VA - Britpop, The Greatest Anthems (Updated Remastered Expanded Super Deluxe Edition) [2024] (8 x CDs)

K's BRITPOP SPECIAL

VA - Britpop, The Greatest Anthems (Updated Remastered Expanded Super Deluxe Edition) [2024] (8 x CDs) 

As a great follow-up to my recent British Indie Post-Britpop box set, here is my updated remastered expanded super deluxe edition of the greatest original 90s Britpop anthems.

Think about Britpop, that mid-1990s cultural flashpoint and back-to-basics rock sound that impacted the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. What comes to mind? Oasis, of course. Blur, 'Song 2.' Suede. The Verve’s 'Bittersweet Symphony.' The Union Jack.

Kangol bucket hats, Fred Perry polo shirts, hooded rain jackets and Clarks footwear. Jarvis Cocker. Manchester City football jerseys. Lager, cocaine. General debauchery and hooliganism. And, above all, that attitude.

Britpop was a media-driven focus on bands which emerged from the independent music scene of the early 1990s. Although the term was viewed as a marketing tool, and more of a cultural moment than a musical style or genre, its associated bands typically drew from the British pop music of the 1960s, glam rock and punk rock of the 1970s and indie pop of the 1980s.

The most successful bands linked with Britpop were Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp, known as the movement's "big four", although Suede and Pulp distanced themselves from the term.

Suede were dubbed "The Best New Band in Britain" by Melody Maker in 1992, and attracted much attention from the British music press. The following year their debut album Suede went to the top of the UK Albums Chart, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in almost ten years. It won the Mercury Music Prize and helped foster 'Britpop' as a musical movement.

The timespan of Britpop is generally considered to be 1993-1997, and its peak years to be 1994-1995. A chart battle between Blur and Oasis (dubbed "The Battle of Britpop") brought the movement to the forefront of the British press in 1995. While music was the main focus, fashion, art and politics also got involved, with Tony Blair and New Labour aligning themselves with the movement.

The Battle of Britpop

Blur and Oasis had initially praised each other but over the course of the year antagonisms between the two increased. Spurred on by the media, they became engaged in what the NME dubbed on the cover of its 12 August issue the "British Heavyweight Championship" with the pending release of Blur's single "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll with It" on the same day. The battle pitted the two bands against each other, with the conflict as much about British class and regional divisions as it was about music. Oasis were taken as representing the North of England, while Blur represented the South. The event caught the public's imagination and gained mass media attention in national newspapers, tabloids and television news. NME wrote about the phenomenon.

Billed as the greatest pop rivalry since the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, it was spurred on by jibes thrown back and forth between the two groups, with Oasis dismissing Blur as "Chas & Dave chimney sweep music", while Blur referred to their opponents as the "Oasis Quo" in a deriding of their alleged unoriginality and inability to change. In what was the best week for UK singles sales in a decade, on 20 August, Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies against "Roll with It" by Oasis which sold 216,000, the songs charting at number one and number two, respectively. Blur performed their chart topping single on the BBC's Top of the Pops, with the band's bassist Alex James wearing an 'Oasis' t-shirt. However, in the long run Oasis became more commercially successful than Blur, at home and abroad. In a 2019 interview, Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher reflected on the chart battle between the two songs, both of which he saw as "shit", and suggested that a chart race between Oasis' "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and Blur's "Girls & Boys" would have had greater merit. He also noted that he and Blur frontman Damon Albarn - with whom Gallagher had enjoyed multiple musical collaborations during the 2010s - were now friends. Both men have noted that they do not discuss their 1990s rivalry, with Albarn adding, "I value my friendship with Noel because he is one of the only people who went through what I did in the Nineties." Noel Gallagher has also described Blur guitarist Graham Coxon as "one of the most talented guitarists of his generation."

In the months following the chart battle, NME states, "Britpop became a major cultural phenomenon". Oasis's second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? sold over four million copies in the UK - becoming the fifth best-selling album in UK chart history. Blur's third album in their 'Life' trilogy, The Great Escape, sold over one million copies. At the 1996 Brit Awards, both albums were nominated for Best British Album (as was Pulp's Different Class), with Oasis winning the award. All three bands were also nominated for Best British Group and Best Video, which were won by Oasis.

'A Design for Life', an anthemic string-laden dissection of working-class life in the UK, raised the Manic Street Preachers up from cult heroes to part of the mainstream Britpop landscape. While supporting Oasis at the era's defining concert at Knebworth in 1996, the Manics closed their set with the track, which appeared alongside five contributions from Edwards on their Brit Award-winning fourth album 'Everything Must Go'.

Released at the height of Britpop in the mid-1990s, 'Everything Must Go' was a commercial and critical success, it reached its peak in the UK on separate occasions, debuting and peaking at number 2 in the UK Albums Chart and earned the band accolades in the 1997 Brit Awards

It represented a shift in the group's sound due to Edwards' departure. The album charted in mainland Europe, Asia and Australia, eventually selling over two million copies. 'Everything Must Go' is frequently featured and voted highly in lists for one of the best albums of all time by many music publications such as NME and Q.

During the late 1990s, many Britpop acts began to falter commercially or break up, or otherwise moved towards new genres or styles. Commercially, Britpop lost out to teen pop, while artistically it segued into a post-Britpop indie movement, associated with bands such as Travis and Coldplay.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4CbSH2SqsWtncSGCqy33W9r/the-top-50-best-selling-britpop-singles-of-all-time

https://www.nme.com/photos/50-greatest-britpop-songs-ever-as-voted-by-you-1434108

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/the-50-best-britpop-songs/

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/10045-the-50-best-britpop-albums/

As a very SPECIAL BONUS I have included mp4 and mkv video files of the following:

Britpop at the BBC - BBC4 (2014)

In the mid-90s, Britpop stamped its presence onto the British music scene and made boys wearing eyeliner cool again. What better reason to raid the BBC archives for a rich treasure trove of the joy and the time that was Britpop?

Featuring the girls (Elastica, Sleeper) and the boys (Suede, Menswear) and many of the other bright young things that contributed to five years of Cool Britannia, Blur v Oasis and Camden being the centre of the universe.

Britpop at the BBC reminds us all why we were all so proud to be British again in the 1990s.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5vef17

Britpop - The Music That Changed Britain - Channel 5 (2023)

An excellent 4-part documentary series which aired last year (2023) on Channel 5 in the UK.

https://www.loudersound.com/news/a-new-docu-series-celebrating-britpop-is-going-be-to-premiering-this-weekend

So, after considerable and extensive online research, plus my own recollections and memories, here is my personal compilation of what I consider to be the 153 best and most important tracks from the original 90s Britpop era.

This fully packed new set has been updated and expanded on the previous version with better sounding remasters, plus adding another CD's worth of classic tracks, now making an 8CD set.

Compiled as always using the very latest and highest quality digital remasters, with a considerable amount of tracks sourced from the original master tapes for superior sound quality and enjoyment.  All tracks are the 100% original studio recordings. No later re-recordings, remixes, 'stereo enhanced' or live versions here!  Over 10 hours of the greatest 90s Britpop songs ever recorded!

Check out the artwork folder for all things Britpop: magazines, clippings, etc. and a who's who of who's featured on the cover illustration by Jack Dylan.

Enjoy!

K

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ALL 

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ALL 

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TV SHOWS

Britpop at the BBC.zip 

Britpop The Music That Changed Britain All 4 episodes.zip 

ARTWORK

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Track lists

CD01

01 Oasis - Live Forever 4:36

02 Cast - Alright 3:37

03 Supergrass - Alright 3:01

04 Suede - Animal Nitrate 3:28

05 Manic Street Preachers - Australia 4:04

06 Pulp - Babies 4:05

07 Space feat. Cerys Matthews - The Ballad of Tom Jones 4:11

08 Suede - Beautiful Ones 3:51

09 The Divine Comedy - Becoming More Like Alfie 2:58

10 Blur - Beetlebum 5:05

11 Menswear - Being Brave 4:04

12 Radiohead - The Bends 4:05

13 The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony 5:58

14 Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (Norman Cook Radio Edit Remix) 4:00

15 Supergrass - Caught by the Fuzz 2:16

16 The Lightning Seeds - Change 4:00

17 Paul Weller - The Changingman 3:30

18 Blur - Charmless Man 3:34

19 Shed Seven - Chasing Rainbows 4:23

20 Supergrass - Cheapskate 2:43

CD02

21 Blur - Chemical World (Radio Edit) 3:53

22 Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol 4:49

23 Blur - Coffee & TV (Radio Edit) 5:19

24 Pulp - Common People 5:50

25 Elastica - Connection 2:18

26 Blur - Country House 3:57

27 The Bluetones - Cut Some Rug 4:36

28 Echobelly - Dark Therapy 4:46

29 Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught the Train 3:12

30 Menswear - Daydreamer 2:17

31 Manic Street Preachers - A Design for Life 4:20

32 Pulp - Disco 2000 4:33

33 Pulp - Do You Remember the First Time? 4:20

34 Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger 4:49

35 Republica - Drop Dead Gorgeous 3:32

36 Suede - The Drowners 4:10

37 The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work 5:04

38 Blur - End of a Century 2:45

CD03

39 Manic Street Preachers - The Everlasting 6:07

40 The Divine Comedy - Everybody Knows (Except You) 3:48

41 Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go 3:41

42 Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees 4:51

43 Space - Female of the Species 3:20

44 The Boo Radleys - Find the Answer Within 4:33

45 Embrace - Fireworks 3:57

46 Gene - For the Dead 3:26

47 Blur - For Tomorrow 4:21

48 The Divine Comedy - The Frog Princess 5:12

49 Northern Uproar - From a Window 3:17

50 Shed Seven - Getting Better 4:13

51 Ash - Girl from Mars 3:30

52 Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You 3:54

53 Blur - Girls and Boys 4:51

54 Supergrass - Going Out 4:16

55 Dodgy - Good Enough 3:57

56 Echobelly - Great Things 3:29

57 Kula Shaker - Hey Dude 4:09

CD04

58 Radiohead - High and Dry 4:17

59 Ocean Colour Scene - Hundred Mile High City 3:59

60 Supergrass - I'd Like to Know 4:05

61 Super Furry Animals - Ice Hockey Hair 6:58

62 Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next 4:51

63 Dodgy - If You're Thinking of Me 4:27

64 Sleeper - Inbetweener 3:20

65 Radiohead - Just 3:54

66 Black Grape - Kelly's Heroes 4:22

67 Echobelly - King of the Kerb 3:59

68 Lush - Ladykillers 3:13

69 James - Laid 2:36

70 Supergrass - Late in the Day 4:43

71 The Lightning Seeds - The Life of Riley 4:02

72 Elastica - Line Up 3:15

73 Pulp - Lipgloss 3:35

74 Supergrass - Lose It 2:37

75 The Seahorses - Love Is the Law 3:41

76 The Verve - Lucky Man 4:53

CD05

77 The Lightning Seeds - Lucky You 4:19

78 Supergrass - Mansize Rooster 2:34

79 Space - Me and You Versus the World 3:39

80 Suede - Metal Mickey 3:27

81 Pulp - Mis-Shapes 3:46

82 Rialto - Monday Morning 5:19 3:53

83 Catatonia - Mulder and Scully 4:11

84 Radiohead - My Iron Lung 4:36

85 Placebo - Nancy Boy (Radio Edit) 3:20

86 The Divine Comedy - National Express 5:06

87 The Auteurs - New French Girlfriend 4:16

88 Dubstar - Not So Manic Now 4:29

89 Ash - Oh Yeah 4:46

90 Gene - Olympian (Single Edit) 4:47

91 Longpigs - On and On 4:08

92 The Charlatans - One to Another 4:27

93 Blur - Parklife 3:05

94 Pulp - Pencil Skirt 3:11

95 The Divine Comedy - The Pop Singers Fear of the Pollen Count 3:54

96 Blur - Popscene 3:14

CD06

97 Kenickie - Punka 3:06

98 Pulp - Razzmatazz 3:40

99 The Lightning Seeds - Ready or Not 3:47

100 Supergrass - Richard III 3:13

101 Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song 4:52

102 Catatonia - Road Rage 5:08

103 Oasis - Rock 'n' Roll Star 5:23

104 Oasis - Roll with It 3:58

105 Sleeper - Sale of the Century 4:31

106 Suede - Saturday Night 4:31

107 Longpigs - She Said 4:22

108 James - She's a Star 3:40

109 The Auteurs - Showgirl 4:08

110 Lush - Single Girl 2:35

111 Marion - Sleep 3:05

112 The Bluetones - Slight Return 3:19

113 Suede - So Young 3:39

114 Oasis - Some Might Say 5:29

115 Super Furry Animals - Something 4 the Weekend 2:53

116 Pulp - Something Changed 3:18

CD07

117 The Divine Comedy - Something for the Weekend 4:19

118 Blur - Song 2 2:01

119 The Verve - Sonnet 4:21

120 Pulp - Sorted for E's & Wizz 3:37

121 Dubstar - Stars 4:10

122 The Auteurs - Starstruck 3:01

123 Suede - Stay Together (Edit) 4:20

124 Oasis - Stay Young 5:08

125 Hurricane #1 - Step Into My World 5:00

126 Blur - Stereotypes 3:12

127 Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out) 4:13

128 Mansun - Stripper Vicar (Single Edit) 4:09

129 Elastica - Stutter 2:24

130 Supergrass - Sun Hits the Sky 4:55

131 Oasis - Supersonic 4:43

132 Kula Shaker - Tattva 3:47

133 Pulp - This Is Hardcore 6:24

134 Blur - To the End 4:04

135 Suede - Trash 4:07

CD08

136 Powder - 20th Century Gods 2:50

137 Pulp - Underwear 4:05

138 Blur - The Universal 3:58

139 Rialto - Untouchable 4:14

140 The Boo Radleys - Wake Up Boo! (Single Edit) 3:07

141 Elastica - Waking Up 3:12

142 Cast - Walkaway 3:50

143 Monaco - What Do You Want from Me? 3:52

144 Oasis - Whatever 6:22

145 Mansun - Wide Open Space 4:32

146 Suede - The Wild Ones 4:46

147 Oasis - Wonderwall 4:18

148 McAlmont & Butler - Yes 4:54

149 Paul Weller - You Do Something to Me 3:34

150 Placebo - You Don't Care About Us 3:56

151 Babybird - You're Gorgeous 3:43

152 Saint Etienne - You're in a Bad Way (Alan Tarney 7" Single Version) 3:03

153 Oasis - Champagne Supernova 7:30

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