3 Facts You Might Not Know About Britpop

Nostalgia for 90s rock music was enough to reunite the Gallagher brothers last year as Liam and Noel buried the hatchet and, instead of fighting, they came together and filled stadiums all around the world. But Oasis aren’t the only Britpop legends reminding the world what it was like when guitar bands dominated pop culture.

Here are three facts about Britpop to get you up to speed on how it happened in the 90s.

Don’t Say the B-Word

Alongside Oasis, Blur, and Suede, Pulp became one of Britpop’s Big Four. But the band’s shouting-and-pointing singer, Jarvis Cocker, who penned “Common People”, one of the scene’s biggest anthems, said he’d rather not use the B-word. He recently told Channel 4 News that his vision for pop music is something more inclusive rather than the flag-waving nationalism of Britpop.

But still you’ll never get it right,
’Cause when you’re laid in bed at night.
Watching roaches climb the wall,
If you called your dad, he could stop it all, yeah.

The Band That Started It All

Suede’s front man Brett Anderson puts it this way: “We released the first Britpop album. You have to accept that.” He’s talking about his band’s camp 1993 self-titled debut. Weeks after the album’s release, Anderson appeared on the cover of Select magazine, baring his midriff overlaid with the declaration: Yanks go home! This was Britain’s indie rock scene revolting against gloomy American grunge. It was enough to inspire Damon Albarn to dump Blur’s outdated Madchester sound and retool his group with a heavy dose of English nostalgia.

Like his dad, you know that he’s had,
Animal nitrate in mind.
Oh, in your council home he jumped on your bones,
Now you’re taking it time after time.

Looking to America for Inspiration

Britpop may have been a reaction to the popularity of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but that didn’t stop Blur from looking to the Yanks for inspiration. After releasing Britpop touchstones like “Country House” and “Parklife”, Blur had grown tired of the scene they helped popularize. Ironically, the band landed its biggest hit, “Song 2”, in 1997 by adopting the sound of American indie rock bands like Pavement.

Woo-hoo! When I feel heavy metal,
Woo-hoo! And I’m pins and I’m needles.

Photo by Alexander Cropper/Redferns