Five Years - 1995-2000

 

On 14th August 1995, Blur and Oasis respective labels released these two tracks as single on the same day as an ingenious marketing stunt. The resulting news coverage turned the fight for no.1 into a nationwide event. The race drew on our nations bitter class warfare, as the Northern working class championed the far superior Oasis while soft middle class southerners cheered on Blur (no bias). Ultimately, Country House won the top spot and Damon Alburn ended up being interviewed on the 10’o’clock news, such had the conflict captured the nation’s attention. This conflict is typically used to represent the peak of an era known as Britpop, although ironically, neither song was anywhere near the bands best, nor do the two bands accurately portray just what a great decade the UK had in music. 
A wealth of talented rock musicians put out incredible albums over these five years. Paul Weller put out perhaps the best album of his career, including The Jam and The Style Council. The Manic Street Preachers released yet another great album with Everything Must Go, PJ Harvey released two fantastic albums, as did Radiohead. And Supergrass. And Pulp. And Spiritualised. And the sorely underrated Gomez. Not to mention Belle and Sebastian’s streak of 3 classic LPs and 4 incredible EPs.

   

The quality rock music was but part of the UKs contributions to this period of music. One of the key elements of the late 90s was a renaissance in electronic music, spearheaded by the pioneering UK independent record label, Warp Records. They signed often challenging bands that pushed the boundaries of what was both technically possible and sonically unprecedented, such as Autechre, Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin. 
 For many people though, UK electronica, or IDM as the yanks like to call it, begins and ends with Richard D. James, one of the most inventive and influential figures in contemporary music. Under various pseudonyms, but most notably Aphex Twin, he built his own recording software, which he distributed for free over the internet, created infamous, nightmarish music videos and composed music in a variety of styles, from ambient to rave. Amazingly his challenging music somehow scored him a top 20 hit with this track, delightfully entitled Windowlicker  

Obviously electronic music predates the 1990s, typically being credited as a German invention from the 1970s, by artists like Gottfried Michael Koenig and Kraftwerk. But most will agree that Brian Eno deserves a place amongst the pioneers of genre, and it’s no surprise to see the artists of the 90s pay the man tribute. 
This track is a cover of an Eno song by two electronic artists, the British band Stereolab and the American artist U.I, collaborating. For this release they went by the moniker Uilab and this track is called St. Elmos Fire 

Where the artists of Warp records used electronic instruments to create caustic, uncomfortable music, and acts like Uilab created hypnotising pop music, other musicians used synthesised instruments to create cold and alien atmospheres with which they fleshed out their compositions. 
Triphop, born in Bristol, was an experimental genre that combined backbeats with melancholy electronica and influences from soul, funk and jazz. The defining bands of the genre like Portishead and Massive Attack also happened to be from the UK.

When the Brits weren’t directly responsible for the great music, our heritage of music was having an undeniable influence abroad. In response to the angst, sarcasm and heaviness that was defining the US music scene, many American indie acts chose to instead turn back to the joyous psychedelia of 1960s England for influence.
Neutral Milk Hotel resurrected that old cliché of an idea, the concept album. There 1998 cult classic In The Aeroplane Over The Sea broadened the horizons of indie in sound and subject manner, utilising a truck load of quirky instrument;, from the zanzithophone, to the flugelhorne, euphonium and uillean pipes. The concept was even broader, an abstract fever dream about life, death, religion and the love of a woman who died before you were ever even born. And while my description makes that sound pretentious, Neutral Milk Hotel make it sound effortless, joyful and alive, if not completely odd.

We Brits are known for our arrogance, me, doubly so. But it would be just factually wrong to pretend that the UK was the only country making great music in the late 90s. It would be much more accurate to say that the decline in American rock music left our rock unopposed. Our contributions to electronica weren’t alone though, French acts like Daft Punk and Air were utilising samplers and synths brilliantly while US producer Timabaland completely altered the sound of pop. 
But, perhaps the most influential piece of technology in the 90s wasn’t a synthesiser, or a PC, or the internet or a sampler, but the cheap and humble 4-track recorder, which gave new life to the fruitful lo-fi scene of the early 1990s. Records from this era include the brilliant Bee Thousand from Guided By Voices, and my favourite album of all time, Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement. 
While more pretentious music fans would argue the tape hiss and poor audio quality are essential to the very soul of these, there’s no arguing that they sound dreadful. By the second half of the 90s innovations in technology meant home recording didn’t have to sound so amateurish. Bands were now able to produce professional sounding albums without the need for a studio.

It’s a shame this hour doesn’t give me time to delve into all the other brilliant music that came out in this time. The Scandanavians also had a great period, their metal bands like Opeth, Burzum, Dark Tranquility and In Flames redefined the genre, Refused released I’d argue the greatest punk album of all time and Bjork was, well, being Bjork. And I haven’t even mentioned the great rap, the great indie and all the great records that are much harder to pin down. 
For example, in 1996 DJ Shadow entered the Book of Guinness World Records for creating an album of nothing but samples. Much more impressive than this is just how brilliant this album is, Sputnik music have voted Endtroducing . . . . . the 38th greatest album of all time and Pitchfork.com put it at number 7 on their list of the best albums of the 1990s. 
But while Endtroducing may have been created using hip-hops methods, it shared little heritage with the boom-boom-tap of Run DMC. In reality it is effectively genreless. Over the course of its run time, DJ Shadow creates these pillowy cushions of ambience, horror film atmospheres, big beat rock, odd, funky little asides and asks “what does your soul like?”.