Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music and culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the backbone of a larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.
Blur are an English rock band. Formed in London in 1988, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure (1991) incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing. Following a stylistic change influenced by English guitar pop groups such as the Kinks, the Beatles and XTC, Blur released Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a chart battle with rival band Oasis in 1995 dubbed "The Battle of Britpop".
Starsailor are an English post-Britpop band, formed in 2000. Since their formation the band has included guitarist and vocalist James Walsh, drummer Ben Byrne, bassist James Stelfox and keyboardist Barry Westhead. They are best known for their 2003 single "Silence Is Easy" which reached number 9 in the UK.
"In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by the English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, Face Value, in January 1981.
"One" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as the third and final single from their fourth studio album, ...And Justice for All (1988). Written by band members Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, "One" is an anti-war song that portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded—arms, legs and jaw blown off by a landmine, blind and unable to speak or move—begging God to take his life. His only hope is to devise a way to communicate with the hospital staff. In the music video, he jolts in the hospital bed, spelling "Kill me" in Morse code. Production of the song was done by the band alongside Flemming Rasmussen. The song was the band's first to chart in the U.S., reaching number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a number one hit in Finland.
"Country House" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It was released as the lead single from the band's fourth studio album The Great Escape on 14 August 1995. Released on the same day as the Oasis single "Roll with It" – in a chart battle dubbed the "Battle of Britpop" – "Country House" reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. The song is the band's best-selling single, with over 540,000 copies sold as of May 2014.
"Popscene" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, released as a non-album single on 30 March 1992. Despite its relatively low chart placing, it has since become critically praised and regarded as one of the pioneering songs of the Britpop genre.
"Yellow" is a song by the British rock band Coldplay. The band wrote the song and co-produced it with British record producer Ken Nelson for their debut album, Parachutes (2000). The song was recorded in March 2000 and released on 26 June that same year as the second UK single from Parachutes, following "Shiver", and as the lead single in the United States.
Love Is Here is the debut studio album by rock band Starsailor, released on 8 October 2001 by Chrysalis Records. After finalizing their line-up, a positive review from NME started a bidding war between record labels that eventually saw the band sign to EMI. Following the making of some demos, "Fever" and "Good Souls" were released as singles on 4 February 2001 and 23 April 2001, respectively. The band recorded their debut album at Rockfield Studios with producer Steve Osborne over the course of six weeks. Love Is Here features acoustic guitars accompanied by gentle piano chords, earning it comparisons to the albums Parachutes (2000) by Coldplay, and The Invisible Band (2001) by Travis.
"Common People" is a song by English alternative rock band Pulp, released in May 1995 as the lead single off their fifth studio album Different Class. It reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming a defining track of the Britpop movement as well as Pulp's signature song in the process. In 2014, BBC Radio 6 Music listeners voted it their favourite Britpop song in an online poll. In a 2015 Rolling Stone readers' poll it was voted the greatest Britpop song.
"Animal Nitrate" is the third single by English rock band Suede, released through Nude Records on 22 February 1993 and later included on the band's debut album Suede. It charted at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, making it the highest-charting single from the album. The song is the band's highest-charting single in Ireland and New Zealand, peaking at No. 11 in both countries. It also debuted and peaked at No. 21 in Sweden but stayed on the chart for only two weeks.
"Rocket" is a song recorded by English rock band Def Leppard in 1987 from the album Hysteria. It was the sixth and final single release, coming out in January 1989 and hitting the Top 15 in the US Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart.
"Party Hard" is a song by British alternative rock band Pulp. Featuring David Bowie-inspired vocals, the song lyrically was inspired by the band's dissatisfaction and exhaustion with clubbing.
"This Time" is a rock ballad written by the Britpop band Starsailor, which brings back the captivating sound of the piano of their latest singles that propelled them to their earlier success. This release followed a sell-out UK tour which culminated in a victorious show at London’s Brixton Academy. This Time peaked at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart, and remains their last single to reach the Top 40 in the UK.
"Born Again" is the second single from the album Silence Is Easy by British pop band Starsailor, released in 2003. It peaked at number 40 in the UK Charts.
"Deathcar" is the third single from Fightstar's second album One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours, and was released on 3 December 2007.
All the Plans is Starsailor's fourth studio album. It was announced on 16 October 2008 and was released on 9 March 2009. The album was released via iTunes in the US on 28 April 2009.
"Tell Me It's Not Over" is the first single released from the 2009 album, All the Plans by the English alternative rock band, Starsailor. Its release date was announced on 18 October 2008 on their official website and later via YouTube by the lead singer James Walsh and Ben Byrne in their official Channel. It peaked # 73 in the UK Single Charts and #5 in the Belgium Charts making Tell Me It's Not Over their most successful single in Belgium.
Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Travis, Stereophonics, Feeder, Toploader and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
"Crossfire" is the debut solo single from singer-songwriter and frontman of The Killers, Brandon Flowers. Written by Flowers himself, and produced by Brendan O'Brien, it is the first single from his debut solo album, Flamingo. A video for the single was released on July 8, 2010, and features actress Charlize Theron.
