Britpop
Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, May 1986
Pulp are from Sheffield and make rather outrageous records. Paul Mathur talks to them of dogs, wheelchairs, Nazis and baked beans. ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Ladbroke Grove Subterania
Live Review by Paul Moody, Sounds, November 1990
AT TIMES tonight, Ocean Colour Scene really do make sense. When Stephen Craddock's guitar bursts into 'Yesterday Today' and singer Simon matches it with a ...
Verve, The: The Verve: The Road To Wigan Fear
Profile and Interview by John Robb, Siren, May 1992
BOUNCING ONSTAGE in slow mo'...loose limbed lanky frame in shabby oxfam chic....v-necked black 'T'...shaggy barnet and flapping lips...the man is pure Jagger, Richard Ashcroft...the front ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer, The, June 1992
"WHEN WE STARTED the group, we felt that people were starved for music which allowed them to let themselves go," says Brett Anderson, Suede's 24-year-old ...
Blur: Mother’s Litter Helpers: Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish
Review by Paul Moody, NME, 1993
AND THE FOOLS laugh loudest. Blur’s rise and fall has all the comic nuances of Reginald Perrin’s. Two years ago they were pop’s champagne Charlies: ...
The Auteurs: New Wave (Hut Hut)
Review by David Sinclair, Q, March 1993
A NAME that the nation's tastemakers have been looking up in their dictionaries and dropping in the right circles for, oh, weeks. ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, May 1993
BEFORE ALL this took off, Brett Anderson, Suede's 25-year-old singer, would gloomily tick off each passing birthday as another year gone without his appearing on ...
Suede: Who Loves A Lad In Suede?
Report and Interview by Max Bell, Vox, May 1993
Suede were touted 'the best new band in Britain' before they even left the blocks, now, as they release their debut album, VOX delves behind ...
Suede, Morrissey: Brett Anderson & Morrissey: Suedegate
Comment by Sheryl Garratt, Face, The, May 1993
Does this magazine print deliberate lies? Well actually no, we don't ...
Blur: Modern Life Is Rubbish (Food)
Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, May 1993
CONTEMPORARY FAULT – ADJUST YOUR MIND-SET ...
Suede: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, May 1993
THIS IS happening with our permission. We wanted it to happen. We virtually willed it to happen. Suede are this season's singing saviours because we ...
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, June 1993
Britain’s new white-hot hope brings its liberated sexual stance to the States. Are you ready to get Suede? ...
Suede, Bernard Butler: Bernard Butler: Gentleman And Player
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, July 1993
When his father died last year, Bernard Butler used his guitar to assuage his grief. Now Britain's most important guitar hero since Johnny Marr has ...
Verve, The: The Verve: Touched I'm Sure
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, September 1993
"ER, A PINT of lager, did you say?" The barmaid is distracted. She has every right to be. Her current customer cuts rather a visual ...
Oasis, Saint Etienne: Saint Etienne/Oasis: Birmingham Institute
Live Review by Johnny Cigarettes, NME, December 1993
IF OASIS DIDN'T exist, no one would want to invent them. For a start, they look and sound like they're long overdue product from a ...
AUDIO: Elastica's Justine Frischmann (1994)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1994
The Full Frischmann: Starting Suede! Leaving Suede! Not much liking Suede these days! And then the excitement of being in Elastica at the height of Britpop, anticipating recording the first album...
File format: mp3 File size: 34.9mb Interview length: 38 minutes 10 seconds Sound quality: ***
S*M*A*S*H: Family Club, Welwyn Garden City
Live Review by Johnny Cigarettes, NME, February 1994
WELWYN GARDEN CITY. Always sounded horrible. Not as horrible sounding as Bletchley, Goole or Grimethorpe, admittedly, but more representative of the respectable blandist terrorism that ...
Pulp: Metropolitan University, Leeds
Live Review by Simon Warner, Guardian, The, April 1994
IN A MORE just world it would now be time to set aside the macho posturings of the rock burn-out and the dead-ends of the ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1994
POISED ON the brink of widespread success after nearly 14 years as linchpin of Sheffield glum-rock combo Pulp, Jarvis Cocker muses upon the long and ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, May 1994
FORGET EVERYTHING you know about what great music is – Bessie Smith, The Beatles, Neil Young, Al Green, all gone (not forever, just for 40 ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, June 1994
TO USE the vernacular of our friends in the American therapy industry, today's music business is not "a nurturing environment". One might use the expression ...
Pulp: Non Stop Erotique Cabaret
Report and Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, June 1994
"I WAS WONDERING", says Jarvis Cocker. "There was a baboon in the top floor of a flat behind where we played in Paris last night." ...
Oasis: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Beatles...
Interview by Cliff Jones, Face, The, August 1994
The next Pistols, the next Beatles, or just this month's Next Big Thing? Oasis are good enough to fight the hype – but the battling ...
Elastica: From Hype To Eternity
Interview by Everett True, Melody Maker, October 1994
ELASTICA were voted Best New Band in our Readers' Poll almost before the band had released a note. Why? Because you could tell just by ...
Oasis: Nine Months That Shook The World
Overview by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994
IT'S A terrible name. Terrible. It immediately and unjustly tags them as one of those risibly mediocre makeweights of the so-called 'baggy" explosion. It is ...
Review by David Sinclair, Q, November 1994
SUEDE'S FANS have always been utterly unwavering in their belief in the band. But out there, in the big bad world, the group still suffers ...
Nick Heyward, Terry Hall: Godfathers of Britpop? Terry Hall and Nick Heyward
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Music Week, 1995
FOR ARTISTS WHO came to prominence during the early '80s boom in British music, the dramatic rise in popularity of the clutch of homegrown acts ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, January 1995
1995 is set to be SLEEPER's year. The latest leading lights in the ongoing resurgence of Britpop brightened up last year with a string of ...
Interview by Elaine Cusack, Guitar, February 1995
JUST WHO do Gene think they are? Appearing out of nowhere last spring, the London-based quartet produced three highly contagious singles, had journalists fawning all ...
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Melody Maker, February 1995
"THE THING IS, we won't let anyone down." ...
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, February 1995
IF NOTHING ELSE, it's one of the better conjuring tricks of the age. Sleeper, as a musical entity, are resolutely standard issue, yet are hailed ...
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, May 1995
Jarvis Cocker, the only kid in his Sheffield classroom who wore lederhosen, didn't have a girlfriend till he was 19. Now he's a pin-up and ...
Elastica: You're Never Alone With Elastica
Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, May 1995
...Elastica. With impeccable Suede, Blur and, ahem, Stranglers connections, 1995's Great British Export-in-waiting put the "New" in New Wave. And, Iggy Pop tells Adrian Deevoy, ...
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Melody Maker, June 1995
Radiohead's The Bends is one of the albums of the year. We already know this. We also know that Thom Yorke is the next richeykurt ...
Supergrass: Mojo Rising: Supergrass
Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, July 1995
Now trespassing in the charts, three princes of rascal rock… ...
Blur, Oasis: Blur Vs. Oasis: A U.S. Perspective
Overview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, September 1995
RIGHT NOW, the British music scene is convulsed with patriotic fervor. For the first time in over a decade, young British guitar bands are penetrating ...
Interview by Everett True, Melody Maker, September 1995
Read this, it's great! ECHOBELLY, who are Number Three at the time of going to press with their new album, On, have a habit of ...
Blur, Oasis: The Marketing Of Britpop
Overview by Jon Savage, Artforum, October 1995
RECENTLY I returned from the US into a British news media dominated by a by-election in the North West of England. The point about the ...
Supergrass: Hey Hey We're The Cheeky Monkeys: Supergrass
Profile and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, October 1995
IN SPINAL TAP, that penetrating cinema verité dissection of the music industry, various scenes are offered as examples of the rampant absurdity of the rock'n'roll ...
Profile and Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, October 1995
IT'S A GLORIOUS SUMMER DAY in Oxford, city of dreaming spires in the heart of England. Three young tykes laugh and joke with each other ...
Interview by Pete Paphides, Time Out, October 1995
Captain's log, chartdate 1995: Pulp, Britpop's most militant misfits, are set to trounce rivals with a new zeitgeist-friendly album of caustic lyrics, hum-me tunes and ...
Pulp: Jacques Brel Art Disco I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life
Interview by David Quantick, Q, November 1995
"I'VE BEEN in the studio all the time. I mean, look at me, I'm nearly transparent! I feel bad, really – they're saying it's the ...
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, December 1995
As overnight sensations go, Menswear’s hyper-speed rise to fame makes even Julia Carling look like a beginner. Plus their music rocks. Simon Witter talks to ...
Pulp: Different Class (island)
Review by Keith Cameron, Vox, December 1995
WHERE, ONE wonders, does he do the dishes? The pre-eminence gris of kitchen-sink drama has spent so long washing other people's dirty linen, the plumbing ...
Interview by Elaine Cusack, Volume, Summer 1995
ECHOBELLY ARE a busy band. A very busy band. Their tight schedule of foreign tours, press trips and record releases is set to lengthen and, ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Select, March 1996
A STANDARD semi-detached on Oxford's fashionably downbeat Cowley Road appears an unlikely HQ for the UK's "hottest new band" (copyright the typically finger-not-on-the-pulse Today newspaper) ...
Blur: Stop The Band, I Wanna Get Off!
Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, March 1996
Are BLUR really going to the dogs? Behind all the adoring screams, we hear internal bickering, the tell-tale snii-ii-i-iff! of media-centric decadence, a hollow champagne ...
Report and Interview by Everett True, Melody Maker, March 1996
BOSTON. IT'S COLD. Covered in snow. Twee. In the rarefied, tourist part of the city centre, fairy lights twinkle on the gaudy exterior of Doc ...
Report and Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, March 1996
Ever been to a CAST gig? Total entertainment. Ever been to Amsterdam? Druggy hedonism meets sensual abandon. So what happens if you put Cast and ...
Pulp: Here's Looking At You, Kids
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1996
PULP LANDED in Sweden last night, but they're still coming down from Japan. Circumnavigational jet lag vies with cultural bouleversement for command of the mental ...
Oasis: C'mon America...Let's Ave Yer! Seven Mental Nights On The Oasis Tourbus
Report by Paolo Hewitt, Select, May 1996
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES of their plane taking off for Kansas, Oasis have assumed battle positions. Liam Gallagher is in the toilet with a couple of ...
The Third Invasion: Britpop Strikes!
Overview by Barney Hoskyns, Musician, July 1996
"Oasis must die. Do not buy Oasis records. They will come to rape and pillage our women and invade America."(Courtney Love on the Net, early ...
Oasis: They Thought It Was All Over
Report by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, September 1996
THE ANNOUNCEMENT came on Friday, 24 hours of nail-biting drama. Oasis, after all, were not going to split. ...
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
HE'S A DIFFICULT bugger, everyone says so. David McAlmont said so, as he walked away from a potentially chart-topping partnership, complaining the guitarist was ...
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
IT'S AMAZING what you can pack into a year. Take John Squire for example: he made an album and jammed with Oasis. He ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 1997
WITH THE swaggering chords of the opening ‘Rock'N'Roll Star,’ Oasis announced that big, brash Brit rock was here to stay--at least for a few years. ...
Suede: London Suede's New Spirit
Interview by Clare Kleinedler, Addicted To Noise, April 1997
IT SEEMS THE London Suede is the band that everybody loves to hate. No matter how many records they sell, or how many venues they ...
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 1997
GAZ COOMBES inadvertently summed the whole thing up himself earlier this year. Speaking of his newly-shedded hair, the Supergrass singer professed his absolute astonishment at ...
Mansun: Kilburn National, London
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, July 1997
THE FOUR million music journalists present at Mansun's big "triumphant" London show, tongues loosened by EMI's beer, tell me repeatedly that it's not OK for ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, July 1997
GENEVA ARE not puddings. I approve of this. So many chap-bands today (Tuesday) are puddings. Big, soggy, lumpy puddings just sitting there, wobbling every now ...
Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, September 1997
YOU'D THINK Oasis were at war. The sense of urgency is palpable. Be Here Now. It's all in the video to the single: Oasis, the ...
Oasis: live at Earls Court, London (27th September 1997)
Live Review by Will Self, Independent on Sunday, October 1997
IT WAS an emotional night for me – as it was for so many others. The minute that Liam Gallagher reached the centre of the ...
Oasis, Verve, The: Oasis/The Verve: London, Earl's Court
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 1997
AS PAUL Du Noyer wrote recently, somewhere along the road to epoch-making Oasis "took it as their job to cheer the country up". To which ...
Oasis: Westpoint Arena, Exeter
Live Review by Terry Staunton, Uncut, November 1997
CERTAIN elements of the tabloid press can't be too happy. Whispers around the Street of Shame suggested that some hacks were being despatched to Devon ...
Verve, The: The Verve: The Boston T-Shirt Party!
Report by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, November 1997
Welcome to the beauty of the new soul rebels. We join THE VERVE in America and discover the Wigan warriors are ready to take on ...
Oasis: Put It Next To The Other Three
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, January 1998
What a shoddy old year it's been for Oasis. Only six million copies of Be Here Now shifted. Only voted The Best Act In The ...
Review by Angus Batey, NME, March 1998
SOMETIMES THE simplest words are the most powerful. Plain statements. Single syllables. Don't pull your punches – hit 'em hard. ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 1998
Belated, soul-stirring debut from justifiably hyped Yorkshiremen ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 1998
The Pulp frontman takes a stairlift to heaven as he reflects on post-coital guilt and post-Britpop blues ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
Second LP from Big In America, 'Ready To Go' hitmakers ...
Kula Shaker: Peasants Pigs & Astronauts (Columbia) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1999
FOR A WHILE in 1996 it looked as though Kula Shaker were being watched over by the pantheon of gods and other bods portrayed on ...
Review by Keith Cameron, NME, March 1999
TWO-AND-a-half minutes into the tenth track on his band's sixth album Damon Albarn is heard to ponder: "Where is the magic?/I've got to get better". ...
Blur: The Prehistory of Blur: 'We Were Very... Purple'
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1999
A mohican, Artaud, pyjama bottoms, The Cardiacs, sackings, Pernod, dressing up as the Ayatollah Khomeini: all of this and more in the story of Blur ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1999
WE JOIN the story in the autumn of 1995. 'Country House' has beaten 'Roll With It' to Number One and the critics are in short-lived ...
Elastica: Six Track EP (Deceptive) *
Review by Tom Cox, Guardian, The, August 1999
FOR ALL THE TREMORS, speculation and mystique you might generate by disappearing off the face of the earth after a classic debut album, there's always ...
Supergrass: Supergrass (Parlophone)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Daily Telegraph, September 1999
WE HEAR AN awful lot about how Oxford is still the gateway to eminence in thrusting new young Britain, but what about Wheatley Park Comprehensive? ...
Oasis: Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (Big Brother) **
Review by Tom Cox, Guardian, The, February 2000
FOR HAS-BEENS APPARENT, Oasis still possess remarkable powers of intimidation, but in the build-up to Standing on the Shoulder of Giants they've cunningly switched tactics. ...
Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, March 2000
OASIS, if you hadn't noticed, have just resurfaced. But will they sink or swim? After the druggy excesses of Be Here Now, following the departure ...
Interview by Carol Clerk, Uncut, April 2000
THE LOCATION IS LONDON'S flashy Landmark Hotel, a place where palm trees loom over drinkers in the lobby and there's a better class of toiletry ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, May 2000
Stretching the imagination: Frischmann's answer-album to Blur's relationship-dissecting 13 ...
Graham Coxon: The Leadmill, Sheffield
Live Review by Neil Kulkarni, Melody Maker, July 2000
MAYBE THE whys and wherefores don't matter. Maybe it's pointless trying to figure out the real reasons for people coming here. Nobody could really have ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, September 2000
THREE IS the magic number for Britrock alchemists ...
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, October 2000
MY GOD, they plod. The paucity of ideas would be staggering, were it not so dull. ...
Coldplay, Craig David, David Gray: Letter From London: Garage and The New Soft Rock
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, December 2000
"TO ME, ALL MELODIES were pure embarrassment," said Radiohead's Thom Yorke recently as he struggled to explain the making of Kid A. It hardly seems ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, December 2000
Best of the late, legendary indie label ...
Tindersticks: Subterania, London
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, May 2001
"WE HAVEN'T found our feet yet, have we?" mutters Stuart Staples mid-set. A voice from the crowd is shy but clearly audible: "Yes, you have!" ...
Pulp: Jarvis Cocker: Sorted For Trees and Weeds
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent, The, October 2001
AMID THE RUMPLED grandeur of West London's Cobden Club, the familiar angular figure of Jarvis Cocker stands out like a sore index finger. His ...
Pulp: We Love Life (Island}*****
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2001
After scrapped sessions and a delayed release date, Cocker & Co follow up 1998's This Is Hardcore, with Scott Walker at the controls ...
Pulp: In a Class of His Own: Jarvis Cocker
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, Observer, The, December 2001
Jarvis Cocker could have been trapped in his role of English eccentric, a blend of Morrissey, Ray Davies and Alan Bennett. But he has found ...
Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, Observer Music Monthly, March 2002
As Britpop's queen, she had everything: In Elastica, she had a best-selling group and in Damon Albarn, a boyfriend lusted after by thousands. But then ...
Pulp: Pulp: Je Suis Un Rock Star...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, Observer, The, December 2002
IN THE BBC CANTEEN, where passing celebrity chefs must recoil before a menu that has stubbornly resisted the onward march of culinary ponciness, Jarvis Cocker ...
Blur, Pulp, Oasis: Britpop: And The Beat Goes Off
Retrospective by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, February 2003
Britpop recalled the halcyon days of the Beatles and the Stones – but the party didn't last ...
Blur: This Is A High For A Refreshed Blur
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, May 2003
Blur: The Astoria, London ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, September 2003
PULP HAVE a greatest hits record, and it’s about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest ...
Live Review by Pete Paphides, Times, The, July 2005
THESE DAYS, the Zeitgeist might prefer to be seen on the town with the likes of Coldplay – but for a band shadowed by past ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 2005
Combes brothers Gaz and Rob ruminate on their then-current album Road to Rouen, their fraternal relationships, the stresses within the band, and a whole lot more.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 48.6mb, total interview length: 53' 03" sound quality: ****
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, July 2006
SOMETIMES, WHAT sounds like a good concert idea on paper turns out even better – historic, even – on stage. ...
Oasis: Noel Gallagher of Oasis
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, January 2007
OASIS MAJORDOMO Noel Gallagher is turning back the clock. Not just because he’s staring at the specter of turning 40, but because he and his ...
Report and Interview by Pete Paphides, Times, The, December 2008
SIX YEARS AFTER they last played together, 13 since their epic chart duel with Oasis and almost three decades after the band's dominant figures met ...
Blur, Oasis: Look Back In Anger: Britpop
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, August 2009
Fifteen years ago, a teenage Jude Rogers was enchanted by a new pop sound and a new politics, both of which promised to change the ...
Interview by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, October 2010
Drugs, M.E. and despair sent the poor urchins of Britpop their separate ways in 2003. Now Suede have come roaring back to life. ...
Damon Albarn: Dr Dee live, Manchester International Festival
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Quietus, The, July 2011
Stephen Dalton at the Manchester International Festival finds Damon "the Martin Amis of Britpop" Albarn's musical about the life of Dr John Dee to be ...
Live Review by Neil Kulkarni, Quietus, The, July 2011
Neil Kulkarni breaks his no-festival rule and braves the corporate overkill of Wireless to see his Pulp. His verdict? They "now stand mighty amidst the ...
Noel Gallagher: High Flying Birds, Musical Kettles And Exploded Psych
Interview by John Doran, Quietus, The, October 2011
John Doran is caught napping by Noel Gallagher, who is finally getting to indulge his creative impulses with the High Flying Birds and Amorphous Androgynous! ...
Blur: Maida Vale Studios, London
Live Review by Jude Rogers, Observer, The, August 2012
AFTER BLUR'S 6 Music gig – the first of two shows they're playing for BBC radio tonight, to begin what they have suggested may be ...
Luke Haines: 'I've Been Lucky All The Way Through'
Interview by Jude Rogers, Observer, The, November 2012
Former 'saviour of UK rock' Luke Haines has never followed the unwritten rules of pop, as a surreal concept album proves ...
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