by Martin Roach
The home guard grew during 1993 with Modern Life being complemented by Suede’s eponymously titled, No.1 award-winning debut album. The rejuvenation of the festivals that had been helped by memorable performances by the likes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam was now taken over with stunning live shows by Blur and Suede of course, but also by The Boo Radleys and veteran British pioneers New Order. Nirvana’s Nevermind follow-up In Utero, silenced some of the doubters for a while, but with designer grunge now prancing along the catwalks and grunge-by-numbers advertising American jeans, the voices of dissent grew.
1994 was when it all exploded. Gilbert believes that Britpop was jump-started by the energetic emergence of New Wave of New Wave at the tail end of 1993: “The NWONW was important in the sense that it kick started an interest in really live energetic bands. Crucially, some of its reference points were very English, the Grange Hill 1978 school boy look, Adidas trainers and tops, short spiky hair, The Clash and the Sex Pistols. Perhaps it was more important sartorially than musically, in helping to define what Britpop was going to be.”
Once Blur’s Parklife had pushed the speed-fuelled NWONW aside, the flood gates of Britpop opened, and the untimely death of Kurt Cobain did indeed act as a tragic heralding of the end of an era. Throughout 1994, streams of new bands came through, and with the mainstream media picking up on Britpop, the resurgence of British music was quite astounding: in the next splendid eighteen months, Pulp finally broke their fourteen-year duck and produced a sexually subversive, comical seedy masterpiece in their first major label album His ’n’ Hers; Elastica broke away from their suffocating early NWONW status to release a volley of classic pop singles, stating the case for female writers, as did the slightly more lightweight Sleeper; The Auteurs more sombre style had somewhat underachieved; Oxford’s Radiohead filled the void with a queer debut album which was soon followed by The Bends and their latterday global-conquering status. At the opposite end to the saintly patience of Pulp came Supergrass, who only formed in early 1994, and within eighteen months had smashed into the album charts at No.1 with their excellent debut album I Should Coco. The ranks were also swelled by the likes of Shed Seven, Portishead, The Bluetones, Marion, Powder, Dodgy, and the album chart topping Boo Radleys. There was also the ultimate derivative Britpop band Menswear, who appeared on Top of the Pops before their first single was even released. Ironically, Suede had experienced a bad year in 1994 with the loss of guitarist and key songwriter Bernard Butler – fortunately, with the arrival of Richard Oakes as a replacement and the excellent and under-rated second album Dog Man Star, Suede temporarily returned from the brink. Blur at Alexandra Palace, Suede’s debut album, Supergrass on Top of the Pops and Jarvis on Pop Quiz were all great Britpop moments. The Mod phenomenon also underwent something of a revival, with Modfather Paul Weller enjoying renewed success after a dubious start to his solo career. Blur’s own Mod leanings on the second album were no longer dominant but many still tagged them as part of the new movement. However you looked at it, this was a great new era for British music, and now grunge bands in the UK couldn’t get arrested.
The Britpop phenomenon caused/coincided with a resurgence in various other areas of the British music industry. For example, at the time the late, lamented Top of the Pops had a new producer, Ric Blaxill, who single-handedly rejuvenated what had become a joke programme in the early 1990s. Blur, Elastica, and Pulp all presented the show and scores of Britpop style bands appeared. Blaxill’s first gig was Steve Harley at Crystal Palace in 1973 and that passion for new British music was instrumental in the famous show’s renaissance – after all, Top of the Pops presented these bands to a nationwide audience: “My basic philosophy [was] that the programme [was] called Top of the Pops and that [was] what it should represent, genuinely good music. Fortunately, the BBC gave me a large degree of editorial freedom to go with the bands that I wanted. I [thought] it should feature the obvious stars, but there [were] also bands who maybe hadn’t got a huge record deal, maybe hadn’t got an album, maybe not even a single, who could be seen and heard. The way the programme was run before meant that each week only about six or seven record companies would be at the meeting; I [would] sometimes have maybe 25 or 30 people competing for 9 slots, because all manner of bands knew that the door [was] open for them. Blur’s contributions [were] always excellent, they knew how it all worked and they were a very bright band, they played up to it. Their spirit and attitude [was] very open, bands like that [were] superb for the programme.”
Record sales rocketed in the UK by 14% on the previous year, so that total sales reached an all-time high of £1.5 billion. Also, live shows suddenly became something to see again, and 14-year-olds began switching off their Nintendos and forming bands once again. Pat Gilbert is in no doubt that Britpop made a significant contribution to British musical history: “In twenty years time, people will look back at 1994 and the two years after it as one of the great eras of British pop, the same as they do with the 1960s. I think we were living through an enormous maelstrom of great new music.” This was best shown at the so-called Britstock in Leeds for the Heineken Music Festival in July 1995 – whereas the previous year might have been filled with introspective American guitar bands, now the entire bill consisted of supposedly Britpop acts such as Pulp, Powder, Menswear, The Bluetones and Marion.
Certain older bands became fashionable influences again. The majority of the great British bands draw on the unique character of British life. Just as the Sex Pistols laughed at the tabloids, The Jam detailed small town precincts and The Smiths mythologised the normality of life, now Damon and the new generation were hailing the good and bad of their home country. Many of the Britpop groups had grown up in Britain without the first hand clutter of punk, so this was barely involved, although some bands drew on it for live shows. Far more substantially, many of the 1960s beat groups that were cited as references for Modern Life and Parklife now enjoyed a renewed popularity.
Vocally if not lyrically, Damon’s so-called Mockney accent mirrored the Cockney Rebel Steve Harley and who else but Jarvis Cocker could sing about “wood chip” in a Sheffield accent? Cynics successfully argued that many of Britpop’s contingent sounded too much like their influences, a kind of ‘spot the reference’, slicing up history and re-selling the same package. Defenders pointed to acts who were re-inventing the past with their own dash of originality, taking a pastiche and working it with enough intelligence to create something fresh and new.
So 1994 was the year of Britpop’s arrival, with Blur’s Parklife as the album of that year beyond question. However, if you accept that Britpop as a musical umbrella existed, then you also have to acknowledge its enormous diversity. The peculiar English musical reference points of Blur and Supergrass were hardly acceptable influences for Radiohead. Pulp and Blur talked of a behind-the-net curtains Britain, but Johnny-come-lately Oasis didn’t, neither did Marion. Elastica sounded as much like Menswear as Nirvana did.
Also, the vital thing to remember is that none of these bands really considered themselves to be part of a movement. There were some groups who enjoyed success on the coat-tails of the bigger bands, but that is the case for any musical movement. Suede distanced themselves from Britpop hastily, as did Marion. Oasis refused to appear on the BBC2 documentary entitled Britpop Now although Damon presented it and Pulp, Elastica and Menswear appeared. Britpop remained a banner of convenience to label a rich new seam of British talent.
Britpop was a media fiction and, crucially, an industry compatible one, as Gilbert explains: “At the same time that Britpop had parallels with punk in terms of removing the old guard, whilst punk was a revolutionary force, Britpop was a very reactionary force. It fitted in to the industry, it was very tied up with commercialism and selling records. Britpop didn’t threaten anyone, it benefitted everyone, and it didn’t pose any threat to society – it was not drug oriented, it wasn’t socially subversive, it was a phenomenon because it wasn’t a threat.” This is very true, as shown by the huge covera
ge the key bands enjoyed in the national tabloids and the subsequent cross-over into the mainstream. Britpop was huge news and Damon Albarn was arguably, like it or not, the movement’s best-known face.
* * *
As publicly elected leaders of the pack, Blur were unavoidably involved with many of the aspects of Britpop. One of these was the emergence of the so-called ‘New Lad’, borne to rebel against a tide of political correctness. Perhaps the most visible and successful backlash against this trend was the launch of the hugely successful magazine Loaded, whose motto was “For men who should know better” and whose pages were filled with footy, beer, birds and bands. Front, Nuts and Zoo followed suit and enjoyed buoyant sales for the best part of a decade. ‘Fantasy Football’ made a similarly amazing breakthrough, despite John Major railing against the “yob culture”. Blur were not unaffected by all this – Damon had himself spoken out against PC and many of his interviews in 1994 were about football and beer drinking. Alex was involved in a drunken brawl at a Menswear gig after he shouted, ‘I shagged your sister” to the drummer from the band Panic. Damon even contributed an article for his beloved Chelsea FC programme. He was also not averse to strictly un-PC language: “As far as bisexuality goes, I’ve had a little taste of that fruit, or I’ve been tasted, you might say. But when you get down to it, you can’t beat a good pair of tits.”
This laddishness was also apparent with various appearances at celebrity football matches, and perennial visits to The Good Mixer in Camden Town, official home to many of the drinking bands (including the ultimate lads’ band of the day, Oasis). Damon said to Select: “It’s necessary to have a comic fill to the whole politically correct revolution. That’s what the New Lad is … it’s a way of expressing the more visceral side of being a human being in this age.” Graham was less convinced, and found it embarrassing to see that “Parklife” as a yob chant had now come to represent much of this new attitude.
Unfortunately, the more toxic side of being a ‘New Lad’ caused Damon much ill health at this highly successful time, a problem which was severe enough for him to require professional medical help. Damon claimed never to have felt depressed before, even during the band’s worst times, but here he was, standing astride British pop’s throne and he was waking up unhappy. Clearly, Blur’s enormous work load around Parklife didn’t help matters and the drinking and occasional cocaine use were joined by the arrival of sporadic insomnia. With the public eye suddenly focussed on him, it was a real culture shock: “I had to grow up in public in 1994, because I was still a teenager at the age of 26.” He was now regularly crying, unsatisfied, depressed and angry, and the occasional incidence of depression in his family history unnerved him even more. He became slightly hypochondriac, worrying about shoulder pains and soon deciding he might have heart disease. By the time he was performing ‘To The End’ on Top of the Pops, he was desperately unhappy. He attended a Harley Street doctor who told him that his lifestyle and environment had affected his nervous system and caused his health problems. He was given some prescription tablets and sent away, being told it could be up to a year before he was fully recovered. With admirable discipline, he stopped taking the drugs after two days and instead decided to change his lifestyle. Stimulants – even coffee – were stopped and the drinking was cut back, and he started to use a gym occasionally. On the subject of cocaine, Damon told The Face, “I don’t think that was the problem, but I stopped and I’d be very reluctant to do it again. Although I loved it, it was idiotic.” He also said of his renaissance from this difficult phase: “When Kurt Cobain killed himself, I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, which I wasn’t at all. I felt very disturbed by his death and it did haunt me for a while. But in 1994 I realised that I can do this, and that you can be fairly level headed about it and not go mad.” His six months of neurosis had been dealt with typically pragmatic realism from a man who should have been a star celebrity, but seemed capable of hanging on to his old self with engaging ease. He had undergone a transition from a sane person to what he called “a sane pop person” with fewer scars than most.
* * *
So in the end, Blur made it to the close of their most successful year to date with relatively few problems. Despite a last minute flurry from Oasis with their debut album Definitely Maybe, Blur’s fourth album was equally historically significant. Both had resurrected British music and renewed interest in young and old native bands alike. Handsomely supported by Britpop’s cast, Blur had turned American mastery into British retaliation. There were a litany of victories along the way. Parklife made a clean sweep of just about all the major end of year music polls. They took the prestigious Q ‘Album of the Year’ Award whilst Smash Hits Awards by the bag full confirmed the lasting cross-over had been made into the massive teen market. Even when they lost the Mercury Award, their record sales shot up by 125% in the next two weeks. Parklife hit platinum sales within its first week of release and did not fall out of the Top 20 from then until the New Year. Part of the longevity of this success was Blur’s astute single releases, with each new record drawing different people into the experience. ‘Girls & Boys’ was adult pop, ‘To The End’ won over many of the 30-something public that had made Mick Hucknall a multi-millionaire, ‘Parklife’ was a comical appeal to the younger generation and ‘To The End’ covered all the bases.
The band’s status as celebrities rocketed. They attended film premiere’s and Alex snogged super models, (he denies anything more serious with Helena Christiensen). Damon scooped virtually all the ‘Sexiest Man of the Year’ awards, despite Justine saying, “He has one of the lowest sex drives of any man I have ever met. He’s not that into sex.” They were asked to record a theme tune for the 1996 European Championships by the FA, along with Oasis. Spitting Image did a Blur piss-take with the troubled Prince Charles called “Charles Life” and Martin Amis asked for a copy of their album after having read that it was a sonic version of his acclaimed novel, London Fields.
Biffo, a close friend of the band, has seen their success arrive and noted how they have maintained their normality: “Damon [saw] Blur as his brainchild and so he [was] always wiling to talk about it, but he [did] not like the intrusion into his private life. As the lead singer whose girlfriend [was] also famous this [had] caused some trouble with idle gossip. Graham is still a very shy man, and he hates the attention that his fame has brought. When we go out we find places we know he will not be recognised, and he really dislikes any public exposure of his private life. Alex is still Alex, the same as he was when they first started. Being so intellectual, he finds that people are wary of that and he will play up to it, teasing them. Dave is quieter now, he is not into the partying so much, he loves his flying and is still very much into computers. It amazes me how they have been able to keep that four brothers mentality going, and don’t seem to have picked up any of the trappings of big pop stars.”
Even Blur’s problems during this fantastic period were turned with some panache to their advantage. Some saw the Parklife album artwork as glamourising the sport of greyhound racing. Betting slips were now constantly thrown on stage at Blur gigs, and one Japanese version of Parklife barked when you opened the case and the dog’s eyes on the cover lit up when you pressed them. Many people were not impressed – one letter to a weekly paper raged “Don’t buy anything by Blur – they sanction the killing of defenceless animals.” Blur were a little taken aback by the extent of the criticism, and subsequently paid for a retired greyhound to be put in kennels for a year. More publicly, they paid for a joint poster campaign with The Canine Defence League which showed a dog with the legend “Not Just For Christmas” alongside the band’s album cover. It was a clever manoeuvre which negated much of the anger.
In the media, it was a year-long campaign that eventually bordered on over-exposure. Hundreds of articles saw Damon’s headline grabbing skills blossom as the country’s new mercurial pop genius. He transferred to teen magazines as easily as he did to GQ and Modern Review (where Da
mon wrote a piece about the yob culture, comically the same week that Alex was being featured in The Daily Star as a celebrity drunk), and they appeared on Later With Jools Holland as comfortably as they did on European tea time television. One particular funny incident saw them play Top of the Pops brilliantly, then head off to Stringfellows only to be refused admittance because they had some Tesco carrier bags with them. Peter Stringfellow had previously brandished them drunken louts and said they weren’t welcome in his club: “I found them to be the most obnoxious little shits I have had in my club for a long while.”
The biggest achievements of all were at The Brit Awards ceremony at Alexandra Palace, the scene of Blur’s greatest triumph. Blur scooped a record breaking four awards for ‘Best Album’, ‘Video’, ‘Single’ and ‘Best Band’. For the last acceptance speech, Damon said that Oasis should have received the award with them jointly. With his previous Top of the Pops recommendation (“This is Oasis and they are wonderful”), maybe this was the start of a long and happy friendship?
Parklife had crystallised everything that Blur were about, and on a commercial scale EMI were astonished at its success and the depth of Blur’s comeback from the lows of 1992. The band were also understandably delighted with the year’s work – no-one had realised just how massively their album was going to succeed. Damon said to NME with typical modesty that, “I don’t think there’s another band that have qualified what they are about in the world as much as we have. We have come to a point where we’ve met our market full on. I know it will change, but right now, it’s all ours. When we started I really wanted to be part of something, but we are out on our own now. Untouchable.”