today we’re getting a little more obscure with the top ten. for those of you who didn’t know me, in 8th grade and 9th grade, boy was i into british music. i used to have these camp counselors who would listen to oasis and blur and radiohead all the time, and after hours of “some might say” or “just,” songs started to stick. before i knew it, i was listening to bands like the boo radleys or space just because i read somewhere that their drummer’s ex was the sister of some guy who once got in a bar fight with liam gallagher.
The Top Ten Brit-Pop Albums
10. pulp this is hardcore (1998) – this one came at the tail end of my fascination with the genre, and pretty much represented my milking every last ounce of joy from brit-pop. i bought it at the sam goody across the street from my house when there wasn’t anything else worthy of buying, and i didn’t want to leave the store empty handed. i might have listened to it five or six times, but mostly i was just interested in the cover art. the first four songs i thought were great but i never made it through the entire album in one sitting. now i think it’s the best pulp album. let the fools have their different class. the good guys know …hardcore is better.
9. supergrass in it for the money (1997) – do they still do those BMG 12-records-for-one-cent deals? i used to always see them in magazines and say, “who the fuck would do that?” then, in the fall of 1997, i did it. two of the albums i purchased are on this list today. i remember when this one arrived i was mad that the jewel case was cracked. i put it in my AIWA 3-CD-stereo to make sure it still worked. it did. “late in the day” really moved me. i learned how to play it on guitar and performed it (for an audience that consisted of four walls) incessantly. “it’s late in the daaaaaaaay / i’m thinking of yeeeeeeeeew / things that you saaaaaaay / so (insert vocal harmony) looooong / so long for me!”
8. manic street preachers everything must go (1996) – all told, manic street preachers wrote the least intimidating songs imaginable. but i distinctly remember being told that “a design for life” was voted the #1 song in the UK during 1996. i’ve never fact checked that, but i think it was. that swim instructor at summer camp i knew for 4 weeks would never lie to me. the first song was called “elvis impersonator” or something, and i couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to play it on guitar because i was thirteen years old and i couldn’t play barre chords. basically, it’s just a harmless good time. the eighth best time you can have listening to brit pop.
7. the verve urban hymns (1997) – remember when richard ashcroft and nick mccabe broke off contact, and everyone got really sad? well, they patched things up and recorded one hell of a mediocre album that most people only remember because “bittersweet symphony” was in a shoe commercial. “catching the butterfly” was a good track, and “the drugs don’t work” was a pop gem about drugs and depression that the whole family could enjoy.
6. blur blur (1997) – i’ll never forget, blur was the first real concert i ever attended. it was in september of 1997 at the roseland ballroom with the dandy warhols, and i remember being weary about going out into the middle of the floor because i didn’t know anyone there and it seemed like such a big space. plus there were people smoking pot everywhere and i was all, “huh? ma-ri-hua-na?” blur was definitely my favorite album from any brit-pop band and remained so for a very long time. it’s also one of the few i still own. it’s just not #1 on this list, for some reason. i bought it in a mall in bumblefuck pennsylvania that summer i went to tennis camp for a week. oh man, there was this french girl there, and I met her under a foot-bridge on the campus of Haverford College for some brace-face making out and good old fashioned adolescent finger-fucking. no wonder blur is one of my favorite bands.
5. oasis (what’s the story) morning glory (1995) – oasis was the precursor to the whole brit-pop movement because they made it big in america while the other bands received little to no fanfare. most of the kids in heritage middle school were walking around singing “where where you will we were getting high” like it was really cool, but i was all about the second side of the album where “roll with it,” “some might say,” and “morning glory” became three songs i could listen to for hours on end thanks to my cd player’s “repeat” function. once i saw oasis live in 1998 at the continental airlines arena (where the opening act cornershop got booed off stage and the singer cried because someone pointed a laser in his eye) it closed the chapter on my fascination with the group. i soon stopped listening to them. but i can still play any song off definitely maybe or (what’s the story) morning glory, plus at least half of the b-sides from those two albums on guitar.
4. ash 1977 (1996) this was the other album i got from that BMG mail order thing. i had no idea who the band was, but I put it on and declared it the coolest thing i’d ever heard. it was so fast and so good, it was quite unlike anything i’d heard to that point in my life. like the assassination of archduke ferdinand, i don’t think anyone will ever forget where they were the first time they heard the bonus track “sick party,” where everyone vomits in the studio for several hilarious minutes. too bad ash co-opted the “more pop, less punk” american sound sound that made them bland. then they added a second guitarist (sigh) and it was all over. unfortunately this CD broke in half, so i don’t own it anymore. i own live at the wireless, which is an amphetamine-fueled live album that I remember cost me $25.
3. blur parklife (1994) – as far as the quintessential brit-pop sound is concerned, this album is what most closely defines the genre. it’s full of really shiny guitars, tuneful tracks with memorable choruses, and — of course — sardonic british humor. i got a lesson from a british guy on what the lyrics to “girls and boys” and the title-track meant, because most twelve year old’s don’t know about bank holiday, or brewer’s droop, or pretty much anything brits do/say. damon albarn, you never cease to amaze me. even now, after not listening to it for several years, those jangly melodies are still firmly entrenched in the frontal lobe of my brain.
2. radiohead the bends (1995) – arguably the best radiohead had to offer us before they turned into egotistical assholes who thought they could get away with releasing bad albums because they were too-far-ahead of the curve. unfortunately, radiohead will never rock like this again. whereas ok computer took a totally different approach to recording, the bends was about release, with several moments where the band (notably johnny greenwood) just explode in noise. that’s the radiohead i lovingly choose to remember. tracks like “bones,” and “just” …johnny greenwood losing his shit during that second guitar solo…the most depressing songs ever written, “street spirit (fade out)”…just thinking about it is making me long for radiohead when they were still good. ok computer is amazing, but i despise the cultural impact and what it turned radiohead into.
1. oasis definitely maybe (1994) – i doesn’t even bother me so much that oasis wanted to be the beatles and ripped them off mercilessly (like mogwai ripping off slint and then sigur ros ripping off mogwai). definitely maybe might as well have been a singles compilation, and it was the band’s first album. at least four different songs (that i remember, at least) were #1 hits in the UK: “shakermaker,” “cigarettes and alcohol,” “live forever” and “supersonic.” plus they’d already written “whatever” and decided they didn’t want to include it on the album. talk about insanity. any of these albums in the top six could have been number one, but definitely maybe will always hold a special place in my heart. of course, i sold it a few years ago for $3 and i sold all my oasis singles (including the uk versions i bought on my trip to london), so i literally own nothing oasis related anymore. i even had this awesome t-shirt from one of their first uk tours. it was soft and comfy, and i gave it away to a girl i wasn’t even trying to sleep with! like, as a friend! the moral of the story is, don’t give anything away. i did, and look at where i am today. i’m just another dude sitting on his porch spinning yarns about missed handjobs from yesteryear.
