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COOL BRITANNIA REVISITED

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Here are 10 albums

(that aren’t by Blur or Oasis)

to check out...

Suede

Dog Man Star

(1994)

Their self-titled debut

was all camp Bowie,

poppy, and pretty good,

but this follow-up pushed

into weird corners because writer/singer

Brett Anderson was taking all the right (if

damaging) drugs. Guitarist Bernard Butler

quit too, so there was tension in the songs.

Ocean Colour Scene

Moseley Shoals

(1996)

Try to find the expanded

edition of this terrific

second album by a band

favoured by Paul Weller

and Noel Gallagher. They had soul in their

rock’n’roll.

Pulp

Different Class

(1995)

Purists will direct you

to their early albums

but this one – with their

classic

Common People

Disco 2000

and

Sort For E’s and Wizz

– really is the one.

Black Grape

It’s

GreatWhenYou’re

Straight... Yeah

(1995)

A band here for a good

time, not a long time.

Post-Happy Mondays, singer Shaun Ryder

pulled in hip-hop and created a loose

collective ready to party. Pure ecstasy.

Elastica

(1995)

Stepping out of early

Suede, singer Justine

Frischmann and drummer

Justin Welch formed this

often troubled band which topped the UK

charts with this exciting self-titled debut . . .

it was mostly downhill after that.

Supergrass

Road to Rouen

(2005)

Yes, their debut

I Should

Coco

is essential Britpop

but this later album which

went overlooked in the colonies (top 10 in

the UK) is a real sleeper-keeper.

James

Gold Mother

(1990)

Later they would work

with producers Youth and

Brian Eno, but this, their

third album, caught them at an early peak.

Ash

Intergalactic

Sonic 7’s

(2002)

Let’s sidestep their fine

1977

debut and go for this

compilation because Ash, out of Northern

Ireland, were a superb singles band and this

grab-bagged them all. There’s an expanded

edition with B-side which proves their

breadth. Go for that.

The Auteurs

NewWave

(1993)

They only did four albums

and each was very

different, but this debut

should set you up for a

voyage of discovery, even if you think the

band name a tad pretentious.

Ride

Going Blank Again

(1992)

Their debut

Nowhere

two years previous is

classic Britpop-meets-

Stateside shoegaze, but for this one they

amped up the pop end of the spectrum.

Hardcore shoegazers rightly prefer My

Bloody Valentine’s

Loveless,

but Ride were

Brit-gaze pop.

Graham Coxon:

Beyond the Blur

A+E

(2012)

Brittle post-punk

psych-rock which

comes with mannered

British vocals and

raw noise. One for

mid-period Blur fans.

Interesting.

While most attention alights on Damon Albarn’s career outside of Blur (Gorillaz; The Good, The Bad and The Queen;

Mali

Music

and so on) Blur guitarist Graham Coxon – who quit the band in 2003 but is now back – has had an interesting solo

career, which runs from melancholy acoustic songs to blitzkrieg guitar noise. Selected highlights then?

Crow Sit on

Blood Tree

(2001)

His first two (diverse) solo

albums set him up for

this excellent, frequently

gripping collection of

bleak-folk and furious

rock.

Happiness in

Magazines

(2004)

With this fifth solo outing (produced

by Blur knob-twiddler Stephen

Street) Coxon came perilously close

to being commercial in an alt-rock

way. It went top 20 in the UK and is

worth seeking out.

The Spinning Top

(2009)

This mostly acoustic, thoughtful and

diverse album (Indian sounds on

In the

Morning

) showed his love of Anglofolk

tradition (Bert Jansch, Davy Graham etc)

and Ray Davies’ storytelling . . . and has

a loose conceptual thread of the journey

from life to death. A quiet pleasure.