{
  "slug": "britpop",
  "name": "Britpop",
  "aliases": [
    "brit pop",
    "cool britannia",
    "camden scene"
  ],
  "description": "A mid-nineties British argument that guitar pop should sound English again — Kinks chords, local vocabulary and a self-conscious rejection of American grunge — conducted largely in the London press and briefly in the singles chart.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "London, England",
    "year": 1993
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "merseybeat",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/merseybeat/",
      "inherited": "The model, quoted openly. Everyone here is working from the Beatles and the Kinks — the melodies, the chord movements and the flat vowels are all deliberate retrievals of 1965."
    },
    {
      "genre": "madchester",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/madchester/",
      "inherited": "The immediate predecessor and the swagger. Oasis are a Manchester band whose first gigs were in the Haçienda's afterglow, and Blur's early records are baggy records."
    },
    {
      "genre": "punk",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/punk/",
      "inherited": "The attitude and the independent labels. Creation and Food are punk-era structures, and the willingness to be rude in the press is inherited directly."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 100,
    "max": 160
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-31",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/britpop/",
  "trackCount": 8,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "pulp--common-people",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pulp--common-people/",
      "title": "Common People",
      "artist": "Pulp",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pulp/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Island",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Jarvis Cocker's account of a rich student who wanted to slum it, and by several distances the best lyric of the era. Class rage as a disco record.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pulp%20Common%20People",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "oasis--live-forever",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/oasis--live-forever/",
      "title": "Live Forever",
      "artist": "Oasis",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/oasis/",
      "year": 1994,
      "label": "Creation",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Noel Gallagher wrote it as a direct answer to Nirvana's I Hate Myself and Want to Die. Whatever one thinks of the band, the argument is stated cleanly.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-ninety-four",
          "name": "1994",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-ninety-four/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Oasis%20Live%20Forever",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=TDe1DqxwJoc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "blur--girls-and-boys",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/blur--girls-and-boys/",
      "title": "Girls & Boys",
      "artist": "Blur",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/blur/",
      "year": 1994,
      "label": "Food",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A disco bassline, a synth line and Damon Albarn sneering at package holidays. Far stranger than its chart position suggests.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Blur%20Girls%20%26%20Boys",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WDswiT87oo8",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "blur--the-universal",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/blur--the-universal/",
      "title": "The Universal",
      "artist": "Blur",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/blur/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Food",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Strings, a slow build, and a lyric about a future where everything is fine and nothing is. The band's best song and the least like the rest of the movement.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Blur%20The%20Universal",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAqJ7c0zm0",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "supergrass--alright",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/supergrass--alright/",
      "title": "Alright",
      "artist": "Supergrass",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/supergrass/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Parlophone",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Two minutes of piano and delight, by three teenagers who meant it. The one Britpop record with no irony anywhere in it.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Supergrass%20Alright",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE4oDunYkc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "elastica--connection",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/elastica--connection/",
      "title": "Connection",
      "artist": "Elastica",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/elastica/",
      "year": 1994,
      "label": "Deceptive",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A Wire riff, borrowed closely enough that the publishing was settled out of court. Justine Frischmann's band were the movement's sharpest and shortest.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Elastica%20Connection",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ilKcXIFi-Rc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "manic-street-preachers--a-design-for-life",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/manic-street-preachers--a-design-for-life/",
      "title": "A Design for Life",
      "artist": "Manic Street Preachers",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/manic-street-preachers/",
      "year": 1996,
      "label": "Epic",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "\"Libraries gave us power.\" Written after their guitarist disappeared, and it turns the era's flag-waving into something with actual grief in it.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "dancing-to-bad-news",
          "name": "Dancing to Bad News",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/dancing-to-bad-news/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Manic%20Street%20Preachers%20A%20Design%20for%20Life",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=TfEoVxy7VDQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "oasis--wonderwall",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/oasis--wonderwall/",
      "title": "Wonderwall",
      "artist": "Oasis",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/oasis/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Creation",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Ubiquitous to the point of parody, and worth hearing again. The chord sequence is a very good chord sequence, whatever the last thirty years have done to it.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Oasis%20Wonderwall",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=bx1Bh8ZvH84",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}