This week in music is a very vivid memory for me too. At the time I was definitely rooting for Oasis, as a fellow northern lad with Irish roots. This was probably more a tribal thing because I never liked Roll With It and had been a little young for Definitely Maybe. The north/south divide was certainly a bigger issue for people in the north of the country and Blur seemed pretty smug, in keeping with my views on pretty much everyone south of Sheffield at the time. I didn’t mind Country House and deep down I probably knew it was a smarter song, but my teenage prejudices were hard to shake.
I have such conflicting feelings about Britpop these days. It was a weird, disparate non-scene/non-genre — a collection of odd bands at a peculiar moment in time, followed by a second wave of copycats and opportunists. I still don’t particularly care for Blur and while I’ll admit they have had a more sustained and interesting career, I don’t think they’ve released an album to match Definitely Maybe. But no one can hold a candle to Pulp.
The britpop years were the best! Remember Jarvis Cocker getting his arse out on stage to protest Michael Jackson? 🤣 What's weird is I remember going back and forth between britpop and rave/dance music that was also getting really popular at the same time. Also weird: we hadn't even felt the impact of grunge in the US yet. I didn’t know who Kurt Cobain was until his death was all over the news.
Fun fact I bring up at every single opportunity: when Jarvis was arrested, Bob Mortimer legally represented him.
You’re right about grunge. Nirvana aside, I don’t ever think it was a huge deal. Revisionism talks about Faith No More, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam etc being huge, but they were much more of an American concern. It was totally possible to be huge without going fully global back then. Oasis and Blur both struggled to break America, and I remember it being a huge thing that Robbie Williams was unable to, too.
Britpop had a transfixing effect on Blur, who generally evolve between albums. On The Great Escape, they leaned into the thematic elements of their previous album – Park Life – and became a lumbering caricature. I liked it, thought many didn't. The band appeared cognisant that they had taken things too far and changed course on their next record, nodding in the direction of transatlantic influences that they would have spurned only a few years before. Even the more profound songs – The Universal, He Thought of Cars, Yuko and Hiro – have a hypereal quality about them. Only Best Days is spared this distorting filter, and sounds like it could have been on Modern Life is Rubbish.
The middle-eight of Country House is where Damon perfected the technique of inserting a couple of lines into a song that nod in the direction of melancholy, but that are ambiguous enough to kindle a personal relevance in the listener. It's a cheap parlour trick but one that he does so well that, even when you are aware he's pushing your buttons, you still want to go along with it. He was at it in the chorus of Russian Strings on Blur's most recent album – The Ballad of Darren: “The tenement blocks come crashing down, with headphones on you won't hear that much.”
The chart battle between Country House and Roll With It was, in hindsight, two prize fighters, both off their A game, squaring up for an ill-tempered bout that proved nothing other than that Britpop had climbed to the zenith of its own flagpole. In the aftermath, anybody with an ounce of common sense was striking camp and heading out before dawn; either making their 'actually everything's a bit shit' record, or aiming in the direction of new sounds, or harvesting what remained of their momentum for a third album that failed to equal commercial expectations now that the bloom was off the English rose.
Listen to the instrumental version of Country House, stripped of its boorish, 'carry on up the country' narrative. It will break your heart and make you wonder what might have been:
The clank of scaffolding in the intro; the way the guitar in the verses chugs along like the brass section in the extended version of For Tomorrow; Graham Coxon's understated needling crescendos that usher the song towards its chorus; the occasional murmuring cascades of corner boozer piano and the breaths of subdued carnival organ that surface in the second verse; the spacey guitar perforating the funereal organ of the bridge. It's a meticulously-composed piece of music supporting a loutish top-build with a kernel of poignancy at the centre; like someone constructed a Bovis starter home on Gaudí foundations, then put up a framed print of Van Gogh's Starry Night near one of the bedroom windows, where it could be seen from the street.
Blur, more than any UK band of their era (including Radiohead and its permutations) have held onto their creative integrity. The Ballad of Darren was an album where every song was, at one point, my favourite track. Unfortunately I was listening to it when my chameleon, Frederic, was dying. Though it gave me comfort, now I can't bear to go anywhere near it. A year prior to that, Damon Albarn's solo record – The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows – was another high point, capped by an insane 19 minute hidden track, Huldufólk – a spiritually disorienting journey into the depths of Icelandic shamanism. Buried between these two poles was the oft-overlooked Blur drummer, Dave Rowntree's, solo record, Radio Songs, which, in places, echoes some of the band's most moving moments.
I can’t believe you’re burying such great pieces of writing in the comments on Substack.
About Blur’s ongoing creativity, my theory is it’s because they’re all so different. It’s demonstrated perfectly on Girls & Boys, where all four members seem to be trying to take the song in a different direction. Damon is having a knees-up but there’s also sexual ambiguity, Alex isn’t far away from jazz-funk, Graham is playing crunching chords and wants to be in Sonic Youth, and Dave is trying to hold it all together and wishing everyone would just calm down. It’s glorious.
Dave is the dark horse in that band, but easy to overlook. His creativity is buried under the strong personalities of the other three.
The point of all of the writing that I currently put up online, both here on Substack and on the more insalubrious corners of the Internet, is to keep my hand in, so when I sit down to work on my novel, I can get right to it. I don't write about music too often, although I will next week, as I have come up with an idea that is too stupid not to write.
I think 1995/1996 was the last time I felt I could get behind the UK charts. Country House was number 1 on my 20th birthday. At that point Blur had already won the battle but this was at a time when “straight in at number one” still wasn’t a given (I miss the days of the slow burn single!) and it hung in for another week. I vividly remember a family barbecue where we listened to the chart countdown and celebrated Blur winning the top spot. I actually liked both bands and I stand by Oasis’ first two albums as being really very good, but Blur were so much more interesting and consistent over time.
In retrospect I find it bizarre that Roll With It (arguably the worst song on the album) was the song embroiled in this battle. Country House was a much better single and a worthy winner. Brit Pop wasn’t formative to my music tastes but it absolutely hit my sweet spot and after years of Stock, Aiken and Waterman dominating the chart countdown, it was amazing to have new guitar bands to get behind. Despite its flaws, the mid 90s was a fantastic time for music - and I agree, Waterfalls is a brilliant track which has aged very well.
Oh you were exactly the right age for this then. You’re right about Roll With It. Even not being an Oasis fan I know there are a lot of better songs. It’s arguably their weakest single until you start getting to the Be Here Now era.
Remembering a family barbecue where you listen to the chart rundown is exactly the kind of thing I love hearing about 😀
This week in music is a very vivid memory for me too. At the time I was definitely rooting for Oasis, as a fellow northern lad with Irish roots. This was probably more a tribal thing because I never liked Roll With It and had been a little young for Definitely Maybe. The north/south divide was certainly a bigger issue for people in the north of the country and Blur seemed pretty smug, in keeping with my views on pretty much everyone south of Sheffield at the time. I didn’t mind Country House and deep down I probably knew it was a smarter song, but my teenage prejudices were hard to shake.
I have such conflicting feelings about Britpop these days. It was a weird, disparate non-scene/non-genre — a collection of odd bands at a peculiar moment in time, followed by a second wave of copycats and opportunists. I still don’t particularly care for Blur and while I’ll admit they have had a more sustained and interesting career, I don’t think they’ve released an album to match Definitely Maybe. But no one can hold a candle to Pulp.
The britpop years were the best! Remember Jarvis Cocker getting his arse out on stage to protest Michael Jackson? 🤣 What's weird is I remember going back and forth between britpop and rave/dance music that was also getting really popular at the same time. Also weird: we hadn't even felt the impact of grunge in the US yet. I didn’t know who Kurt Cobain was until his death was all over the news.
Fun fact I bring up at every single opportunity: when Jarvis was arrested, Bob Mortimer legally represented him.
You’re right about grunge. Nirvana aside, I don’t ever think it was a huge deal. Revisionism talks about Faith No More, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam etc being huge, but they were much more of an American concern. It was totally possible to be huge without going fully global back then. Oasis and Blur both struggled to break America, and I remember it being a huge thing that Robbie Williams was unable to, too.
I miss Vic and Bob! You’ve got me going down the rabbit hole on Youtube now :)
UVAVU
Britpop had a transfixing effect on Blur, who generally evolve between albums. On The Great Escape, they leaned into the thematic elements of their previous album – Park Life – and became a lumbering caricature. I liked it, thought many didn't. The band appeared cognisant that they had taken things too far and changed course on their next record, nodding in the direction of transatlantic influences that they would have spurned only a few years before. Even the more profound songs – The Universal, He Thought of Cars, Yuko and Hiro – have a hypereal quality about them. Only Best Days is spared this distorting filter, and sounds like it could have been on Modern Life is Rubbish.
The middle-eight of Country House is where Damon perfected the technique of inserting a couple of lines into a song that nod in the direction of melancholy, but that are ambiguous enough to kindle a personal relevance in the listener. It's a cheap parlour trick but one that he does so well that, even when you are aware he's pushing your buttons, you still want to go along with it. He was at it in the chorus of Russian Strings on Blur's most recent album – The Ballad of Darren: “The tenement blocks come crashing down, with headphones on you won't hear that much.”
The chart battle between Country House and Roll With It was, in hindsight, two prize fighters, both off their A game, squaring up for an ill-tempered bout that proved nothing other than that Britpop had climbed to the zenith of its own flagpole. In the aftermath, anybody with an ounce of common sense was striking camp and heading out before dawn; either making their 'actually everything's a bit shit' record, or aiming in the direction of new sounds, or harvesting what remained of their momentum for a third album that failed to equal commercial expectations now that the bloom was off the English rose.
Listen to the instrumental version of Country House, stripped of its boorish, 'carry on up the country' narrative. It will break your heart and make you wonder what might have been:
The clank of scaffolding in the intro; the way the guitar in the verses chugs along like the brass section in the extended version of For Tomorrow; Graham Coxon's understated needling crescendos that usher the song towards its chorus; the occasional murmuring cascades of corner boozer piano and the breaths of subdued carnival organ that surface in the second verse; the spacey guitar perforating the funereal organ of the bridge. It's a meticulously-composed piece of music supporting a loutish top-build with a kernel of poignancy at the centre; like someone constructed a Bovis starter home on Gaudí foundations, then put up a framed print of Van Gogh's Starry Night near one of the bedroom windows, where it could be seen from the street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8FWR9uThGQ
Blur, more than any UK band of their era (including Radiohead and its permutations) have held onto their creative integrity. The Ballad of Darren was an album where every song was, at one point, my favourite track. Unfortunately I was listening to it when my chameleon, Frederic, was dying. Though it gave me comfort, now I can't bear to go anywhere near it. A year prior to that, Damon Albarn's solo record – The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows – was another high point, capped by an insane 19 minute hidden track, Huldufólk – a spiritually disorienting journey into the depths of Icelandic shamanism. Buried between these two poles was the oft-overlooked Blur drummer, Dave Rowntree's, solo record, Radio Songs, which, in places, echoes some of the band's most moving moments.
I can’t believe you’re burying such great pieces of writing in the comments on Substack.
About Blur’s ongoing creativity, my theory is it’s because they’re all so different. It’s demonstrated perfectly on Girls & Boys, where all four members seem to be trying to take the song in a different direction. Damon is having a knees-up but there’s also sexual ambiguity, Alex isn’t far away from jazz-funk, Graham is playing crunching chords and wants to be in Sonic Youth, and Dave is trying to hold it all together and wishing everyone would just calm down. It’s glorious.
Dave is the dark horse in that band, but easy to overlook. His creativity is buried under the strong personalities of the other three.
The point of all of the writing that I currently put up online, both here on Substack and on the more insalubrious corners of the Internet, is to keep my hand in, so when I sit down to work on my novel, I can get right to it. I don't write about music too often, although I will next week, as I have come up with an idea that is too stupid not to write.
The Proustian rush of this post came for me when you got to TLC. And I *loved* Britpop. It's just making me question some things.
I think 1995/1996 was the last time I felt I could get behind the UK charts. Country House was number 1 on my 20th birthday. At that point Blur had already won the battle but this was at a time when “straight in at number one” still wasn’t a given (I miss the days of the slow burn single!) and it hung in for another week. I vividly remember a family barbecue where we listened to the chart countdown and celebrated Blur winning the top spot. I actually liked both bands and I stand by Oasis’ first two albums as being really very good, but Blur were so much more interesting and consistent over time.
In retrospect I find it bizarre that Roll With It (arguably the worst song on the album) was the song embroiled in this battle. Country House was a much better single and a worthy winner. Brit Pop wasn’t formative to my music tastes but it absolutely hit my sweet spot and after years of Stock, Aiken and Waterman dominating the chart countdown, it was amazing to have new guitar bands to get behind. Despite its flaws, the mid 90s was a fantastic time for music - and I agree, Waterfalls is a brilliant track which has aged very well.
Oh you were exactly the right age for this then. You’re right about Roll With It. Even not being an Oasis fan I know there are a lot of better songs. It’s arguably their weakest single until you start getting to the Be Here Now era.
Remembering a family barbecue where you listen to the chart rundown is exactly the kind of thing I love hearing about 😀
I’m an Oasis girl myself. I interviewed them in 1996 and it was quite the experience!
You can’t just say that and not give more details!
wow!