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.
But beyond that crucial teen market, those rain mac-clad twenty and thirty-somethings - still on their long Britpop-hangover - were finding solace in the communal spirit of the likes of Embrace, The Verve and Doves.
But much of it felt just a little… well, directionless
For all its downsides, the Britpop-era’s chief exponents did have an urgency to them. Be it via boiling internal tensions, a rags-to-riches narrative or a serious attempt to comment on culture and class. Some might say these were crucial elements which seemed oddly absent in the post-Britpop world.
