By Caitlyn Hallman

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness.  Yes, it was the 1990s, and while the United States was plunged into a pop cultural gloom of slackerdom, England was experiencing a glorious renaissance of bright young things and recapturing its pop savvy.

As luck would have it, I would be born on the wrong side of the Atlantic and came of age just as the nation hit its pop music troth.  People who tell you Grunge was good are either: a.) lying or b.) delusional.  Grunge was okay.  It had one good band, according to some people a great band, but one still equals one, and even if that band is as original as Nirvana, they still cannot carry and make an entire crap scene worth while. That’s what the rest of it was, in case you didn’t realise it, utter, un-distilled crap, and worse still, crap which somehow managed to masquerade itself as profound.  But how profound can any music be, if its main theme is self-hatred. There’s as much substance in that as there is in a teenaged diary.

You, the children of the British Isles were truly the blessed ones during the 90s.  So many good bands, so many good tunes, so much great pop, the mind simply boggles.  In our American dark ages, we had no ideas of the riches that existed across the ocean.  Admittedly, we had Oasis…briefly.  “Live Forever” caught our imagination, “Wonderwall” had us all believing the next great thing had arrived, and then there was silence.  (As I was later to learn, the Gallaghers had one of their legendary bust ups, quit the U.S. tour they were on, and basically forfeited their chance at the big time in the States.)

The other bands tried as well, and most of them failed.  What can I say?  We did not want to be enlightened.  We did not want to listen to good music.  You gave us Blur and Suede, but we wanted Bush and The Cranberries. Elastica did do surprisingly well, however.  What can I say?  Americans are quirky.

Ten years later there seems to be many Britpop nay-sayers.  Those who say that Britpop was nothing more than a bunch of wannabes who were trying to sound like The Beatles or The Kinks and not doing anything original, those who say that it was far too commercialized and that Damon Albarn is a wanker.  They might be partly right on the last account, but on the first two they are misdirected.  Yes, the Britpop bands were influenced by English bands of the 60s.  That was the idea; to recreate a distinctly English sound.  As for becoming commercialized, yes Blur, Oasis, Suede, Pulp and Elastica were all commercially successful. Don’t most musicians want to be able to sell their music?

There is also the group of nay-sayers who like to claim that grunge was much better and a lot more genuine.  This brings me back to my original point.  Grunge was shit, and it made my teenage years shit (well, sort of).  The 90s were incredibly depressing if you lived in the States.  Not because anything was wrong; everything was rosy.  It was a period of incredible prosperity, and yet no one (at least no one under the age of 30) seemed happy.  Why?  Because Grunge told us that we couldn’t be happy. There was too much wrong with the world, too many injustices, too many injustices particularly against youth.  It was wrong to be happy about anything.

Grunge was also commercialized.  It was actually cheeky enough to sell us the idea that our lives were shit.  People wanted to buy albums to make them miserable.  I didn’t though.  I just sulked in my room and wondered why music couldn’t be better.

I couldn’t support this kind of philosophy then and I still can’t. The fundamental difference between Britpop and Grunge was (and why sonically I believe they were miles apart) is that while Britpop was a celebration, Grunge was a lamentation.  Britpop accepted that there were a lot of things wrong in England, but it was still okay to be English.  It was even a good thing. This is the kind of news you want to hear.  I wanted to be told that things were okay.  I wanted to know that life could be fun. Instead all I got was a bunch of poo-faced rock stars with music you couldn’t properly dance to.

Ultimately, what marks the worth of any youth movement is the quality of its music, and if there’s one thing that the English can do better than any other nationality it is make good pop music.  The U.S. has had a few great pop moments and performers, but generally as a nation it leans towards either rock or R&B.  Americans tend to have extreme personalities and therefore have difficulty treading the middle ground.  Pop seems to represent the middle ground of music. Thus, U.S. pop usually turns out to be Celine Dion styled pap, and most Americans labour under the impression that pop is rather staid and boring.  Whereas the English, by embracing the exact middle-ness of pop, are able to create some of the most unique and era defining sounds imaginable.  In fact, they make pop the area of the greatest invention, while maintaining the music’s easy song-a-long-ability and danceablity.  This is unlike Grunge, which sacrifices both of those qualities (unless you count moshing as dancing but I don’t) for a brief burst of innovation – a pricey sum to pay.

There are other reasons why Britpop is superior to grunge.  There’s a matter of fashion. The grunge look (long, greasy hair and flannel shirts) tended to give off the message: “I’m anti-social and smell bad.”  The Britpop look (floppy hair, vintage pieces, and football jerseys), on the other hand, said: “Hey, let’s go for a bevy.”  Britpop was much friendlier, you’ll agree.  There is also the issue of where the movements where based.  Grunge came out of Seattle, famous for its coffee and the World Trade Organization. London was the home of Britpop, and is the same place that brought the world basically ever important youth movement since the 1960s.  No contest there.

And finally, to sum up my argument and to put everything into perspective: just look at how fit all the Britpop lads are.  I think you will agree that this is undeniable proof of why Britpop was better.

Damon Sorry I called you a wanker. I love you. Will you marry me?	Jarvis Looking surprisingly sexy
Liam Yes Please!