Stuff You Gotta Watch: The Britpop Story
A new music scene often has a way of developing organically out of what came before it. This was the case with Britpop, which emerged in the early to mid-’90s as a direct reaction to the grungification of British music and as a natural extension of homegrown shoegaze.
But while the genre’s unique musical identity slowed the import of cultural Americanisms, it also promoted numerous toxic behaviors like lad culture, which relied on class tourism and problematic masculinity. What came out of it, though, was some unforgettable songs that remain indelible cornerstones of British music.
The Britpop Story details the entire process in a remarkably concise manner. Subtitled “It Really Really Really Could Happen” (after a lyric from Blur’s “The Universal”), this short BBC documentary narrated by The Last Party author John Harris explains the whats, whos, and whys behind the rise and fall of Britpop, from its beginnings as the glorified recovery of a lost “Englishness” to an inevitable drug-saturated implosion.
Review by Ana Leorne. Check out the full archive of the Stuff You Gotta Watch column.