End of Oasis?

[Serge]

Has anyone else noticed that Liam Gallagher interviews make them really suited to being read in Kinky John Fowler's voice?

Just me then.

Now you've said it, I'm going to imagine them like that forever more now.

[Spiteface]

Few things on this planet make me more depressed than the 'comments' section on NME.com news stories.

Youtube comments have that effect on me.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

Few things on this planet make me more depressed than the 'comments' section on NME.com news stories.

Not even the "comments" section of every other internet news outlet?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

general public = hideous cunts

come on, that's what we were getting around to...

[purlieu]

There's something about the NME one which makes me a little more upset than most.  The argument on that story is especially bad, because both sides were awful.

"Oasis are utterly talentless and completely pointless"
"No they're not, they've sold 7 million albums"
"Anyone who likes Oasis is a knuckle dragging thug"
"If ure just posting opinions, not facts, shut up!"
"If you can't spell, shut up"
"I like getting drunk to Oasis"
"You are what's wrong with society"

UGH.

[23 Daves]

I actually clicked on the link to look at that and thought the same thing.  I think what's irritating about it for me is that whilst both sides are arguing in a tremendously stupid way, there's no indication anywhere that either party actually gives a shit about the music itself (or at least, they totally fail to mention it).  It's all about attitude or buying into a lifestyle - the non-Oasis fans think they're intellectually superior just because they're wearing their Arcade Fire badges with pride and are therefore 'not laddish', whereas the Oasis fans think it's all about how many  millions of albums were sold and kicking a ball about with some music in the background. 

That sums up the NME's readership in 2009, I'd say.  They may as well be arguing about Coke and Pepsi - except even then, the average member of the public might actually be able to say why they prefer the taste of one to the other.

[lipsink]

What annoys me is when there's a documentary about Britpop or Oasis/Blur, they start off with:

"Yeah, around that time it was all grunge and Seattle and heroin and American bands singing about misery..."

Then if you see a documentary about Nirvana:

"Around that time it was all sexist homophobic cock rock bands like Guns 'n' Roses and Motley Crue singing about how many limos they had."

Then a documentary about Radiohead will say:

"The whole 'Britpop' thing was all about Oasis and lad mags..."

Can they not understand that people can like all of these bands? (Well, I don't like Motley Crue)

[Spiteface]

Agreed.

May as well post this, as it's a pisstake of a similar thing:

Baaaddad's Cliched memories of Punk.

Which is every single documentary ever made about the Punk movement.

Actually, on a related note, I seem to recall when Creation Records closed down in 1999, there were a lot of people going on about how shit 80's music was before Creation was founded, which is a load of bollocks.  And Creation themselves put out a fuckload of Shite in their time (mainly in the 90's after signing Oasis - Mishka, anyone?).

[lipsink]

Ha, I loved that sketch. Of course when they start talking about the decline of punk they say:

"It became a parody of itself. But punk was never about lasting though."

In 20 years time they'll be saying:

"Before that, it was all Keane and pianos and Burton jumpers. Then the Kaiser Chiefs came along and wore Topman shoes and sang about 'Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!" It was like, finally something that speaks to us!"

[23 Daves]

What annoys me is when there's a documentary about Britpop or Oasis/Blur, they start off with:

"Yeah, around that time it was all grunge and Seattle and heroin and American bands singing about misery..."

I know very few people agree with me, but I've always thought that statement was partly fair.  Not the cliched summary of grunge it delivers, obviously, but the fact that in the early nineties the British music scene was a bit unsure of itself, and did seem swamped by American culture - something I remember finding alienating even before the term Britpop was coined.  At the time, if you did choose to go out to an Alternative night in your local town, you would just hear wall-to-wall grunge tracks which were rather awkward listening for what was supposed to be a decadent teenage night out.  I was just beginning to enjoy myself in clubs when grunge broke - prior to that, even a provincial Alternative night would feature a wide cross section of both Dance music and indie material.  It was a bit more inclusive.

In retrospect, I think it was all just part of the cycle the British music scene seems to go through every 8-10 years or so, where a lot of hard rock orientated sounds shove the rest of the scene to one side for a bit.  Although please don't call me on that theory if nothing of the sort happens next year or the year after... I haven't really thought about it that hard, not thinking much beyond NWOBHM in the early eighties, grunge in the early nineties, then nu-metal in the late nineties/ early noughties...

[Phil_A]

Actually, on a related note, I seem to recall when Creation Records closed down in 1999, there were a lot of people going on about how shit 80's music was before Creation was founded, which is a load of bollocks.  And Creation themselves put out a fuckload of Shite in their time (mainly in the 90's after signing Oasis - Mishka, anyone?).

Not to mention a lot of bollocks before, like that unlistenable Everett True single.

And later McGee had the cheek to slag off The Boo Radleys "Wake Up!", one of the few really good records Creation put out during their flush of post-Oasis success.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Reminds me of the bit on the Live Forever documentary where this pair of twats in an Oasis tribute band are swigging Stella in their grim little hovel and going on about "proper lads" coming along and saving everyone from 80s music with their guitars and "mad for it" attitude.

[Paaaaul]

Not to mention a lot of bollocks before, like that unlistenable Everett True single.

And later McGee had the cheek to slag off The Boo Radleys "Wake Up!", one of the few really good records Creation put out during their flush of post-Oasis success.

I love The Boo Radleys but that was definitely their cackest Creation album, including Twinside, probably the worst song Martin Carr has written.

It wasn't awful, but definitely some cack on there.

[purlieu]

I know very few people agree with me, but I've always thought that statement was partly fair.

I think it largely comes from the fact that Modern Life Is Rubbish was intentionally British in sound, and Suede also spoke out about there not being any good British bands around at the time they recorded their debut, and these are seen as the two albums that kickstarted Britpop.

[Serge]

I think the idea that everybody was only listening to American alternative rock before the 'mighty Britpop explosion' is definitely a lazy journalistic cliche. I'm looking back at the records I bought in the late eighties/early nineties - Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, Saint Etienne, The Wonder Stuff, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Julian Cope, The Orb, Stereolab, Sabres Of Paradise, etc, etc. And of course, these are all bands that got tons of coverage/ front pages in the music press alongside yer Nirvanas and Sonic Youths, etc. Admittedly, a few of those bands I mentioned had American influences - the big Teenage Fanclub/ Big Star thing for a start - but then you can't get a band more British (indeed, more London) than Saint Etienne. It might be that music journalists want to forget that they filled their magazines with Neds Atomic Dustbin and Mega City Four, but to say 'it was all grunge' is a bit misleading.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Plus, it wasn't like Britpop saved anyone from bad music, it just gave us a load of other bad music with a few good bands in the mix (like any music scene). It was exciting at the time but looking back there were as many American bands I liked such as Belly, Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, as there were British bands.

[Serge]

This is true. I should have mentioned that I also have reacords by Nirvana, Throwing Muses, Pixies, Breeders, Pavement, etc, etc, from the same late eighties/ early nineties period. I should also mention that when I typed 'also' above, I managed to mistype it as 'laos', which is an impressive feat of finger dyslexia even for me.

[23 Daves]

I think the idea that everybody was only listening to American alternative rock before the 'mighty Britpop explosion' is definitely a lazy journalistic cliche. I'm looking back at the records I bought in the late eighties/early nineties - Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, Saint Etienne, The Wonder Stuff, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Julian Cope, The Orb, Stereolab, Sabres Of Paradise, etc, etc.

I think the big issue with many of the above bands above is that they were either past their prime by '92 or '93 (Happy Mondays, Wonder Stuff, Stone Roses) or else they were actually quite marginalised in comparison. It was also around exactly the same period that people were seriously talking about the death of British music, although admittedly most of this was lazy, Tony Parsons-led drivel.

Britpop was a bit of a double-edged sword (man).  I do think it gave the British music industry enough faith to invest in and promote homegrown talent, even if the homegrown talent happened to be Gorky's Zygotic Mynci or Bark Psychosis.  It also reinvigorated the live circuit no end, something I definitely noticed being stuck out in the provinces.  Gigs went from having 80 slightly bored looking people milling around to sell-out shows for new bands - it felt like an enormous sea-change.  Venues suddenly felt alive again.  On the other side of that, I do think it placed too much emphasis on commercial success in the end, which was the precursor to the 'landfill indie' state we presently find ourselves in.

I have had this argument loads and loads of times before, though, and personal perspective counts for heaps. I know one person who thinks the live music scene in Britain peaked with Huggy Bear in '93, for example, purely because that happened to be what she was looking for, and nothing much like it has been repeated since - or at least not on the same level.

And also - yes, the majority of the output from most scenes is crap, however underground or overground they may be.  I'm not interested in Britpop much as a genre, if it could even be called one, but I did feel invigorated by the shift in attitude which occurred around '94, which I don't actually believe was fully led by the mainstream media.  It's a pity TJ doesn't post here anymore - he'd be able to quote lots of British fanzines and club nights which were around in '92 or '93 which were fighting against grunge and trying to pursue retro music with an Anglo-centric identity, whereas my memory is shocking for details like that. 

[Serge]

I do think it gave the British music industry enough faith to invest in and promote homegrown talent, even if the homegrown talent happened to be Gorky's Zygotic Mynci or Bark Psychosis.

I'm possibly being a bit dim here, but are you saying this is a good or bad thing? Two bands I'm very fond of, there....!

[23 Daves]

I'm possibly being a bit dim here, but are you saying this is a good or bad thing? Two bands I'm very fond of, there....!

Oh, it's definitely a good thing.  I just don't think that Gorky's (for example) would ever have signed to Phonogram had there not been a sense at the time that 'alternative guitar based pop' was "in", however odd it was.  In fact, when I met them and spoke to them at the time they were on Ankst, Euros Childs actually said outright to me "We'll never sign to a major level, it's not that we don't want to, it's just they'd never have us".  One year later, and they'd signed on the dotted line.

Fat lot of good it did them, I suppose you could argue... but the increased exposure probably helped the careers of all concerned, more so than if they'd remained stuck on a Welsh indie.

[weekender]

I'd love to wax lyrical about my musical tastes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but I won't because I want to add a fairly simple point.

Me and my mates were all about 10-16 and all of the music that we heard during that time shaped us, probably.  I know for a fact I was listening to the charts up until about 1989 when I discovered some sort of Indie Chart (probably via the Chart Show, I remember seeing Verve's 'She's A Superstar' on there, that was about 91/92?).

So there were some of us who listened more to indie, some to dance, some to folk, some to metal and each week we'd gather in a field, have some beers and play each other some tunes.

We realised fairly early on in our youth that good music is good music, regardless of the genre.  It's also why it fucking annoys me to this day that bands/artists end up being pigeon-holed by the press.  That was all, really.  Sorry it's quite a dull point that you almost certainly already know.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

You're The One For Me, Fatty was the first Britpop single.

[Serge]

Oh, it's definitely a good thing.

I thought that was the way you meant it, but I just had to check! Cheers.

We realised fairly early on in our youth that good music is good music, regardless of the genre.  It's also why it fucking annoys me to this day that bands/artists end up being pigeon-holed by the press.  That was all, really.  Sorry it's quite a dull point that you almost certainly already know.

No, it's fair enough for you to say that, for as you rightly point out, the music press continues to try and tidy things up and put things in boxes. (Says the man who started a Krautrock thread....)