(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
I have been to a music festival in England two summers in a row, and every time it strikes me how few British bands play on the main stage.
In Leeds 2002, Foo Fighters, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Jane's Addiction and Sum drew the most people, while English bands were barely visible. At Reading this year, the situation was the same: Metallica, Linkin Park, System Of A Down, Blink-41, Sum 182 (again!) And Beck were the main names, while Blur and Primal Scream defended Union Jack.
Primal Scream scared the audience into a poor set, while Blon's Damon Albarn fell off the stage. You can hardly find a better illustration of the crisis of British rock, although bands such as Coldplay, Travis, Radiohead and The Darkness are a light in the dark.
Cool Britain
What happened? In the mid-90s, the English behaved like musical empire builders, and the phenomenon was dubbed Britpop. In the summer of 1996, the New York magazine Vanity Fair dedicated an entire issue to the "Cool Britannia" phenomenon. It was the 1960s and "the British invasion" again, and it was precisely Blur that led the development in the early 90s.
On "The Best of" (Food / EMI) we can follow Blur from the beginning in 1991, when the band stormed forward as a confident mix of datida's two most important genres in British rock: The introverted and noisy "shoegazer" scene (the performers held big set the gaze fixed on the floor during concerts) and the “indiedance” scene, which mixed alternative pop with the rhythms of the house, hip hop and techno explosion.
Blur was one of many bands and was quickly forgotten, but on his second and third albums the quartet from Colchester appeared as something new. Instead of indulging in the trends of the time, they went back to the 1960s and 70s, to The Kinks, The Beatles, The Jam and The Small Faces. And like The Kinks, after being denied entry permits in the US, Blur chose to embrace British uniqueness and everyday life in their lyrics. Britpop was born.
The formula eventually ran out, but Blur found new life in 1997 by borrowing more from US alternative rock. The band is still with us, but the heyday is probably over after guitarist Graham Coxon thanked him and Damon Albarn is increasingly focusing on solo and side projects.
even Surely
At the same time, a confident band appeared in London. With androgynous Brett Anderson in the lead, Suede stood for a more decadent attitude than Blur; inspired by David Bowie, The Smiths and glam rock. And like Blur, Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler had their own ability to crank up classic single songs at a high pace.
The British music press quickly staged a Britpop rivalry between Blur and Suede, and this year we have a Suede summary in the form of "Singles" (Sony). The first singles are still classics, but the band has chosen to camouflage the drop in quality that took place when Butler left the band after two albums by presenting the music in chronological order. This autumn, Suede has announced that they will take an indefinite break, but the fun was really over a long time ago.
In 1994, the Manchester band Oasis emerged and immediately took over the role of Blur's main rival of the British pop throne. Oasis immediately became the very definition of britpop, but after a few years in the British fortunes it became quite clear that the britpop bands did not have the nerve to assert themselves in the important US market. After two classic albums, it has also hit Oasis both musically and in popularity, and it probably won't be long until we get an album from that edge either.
chameleons
The Sheffield band Pulp had been going on since 1978, when frontman Jarvis Cocker was 15 years old. After several years of wandering in the desert, the band finally got its place in the Britpop sun with the album "Different Class" and the hit "Common People" in 1995. But the band was hit by lamp fever, because it took a full three years to follow up the success – and then Britpop as good as dead. But last year's fine compilation album "Hits" (Iceland / Universal) shows that the band was something far more than a short-lived phenomenon.
Throughout the 90s, the Scots in Primal Scream have been on the side of Britpop, instead recreating themselves on every single album. "Dirty Hits" (Sony) sums up a remarkable but confusing career.
Unfortunately, there is no room for anything from the band's first two albums, but the collector tackles the groundbreaking "Screamadelica" from 1991. This represents the culmination of the fusion between hedonistic house culture and British indie rock, and still stands as a pole. Therefore, the surprise was extra big when Primal Scream sounded like The Rolling Stones on the next album, and since then the band has changed identity over time as another chameleon.
These constant changes gradually got something spasmodic, and last year's "Evil Heat" album and this year's relaxed Reading concert may indicate that Primal Scream will soon be history. But both they and British rock have constantly shown the ability to surprise and overcome bad odds, so we will probably never write off Britain completely.
