Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
Mel Brooks Gives Us One Extra Reason To Love Him
SO. We went to see Mel Brooks have his feet and hands pressed into cement on the 40th anniversary of the movie “Young Frankenstein” in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 9th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
FZZZZZZ: In Celebration of the Fuzz Pedal
THIS week, in ’65, The Rolling Stones crash-landed at the top of the pop charts with a song that would become the band’s signature tune.
(‘I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ gave the group their 4th no.1 single in the UK, which Keith Richards came up with while in Florida. He recorded a rough demo of the riff in a hotel room. Famously, he knocked the riff out into a tape and then fell asleep.
The song started life as two minutes of acoustic fumblings and and “then me snoring for the next forty minutes.”
One of the main ingredients that made the song so memorable was the Gibson Maestro Fuzz Pedal. That FZZZZing, BZZZZZing noise would become one of the hallmarks of ’60s beat music and the Stones taking it to the toppermost of the poppermost only ensured that everyone was going to jump on the sound.
Read the rest of this entry »
Your 100% British Soul Extravaganza!
Blues and Northern Soul singer Joe Cocker (r) buys a copy of his own record from a London record shop
Date: 01/09/1964
BRITISH soul music is in a very, very good place at the moment and one of the leading lights of the scene is the wonderful Sam Smith, who has just announced a big ol’ UK tour for Spring 2015.
Smith just reached number one in the album charts and is currently being wooed by America, which will either make him or break him into a puddle of nervous breakdown.
Of course, Sam Smith isn’t the first soul singer Britain has produced, but his success is worth looking back at some of Blighty’s finest balladeers and belters.
Britain has a much richer seam of soul music (and blue-eyed soul) than you think. Of course, Adele conquered the entire world and Beverley Knight has stuck it out for years.
Let’s have a look at some of the best.
Sam Smith
The current champion of Britsoul, Sam Smith, who has cut a fine furrow himself, along with making some great songs with Disclosure and Chic’s Nile Rodgers.
Amy Winehouse
If there was a title for the greatest British soul singer of all time, Amy Winehouse would absolutely be in with a shout. Dead too young, but with a couple of killer albums released in her lifetime, making the rest of pop immediately up its game.
MNEK
MNEK has gone from writing for others to making a go of it himself and, by God, we’ve needed him. Mixing ’90s R&B sensibilities with modern pop and dance music, he’s creating some of the best music in the world right now and if we don’t make a megastar out of him, we frankly don’t deserve the ears on our heads and the ass in our pants.
Cymande
Cymande are an overlooked London funk outfit from the ’70s who ended up being sampled by De La Soul, thereby giving salivating record collectors and sample hunters a second stab at hearing their terrific music.
Dusty Sprinfield
Few could argue that Britain has produced a better soul artist than Dusty Springfield. No-one channelled the feeling of a song quite like her and that remarkable, unique voice of hers is one that’ll never be copied.
Estelle
You may remember Estelle’s ‘American Boy’, which featured a Kanye West verse, but there’s more to her than that one big smash. That said, if you’re going to go global with a record, ‘American Boy’ isn’t a bad one at all.
Laura Mvula
The critics favourite, Laura Mvula has melted the hearts of everyone with her modern-take on soul. She’s a magnificent artist and, as good as her work is, you get the impression she’s not yet released her best.
Angel
London’s R&B champion, Angel, has all the ingredients to be a superstar, so fans of his are enjoying him up close and personal before he ends up vanishing behind the velvet curtain of the VIP section.
Courtney Bennett
Courtney Bennett is one of the most promising singers in Britain right now. She’s put out loads of great songs and was spotted by Ryan Leslie to sing on his ‘Black Mozart’ LP. One of the future, for sure.
Fatima
Swedish-born, but British raised, Fatima has been making some very interesting and original soul music (‘Circle’ is well worth a listen). Another one who, if we’re not careful, could be huge!
Lianne La Havas
The fabulous Lianne La Havas as dazzled everyone who has seen her live and on record, she’s no slouch either. Mixing jazz, soul and electronics, she’s so good that Prince went ’round her house for a cup of tea.
Chris Farlowe
Another one of Britain’s blue-eyed soulies from the ’60s, Chris Farlowe’s voice is a force of nature. The thing that bellows out of that awkward frame of his provided Immediate Records with some of their best hits. You’ll know him from his famous version of ‘Handbags & Gladrags’.
Lynden David Hall
Britain’s answer to Neo Soul, LDH sadly passed away in 2006, but not before cutting some great records and an amusing appearance in ‘Love Actually’.
Honorary mentions to:
Katy B, Craig David, Alice Russell, Jay Sean, Taio Cruz, Brand New Heavies, Misha Paris, Rebecca Ferguson.
Posted: 8th, September 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment
Big Brother: ‘Lesbian ‘ Kisser White Dee Becomes The Birmingham Resident’
WHEN the Daily Star declares “White Dee In BB 3-Way Romp”, you don’t know whether to take a peek or look away.
Deirdre Kelly — “White Dee” — is the break-out star of Benefits Street, TV’s fly-in-the-biscuit tin look at the welfare state through the eyes of UKIP recruiters for whom benefits are the disease not the symptom of poverty, poor education and unemployment.
Dee was the Street’s sedatory matriach and protector of the weak. She’s moved from James Turner Street, Birmingham, to a Z-list holding bay in leafy Elstree, where she’s having a Big Brother threesome.
Given that the Star is owned by Richard Desmond, who also publishes hardcore porn, the “romp” holds much promise for sticky-fingered readers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 8th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Watch Dock Ellis The Movie: ‘I Took LSD And Pitched A Perfect Game For the Pittsburgh Pirates’
Pittsburgh Pirates Pitcher Dock Ellis expresses his sentiments about West Division Winners San Francisco Giants, after their win, Thursday, in this Oct. 1, 1971 file photo taken in Philadelphia, Pa.
DRUGS and sport is a familiar story. One school of thought says all drugs cheats should be banned. Another says that since cheating is rife, why not make the drugs legal.
Dock Ellis took drugs and played pro sports. He’s the subject of the film No No: A Dockumentary.
Read the rest of this entry »
X Factor Lookalikes: Lola Saunders Looks Like Lindsay Lohan
LOLA Saunders, a 20 year old fishmonger from South Shields, gave a terrific performance on the X Factor. But, then, she is otherwise known as Lindsay Lohan , star of Freaky Friday and LA courtrooms…
Year of training, darlings. Years…
Posted: 6th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Leaking A Celebrity’s Naked Photos Would Be OK If The Mob Didn’t Like Them
DID you search for onude photos of Jennifer Lawrence? Did you type in ‘naked Jennifer Lawrence photos’ for research purposes? The leaking of photos and videos of 102 female celebrities is big news.
Commentators have been filling the gaps between the photos with opinion. Caitlin Moran writes in the Times:
If, in the “real world”, someone broke into Jennifer Lawrence’s garden and watched her undressing they would, rightly, be branded a pervert, arrested for trespass, treated as a bit revolting and sentenced to a spell in jail and possibly a stiff course of Just Stop Being A Freaky Mad Pervert therapy.
It’s no different to criminally trespassing into her iCloud and looking at her tits, simply because it’s “on the internet”. It’s “the internet” — not “Imaginary Norulestopia where you can do what you like”. When you treat the greatest communication tool the world has ever known like that, you basically turn it into Donkey Island in Pinocchio.
They might sack the security guards.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 6th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Your Vital Beginners Guide to Aphex Twin
A 1997 Aphex Twin Tour Itinerary is displayed at the new exhibit titled “Common Ground: The Music Festival Experience” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Thursday, April 24, 2014, in Cleveland.
THERE’S a lot of excitement about Aphex Twin at the minute, as he’s back to release a new LP – ‘Syro’ – and, for fans of awkward electronic music (which are, ostensibly, the new prog generation), any appearance of Richard D. James is worth your attention.
However, what with Aphex having a lot of stubborn male fans, if you’re new to it all, you will almost certainly run into some elitist bullshit at some point; even though Aphex Twin is not at all elitist himself, getting angry when people refer to his music as ‘IDM’, which stands for the achingly awful ‘Intelligent Dance Music’.
So, you want to know what the fuss about Aphex Twin is?
Well, we’re here to help and create a beginners/bluffers guide, so you can dip your toe in and find out whether he’s for you or not. He’s got a few pseudonyms too, so he can he quite hard to keep up with, but once you’re in, that’s part of the fun.
Pull up a chair, pop your ears, and let us commence.
Aphex Twin ‘Windowlicker’
Aphex released two of his most popular records back-to-back, with the watershed bothering ‘Come To Daddy’ frightening everyone half to death, and then, the infamous ‘Windowlicker’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment
Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile – Blame The Parents
JIMMY Savile is the subejct of Dan Davies’s book Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile. The man known in his lifetime as Sir Jimmy has now buried in muck and filth. Savile never was arrested, charged nor tried in his lifetime. He is the alleged paedophile and rapist who operated on the BBC and NHS’s watch.
Rachel Cooke writes:
As I read Davies’s book, the term “light entertainment” suddenly struck me as the greatest joke. What a misnomer. It wasn’t light at all. It was dark and heavy: clodhopping at best, sinister at worst. All the programmes I enjoyed most as a child came with heavy doses of innuendo, low-level violence, sadomasochism. There was Dick Emery, who dressed up as a sexually frustrated spinster – at the time I didn’t know what frottage was, except I sort of did, thanks to her – and as a toothy vicar whose pious exterior made for a sharp contrast with his visits to “naughty” strip clubs. (Davies, I notice, has a picture of this vicar on his Twitter account.) There were the two Ronnies, Barker and Corbett, whose show included peculiar serials such as “The Worm That Turned”, a dystopian fiction starring Diana Dors, in which women ruled the world (mostly in hot pants and jackboots) and men wore women’s clothes and kept house, and “Band of Slaves”, in which an all-girl orchestra was sold into slavery. Rod Hull and his puppet Emu performed a tango of aggression so convincing, you couldn’t help but rub your upper arms as you watched, imagining the bruises on those of their victims. Benny Hill was forbidden in our house – he was on ITV – but I knew the shtick. He chased girls. Round and round and round. (Hill, incidentally, made a shrine of his dead mother’s clothes, just as Savile did with those of his beloved “Duchess”.) Somehow, Ben Elton’s controversial attack on Hill – the comedian’s routine, he suggested, incited rape and other acts of violence against women – doesn’t seem quite so over-the-top now as when he made it in 1987.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Books, Celebrities | Comment
The Letters of Wilf Turnbull and Derek Philpott (Best Of)
WILF Turnbull and Derk Philpott are two pensioners living in Bournemouth, Dorset. They “write to popstars about their song lyrics, and they often reply.”
Letter Number 1:
Dear Republica
Re: Ready To GoAs you may be aware, the house opposite have just had a loft conversion done, which was sadly undertaken by a disreputable contractor, resulting in a profoundly fissured chimney breast, haphazard joists and a shoddily grouted dormer susceptible to complete de-glazing in the face of nothing more potent than an errant shuttlecock.
Once alerted, Bournemouth Borough Council inspectors conducted a thorough inspection of the discreditable garret and, horrified by their findings, insisted upon the ignominious sky parlor being fully ameliorated prior to building approval being granted. Unfortunately, rather than addressing the defects properly, the owners opted for a much more economical ‘botch-job’, which incorporated half a tub of Polyfilla and an unmatching Dulux Tester Pot in an attempted concealment of the afore-mentioned flue crevice.
It was with some dismay, but no little surprise therefore, that my wife Jean and I were awakened this morning by both her PC tablet alarm clock (tuned, obviously, to Bournemouth’s peerless Wave 105.2 FM) and an almighty ruckus coming from across the road. Further investigation from a discreet gap in the curtains revealed that the officials had returned to the slapdash attic, and, thoroughly unimpressed by the frugal and deceptive improvements undertaken, were now teetering precariously astride the tiles and pointing at the stack, angrily and loudly protesting at its deceptive restoration.
It was at this very juncture in the confrontational governing body/extra storey owner proceedings that your “technopop punk classic” came on just after the travel, ”it’s a crack, I’m back yeah standing on the rooftops shouting out” uncannily acting as an eerie narrative to the scene that we were witnessing at that very instant. There, however, any similarity ended; far from being ”ready to go”, the furious officials seemed intent on maintaining their ‘lofty’ position until the matter could be resolved.
Notwithstanding this last incongruity, Jean and I remain extremely impressed by your local authority versus resident soundscaping abilities, although must take issue with your assertion that one week is another world; it is, inactuality not a different planet but a seven day unit ot time.
Finally, Jean has just suggested from the kitchen, where she is toasting a muffin, that in the current climate of so many establishments closing, you may be well advised to consider renaming your indie combo ‘ReWineBarLica’ or ‘ReBeersAtHomeLica’, in order to reflect current trends.
Yours
Derek Philpott
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment
Paul Ross: How To Snort Drugs Off Another Man’s Face
THE Daily Mail’s Jennifer Newton creates a sentence that is tabloid gold:
“Married BBC presenter Paul Ross has confessed to a gay affair with a man he met at a dogging spot, after becoming hooked on the drug meow meow, which he snorted off the man’s face”
For those of you now looking at your Box Canvas Print of Paul Ross and wondering if it’s value has gone up or down, we’d say up.
In other news, when it comes to snorting drugs off a man’s face, we’d suggest preparing the surface with a Gillette Fusion ProGlide Styler, a soft, dry chamois and keeping him cool.
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Joan Rivers Found Dead On George Clooney’s Face
Joan Rivers looks at beads during the Krewe of Orpheus parade in the Uptown area of New Orleans Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
JOAN Rivers has died. She was 81 (mostly). Reports say she had gone into hospital for a routine operation on her throat and then died from cardiac arrest. But, you know. did she?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
A Wonderful Painting of Joan Rivers By ‘Hieronymous Bosch’
OUR pal Erin created this Painting of Joan Rivers if she had been painted by Hieronymous Bosch.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Joan Rivers (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014)
Joan Rivers (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014)
Just one clip doesn’t do her justice. The ‘best act in her price range’ is on:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 4th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Game Of Thrones: Croatian Chruch Bans Naked Cersei Lannister From Enterting A Church
NO need to hack Jennifer Lawrence or Rihanna’s iCloud accounts to find naked photos of them – just wait for casting central to offer them a job in Game of Thrones. News is that Cersei Lannister (played by Lena Headey) will walk naked through the streets of Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 4th, September 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Blame Apple For Seeing Photos Of Jennifer Lawrence In The Nude
WHO to blame for the naked photos of Jennifer Lawrence and, reportedly, 100 other stars leaked on the web? The hackers who took images from the star’s iCloud account? No. David Auerbach blames Apple:
Apple is currently delighted that people are talking about how you shouldn’t take naked photos of yourself in the first place, but make no mistake: Apple has been provably irresponsible with users’ security. It is currently unclear how the naked photos were gathered—most likely through a number of different methods and different servers over a period of months if not years. What isclear is that Apple has had a known security vulnerability in its iCloud service for months and has been careless about protecting its users. Apple patched this vulnerability shortly after the leak, so even if we’re not sure of exactly how the photos got hacked, evidently Apple thinks it might have had something to do with it. Whether or not this particular vulnerability was used to gather some of the photos—Apple is not commenting, as usual, but the ubiquity and popularity of Apple’s products certainly points to the iCloud of being a likely source—its existence is reason enough for users to be deeply upset at their beloved company for not taking security seriously enough.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 3rd, September 2014 | In: Celebrities, Technology | Comment
The Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival 1972: Possibly The Worst Music Gathering in History
AFTER The Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and Isle of Wight captured rock ‘n’ roll’s attention, everyone was soon trying to get in on the action by putting on their own festivals.
England got Bickershaw and Glastonbury started to stretch out, and America saw festivals popping up all over the place. One such show was the 1972 Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival.
However, this was one of the most disastrous get-togethers in rock. The Rolling Stone’s Altamont gig in 1969 was bad enough, but this shindig, held over three days on Bull Island in Indiana, was blighted from the off.
Promoters of the show thought they’d be getting around 50,000 music lovers on-site, but soon enough, they found themselves swamped with over 300,000 ready to lose their shit and get messy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Lou Alder Is Missing: The Strange Story of the Kidnapped Music Mogul
MUSIC legend, Lou Adler, is an inductee of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and responsible for a frightening amount of hits and given the world so much music that he should be beatified.
Adler founded and co-owned Dunhill Records (Jimmy Buffett, Solomon Burke, Thelma Houston, Steppenwolf, Joe Walsh, Van Der Graaf Generator, Dusty Springfield and more) and was the producer on the label.
After selling Dunhill, he founded Ode Records (Spirit, Carole King, Merry Clayton, Cheech & Chong, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and others) and helped to produce the Woodstock precursor, the Monterey International Pop Festival (where Hendrix famously set fire to his guitar during his version of ‘Wild Thing’).
He also managed surfer boys Jan & Dean, produced Sam Cooke and bagged two Grammy Awards in ’72 for his production skills on ‘It’s Too Late’ by Carole King and the ‘Tapestry’ LP. He’s the owner of the legendary Roxy Theatre on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. He is best remembered for discovering The Mamas & Papas.
It is little wonder he got himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and can often be seen courtside with Jack Nicholson at LA Lakers games.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 1st, September 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment
The Night I Opened For Joan Rivers
Comedienne Joan Rivers is shown in Los Angeles, Ca., April 12, 1965.
JAMES Adomian shares the story of his worst stand-up show ever. The night he opened for Joan Rivers in Florida.
Spotter: KCRW
Posted: 1st, September 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Watch Grant Meyers Use Raw Meat And Toilet Plungers To Make Porno Films Sound Effects
GRANT Meyers makes sound effects for porn films:
Vidal Sassoon: Before The Scissors London’s Top Hairdresser Fought With Knives, Coshes And Knuckledusters
Hairstylist Vidal Sassoon is surrounded by models, showing his new cuts for 1976, in London, on Jan.23, 1976. The styles are called, clockwise from lower left; The Hummingbird, Question Mark, Feathers, Tomboy and Silver Lady.
VIDAL Sassoon (17 January 1928 – 9 May 2012) not only a famous hairdresser. He was the son of immgrant Jews and raised in a children’s home:
Sassoon recalled England’s hostile political atmosphere earlier this year: “Anti-Semitism was absolutely rife,” he said in a podcast for the Holocaust Memorial Museum. “I mean, it was nothing for another kid to say to you, ‘Dirty Jew.’ And although England was a good place to be, especially with Churchill and the fight against the Nazis, there was always that sense of the Jews being second-class citizens.”
In 1947, the fascists again began menacing London, this time under the tutelage of Jeffrey Hamm, head of an organization of thugs calling themselves the “Association of British Ex-Servicemen.” For Sassoon, this was not a fate to be accepted lying down.
As a response to Hamm’s provocations, a gathering of young Jews known as the 43 Group—named for the number of people in the room at their founding—announced that the fight back had begun. Among them was the slender, if wiry, Sassoon. As Hamm’s followers gathered on street corners bellowing that “not enough Jews were burned at Belsen,” Sassoon and his comrades, armed with knives, coshes, and knuckledusters, set about breaking up fascist meetings. In another interview, Sassoon remembered turning up for work one morning with a black eye. “I just tripped on a hairpin,” he explained to the worried customer who had just settled into a barber’s chair for a haircut.
Posted: 30th, August 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Clem Cattini: British Pop’s Backbeat
TODAY is the birthday of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most legendary men… although, many won’t have ever heard of him. In 1939, in North London, the legendary Clem Cattini was born.
Cattini did shifts in his dad’s Italian restaurant before pursuing a career in music, starting things off with gigs at The 2i’s Coffee Bar, where he backed whoever turned up. He soon joined his own band called the Beat Boys, and from there, he started to get noticed.
And while a lot of people have never heard of Clem, he’s played on over 40 number one hit records and was one of the most prolific drummers in UK pop history. He’s worked with Joe Meek, Lou Reed, Cliff Richard, Hot Chocolate, Bay City Rollers, Benny Hill and loads more.
Cattini was so hot on the drumstool that he’d get called in to play the parts of bands who already had a drummer.
So with that, let us look at some of Clem’s most famous appearances. If anything, this list will show you just how versatile the great man is.
Happy birthday Clem!
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates ‘Shakin’ All Over’
Thunderclap Newman ‘Something In The Air’
The Tornados ‘Telstar’
Clive Dunn ‘Grandad’
Donovan ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’
The Kinks ‘You Really Got Me’
The Walker Brothers ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’
Dusty Springfield ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’
The Love Affair ‘Everlasting Love’
Renée and Renato ‘Save Your Love’
T-Rex ‘Get It On’
Small World Theory: The ALS Icebucket Challenge And Six Degrees Of Separation
SO. We’ve all seen those videos of tossers throwing iced water over themselves: everyone from terribly famous people like Giselle Bundchen and Bill Gates to random Belgians standing under firefighting planes. But little do people know that this is one of the great examples of “small world” theory. A specialist branch of mathematics which tries to explain how the world is put together, how society communicates. Other examples include the Kevin Bacon game and an oddity called an Erdos Number. These sorts of examples are used to explain how news travels over the internet, among other things.
This ALS Icebucket Challenge is another example of this same idea: that while there’s billions of us out here we’re really only a few connections away from everyone else. It’s usually possibly to connect between two people in four or five steps: and it’s a very rate person indeed that we can’t get to in seven or less (think lost amazon tribes to get to that distance away from any one other person):
The challenge started with Charles Kennedy, a golfer from Florida, who was responding to a friend who told him ‘pour ice over your head and I’ll donate to the charity of your choice’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 28th, August 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Kate Bush Sings About ‘Sex Machine’ Ken Livingstone
KATE Bush once sang a song about Ken Livingstone, former leader of the GLC, Member of Parliament and the first democratically-elected Mayor of London.
Mr Ken Livingstone, former leader of the GLC, and labour parliamentary candidate for the Brent East constituency, outside his campaign office. 1987.
Ken is the man that we all need,
Ken is the leader of the GLC.
Who is the man we all need? KEN!
Who is the funky sex machine? KEN!
Who is the leader of the GLC? KEN!
Who is the man we all need? KEN!
The Comic Strip revisited the tune:
Posted: 27th, August 2014 | In: Music, Politicians | Comment (1)
August 26 1995: The Day That Britpop Died
NINETEEN years ago on this very day, all the way back in 1995, teenagers tuned into the chart rundown on Radio One to find out which of Britpop’s gargantuans were going to land the killer blow.
It was on the 26th August that Blur scored their first UK No.1 single with ‘Country House’ ahead of Oasis’ ‘Roll With It’.
Animosity had been high between the two camps, with Oasis hoping Blur would die of AIDS and generally dismissing them as Southern softies. Blur meanwhile sarcastically referred to Oasis as being like ‘Status Quo’, to which Oasis promptly started selling ‘Quoasis’ t-shirts.
It was puerile, pointless and a whole load of fun for people who like a narrative on their pop music.
Both acts released their new singles on the same day, both landing in the top two slots in a month that was erratic at best. While Britpop duked it out, the run-up saw Robson & Jerome’s ‘Unchained Melody’ at the top spot, as well as Outhere Brothers’ ‘Boom Boom Boom’, Take That’s ‘Never Forget’ and followed by Michael Jackson’s ‘You Are Not Alone’ and Shaggy’s ‘Boombastic’.
It was a weird and brilliant summer.
However, as everyone knows, the most irritating thing about the whole battle was just how poor both band’s singles were. ‘Country House’ was Blur’s vision of Great Britain gone too far; too bloated on lager. ‘Roll With It’ was Oasis dialling it in, from a body of work that had stronger LP tracks and B-sides. Oasis ploughed through and became stadium-fillers while Blur slowly collapsed under the weight of their own skewed look on the world, before retreating away, ready to unleash ‘Beetlebum’ and ‘Song Two’ at everyone from their follow-up, eponymous LP.
The release of the two records effectively killed Britpop stone-dead, with only Pulp and the Super Furry Animals managing to maintain any sort of quality control thereafter, with Elastica vanishing down a smack hole, Suede losing their grot-glamour and exchanging it for sickly, pristine Bowie tributes. Things were in such a bad way that Dodgy became headline acts.
The fallout from this Battle of Britpop opened the door for Embrace, Coldplay, Travis and a whole new dawn of overly sincere and overwrought indie rock, which in turn, transformed into something the NME briefly dubbed NAM (New Acoustic Movement) with the likes of Alfie, Turin Breaks, Badly Drawn Boy and Ben & Jason.
Britpop’s bombast reached the zenith 19 years ago, and the momentum kept Oasis going for a while, while Blur got a little lost, touring the very dubious ‘Great Escape’ LP. Of course, it being Blur, it had some fine moments, but so quickly they’d gone from sparky and sarcastic, to getting lost in their own creation, that you couldn’t see the boys who made ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ in the fug of Camden cocaine anymore.
Both Oasis and Blur suffered in the immediate aftermath of 1995, and would have to regroup to get their motors running again, while their Britpop pals all slid into the Andy’s Records 9p Bargain Bin. Oasis were almost certainly the more determined of the two, filling Manchester City’s old Maine Road stadium and Doing Knebworth in 1996.
However, it wouldn’t be too long before they released the pretty terrible ‘Stand By Me’ and ‘All Around The World’ and hauled the flabby ‘Be Here Now’ LP around the planet while hanging around with Tony Blair in Downing Street for a ‘Cool Britannia’ photo-op.
While Oasis soldiered on until 2009, when Noel finally left. The band were exhausted and going mental. Blur meanwhile, saw Graham Coxon throwing the towel in, leaving Damon to create numerous projects.
And here we are, in 2014, and still, Blur and Oasis have our ears. Be it Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds or wonderful DVD commentary where he’s revealing himself to be a pleasantly daft old curmudgeon or Damon Albarn’s magpie approach to music, with record labels (Honest John’s) and his million bands; Dodgy, Shed Seven, The Bluetones, Menswear, Powder, Sleeper and all the rest, have all but vanished apart from in the hearts of corduroy wearing thirtysomethings.
With Britpop celebrating a 20th anniversary lately, it can only mean one thing – teenagers are going to start fetishising it and starting up bands that sound like Octopus.
God help us all.
