Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchy alternative rock, in reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the US-led grunge music and the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.
Grunge is an alternative rock genre and subculture which emerged during the mid-1980s in the U.S. state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal. The genre featured the distorted electric guitar sound used in both genres, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Like these genres, grunge typically uses electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals. Grunge also incorporates influences from indie rock bands such as Sonic Youth. Lyrics are typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, addiction, psychological trauma and a desire for freedom.
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.
New Musical Express (NME) is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a free publication, before becoming an online brand which includes its website and radio stations.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States and the shoegaze and Britpop subgenres in the United Kingdom. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
The new wave of British heavy metal was a nationwide musical movement that started in England in the mid-1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Editor Alan Lewis coined the term for an article by Geoff Barton in a May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper Sounds to describe the emergence of new heavy metal bands in the mid to late 1970s, during the period of punk rock's decline and the dominance of new wave music.
Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.
Grebo was a short-lived subculture and subgenre of alternative rock that incorporated influences from punk rock, electronic dance music, hip hop and psychedelia. The scene occupied the period in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the United Kingdom before the popularisation of Britpop and grunge. The genre and its attributes were largely absorbed into industrial rock, which would emerge after the sub-genre's demise in the late 1980s, which then led to the development of industrial metal in the 1990s.
British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the world.
Suede is the debut album by English alternative rock band Suede, released in March 1993 on Nude Records. It was recorded in London at Master Rock studios in late 1992 and early 1993 and was produced by Ed Buller. At the time the fastest-selling debut album in British history in almost a decade, Suede debuted at the top of the UK Albums Chart, won the 1993 Mercury Music Prize, and is often cited as one of the first Britpop records. Displaying a sound of Britishness and glam rock, its music and lyrical content has been compared to the Smiths and early David Bowie.
"Love Buzz" is a song by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. It was written by Robbie van Leeuwen and first released on the group's 1969 album At Home. The original song is notable for its psychedelic rock style and its extensive use of the sitar, played by Leeuwen.
Inflammable Material is the debut album by the Northern Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers. Released in 1979, at the height of The Troubles, most of the album's tracks detail the grim reality of life in Northern Ireland in times of polarisation and conflict, with songs containing themes such as teenage boredom, deprivation, sectarian violence and police brutality.
A Kiss in the Dreamhouse is the fifth studio album by British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released on 5 November 1982 by Polydor Records. The record marked a change of musical direction, as the group used strings for the first time and experimented in the studio. Guitarist John McGeoch played more instruments, including recorder and piano. For Julian Marszalek of The Quietus, the release proved the Banshees to be "one of the great British psychedelic bands."
Christopher Dawes is a British journalist and author. He works as a music journalist using the pseudonym Push.
"Sanctuary" is the second single released by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The single was released on 23 May 1980. Although originally issued as a non-album single, the song was added to the later US release of their debut studio record, Iron Maiden (1980). When the album was re-released in 1998, the song was added in all territories. In 1990, it was reissued on CD and 12" vinyl in The First Ten Years box set, in which it was combined with their first single, "Running Free".
John David Robb is an English musician and journalist and formally the bassist and singer for the mid-1980s post-punk band the Membranes.
We Are...The League is the debut album by English punk rock band Anti-Nowhere League.
Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic... and losing touch."
Seven Ages of Rock is a BBC Two series, co-produced by BBC Worldwide and VH1 Classic in 2007 about the history of rock music.
Garry Bushell is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author, musician and political activist. Bushell also sings in the Cockney Oi! bands GBX and the Gonads. He managed the New York City Oi! band Maninblack until the death of the band frontman Andre Schlessinger. Bushell's recurring topical themes are comedy, country and class. He has campaigned for an English Parliament, a Benny Hill statue and for variety and talent shows on TV. He has been a columnist for several newspapers, including The Sun, The People and the Daily Star Sunday, and has worked as the review editor for the Sunday Express.
