In the wake of the collapse of grunge in the early 90′s, British rock experienced a short-lived renaissance. Shirking the dominant influence American music had had, English bands drew inspiration from their rich musical legacy. Characterized by hooky, catchy progressions and an unmistakably British delivery that included thick accents and British slang, the movement that came to be known as Britpop yielded a wealth of fantastic albums. Here are five albums that capture the scope of the movement in broad strokes:
The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (5/2/89)
Along with the self-titled La’s album, this represents the first spark of the Britpop fire. Although it predates the movement by a few years, most of the essential qualities are present. The album’s influence would be great and immediate. Opening with the sublime “I Wanna Be Adored”, the quality never dips. John Squire’s guitar work is superlative, reverb-drenched beauty. Ian Brown spits, mumbles, snarls and occasionally sings. He’s fantastic. (Liam Gallagher would appropriate his delivery, streamlining to great success.) This is the beginning, friends.
Blur - Parklife (4/25/94)
Blur is one of the two most successful Britpop acts, a band that is virtually synonymous with the movement. Although they lost the Britpop battle to their rivals, Oasis (more on them shortly), history has been kinder to Blur, as evidenced by the reception of their recent reunion. Parklife covers a lot of musical ground, from the disco groove of “Boys and Girls” to the punky aggression of “Bank Holiday”. The lyrical heir to Ray Davies’ subversive wit, Parklife offers a fragmented view of British culture through the eyes of an unimpressed Damon Albarn. Truly a great, great album.
Oasis – Definitely Maybe (8/30/94)
The other biggest Britpop act, Oasis was the only one to make any significant impact on the American market. (That was thanks to “Wonderwall”, an excruciating ballad on an otherwise great album, but I digress.) Released almost exactly four months after Parklife, Definitely Maybe is more stylistically consistent. Oasis wanted to be The Beatles, but they sounded more like Slade. Despite the fact that they can still fill large venues across the globe, Oasis alienated many serious music fans with their arrogance and penchant for borrowing musical ideas from their influences. It’s a shame because Definitely Maybe is fantastic. Pure Rock n Roll.
Suede – Coming Up (9/2/96)
In 1996 Britpop was going strong. The rapture and devil-may-care attitude of the era is beautifully captured on Suede’s Coming Up. Suede didn’t reach the heights of success of the other bands on this list, but they were on the ground floor of the movement. With Coming Up, they aspired to make an album that sounded like a “best of” collection and succeeded. Glammy, trashy and wonderfully over-the-top, Coming Up crystallizes the immediacy and vigor of Brit Pop at its most accessible.
Pulp – This is Hardcore (3/30/98)
As George Harrison once sang, “all things must pass”. By 1998, they Britpop bubble had burst. Oasis had released a shitty album. Blur had begun to experiment with other genres. The dream could no longer sustain and cold hard reality crashed through the gates. Thank god Pulp gave us closure with This is Hardcore, a stark, reflective album that acknowledges the eruption of anxiety and ennui that had been percolating throughout the movement. Pulp’s previous album, Different Class, was a better album, but this album is the perfect book-end to the movement. It’s a little bleak, sure, but you can always follow it up with The Stone Roses.
Independence Day Weekend is one of the biggest for the Hollywood Box Office. In that spirit, we’ve decided to dedicate this week’s list to songs written for movies. Sure, we could have done a list of patriotic songs, but we’re pop-culture obsessives. Bear in mind, there are many great songs strongly identified with certain films, but they only qualified for this list if they written specifically for the movie they appear in. No “Head Over Heals” in Donnie Darko, for example.
Transformers The Movie
The Touch – Stan Bush
Well before Michael Bay’s live-action celluloid nightmares, the robots in disguise made their first cinematic foray in support of the original animated tv series. Released in 1986, Transformers: The Movie became a sort of minor classic. Whereas the show had been relatively low-stakes, the film heightened the drama by killing off major characters, portraying genocide and, in certain editions, featuring swear words. This may have been enough to make the film endure, but Stan Bush’s “The Touch” ensured members of a certain generation would never forget . Wailing guitars, churchy synths and a Loggins-esque vocal delivery characterize this anthem. What is “the touch”? It’s an indelible quality that creates greatness. Featured twice in the film, it was resurrected in 1997′s Boogie Nights as one of Dirk Diggler’s ill-fated would-be singles.
Flash Gordon
Flash’s Theme – Queen
It’s common for movies these days to feature scores by rock bands and popular musicians. In 1980, it was something of a novelty. Queen’s score for Flash Gordon is a great example of how the marriage can work. Who better to provide musical accompaniment to the bombastic, over-the-top theatricality of Flash Gordon than rock’s most bombastic, over-the-top and theatrical act? Look no further than Flash’s Theme, one of the few tracks on the album to feature vocals. It is both the perfect piece to set the ironic tone of the film as well as a classic Queen track. The film was unsuccessful, retaining a small cult following, but the song lives on in Queen collections and as a ubiquitous pop-culture reference.
The Triplets of Belleville
Belleville Rendez-vouz – Beatrice Bonifassi
The Triplets of Bellville feels like a timeless classic the moment you first see it. It is a singular and striking piece of animation. It has the surreal quality of a dream. Its dialogue free-narrative gives the story a universal quality. Its elderly protagonist predates the elderly protogaonist of Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle by a year Pixar’s Up by six. Most of all, the music is absolutely, balls-to-the-wall amazing. An amalgamation of popular styles from the 1920′s, Benoit Charest’s music for this film evokes more than any amount of dialogue ever could. The film’s theme, Belleville Rendez-vous is uplifting, infectious and inspiring. I could levy a complaint or two against the film, but the music is perfect.
The Jungle Book
I Wanna be Like You (The Monkey Song) – Louis Prima
These days Disney offers vacuous, over-focus-tested entertainment designed to strike your emotional palette the same way a MacDonald’s Big Mac is intended to strike your oral palate. Once upon a time, they were the premier innovators of animation and family entertainment. They did things on old technology that would be difficult to accomplish today, post-digital revolution. They also hired some of the best song-writers of their time. For our list, we had to go with “I Wanna Be Like You (The Monkey Song)” from The Jungle Book as the penultimate Disney song. Sung by the incomparable Louis Prima, the song has a backbeat that won’t quit, tasty harmonies and a superlative melody. When Baloo tries to rescue Mowgli during this musical number, his plan derails as the song overtakes him and he helplessly joins in the performance. You know what? I buy it.
Top Gun
Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins
Top Gun is a very silly movie. One could imagine it began with a studio excec or producer muttering, “fighter jets”, scrawling it on a cocktail napkin and coming up with the plot on-the-fly at a pitch meeting. It is one of many 80′s cinematic curios, seemingly made in all sincerity with much in the way of hilariously unintended subtext and overtones. The soundtrack for the film spawned several successful singles. “Danger Zone” somehow rises above the rest, with its literal lyrics (You’ll never know what you can do/until you get it up as high as you can go), Giorgio Moroder production and Kenny Loggins’ classic vocal performance. If you can say you didn’t love it at the time, you are either a liar, or one of the members of Berlin.
Hello there folks of the some-what free world, my name is Amelia. I am the newly employed member of the Pure Pop weekend crew. I am quite pleased to be included in this strange and happy family, and to get us better aquainted, I’ll give you a little intro to let you know what I’m about.
Unfortunately, I missed the last topic of discussion on the Pure Pop blog, the subject being, “music to off yourself to.” I’ll admit that I’m partial to music of the melancholic, so I’ve got a couple picks to share. At the onslaught of my angstiest moments, I always turn to the song “Love Letter Typewriter” by the 90′s midwestern favorite Mineral. The whiny anguish of these emotional rockers is the perfect fuel to give me the courage to bleed out. Up the street, not cross the road folks!
Another tune for my last goodbye would be just that, “Last Goodbye” by the late Jeff Buckley. Perfect for playing from tape on a beat-up boombox in the back of my pick-em up truck as I fill my pockets with rocks and walk into a river. Yes, as you sad sap 90′s kids know, Buckley did indeed drown.
So, come say hi to me on Saturdays and Sundays, there’s plently more amusing morbidity where those picks came from.
