Radio LBB: The Rise and Fall and Reunions of Britpop

Oasis! Pulp! It’s like 1996 all over again in the headlines and on social media. I almost feel like I’ve been in a time-warp recently. The other week I put together some thoughts for the LBB article about the Oasis reunion announcement. Then just after that I traveled to Chicago to see Pulp open the US leg of their reunion tour (they were great BTW).

All of this got me a bit nostalgic for the seemingly small sliver of time from about 1994-1998 when British bands were on top of the charts and every week it seemed a new one was coming out of the woodwork and into the record stores. Some have stood the test of time and warrant a well-deserved victory lap of breathlessly praised reunion tours like the aforementioned bands, while some others not so much (I believe they’re still around, but I haven’t heard much about any Dodgy reunions).

I thought it would be fun to use Pulp as a guidepost for this playlist and have a few of their tracks showcase the rise, peak, and fall of Britpop. As it starts off, things are a little more raw and less polished, but full of excitement and promise. From there you get to the heady days of headlining Glastonbury where songs are more polished and production budgets are bigger. Global tours are beckoning, fan bases are growing. Then the party comes to end and you’re left feeling tired, cynical and burned out, full of ennui. It’s funny to think this all happened for the most part over the course of four or so years.

So, let’s open some metaphorical issues of Select magazine, zip up our Kappa tracksuit tops, and ‘ave it large.