ABSTRACT
It is no great revelation to find that the guitar-led bands of 1990s Britpop are predominantly male – how many English women lead guitarists can you name? Nor is it surprising to hear the influence of such iconic bands as the Beatles, the Kinks, and Small Faces or, indeed, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, the Smiths and Happy Mondays. If, as the argument goes, Britpop was a deliberate attempt to oust grunge and reinstate ‘Britishness’ into rock,2 then such reference points are significant in establishing a recognizable musical identity. Obvious influences from the Beatles (Oasis, ‘Whatever’; the Beatles, ‘I am the Walrus) and other 60s pop groups (Oasis, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’; Manfred Mann, ‘Pretty Flamingo’3) suggested both pastiche and homage (a light-hearted cultural nostalgia for groups whose music inflected social commentary in an upbeat rock style) and a ‘pop cultural revivalism – the imagery of modern culture as a data base and dressing up box’.4 With songs as diverse as Pulp’s ‘Common People’ and their controversial ‘Sorted for E’s and Wizz’, Oasis’ ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’, and Supergrass’s pop slogan ‘We are young! We are free!’, this sense of nostalgic reverence was important in giving Britpop a musical DNA that transcended often disparate musical styles. As John Covach writes,
It would seem, then, that Britpop’s reference to its musical heritage provides a key defining characteristic. To simply describe it as guitar-based rock/pop with catchy tunes and the promise of a good time does little to capture its musical essence. Rather, it is the sense of déjà vu that is important, momentarily moving the listener back in time, while demonstrating how ‘musically accomplished and lyrically clever’ the groups were in composing ‘serious and sincere pop songs which used archaic formats and styling to pass comment on society as they found it’.6
