![]() It’s 1993 follow-up, Modern Life Is Rubbish, was a huge step up for the group, particularly frontman and songwriter Damon Albarn, who looked to prime British pop music – The Kinks, Small Faces, XTC, Madness – for inspiration and, crucially, began writing about the world on his doorstep. Despite having scored a UK Top 10 single in There’s No Other Way, their 1991 debut album, Leisure, saw them dabble in indie-dance while trying to figure out their identity. Soon, newer bands merged the moodiness of Radiohead with the workingman stance of Oasis - a combination heard in everything from Coldplay to Kasabian - and that became the British Alternative sound of the new millennium.In hindsight, it seems incredible, but when Blur entered Maison Rouge – a long-gone recording studio in Fulham, West London – in August 1993 to begin sessions for what would become their third album, Parklife, it was make-or-break time. 1997 brought the first signals that the Britpop boom was beginning to run out of steam, namely Oasis' poorly reviewed third album and Blur's move toward American indie rock, along with the rise of $Radiohead in the wake of their third album, OK Computer. In 1996, Oasis became the only Britpop band to become genuine mainstream stars in the U.S. With their success came a giddy explosion of similarly inspired bands Elastica, Pulp, Supergrass, and the Boo Radleys were among the biggest. ![]() Suede opened the doors for even bigger breakthroughs in 1994 by Blur (Parklife) and Oasis (Definitely Maybe), who quickly became Britpop's two most popular superstars. Released in 1993, their self-titled debut became an unexpected smash with its fusion of glam-rock majesty and Smiths introspection. The Stone Roses' effortless pop hooks and rock-star attitude were the most important part of the foundation, but the true founding fathers of Britpop were Suede. Apart from those influences, Britpop had its most immediate roots in the Madchester scene, whose emphasis on good times and catchy tunes pointed the way around the shoegazer aesthetic. (and why Britpop functioned much the same way). All those artists were quintessentially British - they crafted their images, lyrics, and sounds from a distinctly British frame of reference, which was why few of them became anything more than cult artists in the U.S. Rex, Roxy Music), punk and new wave (the Jam, the Buzzcocks, Wire, Madness, XTC, Squeeze, Elvis Costello), and the alternative guitar-pop of the Smiths. Musically, Britpop drew from the Beatles, of course, but also from the pastoral sound of late-'60s Kinks, the mod movement (the Who, the Small Faces), '70s glam (David Bowie, T. Britpop's youthful exuberance and desire for recognition were reactions not only against the shy, anti-star personas of the early-'90s shoegazer bands, but also the dourness of American grunge and the faceless producers behind the growing electronic-dance underground. And it was very definitely British youth they were aiming at Britpop celebrated and commented on their lives, their culture, and their musical heritage, with little regard for whether that specificity would make them less accessible to American audiences. indie scene, Britpop was unabashedly commercial - its bands prized big, shiny, catchy hooks, as well as the glamour of mainstream pop stardom and the sense that they were creating the soundtrack to the lives of a new generation of British youth. ![]() Although the movement originated in the U.K. Britpop, however, refers to the legion of '90s bands who drew more consciously from that tradition than ever before. ![]() The Beatles established a long-running British tradition of tuneful, guitar-driven pop bands, a tradition that was refreshed and updated every so often by new musical movements. ![]()
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