Britpop

Britpop was a 1990s British music and cultural movement. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchy alternative rock, drawing significant influences from British guitar pop of the 1960s and 1970s, with lyrics that emphasised British national identity and offered commentary on British culture and society. Britpop was considered a musical reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the American-led grunge music of the time, and Britain's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties.

Britpop was a phenomenon that highlighted bands emerging from the independent music scene of the early 1990s. Although often viewed as a cultural moment rather than a distinct musical genre, its associated bands typically drew shared inspiration from British guitar pop music of the 1960s, glam rock and punk rock of the 1970s, and indie pop of the 1980s. Manchester-based indie bands such as the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Happy Mondays are often cited as key early progenitors of Britpop's musical development.

The acts most frequently labelled by the UK music press as Britpop's "big four" were Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp. The timespan of Britpop's popularity is generally considered to be 1993–1997, and its peak years to be 1995–1996. A chart battle between Blur and Oasis (dubbed "The Battle of Britpop") brought the movement to the forefront of the British press in 1995. Oasis's (What's the Story) Morning Glory? is among the UK's all-time best-selling albums, illustrating the movement’s mainstream reach. While primarily a music-based phenomenon, Britpop also influenced fashion, art, and politics, with Prime Minister Tony Blair and New Labour aligning themselves with the movement.

During the late 1990s, many Britpop acts began to falter commercially or break up, or otherwise moved towards new genres or styles. Commercially, Britpop lost out to teen pop, while artistically it segued into a post-Britpop indie movement, associated with bands such as Travis and Coldplay.

Though Britpop has sometimes been viewed as a marketing tool and more of a cultural moment than a distinct musical genre, there are musical conventions and influences the bands grouped under the Britpop term have in common. Britpop bands show elements from the British pop music of the 1960s, glam rock and punk rock of the 1970s, and indie pop of the 1980s in their music, attitude, and clothing. Specific influences vary: Blur drew from the Kinks and early Pink Floyd, Oasis took inspiration from the Beatles, and Elastica had a fondness for arty punk rock, notably Wire and both incarnations of Adam and the Ants. Regardless, Britpop artists project a sense of reverence for British pop sounds of the past. The Kinks' Ray Davies and XTC's Andy Partridge are sometimes advanced as the "godfathers" or "grandfathers" of Britpop, though Davies disputes it. Others similarly labelled include Paul Weller and Adam Ant.

Alternative rock acts from the indie scene of the 1980s and early 1990s were the direct ancestors of the Britpop movement. The influence of the Smiths is common to the majority of Britpop artists. The Madchester scene, fronted by the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, James and Inspiral Carpets (for whom Oasis's Noel Gallagher had worked as a roadie during the Madchester years), was an immediate root of Britpop since its emphasis on good times and catchy songs provided an alternative to the British-based shoegazing and American based grunge styles of music. In 1991, James's song "Sit Down" reached number two in the UK charts, with Flavorwire writing the song "predates the Britpop label, but it presaged the quintessentially British sound that would explode in the '90s. Entire festival crowds used to sit down during the chorus of this song". Pre-dating Britpop by four years, Liverpool-based group the La's hit single "There She Goes" was described by Rolling Stone as a "founding piece of Britpop's foundation". Naming it his favourite song from the 1990s ("There She Goes" was originally released in 1988), Noel Gallagher once declared that "Oasis want to finish what The La's started".

Local identity and regional British accents are common to Britpop groups, as well as references to British places and culture in lyrics and image. Stylistically, Britpop bands use catchy hooks and lyrics that were relevant to young British people of their own generation. Britpop bands conversely denounced grunge as irrelevant and having nothing to say about their lives. In contrast to the dourness of grunge, Britpop was defined by "youthful exuberance and desire for recognition". Damon Albarn of Blur summed up the attitude in 1993 when after being asked if Blur were an "anti-grunge band" he said, "Well, that's good. If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge."

In spite of the professed disdain for the genres, some elements of both crept into the more enduring facets of Britpop. Noel Gallagher has since championed Ride and once stated that Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was the only songwriter he had respect for in the last ten years, and that he felt their music was similar enough that Cobain could have written "Wonderwall". By 1996, Oasis's prominence was such that NME termed a number of Britpop bands (including The Boo Radleys, Ocean Colour Scene and Cast) "Noelrock", citing Gallagher's influence on their music. Journalist John Harris described these bands, and Gallagher, as sharing "a dewy-eyed love of the 1960s, a spurning of much beyond rock's most basic ingredients, and a belief in the supremacy of 'real music'".