Anyone who remembers "Grunge" and can distinguish the
difference between Kurt Cobain's Monkee-isms and Eddie Vedder's
(in the eloquent words of Mr. Johnny Rotten) "Joe Cocker
with different backing tracks"-isms already knows that these
meaningless rock-critic terms are nothing new. Yet another theory has it
that rock critics will naturally gravitate towards something that
appears to be new and/or hip, even if they don't like it in reality;
this is called the herd approach; actually, more than one rock critic
party line possibly started because some insensitive clod made a future
rock critic feel less than cool on some elementary school playground
once upon a time. Thus, you end up with terms like "punk"
(which has now changed definitions so many times in the last three
decades to now render it totally meaningless) and "No
Depression," which nobody can really define but many--especially
the hipper in the room--will tell you has a lot to do with Gram Parsons. Oh, yeah, and maybe the Replacements, too. The irony is
that I was once told by the founding co-editor of No Depression,
the very magazine that turned "No Depression" into a
nationally-recognized name, that the only thing all these bands have in
common is a love for Lynyrd Skynyrd! Oh, yeah, and maybe the
Allman Brothers, too. Which certainly could confuse some of the
hipper participants in the room, particularly those suffering from
traumatic playground memories... 
But of all the meaningless terms
of the moment in the modern musical trenches, the most meaningless is
probably "Britpop"--which ostensibly is what this article is
supposed to be about. Of course, it's awfully hard to do a "think
piece" on something that's meaningless...so let's put it in a quick
nutshell: As Radiohead's Thom Yorke stated in the most recent CD-ROM
issue of this very magazine: "It [Britpop] was a convenient
marketing ploy. Marketing ploys come and go--and that one's gone
now." It was a marketing ploy, however, that only had any sort of
influence in its company of origin. For when you're talking about
America, Britpop has only one meaning--and that is Oasis. In Merrie
Olde England, those loutish Gallagher brothers have already taken their
place in the pantheon of rock Aristocracy. In the good old U.S., though,
they simply represent "Britpop," for all its worth. (Of
course, the American success of Oasis--and the fact that LAUNCH is only
one of several thousand esteemed publications to which the Gallagher
boys have yet to speak--is what led to this magazine doing a piece on
"Britpop" in the first place. Which pretty much proves my
point.)
On the other hand, as far as marketing ploys are concerned, it wasn't
originally planned to be this way--at least not in the minds of the rock
critics and perhaps the record companies who were in cahoots behind this
hype. When Oasis reached the top of the U.S. charts with (What's The Story) Morning Glory? and several hit singles in early 1996, it was
the first time since the mid-'80s since any British bands (and dreadful
British bands like Duran Duran, Adam & The Ants, Scritti Politti and worse!) had made a splash in the American market. In fact,
several major music magazines, including Musician and
MOJO, had recently published long features trying to explain why
Yanks had turned their backs on all British bands. After all, since the
Beatles-led British Invasion of 1964, the limeys had made a habit of
taking American rock and pop, improving on the formula, and then
throwing it back in our faces. Other British bands had preceded Oasis in
trying to make an American splash during the late '80s and early
'90s--and none of them without a sufficient amount of hype, most notably
those rock critic darlings Stone Roses, as well as Manic Street Preachers and London Suede. But when Oasis became the
"hip" flavor of the moment with Morning Glory, the
Brits obviously thought there was going to be another pop export
explosion, the first of its kind in decades.
Heck, even a lot of Americans seemed to be hopeful. Right around the
time of Oasis's sophomore effort, the most happening weekly club in San
Francisco was Popscene at Cat's Grill & Alley Club where kids drank
British Guinness, smoked British cigarettes, and danced to heavyhitters
like Blur, Supergrass and, of course, those Gallagher dudes.
"We knew the Anglophile population existed in the Bay Area,"
said one of the club's promoters at the time--but, most tellingly, the
club nights were frequently sponsored by major record labels; London
Records even flew in its most recent "Britpop" contender of
the time--a Manchester group called Marion--simply to play five
songs at one of those nights. Obviously, London Records--like all record
labels--had a vested interest in seeing the "Britpop
phenomenon" break big here; even John Lennon knew back in '64 that
you haven't made it 'till you've made it big in the States, and these
labels could smell the dollar signs.
And it wasn't long before
every American label had signed their own "Britpop" band to
promote. Again, this was business as usual for the record industry. In
the '60s, when the "San Francisco Sound" exploded, A&R reps
rushed into the city and signed damn near every band with an electric
guitar. Same thing happened in Detroit following the MC 5 and the
Stooges; didn't matter that a lot of those Motor City groups were
terrible. There was heavy metal, but we're not even gonna go there. It
reached what seemed to be absurd and epidemic proportions with the punk
and subsequent New Wave explosion in the late '70s, as A&R scouts signed
damn near everything with a purple head and safety pin through its nose,
only to be surpassed in both absurdity and superficiality by the most
recent "American punk rock" explosion of the '90s, with the
powers-that-now-were (and, gee, aren't you glad that "we"
won?) trying to pass off what amounted to a Xerox of a Xerox as
something that meant anything at all.
Of course, it was no different for the trend the music industry had now
decided to call "Britpop."
The one thing a lot of these '90s Britpopsters did have in their favor
was a knack for drumming up free publicity. When foppish Jarvis Cocker,
the lead singer and songwriter for the British band Pulp, disrupted
Michael Jackson's performance at the British Music Awards,
protesting the King Of Pop cavorting onstage with a small multitude of
children, the antics made international headlines. And yet it didn't
translate to sales for Island Records' entry into the
"Britpop" sweepstakes: Pulp's subsequent Different
Class. And for a long time, the vicious (and seemingly real) feud
between Oasis and Blur, climaxing with Noel Gallagher stating he hoped
the latter band's Daman Albarn would "get AIDS and die," was
more familiar to American media fans than was the music of either band.
For a long time, Oasis and Blur were head-to-head in Britain in terms of
popularity, much like the Beatles and the Stones in the England of
ancient times. Ironically, nine times out of 10, the British press would
go with Blur over those louts in Oasis (which has something to do with
class and education, I bet)--although everything changed when
"Wonderwall" went into heavy rotation on MTV. And suddenly,
Blur just didn't matter much anymore.
Of course, it didn't
help that Blur followed The Great Escape, Virgin Records' entry,
blah, blah blah--a record that at least tried to build a Brit continuum,
derivative as it sometimes seemed, with the likes of Mott The Hoople, Ray Davies and Bowie--with the eponymous Blur,
an album that just makes no sense at all. In fact, in years of reviewing
albums, it's hard for me to recall one with less direction than
Blur, flip-flopping all over the place until it's a stylistic
nightmare. (It also didn't help that the esteemed Executive Editor of
this magazine and I also once saw Blur perform, not long after The
Great Escape, and we proceeded to do just that after only several
songs. They were weak, even following the Rentals, who opened and
who were perhaps the worst live band the aforementioned esteemed editor
and I have ever seen at a concert that people paid lots of money to
attend.) As another great Britpopster once wrote: Ay, there lies the
rub. We're talking music here, folks. Pulp frequently sounded a lot like
Steve Harley and Roxy Music--but like both of those artists,
Pulp were too British. It's a sad cliché, but one that's
sometimes true. And, King Of Pop or no King Of Pop, it just doesn't
translate here. Besides, Morrissey did the Oscar Wilde thing better
once upon a time. Supergrass, another early entry in the Britpop
sweepstakes and Capitol Records' blah, blah, blah, continues to receive
critical kudos on the side of the ocean--still, I Should Coco,
the debut, sounded like lukewarm New Wave to these ears, while In It
For The Money sounds like...well, I don't know what it sounds
like--a new mutated form of "progressive" rock, perhaps?--but
I do know what it doesn't sound like, and that's anything good.
Especially good pop. (And didn't we fight the Civil War or something
like that so men would never have to wear those hideous muttonchop
sideburns ever again?) Speaking of mutated "progressive" rock,
is Radiohead's latest opus one of those records we used to refer to as
"ambitious," before filing it away on our shelf of
post-playground prestige? Gene's OK, if you like regurgitated
Smiths. Kula Shaker appear to be morons. And
Elastica...well, Elastica ain't pop (and Radiohead is?), but they
were considered "Britpop" way back when. Closer to early
Chrissie Hynde than psychedelic John Lennon, leader Justine
Frischmann was both sexy and talented...but she's lost two bassists in
the last two years and she's pretty much missing in action at this point
of the game.
No, the problem has always been defining what "Britpop" is
when it comes to any stylistic musical similarities. There have been
other supposed Britpop contenders--those oldtimers in Verve being
the latest "sensation"("Interesting!" proclaim the
critics)--though most of them have arrived on these shores with a
whimper as opposed to a scream: some of them just plain boring
(Cast); some of them so-so (Ocean Colour Scene); some of them
pretty damn amazing (Super Furry Animals, whose Epic debut just
might out-"pop" anything by Oasis) albeit totally unknown (the
Super Furry Animals latest album--on Creation in the U.K.--isn't
currently on Epic's new release schedule). As a result, Oasis has won,
almost by default. Actually, when you're talking in the purest terms of
definition, the best Britpop album of this year has been Paul McCartney's latest, Flaming Pie (how's that for clearing the
room of playground victims?), his most consistent since...well, perhaps
ever. Still, when it comes to Britpop, the word in America is Oasis.
And you know what?
Rightfully so. They've certainly stirred up their own outrageous press
over the last two years--in fact, a friend once wondered if the word
"lowbrow" hadn't been invented to perhaps discuss forebears in
the Gallagher family tree. But as a famous American popster once said,
you can't fool all the people all the time--and Oasis is probably a
better pop band (in the classic sense of the term) than all the other
"Britpop" groups put together. In the Gallaghers' case, the
genuine working-class loutishness does stand for something in rock 'n'
roll terms--they actually show a heart at times--but it's the music that
ultimately makes the case. Of course, we're talking about music in an
era of incredibly decreased expectations--and it's safe to say that Noel
Gallagher is perhaps the most obvious thief since the early heyday of
Nick Lowe. But so what? The man has written some terrific songs;
he's an excellent guitarist (one of my personal current faves); they're
an incredibly prolific band (check out all those b-sides on British
import); most importantly, while they're not terribly exciting live,
they sound incredible live. And sound is ultimately what it's all about
here. In fact, when I describe Be Here Now, their latest opus to
friends, the first thing I always mention is that I love "the
sound" of this album.
Of course, the lyrics are absolute gobblygook. But then as I've been
trying to point out throughout this whole article, Britpop is
meaningless--and it's therefore fitting that the world's major purveyors
of the form mean nothing at all. On the other hand, when Noel, Liam and
crew kick into that wonderful chorus on the album's finale, "It's
Gettin' Better (Man!!)," singing those very sentiments in front of
a POP! chord progression as old and basic and as simply (once!) glorious
as rock 'n' roll itself...well, you almost believe it.
Even if nothing seems to be getting any better at all.
