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The boys of Britpop
Jul. 17th, 2004 09:49 amLast night we watched Live Forever, a documentary about the Oasis-Blur-Pulp-etc. music explosion of the '90s - namely, the popular music I love best, in combination with the New Wave begun in the late '70s. It was a lovely piece of nostalgia for me, since '95 (the launch of the Blur-v-Oasis hype) was when I first visited the UK and heard "Country House" on London radio; and '96 was when I spent 3 months in England and Scotland, doing little other than drooling over music.
The interviews with the artists were interesting too. Noel Gallagher was either completely obnoxious or completely hilarious; I couldn't decide which. Liam, of course, was a druggy-Ozzy waiting to happen. Damon Albarn seems sharp enough still, but rather bitter. Jarvis Cocker remains my favorite. He wasn't looking great--I wanted to comb his hair and get him a suit that fit--but he was soft-spoken, funny in a gently ironic way, and eloquent compared to most of the others.
I could say more about the discussions of Thatcher v. Blair, Blur v.Oasis, US v. UK, and so on. But really all I want to do right now is some picspam. Since the US stations like MTV didn't show much of those Britpop bands, and since internet connections were sllloooowww in the mid-90s (anyone else remember 14.4K modems?), I didn't actually get to see these guys much, whose voices I so admired. From this documentary, though, it was brought home to me just how cute some of them were.
So I went in search of photos. And, sure, when you check out Blur you notice the pretty boys--ones like Damon Albarn and Alex James in particular. (Damon struck me as a cross between Jude Law and Frankie Muniz.)
But, really, after gazing upon Jarvis a while, the others just look like young uninteresting punks. So ( here is some Jarvis Cocker geek-love picspam for you fangirly types. )
I am damn tempted to make an icon of that last one. Mm-hm.
The interviews with the artists were interesting too. Noel Gallagher was either completely obnoxious or completely hilarious; I couldn't decide which. Liam, of course, was a druggy-Ozzy waiting to happen. Damon Albarn seems sharp enough still, but rather bitter. Jarvis Cocker remains my favorite. He wasn't looking great--I wanted to comb his hair and get him a suit that fit--but he was soft-spoken, funny in a gently ironic way, and eloquent compared to most of the others.
I could say more about the discussions of Thatcher v. Blair, Blur v.Oasis, US v. UK, and so on. But really all I want to do right now is some picspam. Since the US stations like MTV didn't show much of those Britpop bands, and since internet connections were sllloooowww in the mid-90s (anyone else remember 14.4K modems?), I didn't actually get to see these guys much, whose voices I so admired. From this documentary, though, it was brought home to me just how cute some of them were.
So I went in search of photos. And, sure, when you check out Blur you notice the pretty boys--ones like Damon Albarn and Alex James in particular. (Damon struck me as a cross between Jude Law and Frankie Muniz.)
But, really, after gazing upon Jarvis a while, the others just look like young uninteresting punks. So ( here is some Jarvis Cocker geek-love picspam for you fangirly types. )
I am damn tempted to make an icon of that last one. Mm-hm.
