STAYING OUT FOR THE SUMMER

1995: Around the same time that i got into Punk (past and present), i also started taking notice of the new wave of Brit indie bands who were making their names known, and who had been dubbed as "The New Wave Of New Wave" by the music press: bands influenced by Punk and New Wave, but also by The Smiths and 80's Indie, the Baggy scene of the early 90's, and classic English bands from the 60's like The Kinks and The Beatles. This movement of young bands would end up being part of the "Britpop" scene, bands who wrote and sang about British lives and concerns, who tapped into a growing boredom with the American Grunge and R'n'B that had taken over the charts and airwaves. I'd been aware of Suede and Blur, the latter of whom had transformed themselves from a Baggy/Shoegaze band into a more 60's and Mod-influenced outfit with their second album, "Modern Life Is Rubbish", which hadn't sold brilliantly but had been considered one of the best albums of 1993. Suede were a Bowie and Smiths influenced glam-indie band who had come out of nowhere in late 1991 to be proclaimed "The Best New Band In Britain" by the NME, and had since had a huge hit with their self-titled debut album, and Top 20 hits in "Metal Mickey" and "Animal Nitrate". Lost as i was in the music of the past, these bands hadn't really lit my fire at the time, and it wasn't until Blur released their 1994 album "Parklife" that i started to take notice. It would be a while before i actually got around to buying it, but i kept hearing the singles "Girls And Boys" and the title track everywhere i went, and they stuck in my mind. The album and its singles were huge hits, and the chart takeover of Indie music was well underway by the time i started taking an interest.
Just before the first bank holiday in May, i upped sticks and moved to Watford, a town in leafy Hertfordshire on the outer edges of the London Underground tube system, having been offered a trainee managers position in the chain of pound shops i'd been working in. As i was 18 and sick of my home town, naturally i'd jumped at the chance, and so began a summer soundtracked by some fantastic music. There were a lot of great songs and albums that were huge that summer, but a few stood out for me. "I Should Coco", the debut by pop-punk brats Supergrass was made to be a summer soundtrack, packed full of short, sparky anthems of teenage misadventures, youthful optimism, and wide-eyed wonder. I'd first heard them earlier in the year when the "Mansize Rooster" single came out, a power-pop rush that got my blood pumping, and it still reminds me of nights out with mates. The song that will transport anyone of a certain age back to that summer though, is their huge Top 10 hit "Alright", a slightly cheesy piano-led out-and-out pop ode to youth that recalls Madness (Suggs even covered it as a b-side on on one of his solo singles that year). A couple of tracks on the album delved into psychedelia and seventies pub rock, pointing the way to their much darker second album.

Another classic from that year was The Boo Radleys' "Wake Up!". Hailing from Liverpool, and influenced by Psychedelia, Dub, Garage Rock and everything inbetween, they weren't afraid to experiment on their records, which had earned them a lot of critical acclaim, but not much in the way of hit singles. I've since listened to their sprawling masterpiece "Giant Steps", and it is rightly lauded as a classic, but back then i was unaware of their music. For "Wake Up!", they'd reined in their more extreme experimental tendencies and produced a sixties-inspired psych-pop classic, whilst still keeping a questing sound that gave the album a more dense feel. Flitting between full on horn-driven indie-pop songs such as "Wake Up, Boo!" - their first and biggest Top 40 hit -, "It's Lulu", and "Twinside", melancholic acoustic laments - "Fairfax Scene", "Reaching Out From Here" - and shifting psychedelic pieces - "Joel", "Martin, Doom! It's Seven O' Clock", it may have owed some of its success to the Britpop trend, but it stands apart.

As far as anthemic hits go, one of the best for me was "Common People", by Sheffield glam-poppers Pulp, who'd been around since the early 80's but had to wait until 1994 for their first real taste of chart success. Pulp were very much a pop band in the best sense of the word, their synthetic mix of pop, indie, glam and disco having taken quite a few years to coalesce, and after a few indie hits their 1994 album "His 'N' Hers" chimed with the nations' tastes and gave them a Top 10 placing, with the singles "Do You Remember The First Time?" and "Babies" becoming Top 40 hits. Their witty, arch, yet still very much down to earth frontman Jarvis Cocker became something of an icon and unlikely sex symbol, with his lyrical snapshots of council estate love affairs, seedy goings on behind grubby net curtains, and the lives of common people in Northern Britain, spoke to a generation bored with depressing Grunge. The spring of 95 would see them enjoy stratospheric success with "Common People", a throbbing, surging POP classic with an anthemic chorus, relating the tale of a posh student Jarvis had met at St Martins College of Art, who wanted to "slum it" - live like a poor working class person - thinking it glamorous, in the knowledge that her rich parents could rescue her from that life. A working class anthem, basically.

Other hits like Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You", Oasis' "Some Might Say", McAlmont & Butlers' "Yes", and bands like Gene, Dodgy,  Menswear, Ash, and the Modfather himself, Paul Weller, all contributed to the great British music soundtrack of that summer. The Britpop scene reached its' height in August when Blur and Oasis - musical rivals, as well as fuelling a North Vs South debate - both released singles on the same day, starting a battle for the top spot that even made the Ten o' clock news! Even though neither of the songs were exactly their best - Blurs' "Country House" and Oasis "Roll With It" - the race was on, and for music fans like myself, it was gripping. Blur triumphed, as everyone knows. Exciting times! Though there would be much more great music to come, it would never be the same again, and soon Britpop would become part of the establishment, and the youthful hope of that summer, as well as my time away from home, would soon come to an end.