Britpop and the death of subculture

To many, the 1990s are remembered as a period of vibrant optimism in British culture. The cringe-inducingly labelled ‘Cool Brittania’ era is typically signified with images from Euro 96, New Labour and an aptly named soundtrack – Britpop. The middle of the decade saw Blur and Oasis famously battle for chart dominance, while the likes of Suede, Pulp and Elastica wore eyeliner and sang songs about being in pubs and playing pool. Although each of these groups retain a favourable place in the nation’s cultural memory, defining Britpop musically is a challenge. 

While previous generation-defining moments in Britain’s musical history, such as the emergence of rave and punk respectively, were counter-cultural movements, nothing about Britpop rejected the status quo in this way. In fact, its aesthetics seemed to draw from the past - Liam Gallagher leaned into the microphone like Johnny Rotten and imitated Ian Brown’s swaggering walk, while Jarvis Cocker embodied a less problematic Morrissey.  

Musically, there is little to characterise Britpop aside from a general mood of celebration. Suede embellished their songs with the distorted guitars of the Seattle grunge scene of the early 90s, coupled with Brett Anderson’s heavily Glam rock-styled vocals. Ultimately, however, they remained conventional, structured pop songs. Oasis, along with their aesthetic references to bygone eras, directly lifted the melodies from elsewhere on such well-known songs as Half the World Away, Whatever and Cigarettes and Alcohol. Blur proved more amorphous in their references to the past, veering from the Disco – influenced Girls and Boys to the punk – infused Song 2. Like their contemporaries, they retained a focus on crafting catchy, radio-friendly music. 

Nothing about this brand of guitar pop is unusual, however the emergence of a generation of bands within a short space of time had previously tended to signal some form of musical or cultural change. The tendency of these groups to look to the past is, in this respect, revealing. It points to a cultural environment in which the very idea of subversiveness was growing increasingly marginal, with various rebellious aesthetics of yesteryear repackaged in a mix n match fashion within a musical format that was palatable to the masses. In many ways, Britpop was a cultural reflection of Thatcher’s infamous assertion - “There is no alternative”. 

It was her economic order which had prevailed around the world by the time Blur and Oasis faced off in the charts. The Soviet Union had collapsed in 1991, the death knell for an alternative mode of production. Suddenly, Thatcher and Raegen’s freewheeling neoliberalism was without competition, free to empower the private sector at the expense of social services. Taxes were cut for the wealthy, while key industries were privatised in an effort to unleash the potential of the free market. In the wake of this economic consensus, left-leaning politics began to abandon its defence of the labouring classes and conform to Thatcherism. Bill Clinton’s policy of triangulation signalled a shift to the right, while the emergence of New Labour mirrored this change across the Atlantic. 

When Labour leader Tony Blair was elected in 1997, the young Prime Minister celebrated by hosting a Cool Brittania party at Downing Street. Famously, among the plethora of celebrities in attendance was Noel Gallagher. The footage of the Oasis guitarist sipping champagne and chatting amiably with Blair came to be viewed as a watershed moment for this era of pop culture. Any claim to the idea of subversiveness or rebellion within Britpop had been washed away in that moment, despite Gallagher’s claim to have snorted cocaine in the bathroom later.  

The convergence of New Labour and British rock music is not, however, an instance of subculture being co-opted into the mainstream. Rather, it represents an economic, political and cultural drift towards vacuousness. Neoliberal economics had won the day, placing even moderate social democrats on the fringes of the political spectrum. In this setting, the very idea of true counterculture grew similarly outlandish. The absence of musical exploration or experimentation in guitar music of the mid-1990s was a reflection of this. 

In her 1999 work No Logo, Naomi Klein observed how the focus of multinational corporations changed during this post-ideological era of untethered free markets. Corporations such as Nike, Disney and Microsoft re-imagined themselves as superbrands, representing lifestyles and ideals rather than commodities. Following this approach, they began to co-opt the very idea of cool which defined subculture. Coca-Cola launched an ad campaign in Wisconsin whereby they declared themselves the “unofficial state drink”, running a pirate radio station to impress this message. Likewise, the Gap-owned brand Old Navy created their own pirate station which could only be picked up within a close vicinity of one of their billboards. Starbucks, meanwhile, released compilations of their signature “world music” on CD, seeking to strengthen their brand image. 

Unleashed by the power of liberal capitalism, major corporations were free to corrupt the very notion of independent subculture through its co-option. While the global consensus around economic liberalism had not heralded the end of history as Francis Fukuyama had predicted in 1992, it had signalled a turning point in popular culture. Youthful endeavours to subvert expectations artistically became less viable in this cultural landscape, with few narrow avenues of expression evading the great wave of sameness that emerged in the aftermath of ideology. 

The lack of innovation in Britpop is, in this respect, a natural reflection of this turning point. A generational moment in music had emerged, one which did not seek to challenge social or musical norms. Instead, these bands adopted the flavour of subculture, in the same way Nike and Coca Cola did. Although it ultimately constituted a body of music which is deserving of its nostalgic value, Britpop symbolised an era where the cultural homogeny of capitalism became inescapable. In its reappropriation of musical elements from the past, guitar music’s capacity to embody alternative culture was shown to be depleted, capable solely of mimicking musical change and subversiveness.