The rise and fall of Britpop, the Nineties’ other massive, guitar-based movement
By Jon Wiederhorn
GUITAR WORLD SPECIAL ISSUE
Oasis’ Noel Gallagher in Manchester, England, with his custom Union Jack Epiphone Sheraton, April 28, 1996
FOR THE 90,000 screaming fans on their feet at London’s Wembley Stadium this past July, it must have seemed like it was the spring of 1994 all over again. Back then, Blur had just blown up on the back of the disco-ish, new wavey hit “Girls & Boys,” the first single from their third album, Parklife, and it looked like they were going to lead their countrymates through an exciting international scene that steered around the boilerplate alt-rock sounds of the day and paid tribute to some of the greatest bands in the history of British rock.
Deemed the pioneers of Britpop, Blur spoke for a generation of British youth — at least for a while. Their guitarist, Graham Coxon, was one of the most skilled and innovative players on the scene, and frontman Damon Albarn was one of the most charismatic and quintessentially English vocalists, singing every line in an accent stronger than a keg of Fuller’s Golden Pride. Gloriously incestuous, the scene flourished on connections. Albarn’s muse and romantic partner was Justine Frischmann, the co-founder of (the London) Suede and the future frontwoman of Elastica. For her, Suede, Oasis, Pulp and other emerging U.K. bands, the coming years would be as wild as the crowd at the World Cup finals and as regal and majestic as the Union Jack flapping in the breeze.
Blur’s two Wembley shows marked the largest audience the band had ever played for. Those immersed in the euphoria enjoyed a stunning flashback of Britpop history, back when Blur were on the top of the U.K. charts and making inroads in the rest of the world. Back before a bunch of arrogant, rude Mancunians who called themselves Oasis would release albums full of songs that upended Blur as the champions of working-class Britpop.
Today, Oasis are no longer a threat, and England, at least for the time being, has taken Blur back under its wing. During the Wembley shows, the band played hit after hit from their nine-album career while the Oasis brothers, Noel and Liam Gallagher remained distanced from their former rivals, carrying on with their respective solo projects and enjoying their celeb lifestyles. Judging strictly from the audience’s ecstatic reaction to “Girls & Boys,” “Parklife,” “The Universal” and “Song 2,” it’s hard to imagine that Oasis could recapture this much adoration from the British
