{"id":364832,"date":"2025-08-22T14:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T14:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364832\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T14:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T14:21:11","slug":"do-you-remember-the-first-time-why-britpop-nostalgia-just-wont-go-away-pop-and-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364832\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you remember the first time? Why Britpop nostalgia just won\u2019t go away | Pop and rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a Tuesday evening, and in the suitably 1990s environs of Soho\u2019s Groucho Club, Robbie Williams,<\/a> resplendent in pair of dungarees, is in the process of launching his new album. It\u2019s called Britpop, features some songs co-written with Gaz Coombes<\/a> of Supergrass, and is, he attests, \u201cthe album that I wanted to write and release after I left Take That in 1995\u201d. This was the brief period where he attempted to establish himself as an adjunct to the mid-90s wave of hugely successful UK alt-rock, releasing a string of audibly Oasis-influenced<\/a> solo singles, palling around Glastonbury with the Gallaghers and temporarily employing one of the band\u2019s inner circle, Creation Records\u2019 former managing director Tim Abbot, as his manager. \u201cI\u2019ve been musically aimless for a little while,\u201d Williams said to the assembled press. \u201cI\u2019ve just spent the last 15 years looking backwards. I think with this album, if I am gonna look backwards, I might as well just clear the decks and go back to the start and head off from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve just spent the last 15 years looking backwards\u2019 \u2026 Robbie Williams at the launch of his new album at The Groucho Club. Photograph: Dave Hogan\/Hogan Media\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

His determination to revisit the Britpop era feels slightly odd. His Oasis-influenced singles met with declining public interest, nearly scuppering his solo career before Angels and Let Me Entertain You came to the rescue. His relationship with Abbot ended with each suing the other in a dispute over Abbot\u2019s contract (they settled out of court), he later said Oasis were \u201cgigantic bullies\u201d (Liam Gallagher <\/a>replied that he\u2019d \u201cnever bullied anyone in my life\u201d) and when he talked about the period when I interviewed him in 2016, it was in terms of trauma: \u201cThere was an indie fundamentalist mentality \u2026 I was looked down on when I was in conversation with a lot of people \u2026 [it] starts to make you feel agoraphobic and second-guess everything you do\u201d. But his appearance at the Groucho is the latest in a series of 90s-themed publicity stunts by Williams \u2013 he\u2019s also unveiled fake blue plaques in Camden, proclaiming it \u201cthe home of Britpop\u201d, and Soho\u2019s Berwick Street, where the photograph on the cover of Oasis\u2019s (What\u2019s the Story?) Morning Glory was taken.<\/p>\n

All of this is timely at the very least, coming amid a huge wave of nostalgia for Britpop. In part, it\u2019s obviously fuelled by the fact that Blur, Pulp and Oasis<\/a> have all reformed to considerable acclaim over the past two years, but it also feels more general than just fondness for any one band. It\u2019s as if people have retrospectively fallen in love with \u201cBritpop\u201d as an idea, a signifier of something beyond music, something more nebulous.<\/p>\n

The first signs of a notion of Britpop detached from the actual music might have come last year<\/a>, when a succession of artists who sounded nothing like Blur or Oasis \u2013 drum\u2019n\u2019bass star Nia Archives<\/a>, music producer AG Cook<\/a> and singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri<\/a> \u2013 began adopting the era\u2019s visual signifiers, union jacks and all, and Dua Lipa<\/a> claimed its \u201chonesty and attitude\u201d had influenced her album Radical Optimism. There have been a succession of Britpop books \u2013 a quick search reveals titles called Faster Than a Cannonball, Don\u2019t Look Back in Anger, Feeling Supersonic, A Field Guide to Britpop, The Britpop Bible, The Birth and Impact of Britpop and at least three Britpop-themed romance novels. There are Britpop walking tours, Britpop festivals and a plethora of non-specific Britpop tribute acts.<\/p>\n

There is Britpop Classical, a reimagining of the era\u2019s hits with a 20-piece orchestra, fronted by Blur\u2019s Alex James<\/a>. Inspired, he says, by seeing \u201ceveryone arms aloft crying their eyes out, singing along to 90 minutes of hits\u201d when the dance-themed Ministry of Sound Classical headlined the Big Feastival, the festival he hosts on his farm in the Cotswolds, last year.<\/p>\n

There are Britpop clothing collections \u2013 \u201cclassic British countryside meets 90s indie cool \u2026 countryside heritage with that Camden edge\u201d, as the press release from designers Maude and Fox puts it \u2013 and there is a Britpop play, <\/a>The Battle, about the feud between Oasis and Blur. It\u2019s been written by novelist John Niven, will star Mathew Horne and is scheduled to open in February.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the idea of theatrical producer Simon Friend, who says he thought the show would initially appeal to a niche audience \u2013 \u201cto sell a play that is new, by someone who\u2019s completely unknown in the theatre industry is hard, in fact nigh-on impossible\u201d \u2013 but instead found himself booking it on a six-month tour around the provinces: a West End run is to be announced and it\u2019s been optioned for television by Universal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout ten years ago, nostalgia for the 80s was really prevalent \u2013 the theatrical version of Dirty Dancing could not have been hotter, for instance,\u201d Friend says. \u201cI think there\u2019s a 30 year cycle of nostalgia: ten years ago, the 90s were still in the rear view mirror. Now, if you look at video footage or photos in the 90s, it does feel like a historical period compared to where we\u2019re living now. It looks more fun. There is a certain anarchy about that time that, from a distance, people have a fondness for\u201d.<\/p>\n

And there is Britpop wine, lager and cider, also Alex James\u2019s handiwork: he has actually trademarked the word \u201cBritpop\u201d, at least for food and drink. \u201cTrademarking is incredibly tedious, it turns out,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to do it by territory and category. The word \u2018Britpop\u2019 used to totally give me the ick, as I think it maybe did for a lot of bands in that era. You know, \u2018Britpop rocker Alex James\u2019 \u2013 oh, God. I had to take control. So I thought, \u2018that actually sounds like a really nice drink\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Britpop as a branding exercise, which begs the question: what does the word signify? \u201cI guess now it just sort of means good times,\u201d he shrugs. \u201cMaybe when outlooks were more positive, and there was less doom and gloom and scrutiny. Maybe it\u2019s like \u2018the swinging 60s\u2019, only not quite as naff. You hear the phrase \u2018swinging 60s\u2019 and you\u2019re like \u2018yay!\u2019, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex James at the launch of his Britpop Classical Photograph: Alan West\/Hogan Media\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The writer and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer<\/a> agrees. Her contribution to the pantheon of Britpop literature, Uncommon People, was published last year, and she\u2019s just launched a podcast called Talk 90s to Me. \u201cWhat is it about Britpop that appeals? There was a sense of \u2018fuck you, we\u2019re going to have a good time\u2019, which Liam Gallagher definitely epitomised. And there\u2019s an optimism \u2013 the gatekeepers had changed, different people were running Radio 1 and Top of the Pops, and a load of bands became absolutely huge without really changing what they did, or compromising. Blur didn\u2019t change, Pulp didn\u2019t change, Oasis obviously never changed \u2013 they just got worse. Someone like Tricky, who record companies would previously have told to fuck off, got really big.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like youth culture was winning. You couldn\u2019t believe it was happening, and there\u2019s a sense of optimism attached to that. That\u2019s an amazing feeling that can be sensed by others.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see why people old enough to remember the mid-90s first-hand might be drawn to reliving their youth 30 years on \u2013 generally your teens and 20s look appealingly carefree from the perspective of middle age \u2013 but the striking thing about the current wave of Britpop nostalgia is that its market isn\u2019t exclusively drawn from the ranks of forty- and fiftysomethings. Alex James says he was \u201creally, really surprised\u201d at \u201chow many kids, people my kids\u2019 age\u201d were at Blur\u2019s 2023 reunion gigs. Promoting Uncommon People at literary festivals, Sawyer was struck by the audiences she attracted. \u201cI thought it would just be people my age, right? What I didn\u2019t expect was people in their late 30s and early 40s. Everybody, I think, is always slightly obsessed with the era when they were just born: things that were going on that were adult, that seemed exciting and just beyond you on the telly. And then, every time, there were always at least a couple of 17-year-olds, mostly girls, interested in music, want to be in bands, and they want to talk about Elastica.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youth culture without compromise \u2026 Elastica
in 1995) Photograph: Gie Knaeps\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If you buy the idea that what the Britpop brand represents is optimism, positivity and youth culture winning without compromise then you can see its appeal to a 17-year-old in 2025. Who wouldn\u2019t hanker after the notion of a prelapsarian world before the scrutiny of social media, 9\/11, the rise of the \u201calt-right\u201d et al? And the era\u2019s \u201cfuck you, we\u2019re gonna have a good time\u201d excesses look alluring in an age of wellness influencers and constant cameraphone surveillance.<\/p>\n

Of course, they\u2019re being sold a very rose-tinted and reductive notion of the past. The Britpop era played out alongside the Conservative government\u2019s back-to-basics campaign, which felt a little like a culture war, replete with talk from John Major<\/a> about \u201ctraditional values falling away\u201d and having \u201callowed things to happen that we should never have tolerated\u201d. Unemployment rates were around twice as high as they are now and there was genocide in eastern Europe, while even Sawyer notes that when she interviewed Garbage\u2019s Shirley Manson and Sleeper\u2019s Louise Wener for her book, \u201cit was like we already knew each other, because we\u2019d been through the 90s as women, like you\u2019d been through some kind of trench warfare\u201d. But that\u2019s nostalgia for you: the past with the crap bits tactfully excised.<\/p>\n

Given his own experience of the mid-90s you might expect Robbie Williams\u2019 take on Britpop to be less idealistic. Certainly the cover of his album hints at that \u2013 it\u2019s a photo of him at Glastonbury in 1995 on a gallery wall, being defaced by protesters. But when the subject comes up at The Groucho Club, he bats it away, restricting himself to talking jokily about the tracksuit he\u2019s wearing in the photo. \u201cSo that\u2019s the album cover,\u201d he concludes. \u201cWe\u2019re Britpopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncommon People by Miranda Sawyer is out now, published by John Murray. The Big Feastival is at Alex James\u2019s Farm, Oxfordshire, 22-24 August. Britpop by Robbie Williams is released 10 October by Columbia Records. The Battle opens at Birmingham Rep, 11 February 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a Tuesday evening, and in the suitably 1990s environs of Soho\u2019s Groucho Club, Robbie Williams, resplendent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-364832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115072865660971868","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}