanilla Ice and Michael
Jackson, the faces that everyone knows
from the world of POP, we had the rude
guitar sounds of America: Nirvana, Pearl
Jam, and Faith No More. Nirvana’s Curt
Cobain with Smells like teen spirit was
played 10 times a day… It had a huge
influence in Europe and in the UK.
(I got borded of that, just like of plaid t-shirts…)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg
 Why the Us bands were dominated?
• Ok. There were some UK pop&rock stars as well: Annie
Lennox, the KLF, Take That, East 17, Elton John, George
Michael and Sting, and somehow ‘the olds’ like Rod
Stewart and Paul MacCarteney… and from the darker side
there were The Cure, Depeche Mode and the Irish U2.
BUT: All of them has been too popular for so long time that
they were unable to really move the heartbeats of the
young generation… May be one band brought some
‘Unbelievable’ felling: EMF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfCLt0kTd5E
All day US grunge, but what was on MTV
at Midnight?
• Alternative Nation was at midnight, and once a week, there were
taken 120 Minutes, theese two programs were engough for those
who wanted something else then ‘Loser’ Us grunge (after Beck’s
song), disco and grunge: independent (indie), non-commercial
aimed music factories, but real, playback-free guitar music!!!
• There were an amount of subgenres of these UK bands:
„Madchester bands”: Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, Stone
Roses, The Charlatans, so a lots of bands unkown for Central
European people…
• It was a renaissance of the music of the 60s.
• There were post-punks, called sometimes indie-punks, and a band
apart: Carter USM: 1992 – The love album
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bge-YbKLnI8
 ‘YANKS GO HOME!’
• In clubs of UK, something started to change:
• New styled bands appeared:
• Suede, the band whoose pet subject was the equality of
homosexuals – I wasn’t really interested in the theme,
• but their arrival
• is the symbolic start of
• the BRITPOP era.
• Select magazin’s front page
• With Suede’s Brett Anderson
• Subscript:
• ‘Yanks go home!’ in April 1993.
 ‘MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH’
• There was a band who went to fight with the trend of grunge music in public,
it was Damon Albarn’s first band: BLUR, formed in the South of England
with his classmate: Graham Coxon.
• Story: Blur’s frontman was very annoyed by the main influence of grunge
music on people in the UK. They played in clubs of London, and everybody
had long hair and plaid shirt.
• As the legend says: At a US tour, he got homesick, and he decided to change
his music style, and try to turn youngsters interest to British music and
culture. They realised their an album ‘Modern life is rubbish’, then a second
called ‘Parklife’, where Damon Albarn sings about real life of British people
and in its’ video clips set in Britain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gghFPavXE7Q

• THIS IS THE REAL START OF THE AGE OF BRITPOP. The name

‘Britpop’ is given by Stuart Maconie, a radio DJ and journalist. Abreviation
of ‘British Popular Music’.
 ‘PARKLIFE’
• They played more types of music, but guitar-based music,
and they had funny, sarcastic videos about everyday life.
Sometimes their lyrics seems to be controversial, because
they figure out British people – e.g. those who believe
everything what is out of TV, or those who takes US
habitudes, but they do it with a charm. In their interviews,
they speak absolutly sincerely, they wear casual clothes…
And they are very young and absolutely smart… Robbie
Williams should have been envy!
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSuHrTfcikU&t=54s
 The Britpop’s battle
• As it is always like to be, a brand new ‘britpop’ band arrived
from Manchester and a rivalry started between Oasis, came
from the North of England and labour class, and Blur, origin of
middle-class families. The media boosted this quarel too, but
after twenty years the two frontman: David Albarn and Noel
Gallagher are ‘comrades”.
 Battle continued on the soccer field

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx-Pkb4Ix
84

• Britpop Football match.

‘Blur won the battle but Oasis won the war’
• Story: The two band was realised their new outcoming singles on the same
day, and they went both for winning the British Music Awards, that had never
won alternative rock band before.
• Blur won the battle with ‘Country House’, but Oasis was more a heartfelt, and
acoustically more reciptable music, so they became more popular later then
Blur. Oasis was lot of more simple, and very similar to Beatles. But Damon
Albarn won also the war, because after Blur, he won the american audience
with an other formation called Gorillaz.
• Both wanted to have succes in the US, despite they became famous becouse
of their distinctivly British carachteristics emphased in contrast with the US
habitudes.
• Country of Blur:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpuh1WE-RVw
• Oasis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZG7z4FOn0g
 The 4th big Britpop band: PULP
• The Pulp existed before all the 3 other big Britpop bands, but
they became famous while this period, so they were called
britpop too. They are very special, and very different from
Oasis and Blur, may be they have common points with Suede.
They didn’t feel themselves ‘britpop’ band.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38by00DGid0
 More Britpop bands
• A lot of Britpop bands were came up to the
world after Pulp, some of them was very
optimistic, like Supergrass, very selfish like
The Verve… and there were femal bands as
well, like Sleeper and Elastica, whoose front
woman was in longterm relationship with
Damon Albarn. The last very famous
britpop single was The Bitter Sweet
Harmony from The Verve in 1997:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1K
KwC74
 Britpop is not just a music genre?
• Britpop is considered as an era, as a mouvement, not just a
music genre.
• In that particular time, there was a renaissance of British
culture:
• New films has been came out from the UK, which were as
popular as Hollywood films:  Four Weddings and a Funeral
 (1994), featuring one of the era's biggest stars, Hugh Grant,
and Notting Hill, Trainspotting .
• Big moments in sport: A lot of prize by champion boxer 
”Prince” Naseem Hamed , and The Euro 1996 Football
Tournament
 ‘Cool Britannia’
• The Euro 96 football tournament, hosted in
England, is also considered an event that
encouraged a resurgence of patriotism,
particularly in England.
•  John Major, said “Our fashion, music and
culture are the envy of our European neighbours.
This abundance of talent, together with our rich
heritage, makes ‘Cool Britannia’ an obvious
choice for visitors from all over the world.”
 Britpop involved to politics
• At that time there were big changies in the life of the UK. After a
long time of Conservative Party’s gouvernement in the UK, in 1997,
Tony Blair of Labour Party, became Prime Minister. He used well
the Britpop ambience: The election of Tony Blair's Labour
government in 1997, seen by some as young, cool and very
appealing, got quite a lot of reflected glory of the feeling of euphoria
and optimism caused by Britpop. Noel Gallaghter, Oasis was invited
to Tony Blair’s after election party. In some sorte, the worker-class
origine guy became a supporter of the campain of Tony Blair.
•
Britpop fashion
Like every genre, and era, the britpop had as well his own style in fashion:
• Simple, homelike clothes, comfortable sport shoes or casual suits with few
buttons, parkas, and the bucket hat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDswiT8
7oo8
Blur: Girls and boys.
 The End of Britpop
• The britpop is declained enough quickly, it
existed only a half-decade, but this is an
interesting part of British Culture.
• After the death of Princess Diana something
changed, and it has also an influence to the
popscene. There were no place for the ‘Cool
Britannia ‘ feeling what brought Britpop to the
UK.
 Influence to Hungary:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1q8TpU
GVtU
Heaven Street 7