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In 1995 two of the biggest bands in Britain went head-to-head
on one of the biggest charts showdowns of all time.
Those bands were Blur and Oasis.
The UK public and press were captivated.
It marked the end of Britpop as a fringe movement
and transformed it into the most important idea in British music since punk.
But it also signalled the beginning of the end.
The inevitable oversaturation of the moment.
But before that who won the Britpop war?
- "So we're Blur. And I'm Damon and I'm the singer."
- "I'm Graham and I play the guitar."
- "I've got a big big big big big bass guitar and I'm called Alex."
- "I'm called Dave, and I play the drums."
Blur formed at Goldsmiths University in London.
They were typical UK indie band at the time signed to Food Records
and not all that worried about making money,
more interested in making interesting music.
That all changed in 1993.
After a homesick-inducing two-month American tour, Blur hit on an idea
a reaction to the US rock scene, of Nirvana and their clones.
Blur could kickstart a British scene of bands in love with Britain's own influences:
The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, the more cerebral side of punk rock, Madness, The Specials and The Smiths.
British bands that celebrated all things British.
Their cultural identity via music.
This, with bands like Suede, Elastica and Pulp would become known as Brit Pop.
After commercial mis-start with their second album, Modern Life is Rubbish,
Blur released Parklife which went in at number one and remained in the UK charts for the next ninety weeks.
It was a selection of songs about British people that sang of 18-30s holidays,
the shipping forecast and internalized existential dread.
The album's title track features verses from none more British Quadrophenia star Phil Daniels
which tells the tale of working-class existence.
The chorus shows exactly where Albarn was aiming these songs:
The elusive idea of universally appealing pop music was Blur's intent
but there soon to be rivals Oasis were creating this
without the help of UK cult film royalty.
Oasis were formed from the Council estates of Manchester in 1991,
far removed from the trendiness of London.
Central to the band were the Gallagher brothers:
Liam was cocky self-assured frontman, projecting eternal cool.
but Noel was the mastermind of the band's music.
He dealt with his bandmates unrefined skills by simplifying everything to bar chords,
root notes and simple 4/4 rhythms.
As John Harris said in The Last Party:
And people loved it.
Their first album Definitely Maybe entered at number one
before then becoming fastest selling debut in UK album history.
As opposed to Parklife's character studies, Definitely Maybe was filled with anthems
not about but for the British everyman.
There was nothing especially clever about the instrumentation or the lyrics
but it spoke to people.
Despite being essentially gibberish, when Liam sang about feeling supersonic
2.1 million Brits knew exactly what that meant.
At 95's Brit Awards a celebration of the UK pop music scene
Blur won an unheard of four awards:
Best single and Best video for Parklife,
best album as well as Best British group.
This was unprecedented.
Previous to this UK indie bands were cult concerns.
They weren't supposed to be producing gold and platinum-selling albums,
earning Brit Awards or becoming household names.
And yet this is exactly what Blur and Oasis were doing.
They became the most important and biggest bands in Britain.
Albarn reflected on the two bands shared lofty positions in the band's Best British Group speech.
- "I think this should've been shared with Oasis."
- "Yeah. Much love and respect to them."
Little did they know that would be the start of something a whole lot less amiable.
Oasis' lead single off their follow-up album was "Some Might Say."
Albarn describes what happened next:
Both bands had their new album scheduled for Autumn of 95.
Blur's in September. Oasis in October.
No clash no issue.
Both bands could release their albums unmolested by the release of the other
which could mean number one albums for all.
But with the singles there was a problem.
The Oasis team had set "Roll With It" to be released on the 14th August,
a week before Blur's "Country House."
Andy Ross of Blur's label Food Records said:
If they stop the release it would look like Blur were running scared
and they would not hear the end of it from the boisterous Oasis lads.
The only solution: facing them head-on and releasing "Country House" on the same day as "Roll With It."
- "And I still really don't know who moved their release date to coincide with anybody else's release date."
"It's probably, it was probably Damon."
And so it was on the Battle of Britpop.
The fight to find out who was the biggest band in Britain.
The singles themselves were not the best representations of the band,
nor their best work.
"Country House" was an almost parody of what they had done on Parklife
complete with oompah horns.
The song sketches a caricature of a man having acquired a fortune
becoming exhausted by the city and then retiring to a rural life of antidepressants and weight watching.
Albarn later commented that it was "shit."
"Roll With It" on the other hand did little more than their previous singles like "Rock'n'Roll Star"
or "Shakermaker" had done before.
Q magazine said of the lyrics:
Despite the quality of the songs at war the UK music press were loving it.
Steve Sutherland of the NME created to cover inscribed British heavyweight championship.
It was nationwide tabloid fodder.
Albarn even appeared on the 10 o'clock news:
- "Both bands have really upped the stakes and someone's going to come out on top"
"and someone's going to come out second."
"And you know by the very nature of being in a band you're always quite competitive."
Of course this became more than just about the music.
It was a proxy battle, for North versus South
and between the very British class system.
Blur were from the South, stereotyped as financially better off and better educated,
so Oasis dubbed them "Art School Wankers."
Because Albarn sang in a mock cockney accent at odds with his class and upbringing,
Blur were considered inauthentic.
Oasis were from the north.
None of the band went to college and pre-band spent time as construction workers.
The press held them as working class heroes.
- "I worked on building sites."
"That fundamentally makes my soul a lot more purer than theirs."
All through their were comparisons to the 60s,
not just in the influences such as Oasis' Beatle obsession
or Albarn's love of Kinks-ian character studies
but in how much of a cultural moment this was.
As Mike Smith, Blur's press-agent reflected in 2015:
There also similarities in the current rivalry to the Beatles and Rolling Stones.
But the difference was that their respective labels made a point never have them compete head-on.
On the eve of the results, Oasis were deemed to be the favorites to win.
Bookmaker William Hill giving odds of six to four in their favor.
In the end Blur won out
outselling their rivals by 58 thousand copies.
274,000 to 216,000.
As a reward, the band played Top of the Pops with Pulp's Jarvis Cocker introducing them:
In the performance they bop around victorious,
Alex James wearing an Oasis t-shirt for added antagonism.
All except guitarist Graham Coxon, seemingly not enjoying the moment at all.
Later on that night at the Soho based celebration party Coxon, overly drunk on free wine,
contemplated jumping from the window.
The repeated saying about the Battle of Britpop is that while Blur won the battle
Oasis won the war.
Blur's album The Great Escape came out in September as planned and went straight to number one
but never hit the same highs as its predecessor.
However (What's The Story) Morning Glory by Oasis was unbeatable.
With the help of alternative national anthems like "Champagne Supernova," "Don't Look Back in Anger"
and "Wonderwall" it became the fourth best-selling album of all time in the UK
and even managed to succeed in America where Blur had repeatedly failed.
At the 96 Brit Awards Oasis won three awards which blocked Blur from winning anything.
Just like Blur did before, Liam remembered to shout out their rivals in their speech:
- "I'd like to thank... All the people."
- "All the people. So many people."
"And they all walk hand in hand. Hand in hand in their shite life."
Oasis signaled their ascent to the role of biggest British band
with two sellout dates at Knebworth, the biggest concerts in British history
of which four percent of the British population applied for tickets.
After that the Britpop moment popped.
Blur's next album was more indebted to American alt rock like Beck or Pavement
than their former loves of the Kinks or Specials.
It also spawned the least Blur sounding hit ever in the form of "Song 2"
ironically their first significant hit in the USA.
Oasis' next album Be Here Now sold 8 million copies
but people were less impressed with what little Oasis had to say
and they moved on to the next thing.
It was the end of an era.
Blur split in 2003 while Oasis would continue on with mixed results until 2009.
But that is not the end of the story.
A less obsessed over repeat of this Battle of Britpop happened 10 years later in September 2005,
when Oasis single "The Importance of Being Idle" was knocked off the number-one position
by Albarn's new endeavor Gorillaz and their song "Dare"
While never on the same scale of media hysteria as ten years previous
it was still noted on in the press.
Gorillaz would help Albarn gain the kind of traction in America that Blur never succeeded in achieving.
They became known for their various guest artists but their most surprising was in 2017.
After over 20 years of bad blood Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher performed on the same track,
"We Got The Power."
Liam was not happy. He tweeted:
And so of course the press talked about it.
It's an endless cycle such is the way of media fueled battles
if you just let it go people will realize those antagonisms, those harsh words in the press,
they're not real.
They are there to make the story more exciting.
When there are sides, when there is debate, when there are fights
you've captured a pop cultural moment.
Without that would anyone have even cared?
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You made it to the end
so you may be wondering 'who won the Britpop war?'
That's easy, it was Radiohead.
Thanks for watching.
Like, Comment and Subscribe, and Patreon is also a thing.
Shout out to new patron Barry Hall.
Thank you. See you in two weeks.