jake
cleland

The Battle of Britpop
In Which If I Wrote For This Recording, Would It Get Me A Date With Molly? What about Alex?

Earlier this week, I set myself about forming my own opinion on a long-irrelevant debate: Who is the Top of the Britpop? What follows are the notes I made while listening.

Blur - Parklife

- Girls & Boys has an insanely catchy chorus. The mark of a great pop song.

- There’s a clear Rolling Stones influence, which is unsurprising. Some of the songs remind me of ‘Between the Buttons’.

- 40 seconds into Tracy Jacks and I’m already hoping the rest of the album isn’t this repetitive.

- The problem with this retrospective is that due to years of Blur/Britpop-influenced bands, I can’t experience these songs like the people of the time. We’ll persevere.

- End Of A Century was a good song. Melancholic.

- Parklife has more of End Of A Century’s melancholy about working class life, but also the optimism that comes with a life lived by making your own decisions. I like that. “I’m happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it”

- Bank Holiday has a Ramones feel. The working class motif serves as a nice antithesis to the absurd amount of self-aggrandizing rap I’ve been listening to lately.

- I’m actually kind of surprised people used to write songs as mundane in subject matter as this. It doesn’t seem very commercial. My first real musical experience came courtesy of Backstreet Boys, though, so what the fuck do I know?

- “I might as well just grin and bear it, because it’s not worth the trouble of an argument” goes the refrain. Amen.

- The Debt Collector, a jaunty interlude. Brass instruments up in this bitch.

- An ethereal, wistful song about outer space, Far Out reminds me of Space Oddity by Bowie.

- To The End features whispered French. Seems like The Debt Collector was the signifier of a change in tone, splitting the album.

- This is a song about a suicide pact between two obsessed lovers. Okay, maybe not. It’s an enjoyable song, though right now I’m more in the mood for something upbeat. I would’ve put this song at the end of the album because I like the double entendre.

- Clap clap, clap clap clap. London Loves gets points for echoed clapping, another pop song classic. This is such a lonely song. “London loves the misery of a speeding heart” “London loves the way people just fall apart” “London loves the way you just don’t stand a chance”.

- That sentiment of a callous Big City is such a cliche, but also an easy sentiment to appreciate because of how true it is. You could replace “London” with “New York” and have the same song.

- Trouble In The Message Centre is power-pop-tastic. This album is clearly growing on me. I understand on principle why Girls & Boys was the single, but so far it’s my least favorite.

- Clover Over Dover is a beautiful song. It’s sad that Song 2 is their most well-known track considering the quality of songwriting on this album.

- Magic America, the tale of Bill Barrat chasing the American dream. I’m getting a bit weary of Blur’s use of “La la la la” in substitute of actual lyrics.

- Jubilee sounds like a guy I know. The song satirizes a cooler-than-thou attitude, but also seems to agree with that attitude at times.

- Lot 105 is all “La la la“‘s. I stand by my suggestion: To The End should’ve capped off the album. Lot 105 should’ve been the first track.

- My favorite last track in my record collection, coincidentally, is from Between the Buttons.

The album was far better than I’d expected. I’m not at all a pop fan, though that could be because contemporary pop is far less substantial than Blur’s early releases.

I’ll take a break for lunch, have a stretch and a cuppa and come back refreshed and ready to launch into Blur’s rival: Oasis.

I’ve found Noel Gallagher an interesting person to follow in the media but never investigated his music. The only Oasis songs I’ve heard are Wonderwall and Morning Glory, which both feature on this album. I’m interested to see whether this previous exposure makes me enjoy the record more or less.

Oasis - (What’s the story) Morning Glory?

- The intro track starts with a few nigh-inaudible bars of Wonderwall but then launches into Hello. Very clever. I hate when artists have the single as their first track. It’s like blowing your load in the girl and then just fingering her for the next 40 minutes. In this case, the artist is the guy and my ears are the clitoris.

- I was too busy coming up with that clever analogy to pay attention to the lyrics of this song, but the guitars are pleasing at least. A fairly generic song about a girl.

- “You gotta say what you say don’t let anybody get in your way”. Roll With It: Echoing the Gallaghers’ philosophy.

- I fear my opinions on the musicians may influence my opinion of the music.

- So far Blur is winning the lyrics race, though considering how little I thought of Blur until halfway through their album, I won’t dismiss Oasis just yet. Roll With It contains a lot of confidence-inspiring lyrics, the raconteur reminding himself that he’s good enough to deserve his life, but then meanders into lyrics about girls again. As Motley Crue famously sang, “Girls girls girls”.

- Track 3: Wonderwall. The previous two tracks are guitar-effect-laden, so this stripped down ballad seems a little out of place. The composition of the song is so brilliant, I’m not surprised at all by its popularity. I think its popularity is actually detrimental, because it gets in the way of people taking it seriously.

- “Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me”. That dependence on someone’s validation to give you a sense of redemption is something I can definitely relate to, a feeling not captured as well in many songs.

- I considered Wonderwall the trump card of this album, so with that out of the way, I’m even more curious to see how the rest of the tracks compare to Parklife.

- Don’t Look Back In Anger is a very powerful song. I wonder if I can like Blur and Oasis at the same time, for different reasons.

- Clapping in the bridge. Oasis is scoring big right now.

- Hey Now! is melancholic about a concept more esoteric than girls: Being guarded with your thoughts and emotions.. This is greatly making up for Roll With It.

- “It said you might never know that I want you to know what’s written inside of your head”.

- I find the subject matter in the songs so far less compelling than I did with Blur, but I’m still really enjoying them.

- The second half of this song is an exact copy of the first half. I don’t like that at all. You have to introduce the theme, then expand on it, then reflect on it. Not introduce the theme, sing a chorus, repeat the introduction.

- Swamp Song 1 is a decent interlude, though I’m not hopeful for a tonal shift as significant as in Parklife. It’s followed by the heavy metal guitar riffs of Some Might Say.

- “Some might say that we should never ponder on our thoughts today ‘cos they will sway over time”. I disagree. That’s a great way of promoting superficial beliefs, though.

- I enjoy Liam Gallagher’s nasally crooning more than Blur’s vocalist (he probably doesn’t think much of Liam in general).

- That was a joke.

- Cast No Shadow’s quite nice, but further infuriates me. Oasis shows glimpses of brilliant lyrical ability, but as if they’re all too proud of what they’ve already come up with, they choose to repeat lyrics more often than coming up with new ones. This track is 4:52 but should be 2:26.

- A nice head-bopper. She’s Electric features tamborine! It’s about a fun girl and her family.

- The phrase “Morning Glory” always causes me to break into my best Cat Stevens impression. “Morning has brooooken, like the first moooooorning”. Aside: When people say “best impression”, does that mean sometimes they just do a half-assed impression? Sometimes they just can’t be bothered and do a mediocre one?

- Cheow cheow cheow cheowwww. Onomatopoeia to articulate the guitar chords in the first minute of Morning Glory. This is the type of song I’d put on my playlist for walking to school. The type of song that makes you feel electrifying, like the baddest dude around. The type of song that gets strangers staring at you, wondering why you’re having a walking seizure. “I’m just reacting emphatically to Morning Glory by Oasis” you say, as if that’s sufficient justification for dancing in public.

- Like most of the songs so far, I couldn’t tell you what the hell the lyrics mean. I don’t know whether that’s due to unnecessary obscurity or that the extreme profundity escapes my inexperienced mind. My Lit teacher never did think much of my poem interpretations, which is probably why I told her to go fuck herself. Note to self: Listen to ‘Old School Yard’ later.

- Champagne Supernova will take us out. A slow, stripped down ballad. Like Wonderwall, it serves as an antithesis to the heavier riffs in the preceding tracks, though Champagne Supernova had the benefit of Swamp Song 2 to separate the tone.

- Oh, now the distorted guitars are back. I’m a little disappointed, and further crestfallen by the repetitive lyrics yet again. So much unused potential, Oasis. The inclusion of the heavier riffs does seem to add a preservative effect to the songs, though. While Blur’s Parklife definitely sounded like last century pop, I could imagine (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? being released today.

- I’m surprised I feel this strongly about Oasis. They’re often described as ripping off The Beatles, but I greatly dislike The Beatles and I’ve greatly enjoyed this record.

- A drum beat and a couple chords on the acoustic guitar finish the record, and our experiment.

Awarding victory to either of these bands is difficult, there is no clear winner. As I’ve made evident, Blur’s lyrics are much more interesting, though self-consciousness reminds me that perhaps that’s because Oasis’ lyrics are too dense for me to comprehend. I can certainly understand why people associate Blur with the South of London and Oasis with the North, the differences in ideals separating the bands as much as the classes they represent.

On an intellectual level, I enjoyed Blur more. On an auditory level, I enjoyed Oasis more. I don’t know which is of greater importance. The real winner, and I admit this sounds indecisive rather than zen, is the listener who takes the time to compare the two. They’ll find themselves exposed to two remarkable bands and several exquisite records.

I’ll end with this quote from NME writer Luke Lewis:

(And before you comment, yes, we know it’s pointless trying to turn a subjective preference into an empirical ‘fact’. But that’s never stopped us before).

PS: Ride were also a quite good band, though in no authoritative source could I find reference to them being “britpop”.