Britpop was born in London and was the soundtrack of British youth in the 1990s. Oasis, Blur, Suede, Pulp, and Elastica changed the focus from American grunge to the homeland’s guitar bands. But those exact five aren’t necessarily the five best Britpop bands in hindsight.
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Oasis and Blur were engaged in tabloid warfare as they duked it out over who would rule the charts. The press pitted Oasis as working class northerners against Blur, who represented the middle class south.
Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker loathed the “Britpop” moniker and seethed against its nationalist eccentricities. Bands like Suede and Pulp were equal parts class frustration and cheeky glam.
Then there was Elastica. Their self-titled first album is nearly perfect. Led by the great Justine Frischmann, who co-founded Suede with Brett Anderson. Britpop drama swirled around Frischmann’s romantic relationships with Anderson and Blur’s Damon Albarn. The intrigue reached a ridiculous peak when Albarn returned from an American tour, his career in shambles, to find Anderson had become the face of a cultural revolution in British music.
5. Blur
Blur’s Parklife is the towering album of ’90s British rock. But it also represented the worst aspects of the movement with its low-rent voyeurism. Reacting to Suede’s success, Blur—who’d earned a reputation for chasing trends—reinvented themselves from baggy Madchester to British ’60s guitar pop. Albarn wrote satirically about suburban life. Raging against America’s grunge machine, Englishness was highlighted and they flirted with soft nationalism.
But then, thanks to guitarist Graham Coxon, Blur abandoned Britpop and chased the sound of American indie rock bands like Pavement. Their brilliant 1997 self-titled album was a major shift for the band. With “Song 2” and “Beetlebum,” Damon Albarn was becoming his own man. Albarn is now rightly considered a brilliant artist. Blur being the scene’s defining band is peak Britpop irony. However, they had a knack for writing really catchy songs.
4. The Verve
Urban Hymns is a masterpiece. The Verve were bombastic and unpredictable. Before they broke up multiple times, the Wigan band released three classic albums. Richard Ashcroft had honed his songwriting skills with “On Your Own” and “History” on the band’s second album, A Northern Soul. Ashcroft was brave enough to write a song called “This Is Music.” Then he split up the band. Changed his mind, sampled The Rolling Stones and wrote “Bittersweet Symphony.” And “The Drugs Don’t Work.” And “Lucky Man.” Hymns is full of… hymns. This would be the last time Ashcroft’s shamanism was tolerated. Ignoring the power of a great band behind him, he ended The Verve (again) and pursued a bewildering solo career empty of grandeur and full of parody.
[RELATED: Behind the Meaning of the Song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve]
3. Pulp
Jarvis Cocker is a British national treasure. As Britpop cashed in on class tourism, Cocker pushed back and wrote the greatest song of the Britpop era, “Common People.” Perhaps no other song seized the moment with such authority. Following the success of His N Hers, Pulp’s 1995 album Different Class is the scene’s pinnacle of class anxiety, sex, and celebration. “Mis-shapes” is the ultimate ode to the outsiders. Pulp excelled at anthems for the weirdos because they were the weirdos. Cocker, the wallflower, was now the life of the party. Pulp completed a trilogy of great albums with This Is Hardcore in 1998. Feeling the crushing weight of a creative and commercial peak, Cocker sang on “The Fear,” This is the sound of someone losing the plot. Making out that they’re okay when they’re not.
2. Suede
Suede were essential to replacing Seattle’s misery-loves-company grunge with British wit and irony. In 1993, Brett Anderson famously appeared on the cover of Select magazine with the headline: “Yanks go home!” By 1993, grungy plaid shirts were replaced with Anderson’s midriff. Suede’s hype caused Daman Albarn to go and reinvent his own band. Bernard Butler’s opening riff to “Animal Nitrate” was a swirling, psychedelic warning shot. Butler was the second coming of Johnny Marr.
Suede created the kind of scene change in England that paralleled Nirvana’s influence in America. Their self-titled debut was one of Britpop’s first albums. It debuted at the top of the U.K. charts in 1993. Suede was, at the time, the fastest-selling debut in British history. Anderson’s skill was documenting what it meant to be young in London. He wrote about what he saw: the glamour and allure of drug culture. On “So Young” he sang, Let’s chase the dragon, about the perceived invincibility of youth. Anderson and Butler fell out while making their second, and best, album, Dog Man Star. The sub-culture glam of the first album was replaced by Anderson’s melodrama and druggy isolation. Suede exemplified Englishness without the nationalism.
1. Oasis
Noel Gallagher is the best British songwriter of his generation. Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory are nearly perfect one-two punches. Gallagher replaced American alt-gloom with “Rock ’n’ Roll Star” and “Supersonic.” While American grunge wallowed in its own sadness and apathy, “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and “Champagne Supernova” were escape anthems for the working class, written by someone who grew up under council skies. In his prime, Liam Gallagher was one of the greatest front men in rock ’n’ roll. If you think it all ended in 1997 with the bloated Be Here Now, remember “Lyla” and “The Importance of Being Idle” are on Don’t Believe the Truth (2005). The Oasis B-sides collection, The Masterplan, should have been the band’s third studio album. Oasis were ultimately bigger than Britpop.
Mourning the victims of the 2017 bombing at Manchester Arena, a crowd of Mancunians at a vigil spontaneously sang “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Oasis represented the spirit of the people.
Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Coachella
