The Year Of The Smiths
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, The Virgin Yearbook, 1984
GAY MEN PAVED pop’s way this year. With Boy George’s wardrobe fully open, all the closet cases came spilling forth: Burns and The Bronskis, Frankie and ...

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: ‘There’s ...

Suede in the U.S.A.
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 ...

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, ...

Pulp: Metropolitan University, Leeds
Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 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 dance ...

Pulp: His'n'Hers
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 minutes). ...

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." ...

Godfathers of Britpop? Terry Hall and Nick Heyward
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Musicweek, 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 such ...

Gene
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 over ...

Sleeper: The Venue, Edinburgh
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 as ...

Mojo Rising: Supergrass
Interview by Mark Cooper, Mojo, July 1995
Now trespassing in the charts, three princes of rascal ...

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 the ...

Supergrass: The Mod Squad
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 as ...

Pulp: Top Of The Fops
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 tabloid-teasing ...

Suits You: Menswear
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 Britain’s ...

Echobelly
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, well, ...

Supergrass
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) but ...

Blur In America
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 O'Shanty's ...

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 flight ...

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 stewardesses, ...

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 February)
...

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. ...

Bernard Butler Moves On
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 a ...

The Seahorses
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 worked ...

Oasis: Definitely Maybe
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 ...

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 fill ...

Geneva: Further
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 and ...

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 music ...

Lush: Britpop Bondgirls Bash Bonehead Badboys
Profile and Interview by Susan Whitall, Yahoo! Internet Life, August 1997
WHILE MUCH IS made of such supposed role models for young girls as Alanis Morissette, a young woman whose deeply personal songs are co-written by a ...

Oasis: Be Here 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 calm ...

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 enormous, ...

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 end, ...

Jarvis Cocker
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 ...

Republica: Speed Ballads
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
Second LP from Big In America, 'Ready To Go' hitmakers ...

Blur: 13
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". The ...

Elastica: Six Track EP (Deceptive) *
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 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 the ...

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, The Guardian, 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. ...

Oasis: Titanic!
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 of ...

Liam Gallagher
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 in ...

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 like ...

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!" We're ...

In a Class of His Own: Jarvis Cocker
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 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 his ...

Pulp: Je Suis Un Rock Star...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 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 is ...

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 ...

This Is A High For A Refreshed Blur
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, May 2003
Blur: The Astoria, London ...

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 unruly ...