By the end of the 1990s, homegrown British guitar music had fallen well out of favour with the nation’s youth. An era defined by Union Jack-emblazoned instruments, Beatles-evoking melodies and a certain laddy, booze-fuelled hedonism was fast receding in the rear-view mirror. Slightly embarrassing signifiers of an altogether different age.
For those hitting their teens in Britain between the years of 1998 and 2001, the dying gasps of Britpop withered when compared to a frenetic revitalisation of the heavier-end of the alternative music space, largely coming from the US.
By the late 1990s, the snarling heft and mosh-ready intensity of nu-metal and the giddy, edgy fun of pop and ska punk were captivating more British teenage ears than the meagre gruel of Oasis’ Standing on the Shoulder of Giants or Blur’s smug, lo-fi sketchbook 13.
