On whether Britpop was the last British music scene...
This year has been designated the 20th
anniversary of Britpop, a phenomenon that at the time seemed all-consuming,
infiltrating every corner of our cultural consciousness. But my Black Night Crash colleague Adam Bailey poses an interesting question: was Britpop the last
true British music scene, and could it or anything on a similar scale ever be
repeated?
Firstly, was Britpop even a ‘scene’, or was it simply a
genre or type of music? There’s very little in the definitions when it comes to
the different shades of popular music. A scene, you feel, should have some
geographical element to it, which is not necessary for a genre. Britpop by its
name alone has a geographical element to it, and by all accounts much of it did
revolve around The Good Mixer pub in Camden, so we are probably safe calling it
a scene of sorts.
The theories behind its success have been well discussed
down the years. The most popular is that it was a reaction against the influx
of American grunge, which at the time was dominating the guitar music
landscape. Grunge itself was seriously strong in ‘scene’ terms, based
as it was mainly around one city (Seattle, WA).
At the time Britain had its own
strain of heavily distorted, fuzzy guitar-based scene – shoegaze. While this was
going on predominantly in the south, the north also had a vibrant and fairly
self-contained scene in the Madchester phenomenon.
So why didn’t either of these catch on and go nationwide (and
beyond) in the way that Britpop would a few years later? Madchester’s dancey cross-over
element made it commercial enough that a number of the groups under that
umbrella enjoyed chart success, though it was very much of its time and so
localised (and overtly drug-influenced) that it was unlikely to have much
longevity.
As for shoegazing, much as I utterly adore it, the other
moniker commonly associated with it – The
Scene That Celebrates Itself – tells
you all you need to know. Far too introspective and serious to conquer anything
beyond its own boundaries, epics of the style such as Ride’s Drive Blind or Slowdive’s Catch The Breeze were never likely to be
chart hits in the way Parklife or
Common People would be.
Tellingly, many current bands, including some significant
names in America, cite the likes of Ride as major influences. You might not
find quite as many who would claim to have been inspired by Menswear. Shoegaze
is very much a musicians’ genre.
The clue to Britpop’s success where these others failed
again is in the name. It was pop. Stylistically this was a return to the
three-minute wonders that the British popular guitar music-loving public have
inevitably come back to ever since Merseybeat.
And it seemed to take over everything in our lives for a
year or two. Blur’s involvement with the likes of Damien Hirst, Phil Daniels
and Ken Livingstone provided links to the worlds of art, stage, screen and politics,
and their battle with Oasis dominating the news ensured that current affairs
were covered as well.
Many are decrying the current anniversary as cynical
nostalgia, nothing more than the BBC trying to fill a bit of airtime at a quiet point of year. To that, personally I would say so what? It’s nice to look back.
The arguments over when Britpop started and finished (Blur, Pulp, Suede,
Radiohead and others were knocking out stuff of a Britpoppish flavour before
1994) and indeed what or who should be included are never likely to be fully resolved.
What is not in doubt is that the Britpop ‘thing’ was a major movement.
And this brings us back to the original question: can
anything like that happen on these shores again? Since Britpop there have been
other scenes and genres that have achieved reasonable levels of popularity.
Britpop’s aftershow party was soundtracked by drum ‘n’ bass as Roni Size and Reprazent won
the Mercury Music Prize and drew attention to the Bristol scene. A few years later a
large collection of fast and furious guitar pop bands appeared in Sheffield,
spearheaded by the now global stars Arctic Monkeys, which with its shared style
and location was very definitely a scene.
Why didn’t these become global phenomena? Like Madchester and
shoegaze before them, drum ‘n’ bass did not have much commercial appeal, while
the Sheffield thing for the most part was too localised, and not stylistically
original enough. Where Britpop was heavily influenced by the 60s, and we were
ready for that kind of music again, the Sheffield collective were heavily
influenced by Britpop and quite simply not enough time had passed.
Where has guitar music got left to go? Is there anything new
that people can do with guitars? Everything from 100% unplugged to brain-melting
death metal has been covered, with all stops in between. We’ve seen all the
cross-over styles you could conceive of working. We have now entered what seems
to be a genreless era, where all new bands, as great as many of them are, are
simply refinements or tweaks of existing styles, but all off doing their own
thing and difficult to categorise. There is nothing especially groundbreaking,
and no major movement to speak of.
Britpop itself was of course not particularly original in
its musical style; it simply captured a moment. Who knows, maybe in 20 years, something
similar will happen with a major revival movement of a similar style. Maybe
before that there’ll be a sudden explosion in popularity of metal or folk.
The way in which we now consume music is also a significant
factor. As standardised education and the spread of broadcast media has been
credited with eroding differences in language, accent and dialect, the rise of
digital music platforms and the Internet has been said to have killed the
album, the single and the charts as we knew them. We have such ready access to
such an unbelievable wealth of sounds, we would be foolish not to consume as
much as possible.
But this could also mean that the concept of the ‘scene’ has
been killed off as well. Physically real communities, scenes and movements will
struggle to establish themselves in an age where with the right app on your
phone you can listen to local radio stations on the other side of the world if
they play the kind of music you like.
The Britpop years were the final few before the Internet
took over our lives. This alone, I feel, makes it unlikely that we will see
anything on that scale again. For the musician looking to establish themselves
this is tricky – being part of a scene or movement can undoubtedly give you a
leg up. There are plenty of the Britpop crowd who would never have got signed
in another less favourable era.
For the music lover though, there should always be enough people
out there producing music in sufficiently different styles to keep everyone
happy. We only need to worry that the industry remains strong enough to reward
the musicians adequately that they can afford to keep churning out the tunes. It
can’t all just be given away free.
Here’s Sleeper…
