Making the most of Britpop's tenth anniversary celebrations: the bunting is out, the street parties meticulously planned, and Oasis has even released a new album. Disturbingly, otherwise right-thinking reviewers have given Don't Believe the Truth glowing write-ups, claiming the band has finally broken the voodoo that gave us such dross as Be Here Now. I don't want to give such extremist views the oxygen of publicity, so will crack on and recommend getting hold of the songs that created the hype in the first place. Most of Definitely Maybe is worth downloading (especially "Slide Away" and "Supersonic", from iTunes), unless you already own it - which, let's face it, most households in Britain do.
For sensible people in 1995, the answer to the question "Oasis or Blur?" was "Pulp", and the latter's de facto retirement in 2003 was as bad for British music as the refusal of Oasis to follow suit. Jarvis Cocker and co produced three great albums from 1994-98 (all on iTunes), and condensing the highlights is tough. "Common People", "Something Changed" and "Babies" are show-stopping singles, while songs such as "This is Hardcore" and "I Spy" demonstrate Pulp's equally potent dark side. There's a lyric in "Wickerman" where pensioners are described as "gathering dust like bowls of plastic tulips". Does a better simile exist in modern pop music?
For John Harris, Britpop's official scribe, the triumvirate of bands at the heart of the movement were Blur, Elastica and Suede. I feel the latter two are the only ones worth revisiting. Blur's Parklife sounds horribly dated, whereas Suede's otherworldly Dog Man Star is impossible to date. "New Generation" and the overblown "Still Life" are on www.mycokemusic.com. Even though Elastica spent most of 1995 dismissing criticisms of their barely concealed plagiarism of songs by Wire and the Stranglers, the truth is that these new-wave pioneers never wrote anything nearly as good as Elastica's "Stutter" (out on Napster). That was Britpop in a nutshell: take an old song, and make it better.
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