Britpop: Iconography and Associations
Pop culture, and in particular music's relationship with Britain was quite different in the early years of the 90s.
1991. Grunge was in full swing. Nirvana broke with cool indie label Sub Pop and signed to Geffen, a major subsidiary and released Nevermind later that year. The album would break grunge into the mainstream.
Following Geffen's success with Nirvana, many other labels were trying to sign anyone in America that had a bit of a blond mop and a slightly heavy sound: the airwaves were saturated with grunge lookalikes, and as Seattle became an international concern, the race was out in record label offices across the world to try and find their own Seattle. A series of mixups in the UK led to one American journalist returning home after a wrong turn taken and an Eisteddfod witnessed, with the headline, “Is Newport the new Seattle?” Newport, Wales.
Grunge was America's hot new export, and relatable to Brits or not, it was the most exciting thing on their airwaves: more exciting than Michael Jackson's ‘Heal The World’ or Jimmy Nail, anyway.
1992, and Morrissey was bottled off stage at Finsbury Park for waving around a Union Jack flag. Britain was still recovering from the extreme far right, figures like Enoch Powell and the British National Front's close association with the red, white and blue, to see a polarising musician (even then) show up in the flag while singing songs that were ambiguous enough to be interpreted as racist.
These were the days when Rock Against Racism was still in living memory, set up to push back on artists like David Bowie and Eric Clapton making statements ranging from toying with fascism for theatrical effect (read the room, man. Bowie would go on to become a staunch defender of equality through the 80s, but at this point had failed to see that appropriating fascism for theatrical shock value at a time when punk rock was explicitly having to release songs like ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’, was not a good look. He later apologised entirely for it) to full-throated embracing of eugenics (Eric Clapton explicitly endorsing Powell at a gig and repeatedly yelling ‘keep Britain white’... while having his biggest hits be covers of Bob Marley. Yup.) When the punk movement of the late 70s was slowly descending into hooliganism and nazism: bands like Sham 69 found their concerts overrun at times by nazi punks. Sid Vicious openly wore swastikas. Rock Against Racism saw artists come together to push back on the rise of extremism within musician and pop culture ranks. ‘Has Morrissey gone too far?’ asked the NME in a 6000 word feature. The memories were still raw in people's minds.
Things began to change slightly in the next few years— though these would ultimately end up being momentary blips than a permanent change in direction.
1993. Grunge was beginning to implode as a series of unsucessful signings stateside tried and failed to add anything of note to the cultural moment created by Nirvana, and were sinking in sales. Nirvana themselves were denouncing grunge, tired of the label, the fame and the hype surrounding it.
In the UK, then-NME writer (and present-day BBC 6 Music presenter) Stuart Maconie was unhappy writing about the tail-end dregs of American grunge bands that American pop culture export was replete with in early 1993, characterising them as particularly mournful and listless, and was commissioned to write a piece about it for Select Magazine.
The April 1993 edition of Select instead featured a score of British bands that Stuart instead thought were leading the way for music with its own new British identity: bands that were smart, observant, witty, hopeful and hadn't given up on dressing.
He singled out Suede, Pulp, St. Etienne, The Auteurs and more. They stood for ‘Crimplene, glamour, wit and irony’, said Stuart, they put Brett Anderson, frontman of Suede on the cover with a Union Jack backdrop (incidentally, with the tagline declaring that they were “saving the Union Jack from the Nazis”) and boldly challenged the faraway Seattle grunge scene dominating British pop culture through the early 90s: “Who do you think you're kidding, Mr. Cobain?”
It was in this issue that Maconie first used the term Britpop in print, and he is credited with coining the phrase, though he accepts that it may have been floating around before that too.
Another interesting little bit from the article/feature: Jarvis Cocker commented on the Morrissey situation saying, “I felt sorry for Morrissey a first but he's been so dismissive of the allegations that I lost patience with him. If he's reclaiming the flag from the fascists, great – but he should clarify his position, otherwise he's being irresponsible.” Pete from St. Etienne pinned the blame on Nazi skinheads.
Andrew Harrison, staffwriter for Select at the time, and incidentally, the person who would go on to coin the term ‘landfill indie’ to describe the collapse of indie in the late 2000s and further in the 2010s, rallied for British culture to reclaim its symbols: “Morrissey's summer offensive was hysterically tactless, but he knew there was a void at the centre of pop in 1992. It no longer talked about life in Britain, like The Smiths once did. [...]Because if good people won't try to give Britain its culture back, there are plenty of evil people who will.” [Andrew Harrison looks back on that issue of Select]
But the article had identified a discontent in the British musical landscape and set the wheels of change into motion.
In May 1993, Blur, having returned disillusioned from an American tour the previous year that had left them feeling alienated from American culture and music, released their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. The album was a distinct shift in direction for Blur, more overtly drawing on a Britain of the past. They were inspired by bands like the Kinks and the Jam, and the lyrical themes were more explicitly London and England-centric; relatability to Americans be damned. “It was me attempting to write in a classic English vein using kind of imagery and words which were much more modern. So it was a weird combination of quiet nostalgic-sounding melodies and chord progressions, these weird caustic lyrics about England as it was at that moment, and the way it was getting this mass Americanised refit,” explained Damon Albarn. It set the tone for the coming Britpop scene that had a fierce sense of identity, both tied to place and to class, something that couldn't have happened in America and was distinctly British.
By June 1993, new upstarts on the scene, Oasis began circulating a demo tape, the cover of which had an image of the Union Jack swirling towards the centre as though disappearing down a plughole. “It’s the greatest flag in the world and it’s going down the shitter,” explained Liam Gallagher. “We’re here to do something about it.” (Quote from John Harris' book about the intersection between British party politics, particularly Tony Blair's and British pop culture, The Last Party.)
The meaning behind the Union Jack began to change. For a glorious two-year period, the flag began to be associated with British music and pop culture: Damon Albarn was on the front cover of the May 1994 edition of The Face magazine on a Union Jack background and a recommendation list simply titled, ‘Brit up your ears’. Liam Gallagher performed wrapped in a Union Jack flag in 1995. Noel Gallagher's famous Union Jack guitar shone at Oasis' April 1996 Maine Road stadium shows. Fashion designer Alexander McQueen, appointed head of Givenchy in 1996, also designed David Bowie's Union Jack distressed frock coat in 1996 that he wore on tour that year and would go on to wear on the cover of his next album, 1997's Earthling. These are but a few examples.
Still though, 1996 was in some ways the last hurrah for that period of British pop culture and music. In particular, it was Britpop's last hurrah before its descent and rot into Cool Britannia, the nationalism, and the last gasp of the old guard: the last time independent music and media in music would be able to reach so many people.
For Britpop's stars, it was the last time they were untouchable. The party was beginning to end, the euphoria dying off, and the grim reality of what was left in their aftermath beginning to settle in. Pride in the country was beginning to wear off and reveal the grim realities it numbed.
“Doing drugs is like having a cup of tea in the morning,” remarked Noel Gallagher in January 1997 on the ubiquity of drug use in austerity-wrecked Britain. “The sooner we realise that the majority of people in this country take drugs, the better off we'll be,” he observed, calling out the hypocrisy of politicians who themselves were drug users but protected from the negative image by being middle or upper class, declaring that the problem was working class addicts, without stopping to carefully examine the pre-existing conditions that forced people to turn to substances in the first place (a point Noel would coherently argue years later too).
It turned out, slapping a Union Jack on the front and declaring pride in the country didn't, in fact, solve the problems of poverty in Britain. Instead of looking inward, they turned on those that had provided them momentary respite. Noel Gallagher faced harsh criticism for these comments, right as he was in his observations. Blur released ‘Beetlebum’ the same month, Damon Albarn’s confessional about how the drugs weren’t working anymore. Which incidentally, is what Richard Ashcroft would say too in his hit single that September. The drugs weren't working anymore, it wasn't fun anymore, the euphoria was wearing off; it was the beginning of the end. Death of a party, as Damon would go on to put it.
In 1997, all the sheen of Britpop and the pride in having built a scene with a local identity was quickly wearing off, being co-opted by overly nationalistic gestures and losing all credibility. Not even a full year on from Maine Road, where Noel Gallagher played his Union Jack guitar, at the 1997 BRIT Awards in February, Geri Halliwell would wear the now-famous Gucci Union Jack minidress. At the last minute, she also added a peace symbol onto the back of her dress to avoid association with the National Front, the extremist far-right nationalist party that not even present-day far right figureheads like Nigel Farage want to be associated with. Which tells you as much about where the notion of Cool Britannia was at. The next month (March 1997) came Vanity Fair's equally eye-catching cover story: London Swings! Again! accompanied by a full-size Union Jack bedspread covering Liam and Patsy. If oversaturation doesn't kill meaning, I don't know what does.
[In order: The beginning; NME chastises Moisissure Morrissey’s Union Jack flag at Madstock, Finsbury Park 1992, but change is in the air. Damon Albarn, The Face, May 1994; Liam Gallagher wrapped in the Union Jack flag, Eurockéennes festival, France 1995; Noel Gallagher, Union Jack guitar, 1995; Maine Road, April 1996; David Bowie performing live in Alexander McQueen's Union Jack frock-coat, 1996; later on the cover of Earthling, 1997, Geri Halliwell performing with the Spice Girls at the BRIT Awards 1997; the back with the peace tea towel sewn on; Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit on the cover of the March 1997 Vanity Fair feature on London's art scene and British pop culture.]
The rise of lad mags like Loaded ushered back in a kind of misogyny and dismissal of the women in the scene not seen since the 1970s. They started out as quite ironic, harking back to older attitudes with a knowing smile: these were modern men who could enjoy what women had “to offer” them (sexually), while still remembering their modern values. Objectification was alright if you did it knowingly, after all, right?
Outside of its own publishing, its popularity brought about a change in the tone of writing even in established music magazines, who were suddenly replete with the kind of forced-jovial, laddish tone that often preempted serious conversation or room for apology – that was, when these magazines weren't busy replicating the sensationalist tone of tabloids. Former-BBC Radio 1 Evening Sessions cohost Jo Whiley explains it better than I can in the BBC 6 Music radio documentary series, The Rise and Fall of Britpop.
These attempts to create celebrities and scandal out of ordinary musicians hurt everyone in Britpop, but the lack of sympathy already afforded to women in the public eye made the aftermath much worse on the women in the music scene. By the end of the 90s, many of Britpop's brightest shining women: members of Elastica, Echobelly, Sleeper, Lush, had pulled out of the public eye and pop culture entirely.
Oasis too found that they were not immune to the fate of their predecessors. In 1994, Liam Gallagher declared himself a lad, and in less than 12 months, the women that had previously been on the barricades of Oasis shows had disappeared, relegated to the back, to the safety of a boyfriend, or simply relegated to a groupie after the show in a hotel room: as Miki said, reduced to tits and bums. In their place, a new kind of Oasis fan was emerging: the football lad, and with him, the misogyny, homophobia and racism prevalent in English football began to seep into the music scene (again). Guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher would later remark that his love for Oasis (and the need to keep it going) put him in the closet. And so the Union Jack was returning to older, uglier associations. The days of Rock Against Racism were truly over, and so was Britpop.
By the time New Labour had ridden on the back of Cool Britannia hype all the way into 10 Downing Street, most of Britpop turned down new Prime Minister Tony Blair's invites to the Downing Street reception party. Liam declined the invite (‘I don't do politics’). Damon Albarn reacted sharply against it: “I’m sorry, I won’t be attending, as I am now a Communist. Enjoy the schmooze, comrade!” Jarvis Cocker wrote ‘Cocaine Socialism’. Suede distanced themselves—harshly. On the 1996 Sex Pistols reunion tour as a support slot, Skunk Anansie—led by Skin, a Black, gay British woman—were being yelled at by neo-nazi ‘fans’ of the Pistols to no intervention from the band, and they sure as hell had no good words to say about Britpop and the revival of the worst of the 70s. Let it all burn, they all said. Only Noel attended. The last hurrah indeed.
