EPISODE · Mar 10, 2018 · 32 MIN

The 90s Part 4: Britpop

from Ongoing History of New Music · host Curiouscast

I want you to think about fashion for a moment…fashion is one of the most disposable of all the artistic endeavours…much of what’s created isn’t designed to last more than a season…once the season is over, time to toss out all the coture and buy new stuff… But there are cycles in fashion…after a certain amount of time, old styles might come back into favour again…this, in a way, makes fashion a renewable resource… Music is also like that…trends and sounds and styles come along and then disappear…but then ten, fifteen, twenty or more years later, those trends, sounds and styles are resurrected by a brand-new generation… Sometimes the kids rediscover the joys and appeal of a certain style of music independently…or maybe they got into some older records and were inspired by that…whatever the reason, anything to keep from being bored, right?... If you were around in the early-to-mid 90s, you may remember a period when every week seemed to bring along something new and cool…a new band with a new sound and a new attitude…and this stuff was coming from all directions… North America had developed a massive appetite for all things alternative, led by grunge…in fact, grunge threatened to completely swamp rock music worldwide, including the UK… But some young musicians would have none of this musical imperialism from the colonies…they decided to fight back with a real Made-In-Britain approach… The result was fantastic…and until the whole thing collapsed under its own weight of excess and overexposure and drugs, it was an excellent party…this is part 4 of our look back of the alt-rock of the 1990s…the topic?...Britpop… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices