AREYOUFAMILIAR.BLOGSPOT.COM
WE'LL TAKE YOU DOWNTOWN 


Monday, June 03, 2013

Back to Britpop

There have been a few blogs covering Britpop lately; I'm not entirely sure why, but at least some of the writing has been interesting. Chromewaves puts a rather personal spin on things, while Hau Hsu over at The Village Voice takes a more pragmatic approach. Both of these are infinitely more pleasant to read than Duff Mulligan's dissertation on what he considers to be the recent demise of the New York indie scene. Looks like either a university degree in philosophy, or plenty of dictionary and thesaurus.com action over there; I think I gagged a bit at the Radio 4 references.

Live Forever was a documentary on the fall of Britpop. There are some classic interviews with Jarvis Cocker, the Gallaghers, and Damon Albarn, but a bit too much time spent chatting with Sleeper's Louise Wener. Then again, she's damn hot, so you can mute it if you want to watch the whole thing without having to fast forward. Beyond that, the focus is narrow, and the whole thing comes across disjointedly, although it's still worth checking out if you're a fan.

---

Another interesting article posted recently is from Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe. It's titled, "The Lost Generation: How UK post-rock fell in love with the moon, and a bunch of bands nobody listened to defined the 1990s."

---
I'm really sick of reading lame bulletin boards. Why do I do it? It's my perverse sense of voyeurism, maybe.

---

Vancouver's The Book Of Lists have recently released their first album, titled Red Arrows. The previous self-referencing link includes a capsule review, and some background on the musicians. As of this week, they also have a new website up at http://www.thebookoflists.net. They are an excellent band, fusing the sounds of Ride's Nowhere-era shoegaze with 60's pop in the vein of Simon and Garfunkel and The Beatles:

The Book Of Lists - Through Stained Glass
The Book Of Lists - Sweet Malady
The Book Of Lists - Points Of Arrival And Departure